4 Wednesday, October 29 1975 University Daily Kansan COMMENT Should Uncle Sam rescue fiscally rotten New York City from financial default? Many federal officials, with the exception of New Yorker Nelson Rockefeller, have said no, and for once I agree with the powers in Washington. Let Big Apple rot New York City politicians have consistently followed the principle of "more is better," even when funds weren't available to finance the "more." As a result, New York City has become a freeloader's paradise. For example, only in New York City can students attend a city university staffed by some of the highest paid professors in the country, and yet pay only $110 a year in fees. Only in New York City are one out of every eight people on the welfare rolls. Only in New York City can electricians and plumbers receive up to 78 per cent more money from the city than they can from the private employment sector. And before last spring's budget cuts, only in New York City was there one civil servant for every 23 citizens. These excesses would be bearable if the city had as much money coming in as it was spending. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case, and the city has made up for the lack of money by short-term borrowing, with a resulting short- Those who have favored federal aid for the nearly bankrupt city have revived the "domino theory." (Where we have heard that one before? Vietnam? Cambodia?) If New York City were to default, they have said, cities across the nation would fall one by one until the entire country was in the clutches of an economic nightmare. I don't buy that list of reasoning. Investors wouldn't stop buying municipal bonds entirely if New York City defaulted; instead, they would become very selective about cities they chose to finance. Those cities with sound financial practices would be rewarded, while those that have overspent like New York City would have to rearrange their fiscal houses in order to get financial backing. term debt that has risen from $466.7 million in 1966 to $4.6 billion in 1975. If the city were to default, it would occur because of the city's inability to pay these short-term debts. Would it be bad to require fiscal responsibility from our cities? I don't think so. Paula Jolly Contributing Writer Treasury Department officials are testing the waters to determine whether American investors buy the idea of a two-dollar bill. Bill to make economic encore $2 comeback $2 comeback At recent Treasury hearings in Washington, D.C., Stephen Gardner, deputy secretary, explained the idea behind reviving the old duce, discontinued in 1966. First, he said, the government would save as much as $27 million by printing two-dollar bills instead David Olson Contributing Writer of all those singles. Second, the two-dollar bill may be more popular now because it would buy what a one-dollar bill did 10 years ago. Gardner reassured those who stillliked the one-dollar bill that itwould remain the backbone of U.S. currency. The big question seems to be whether Americans will use the immigrant restriction enforcement regulation of bringing bad luck. The deuce, or snake eyes, is a jinx in gamblers' parlance. "When a bill is unpopular, there just isn't any call for it," Gardner said. "If we bring it back, we'll have to have a good public relations campaign on its behalf." Sure enough, the first idea was to tie the two-dollar bill to the bicentennial. Thomas Jefferson, whose stony countenance graced the old two-tone suit he wore, made a same treatment to the new issue. After all, Gardner said, Jefferson wrote the book *Independence*, didn't he? Upon closer examination, the push to revive the two-dollar bills may be only part of an as-yet-unannounced plan by the Ford administration to cope with the cost of a bequest under control, why not at least make it more convenient? As the inflation rate continues, and dollars buy still less, the Treasury could our-dollar bills, seven-dollar bills and others ad infinitum. That idea isn't as wild as it sounds. An early brainstorm of Gardner and his buddies was to issue a $2.50 bill. One could easily envision other parts of the administration's make-inflation-more-convenient program. The equipment could ask employees at least two times a week if inflation continues. Grocery sack companies would be asked to make smaller sacks, so that it appeared the consumer was more number of sacks from the weekly shopping trip. American consumers would probably be happier with a program that holds the line against inflation, rather than one that makes living with inflation easier. Still, it looks as if the two-dollar bill will soon hit the comebreak trail. Kansan Forum from Gengbis Khan to autumn leaves Cheap thrills hard to find in sterile era It's getting tough to get kicks these days. Attila the Hun doesn't scourge Europe to massacre peasants any more. Genghis Khan no longer ravages the countryside by cattle ranching, and of the French Revolution no longer chop off heads for public entertainment. Life certainly is getting dull. Nowadays, people are ecstatically thrilled by a doctored photograph of Jackie Onassis, an nose-blowing marathon that rates Guinness. Book Recommendations to audience who amaturally improvises a ballet down Haight Street. The wonders of technology seem to have purged the thrill of it all. Life has become so mechanized, sterilized and computerized that we twiddle our thumbs in hordement while the Vietnam war raged on and on. OUR PLOTS MECHANICALLY pushed buttons to release napalm, phosphorus bombs, and anti-personnel bombs from planes so high that a view of the devastation and suffering down below was impossible. They didn't get their hands dirty. They didn't give blood spattered on their bodies. THROUGHOUT LAST MONTH, the Pentagon released long-secret records detailing experiments that tested the militaristic usefulness of LSD and other drugs. American citizens were unwitting guinea pigs for these bizarre experiments. Several "research subjects" protested angrily when they were exposed to serums that induced hysteria, terror and disorientation. More recent developments further emblazon this scenario of automated warfare. Electronic gadgetry and well-trained technicians policing the Snal buffer zone superficially accommodate an explosive weapon, but communications don't deactivate the fuse. For the unfortunate protagonists, hostilities will fester; but for us, pangs of conscience will be quelled. Technology takes the guilt out of war. It also takes the heart out of life. So who were the survivors? But the experiments were conducted despite *frail whimps of pain, tendered in mischief by the ruthless machinations of technological progress. Time marches on; Ford has a better horsepower and is bigger and better. These unfortunate, pittable giants pigs Liz Nakahara died for the betterment of America. OUR SACRED MONOLITH, the Pentagon, wanted more civilized, sophisticated weaponry to wage war. We proud Americans don't want to bother with any of the tactics, but we don't. The Vietnamese and the savage Arabs so tastelessly indulge in. Let us politely and gracefully spray chemicals on the enemy to make him vulnerable, drive him to suicide. Let us gingerly and daintily tamper with the environment to afflict enemy populations with fatal, lethal outcomes. When we make the world safe for democracy, we don't kid us. We don't kid Americans. We Americans have ingeniously accommodated the inconveniences of war. We have, as a respectable commodity. NO LONGER MUST WE suffer the abominable indignities of shedding blood, killing rabbits and affecting streamlined combat techniques. In this idyllic future, we'll wage war while attired in suits of silk, shoes and hairdies and by Sassoon. We'll sit comfortably in a naugahyde chair and calmly confront a panel of buttons, a scattering of dials and a profusion of switches. As our computerized militaristic monstrosity systematically burns away all the bask in the comfort of our luxuries and watch gory crime shows on television. AFTER ENVISIONING this hideous scenario, some people might wonder whether Gengich Khan was more merciful. He might have drooled as he slaughtered the Tartars, but at least one whack of his sword did not kill him and wrote in anagry for several weeks before succumbing to a drug-induced death. Khan might have flailed his sword with flagrant abandon, but at least he confronted his enemy and looked him in the eye. He didn't sit comfortably ensonced in a gilded tower while horrendous suffering from a wound that merely crass barbarians disguised in a costume of civility? Without a doubt, America is a technologically advanced country. How does it happen, how does cling to the vestige of a primitive condition—we stubbornly worship and cherish a tallman. The data, enlightened society, science are sacred cow. Is that civilized? `I KEEP DROPPING THE DAMN THING!` Rake stirs memory Raking leaves seems like an innocuous action, doesn't it? Yet several days ago that harmless action bothered me, not because I was on the end of the rake, which I wasn't, but by myself. At my feelings and jabbed at the memories I hold dear. A crew of buildings-and- grounds men, bless their industrious souls, were diligently raking all the leaves from the area bounded by Flint, Wescoe and Bailey Halls. They probably were doing only what they were told, but I felt as if it Leaves are a physical link to the past for me. Nothing makes the campus so beautiful as the pleasant contrast of greens, browns, reeds and oranges that leaves give us in the fall. should indulge in a little civil disobedience by attacking them with their own rakes. Who among us hasn't gambled amid leaves piled high in the family yard? Who hasn't kicked and shuffled through paths with a good friend? Who hasn't pressed and preserved a You sentimentalists can imagine my feelings when I saw these leaves being gathered so they were dared jump and frolic in one of those piles. None set a match to one of those piles. It was plain, boring work with no hope of revealing the power of a leaf fire at the end. leaf as a memento of a happy fall gone by? My mind searched in vain for a memory of the smell of burning leaves. I knew these leaves would never warm anyone's heart on a cool autumn evening; they were, no doubt, The teaching report The Student Senate should be commended for its action last Wednesday, when it accepted the award of the Quality of Classroom Teaching and referred it to administrators and faculty committees for further action. It also recognized the quality of teaching at the University of Kansas, although high, could not be improved, and the commission's report could have provided a scientific discussion and chance. The commission, established by the Student Senate at the request of Ed Rolfs, student body president, should improve communications with other government bodies. Much more need to feel about the report's purpose, research methods and conclusions could have been, and still might be, avoided by making these points clear. A formal, written statement by Rolfs, the commission advising the students, should have been drafted long ago and needs to be drafted now. It is unfortunate that the report, up to now, has generated much more heat than light. Unless the report's recommendations are rationally aligned with the University government committee, this chance to improve teaching will be lost. IT IS DIFFICULT TO say how to improve teaching; this isn't the place to evaluate the commission's proposals. But there are mistakes that have been made, and faculty representatives that can be identified now and that must be avoided in the future. ALSO, IT SEEMS THAT the commission blundered in assuming that it should send its tentative conclusions to the Commission on the Legislature and the Board of Regents. It was a good idea for destined for an incinerator or landfill somewhere. Tom Billam How unromantic! Doesn't anyone have a sense of wonder anymore? Are we all too adult, cynical and jaded to enjoy some of the simple pleasures of our childhood? What is wrong with allowing the leaves to lie at rest for a few days or weeks, with allowing them to fall asleep; these small bits of heat, which Maybe I'm living in the past but I think I'll go home, make a pile of my own and set it on my care to join in a memory? the commission to let University groups, especially the University Council and SenEx, comment on the tentative report. However, absolutely no meaningful communication of comment at all came from the state officials. The mass mailing of the tentative report wasted money and caused many faculty members to view the report as political and making rather than as a sincere effort to improve teaching. This isn't to say that nothing good can come from the report, nor does the blame for the report's problems rest solely on the commission and Rolfs. Indeed, they have invested a lot of time with teachers and department chairmen and, despite some faculty misgivings about the quality of the research, the commission's conclusions deserve to be heard. SIMILARLY, ONE is at a loss when trying to understand why Rolfs sent the report to Chancellor Schweitzer to week before the Senate acted, asking him to "adopt and promulgate" the report's conclusions. Rolfs seems to be accepting that statement that improvements in teaching won't come without the support of the faculty. It is hoped that Chancellor Dykes will not miss these matters have studied the report. SCME FACULTY MEM- BERS have to get a few things straight and stop letting their emotions, which at times have bordered on paranoia, control their perspective of the report. The commission didn't consider adequately all of the cases at KU, as some have charged. Rather, it commended it and suggested a few areas for improvement. The faculty isn't being "backed into a corner," as one SenEx member felt. The commission knows it wasn't the right change against the will of the faculty, even if that was its desire. THE FACULTY SHOULDN'T worry. The commission isn't a bunch of students trying to tell the faculty how to teach. Rather, it is a group that has done a job the students requested when they elected Rolfs, who promised to investigate this important area. The faculty should also expect the commission never existed, or to make its work something of lasting value. The Senate acted correctly when it sent the report's recommendations to the proper faculty committees for consideration. Now it is up to them. Without rational consideration and action by the committee, the work will have been wasted. But if viewed calmly and with an open mind, the report could become a beginning, rather than an end. letters policy The Daily Kansas welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 300 words. All letters are printed on a single sheet according to space limitations and the editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and hometown; faculty endorse their name and position; others must provide their name and address. THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Published at the University of Kansas weekdays after classes, and for late-morning period. Second-class postage paid at Law- nard station or by a $1.50 semester or $1 a year in Duplessie County and $1 a year in Benton County. Subscriptions are $1.35 per subscription and are paid through the U.S. Postal Service. 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