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Fridav. December 2.1977
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed column represent only the views of the writers.
Weaklings for Walker
To judge from his comments during a radio interview during Wednesday night's basketball game, University of Kansas Athletic Director Clyde Walker has a strange formula for building a successful football program. Rather than improve the team's props, watering down the schedule to improve the team's won-loss percentage.
"I'm more interested in how many games we win than in what kind of teams we play." Walker told radio interviewer Tom Hedrick, who characteristically, agreed promptly.
Walker was bemoaning the fact that this year's schedule was filled with football powers like Texas A&M and UCLA and that future schedules include the likes of Michigan, Pittsburgh and Washington. Walker voiced dismay that some of the
teams scheduled in years to come have recently improved their football teams.
THIS IS A curious stance. Rather than seeking to play first-class football teams, Walker would like to avoid them. It hardly be a formula for national prominence.
At any rate, Walker must be tickled pink about this year's basketball schedule. It contains such pushovers as Central Missouri State, Farleigh-Dickinson and Murray will be good, and look where a schedule like that got our basketball team last year.
Now we can wait in breathless anticipation for KU's football schedule to resemble its basketball schedule. All of which makes one wonder who will buy those more expensive football tickets in years to come.
Farm strike doomed
Anyone who has spent his life in Kansas has heard his share of farmers' complaints.
Falls are too dry for the newly planted winter wheat crop or too wet to harvest milo. Summers are too wet to harvest wheat or too dry for the fall crops.
But hall, drought, deluge and wind are inescapable, and farmers admit that fact even as they gripe. The complaints are accompanied by a bit of pride that they, the farmers—given a fair chance—can beat the elements more times than they lose.
The farmers' cries grow steadily more anguished, though, as they turn from nature to economics to battle sagging prices and inflation. They see a fight they find neitherunning nor fair.
WHEN THE nation had critical oil-supply problems in the fall of 1973, farmers were led to believe that their $5-a-bushel wheat would feed the world in exchange for oil and ensure that the growers were consistently prosperous. And so, with the federal government's blessings, the farmers planted their wheat "fencerow to fencerow."
But the prices have dropped and the hopes have disappeared. Banks and farming organizations throughout the Midwest report record numbers of financially troubled farm farms. No relief is in sight. Last year's wheat was sold at $28 per bale, bins are harvested, next year's crop is expected to be big enough to keep supply high and prices low.
So the farmers are talking strike, and the movement, loosely organized around a Colorado group called American Agriculture, is unifying farmers more than at any time since populism and William Jennings Bran.
AS JUSTIFIABLE as the farmers' cause is, though, the strike seems doomed.
The farmers say that after Dec. 14 they will not buy farm-related products or sell their crops. If their demands are not met—100 per cent parity, more than $5 a bushel for wheat—they say they will not harvest the 1978 wheat crop or plant for 1979.
Because of the large grain surpluses, though, it would take such a long-range strike with widespread cooperation before mothers raised prices through sheer muscle.
True, the farmers' purchasing power will become more evident if they restrict their buying to nonessentials. But those that will be hurt worst are the Midwesterners who depend on the agricultural economic base—which the farmers already understand the farmers' plight.
For the farmers to reach the mass of American consumers in a reasonable amount of time, they need the cooperation of those who raise perishables—produce, livestock and so far the strife movement is largely Midwestern grain growers' phenomenon.
ALTHOUGH FARMERS have complained for years about governmental encroachment, they deserve the help they are asking the government to provide. The recently enacted farm bill was too late to hold down 1978 production, and it may be too little to make significant improvements in the future.
It seems unreasonable to expect that the normally independent Midwestern farmer can unite with enough others like him long enough to raise farm prices. Perhaps the strike's greatest contribution will be its increased value, which is not to be overlooked.
One can only wish the farmers good luck, though; they need it.
The National Women's Conference in Houston was something of a farce. The bantering and bickering that went on there gave the women's movement a bad name.
And what's worse, $5 million of the taxpayers' money funded this convention, which ended up representing the feminists. There are other disadvantaged groups or minorities that never have recorded this same honor.
Women's militancy unfortunate
The conference was the brain child of former U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug, who has nothing better to do. Her abrasive, push manner led to her appointment as chairman for the conference, and she almost got exactly what she wanted.
The conference's recommendations will be sent to President Jimmy Carter and then to Congress. The same thing could have been done federally funded conference.
FORTUNATELY, THE delegates downed her proposal to create a cabinet-level women's department. No doubt she already had her eyes on this position because she is now out of politics. Even though unsuccessfully for mayor of New York and finished a poor fourth.
Abzug's domineering manner turns off men and women alike.
Phyllis Schaffly and her group are no better. Some of her followers are allied with the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan. They are against the ERA and any of its programs because, they say, they would break up the family.
Such arguments are pure nonsense. No one is trying to force women to leave their
families; the issue is simply one of equal rights and opportunities.
Sclafly and her supporters did not try to become elected delegates to the conference, but they have openly criticized the organization being unrepresentative of the traditional women. They went to Houston and staged a counter-conference, attacking the method of delegate selection at the main conference from the sidelines never did anyone any good.
WHAT SEEMS obvious is that there are many women
who side with neither group. There also are many who are unconcerned about increasing women's rights—but the problem is that they were not represented at the conference.
The conference went too far in endorsing all of the issues before it. Abortion and gay rights were issues that were optional to have been included but they were included.
MAXNEVH
The women should have concentrated on the ERA and left those controversial issues for later. After all, the deadline for the amendment is March 22, 1979, and
ratification by three more state legislatures is needed for its passage.
The convention could have been influential in getting the ERA passed, had the issue been handled with diplomacy. But the dissension and anger generated by the convention probably have ruined the amendment's chances.
THE WOMEN'S groups should take a look at what has happened to the civil rights movement. For years, various black groups have pushed for and have gotten legislation to correct inequities. But now there seems to be apathy and antagonism from the media. Much of it is due to the hard-hitting methods used to gain action.
And that movement has progressed so rapidly that the country is now taking a different approach to Bakke case before the Supreme Court is concerned with reverse discrimination. And the results of this case reflect the women's movement.
What feminist leaders need to realize is that their goals threaten the position of the traditional man and even more so the position of women have their goals enacted will require some tact and careful planning. Blunt talk and domineering manners are required for women to defeat and put the women's movement on the skids.
Cycle laws designed to protect everyone
To the editor:
As one of the apparently silent car owners at the University of Kansas, I'm getting tired of the verbal warfare between cyclists and the Kansan editorial staff. It seems to me that all this started because of the very sensible answer to the RU police to start ticketing thoughtless bikers.
Letters
I consider myself a defensive driver and a careful pedestrian, but I'm tired of slamming on the brakes or jumping into the bushes because a thoughtless cyclist won't obey laws designed to protect everyone. And that is all anyone is asking.
I generally park my car and walk some distance to campus, so I can look at this issue as both a real problem and only thing that is really being asked of cyclists is that they stop at stop signs, signal when turning, grant pedestrian right-of-way and stay off the sidewalks.
I don't want to wear a pollution-free method of transportation, nor do I wish to purchase knee-pads and crawl. But I also don't want wangled metal and bones under the front wheels of my car, or tread mud on my shoes. You can all accept the responsibility of protecting each other on the streets or we can all stay home.
Heidi Janssen McPherson junior
People ignore world tyranny To the editor
This letter could be an angry diatribe on how little attention the Kansan has been giving SUA films this semester and on how it seems that the Kansan prefers supporting the make-
business-or-corporate-pockets,
mass culture promotion, film
industry via Lawrence's
monopolizing edition of Commonwealth Theaters; but instead, I'd like to share with readers an individual incident and my reactions.
Tuesday night I was part of an audience of about 150 in Woodruff Auditorium that watched "The Battle of Chile," a highly dramatic film that thoroughly documents events leading to the military coup of 1973. Many in the audience had been watching the film, Topeka, and some from as far away as Columbia, Mo.
In fact, it might be more accurate to replace the word "many" with "most," for, sadly, Lawrence, and especially KU, were poorly represented. Oh, there were a
good number of internationa KU students, but few, very few, homebroed KU boys and girls-women and men.
And the point of this letter is not to attack the KU student body, or to call them "stupid idiots" for not going to a "landmark" mark, that other, wiser people travel far to see. But noticing how few students were there, in the context of a college setting, is why the CIA-backed economic ruling elite of Chile tried to turn the bourgeois middle class of Chile to fascism aroused my personal concern for and awareness of political consciousness surrounding me at this great University. The mass of students I met with words like "fascism" or "class consciousness," or more specifically, "Chile," "Allende" or "The Coup."
White ethnics favor affirmative action
BY JENO F. PAULUCCI N.Y. Times Features
DULUTH, Minn. — A misconception about the Bakke case is that whites are against blacks in the issue of affirmative action.
For Italian-Americans and other ww2 'ethics, at least, that simply is not true. In fact, we're more in favor of affirmative citizenship because we have yet to benefit from it and need it badly.
The fact is that Americans of Eastern and Southern European stock -Halians, Poles,
Slavs, Lithuanians, Hungarians
and others—are about as under-
educated as high education-
hops as are blacks.
WE ARE CERTAINLY much worse off than Orientals, who were also given special treatment by the University of California Medical School at Davis. In most of the data obtained from our study, both than Whites educationally, both in test scores and years of school completed. Which means they do much better than white
What's more, even with the whole dramatic history of the women's movement these last several years, the Davis medical school did not see fit to include them in its affirmative action program either. What Davis included these all racial minorities need affirmative action and that whites do not.
EVERYBODY KNOWS that
isn't true; and that's why the Bakke case, like a bad meal, is so hard to digest. If affirmative reasoning fervently hope it does—it must benefit all segments of American society that need help, not just those who are nonwhite. To make a comeback from abuse rancip, not to eradicate it.
Some people have argued that if you give whites the benefit of affirmative action there will be racial minorities. room left for racial minorities.
That is clearly nonsense, as
the many affirmative action programs on behalf of women of any race or color demonstrate. Women make up more than half our population, but most colleges are not female and most commode them, as well as minorities, in affirmative action programs.
Fair and effective affirmative action requires that every college and university analyze which applicants it draws, which it draws its applicants to assure that no significant group in that population is being systematically excluded by its admissions procedures. That's not really so hard.
THE POINT IS that not all segments of white America are underrepresented in our college admissions. Neither are all nonwhite groups.
This is a large and diverse country, but most colleges are regional or even local in their reach. Excluded georgian colleges are also sore thumbs. And the handful of truly national institutions are large enough, and sophisticated enough, to do a decent job of educating millions of diversity if they put their collective minds to it.
OF COURSE THEY haven't, and that's the crux of the problem with affirmative action. It doesn't help the principles of affirmative action reluctantly, even grudgingly. It's heart hasn't been in it, let alone its mind, and so it is to be handled simplyly as been handled simplicitly.
Nor can this reluctance be attributed to an overriding interest in excellence, for there always has been affirmative acceptance of faculty, athletes and other "special" cases.
For example, an Eastern institution upwardly mobile in the direction of national stature is likely to practice affirmative action toward applicants from Iowa or Oklahoma.
The problem lies in the fact that colleges want to decide for themselves what situations they want students to take in, no matter what scripture their own.
IN THE COURSE of wending its way up to the Supreme Court, the Bakke case made that autonomy impossible. Affirmative action has been refused for nearly everybody, and the debate about it will not end, no matter what the court decides.
But how the court decides will matter. Finding whether the Davis medical school violated the federal elements of Allan Bakke would elevate an fortunate abberation from generally accepted standards of sensitive admission to the level of constitutional law.
On the other hand, a decision based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would allow much more flexibility. Federal agencies implementing the Civil Rights Act could tailor their regulations to the decision. If necessary, the act could be amended.
Well, to end this for now on an attempted upward note:
Fortunately, the film "The Battle of Tombstone" next Tuesday, Dec. 6, and maybe by either printed or spoken word more of KU will be there, and maybe some will be aroused as I was, and may together well be more able to breed and breed of fascism.
IN ANY CASE, there would be an opportunity for the political process to work toward a solution that could emulate the situation in any continent exists on the principle of affirmative action.
Jeno F. Paulucci, an industrialist, is national chairman of the Italian American Foundation, a Washington-based organization concerned with the impact of federal policy on Italian-Americans and other ethnic groups.
Bo Smith
SUA film programmer
To the editor:
Dave Johnson's column of Nov. 17, "Gays should fight Anita with logic, not pile pranks," blames the entire gay activist network for her getting into Des Moines some weeks back.
of the gay rights movement. We consider his action to be tasteless and counter-attacking. Kansas State University Kansas deplores violence of every kind, be it physical or psychological, and is certain that most other homophile stands with us on this issue.
This was the act of one thoughtless individual who was not involved in the mainstream
W
As far as death threats against Bryant and her family, these, too, are repugnant to the spirit of our human rights and justice. We have held threats against Bryant have been greatly exaggerated on her part, and judging from the terminology she enjoys, i.e., put on a cross," "cruelified" or herself as a Christ figure.
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Violence against gay people is nothing new. Remember that Hitler forced gay people to wear inverted pink triangles and executed 220,000 of them in his death camps. Gays are victims, been victims, not the perpetrators, of violence.
Nothing could be further from her reach.
It seems rather obscene for Johnson to be more concerned with Anita's sticky boudant than with the violence that her brother has used against the gay community. Gay churches, businesses and organizations have been burned, bombed, and bombarded with verbal and physical assaults and angerers us more than to remember the June death of Robert Hillsborough, a gay San Francisco gardener. As he was stabbed over 30 times in the flesh by his brother, he offered a bloody benediction "Here's one for Anita."
Todd VanLaningham
Jean Ireland
Gay Services of Kansas
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