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Wednesday, November 2, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed column represent only the views of the writers.
Students need power
It has been said that tying a football game is like kissing your sister. It's not bad, but it could be better. Much the same can be said of the appointment last week of the club's staff to help the administration decide what groups qualify for Senate funds.
Traditionally, the administration in general and the vice chancellor for student affairs in particular have determined what organizations meet the administration's guidelines for recognizing groups eligible for funds. Eligible groups must meet administration guidelines, which exclude groups that are substantially oriented toward politics and religion or expression of sexual preference.
Now, the three students will advise David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs, in deciding which groups to recognize. The students will be appointed by a Senate committee that recommended that they be appointed has yet to file a formal petition with the Senate.
THE APPOINTMENT of the students is good news. Students are getting a needed voice in the process of doling out their own money. But it would be better news if the
students had a vote in the recognition decisions. And it would be vastly better news if the Senate would eliminate the recognition and take funding decisions into its own hands.
The Student Senate should be free to decide the merits of each student group that seeks funding without having to lean on the administration and a set of filmies, arbitrary recognition guidelines. There is no justification for letting the administration make the tough decisions that should be in the Senate's hands.
There is, of course, no way of getting the administration completely out of the act. Because the administration pulls the purse strings for all University expenditures, it would maintain veto power over Senate decisions. But at least the lines of separation would be clearly drawn. More importantly, the vice speaker would be louder and more effective.
Tonight, the Senate will decide whether to reconsider the recognition issue; an earlier proposal to eliminate the recognition process was narrowly defeated. The Senate approved a decision and take steps to eliminate the recognition process and make its own decisions.
AURH plan fair
Rent is often the greatest crippler of young adults. That's why a proposal submitted by the Association of University Residence Halls (AURH) Contract Committee that would benefit students canceling residence hall contracts early is equitable.
The plan, submitted to the Administrative Housing Board, would base residence hall vacating rates on a weekly formula rather than on a monthly formula.
As it now stands, students breaking contracts early must pay the same vacating rate as those who cancel late in the semester. For example, a resident who paid $650 to pay $650, the same vacating rate that a resident canceling four weeks later would pay.
The proposed policy would reduce the rate for those canceling earlier. The rate still would include money necessary for dorm maintenance, mortgage costs and a percentage of the contract balance due. That would not make the contract unfair breaking the contract, a penalty not unfair when the legal implications of a contract are considered. Nor when salaries and functions
or the dorm must continue regardless of residents coming and going.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, the new proposal allows students to save a little extra money without hampering dorm operations. A student unhappy with a living situation is understandable, and his actions can't allow him to live comfortably. The policy realizes such a problem, and allows students to pursue their right of residency without severe punishment.
Moreover, it adds a few cents to typically worn jackets of students in a time when rent continues.
The average residence hall or apartment requires students to pay rent for both August and May, two months that mean only partial occupancy because classes don't start until September or end until the middle of May.
In view of such policies under which students pay for unused time, the AURH proposal looks even better. It's a worthwhile attempt to lessen the penalty on students who pay rent for a space they won't be filling.
In light of a policy implemented in some schools in Florida, one can reasonably wonder whether Monte Hall hasn't begun to seep into our educational system.
Bribery bad solution to truancy
Pupils at Brownsville Junior High and Douglas Elementary schools in Miami are being bribed with gifts in an attempt to reduce sinking attendance rates. The school system is offering Piribee, hamburgers, baked beans, prizes for kids who make it to class. The prizes are donated by local businessmen.
The students, who have shaded away from the schools at an average rate of between 8 and 13 per cent, aren't the only ones getting the carrot and stick treatment. Teachers are being induced to help stem the high absenteeism rate by such girls
as gasoline, record albums and dinners. But it's not only student absenteeism they are facing because Teachers as well are staying away from school in droves. The two schools have the worst truancy and teacher absenteeism rates in the school system.
THE GIFTS, called "attendance incentives," are being used to keep the school system from losing state funds. The amount of state aid to the school system is based on a census count taken by the state. Earlier this month a count was
taken that showed Brownsville and Douglas had poor records.
There has been a trend in the last five years or so towards popularizing education to make it more "relevant" to students. It is also on focus on all levels of the educational system up through college.
Attempting to attract students who are turned off by conventional means of teaching, high schools have imported expensive photographic and electronic gadgety for experimental programs. Colleges have turned to mass cultural curriculum courses such as "the Monster in American Cinema" and "The History of Breadmaking" to pull in students tired of the traditional college program.
experimental curriculums have become less frequent in the last couple of years. However, feverish attempts to interest yawning students is one thing, but trying to lure them into the classroom with promises of success aides is a whole new wrinkle in the growing commercialism of our educational system.
IT WOULD BE easy to simply condemn the school system for not making education interesting enough to hold the kids' attention. Or maybe to lash out at teachers for setting a bad example for their students. Or maybe they are merely treating the effect and not the cause of the attendance problem.
By turning beginning science into "Let's Make A Deal," the schools are giving students
a better reason for showing up for classes but not necessarily a better reason for staying there. The prizes might induce teachers to help make the headaches less severe and to revise their curriculum to make their classes interesting to students.
In the "real world," however, students will have to be equipped to handle the pressures of society's pleasures against the responsibilities of a job. And the incentives for work will more than likely be confined to getting satisfaction out of doing a job well. How are the students who are accustomed to receiving gifts merely for showing how much they can adjust to professional careers where such benefits do not exist?
TRYING TO stimulate students to attend school is an admirable goal. And today, where the diversions are more pervasive and the temptation to live life in the fast lane is greater, it is no easy task for students interested. It is easy to see how some teachers would be frustrated enough to stay away from their jobs as well when they are confronted each day with a face of bland day-dreaming faces. But the solution to declining interest does not lie in bringing students. Such a policy may perpetuate the idea that school itself is boring and that nothing can be done to make it more interesting.
If the only way to reach students is by approaching them on a material level, then make the argument convincing by emphasizing the economic impact of education in school. It would be nice if students could appreciate it for its intrinsic value, but, if not, then the content of education itself would be less economic level, not on a material level merely inducing them to attend.
Carter can't revoke Taiwan treaty alone
WASHINGTON - In the debate over our China policy, almost no serious attention has been given to the conditions demanded by Com-
Jesus movement not dead issue
By BARRY M.GOLDWATER N.V. Times Features
To the editor:
I would like to thank you, Mary Mitchell, for your article about the Jesus movement (Oct. 19 Kansan). As a Christian, I interpret your criticism of the Jesus movement merely as a plumment. What I mean is this: If the Jesus movement (which started in Jerusalem around 30 A.D., not in California in 1988) really was a dead-belief religion, then there would have been no need for you to rage about the problems with the movement. You don't exist. Think about it for a minute. Your criticism only testifies to the fact that something really is happening.
Letters
They say that the louder one argues with Christians and gets emotionally upset when becoming a believer himself. The ones to worry about are those who listen and yawn and then walk away without any reaction. You don't have much criticism around you, finding
Thad May Shawnee Mission senior
fault in men and their organizations. And you have succeeded. But I want to challenge you to do something. Read one chapter in the gospels and see what you can criticize Jesus for. You are perhaps on safe ground as long as you look at who Jesus is. You just look at who Jesus is, kind of leaves you defenseless. And do you know what Mary? He loves you.
Science abused by creationists To the editor:
Well, the Creationists' song and dance team has hit the University of Kansas again. The group's tremendous public relations
machinery, these people have dragged the old "First-Cause" argument out of their theological closet and have attempted to prove the existence of God using their interpretation of the scientific method.
I refer specifically to a talk (should I say "routine") performed in front of Wescow Hall entitled "Is God Scientifically Relevant?" Using inexact, semantic interpretations of what are normally rigorous mathematical concepts, the speaker attempted to sweep away the theory of evolution from a humane jazzed-up version of Adam and Eve. It would be difficult to catalogue in this letter the scientific and philosophical errors these people make. I will, however, make one statement.
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Understanding the mathematical underpinnings of thermodynamics and information theory are difficult. I have been struggling with both now for three years and still do not have a complete picture of these subjects. The application of their
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Nor has any president alone terminated a treaty that has not been ratified. Nor has a party, been placed in conflict with a subsequent law or treaty, or become impossible to permeate, in circumstances not of his making.
Because the president alone could not abrogate treaties with the government of Taiwan, he must consider them as still being in effect. Any president would violate the Constitution on such a major matter as breaking faith with the nation's treaty obligations would run the risk of impeachment.
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There are exceptions, but none support an untrammeled power of the president to annul any treaty he wishes. In pari fide, the president never repudiated a defense treaty with a friendly nation.
Nor does it follow that, should the president take the improper step of de-recognizing the Republic of China, prior to the establishment of study. Stanford law professor Victor Ll concluded: "International law does not require that treaties affecting only the territory controlled by Taiwan authorities must lapse. On the contrary, there is strong support for protecting ongoing relations..."
None of these exceptions apply to our treaty relations with the Republic of China. Even if one or two examples to the contrary can be made, the legal what the constitution makes invalid.
HISTORICAL PRACTICE supports Madison and Jefferson. Far more often than not, congresses have exercised power to approve the termination of treaties, and presidents have usually sought legislative approval for the withdrawal from any treaty.
It was also the belief of Thomas Jefferson, who in his manual of rules and practices of government being declared, equally with the laws of the United States, to be the supreme law of the land, it being the law of legitimate alone can declare the infringed and rescinded."
THE FRAMERS MAY well have assumed that a president would not attempt to annul a treaty independently because he would be under oath in the constitution maitre to "take care that the Laws are faithfully executed." Because the Constitution specifies that a treaty is part of "the supreme law of the Land," the framers must have an agreement presidents to enforce and carry out treaties in good faith.
The general rule follows: because the president alone
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cannot repeal a statute, so he alone cannot repeal a treaty. This was the belief of James Madison, who foresaw "the same as precisely, as exercised in amusing as in making a treaty."
Barry M. Goldwater is the Republican senator from Arizona.
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One final point. The scientific community should take the Creationists seriously, not scientifically seriously, but because of their impact on society. Already, the Creationists have pressured various governmental bodies in California to virtually remove the theory of evolution from biological textbooks used in that state. That kind of power, the power to control, will distract it to some petty notion of a god) is power that should be taken seriously.
modylynamics to the origins of "life" and the universe are even more difficult, perhaps inexplicable to any degree of cer-
tainty, as they are both scientific and mathematical understanding. But this difficulty does not mean we should desert the systematic quest for knowledge of nature and mathematical obstacles to pure speculative speculation.
And, it is difficult to believe that the framers, who established the presidency and Senate as checks upon each other in completing a treaty, did not intend a check in the converse situation, the revoking of a treaty.
IT IS TRUE that the Constitution does not spell out how a treaty is to be terminated. But it is not so difficult to stitutional text, supported by the overwhelming weight of historical practice, proves a treaty cannot be revoked in some role played by Congress.
Virtually nothing was said at the constitutional convention about the termination of treaties, but it is well known
Letters Policy
If President Carter should seek congressional approval, he will not get it. Public opinion that Congress is strongly reflected in Congress that no president could obtain the necessary consent of two-thirds of the population or a majority of both houses.
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typed and include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the writer's name, address or faculty or staff position. Letters should not exceed 500 words in length. The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
The defense treaty involved provides for revocation upon one year's notice by one party to the other. It is my contention the president cannot give that notice, let alone abrogate the treaty without notice, before obtaining legislative approval.
Phil Meyers Overland Park senior
munist China for normalized relations would require congressional approval.
For example, on Aug. 15, Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called
on Mr. Trump to recognize Red
China and consider our defense
treaty with the Republic of
China on Taiwan as having
lapsed. That the president could
estimate the treaty was assumed.
that the framers were concerned with restoring dependability to our treaties and were eager to gain the respect and confidence of foreign nations. It would hardly instill confidence in other nations if a single of them was wrong, and you will, without any check from another department of government.
The clear intent of the constitutional text, supported by the overwhelming weight of historical practice, proves a treaty cannot be revoked without some role for Congress.
Big-footed prey makes monkey of searchers
The legendary, hairy, human-like mystery beast, which the indians of the Pacific Northwest call "Sasquatch," has been sighted at least 750 times in the last century.
Someone should catch Bigfoot. It already has made a monkey of a lot of people.
Each time viewers relate to fences of fierce pursuit and fleet feet, ending with the disappearance of Bigfoot into some brush or trees. Not much luck, but it makes for a good fisherman's story about the big one that got away.
Even more amazing is the ambulatory existence of the big monkey, which has been sighted from Canada to Mexico and from the Pacific Northwest to Michigan. That's a lot of lucky hitchhiking for a 4- foot tall bear that emits blood.
Rick Tbaemert
Editorial Writer
curdling cries and an effluvia of sulfur-ammonia.
Bigfoot recently has been seen in South Dakota. Bigfoot tracks, found in 13 places, are from 16 to 18 inches long and 7 inches wide. According to an article in Newsweek magazine, about 20 persons have been "rightened half to death by his" bigfoot, among others of them have begun locking their doors and staying home at night, snuggling next to a loaded shotgun.
SOME CITIZENES SAY Bigfoot is a bear or some other animal, but area vigilants are not. But Bigfoot is no boob's bounty.
Perhaps there is a scientist or zoologist who sees Sasquatch as fair, not fool's game. A three-month stay for Bigfoot, such as the one in South Dakota is worth at least $10 million to track down the beast. As it stands now, few persons of credibility on the subject have cared to pursue Bigfoot. So they must have the same unsavvy results as the Loch Ness Monster or the Abominable Snowman. Perhaps they fear a crackpot at the end of the rainbow who may become homemade money suit and laugh vehemently in their faces.
Meanwhile, the time before Bigfoot's footprint means both money and mystery for residents such as the Forest Service, which runs a hardware store in McLaughlin, S.D., has sold out of plaster of Paris,
which residents use to cast the beast's footprints. Tourists have begun to appear on weekends, cameras in hand, to trek through the woods in search of footprints. Village streamlines plan to turn out shapes in the shape of a big foot.
SOMEONE SHOULD catch Bigfoot, not necessarily to prove or disprove its reality, but to end the phoney aura of sensationalism that surrounds it. It's shyness when approached and its uncanny sense of escape make men chasing the behemoth look like ninies. Its smell, which must resemble an egg saled sandwich, and its instructing women make it seem like a campfire joke. Its ability to appear in all parts of the world makes it undetected on route makes it unbeatable, yet its footprints are tangible.
Some area residents are toying with the idea of making T-shirts, bumper stickers and posters that say, "I saw Bigfoot." Some may remember the grade-F film called "Sasquatch" that toured the Popell and Honco circuit about old story; big mouths pedaling a big photogram for big bucks.
Put them altogether and Bigfoot spells human interest. Still, someone should catch Bigfoot, and save Americans from themselves before they begin gossiping: "Have you heard about Bigfoot?" or "Let's go look for him."
It may be too late. Many already have put their bigfootos into their mouths and swallowed his hook, line and plaster of Paris.