4.
Friday, April 5, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Negotiating the Big One
Mr. Secretary, can you tell us when you expect an agreement to be signed?
"A significant breakthrough in the negotiations is at hand."
xes, but can you give us anything more definite?
"As you know, secrecy has always been my diplomatic trademark."
Yes, Dr. Kissinger, but this isn't exactly a matter that involves national security.
"All I can say is that there are certain questions that remain to be settled to the satisfaction of both parties."
Such as?
"Miss Maginnes wants a clause in the agreement that would require me to wear elevated shoes at all formal affairs we attend together."
And have you agreed to that clause?
"Successful negotiations usually require both sides to make certain concessions that are, shall we say, distasteful."
What else is holding up the signing of a pact?
"She's still learning to dance the hora."
"Miss Maginnes wants a guarantee that she can accompany me to Peking, Moscow and any other amorous foreign capital I like."
Anything else?
"She wants to stay home."
What about your trips to unglamorous capitals?
Dr. Kissinger, when you finally reach an agreement with Miss Maginnes, will it be your greatest triumph as a negotiator, despite the concessions you are being forced to make?
"Absolutely. Le Duc Tho was as Miss Magninell's lamb compared to Miss Maginnell."
What about Golda Meir and Brezhnev?
I will know everything; I will have all the answers to questions I used to have to ask experienced persons. I will finally and instantly know how to file my income tax return, keep track of my financial records, buy a used car and cook hamburger 101 different wavs.
"Golda? Well, Golda was only representation a nation of oppressed people. And Brehznev? You can promise Brehznev an American limousine, and he'll agree to anything."
But why was it so tough reaching an agreement with Miss Maginot.
From that day on, my life will run with well-ordered regularity and calm. At long last, I will be rational and logical; I will be able
"In a way I've had the same problem as the President. Being a 50-year-old swinger, I just lack credibility."
—Hal Ritter
Age of Wit and Wisdom
My roommate swears that on the day before his fourth birthday last week the little boy she babysits with declared, "When I wake up in bed, I go to school and go be man. I'm going to be six feet tall and go to school and drive a car."
I know just how he feels, Friday is my twenty-first birthday, and I cann't seem to help fantasizing that when I awake that morning, I will be transformed. I will look infinitely more mature; my face will register all the joys and sorrows, the wit and wisdom of my 21 years, and no one will ever need ask to see my ID in a bar again.
to make important decisions with lightning speed and accuracy.
I will be fiercely independent; I will never ask parental permission for anything again.
Because I will be a legal adult, rights and privileges will be enthusiastically bestowed. Private clubs will clamor for my patronage, and I will be inundated with credit cards.
I'll know exactly who I am and where I'm going—better still, I'll already be there.
My roommate and her charge's mother decided to say nothing to the child about his fantasy and to let him learn something about reality on his own. When he awoke on his birthday, he was four years old but still only about three feet tall.
And deep down I know my own fantasy will fade Friday night when I'm out celebrating my birthday, and someone asks to see my ID.
Bunny Miller
Talent Loses in Company Games
Office Politics
By DENNIS WEINTRAUB
It is like a game. There are winners and there are losers. But unlike baseball, it doesn't end after nine innings. It goes on day after day in every corporation in the country. And since it's an unspecified term, it is called office politics. A cruder term is backstabbing.
The inflight takes its toll in different ways, as a number of recent management surveys and interviews with personnel officers and consultants indicate.
For example, John Smith, an assistant business manager for a hypothetical toolcasting company, is expecting a promotion to manager.
A COMPANY ISN'T meeting its profit goals and production deadlines. The production line, under pressure to speed up its work, defends itself by saying, "I can do the job if I can get the parts." Purchasing, in turn, says, "If the engineers had given us the specifications sooner . . ." Engineering needs to be solidified the contract . . . "And marketing retorts, 'If the product had been sold quicker.'
He is a careful worker and has developed a successful inventory-control system for the firm. But another assistant manager, who isn't as efficient as John but who is closer to the president of the company, gets the promotion.
TWO WEAKS LATER, John comes down with a bad case of the flu and spends a week in bed. He blames the stress of office work for wearing him out and causing his illness.
The political infighting can take different forms. Daniel Knowles, director of personnel at Grumman Aerospace Corp., gives this hypothetical example:
John's experience isn't altogether fantasy, at least not to a group of 3,000 business executives who were questioned in an extensive American Management Association survey on "The Changing Success Ethic." Thirty per cent of the respondents said job pressure had adversely affected their health in the previous five years. And 70 percent said they had been expected, some of them, of compensating for compromise personal principles to conform either to organizational standards or to standards established by their superiors.
It all part of the political game, Knowles says. Defend yourself by blaming someone
Another situation that often creates political backbiting, Knowles says, is an emphasis on the use of committees to make decisions.
-Ned Levine, Newsday
CLUBBINESS AND THE formation of cliques are stimulated by that practice, and it is difficult to hold anyone accountable for the decisions that are finally made.
Then there are the empire-builders who want to climb the various pyramids that make up an organization. They try to develop a loyal team that will support them
Guest Editorial
I have just read an editorial in the Kansas by Bob Simison and I was very much disturbed by much of its content, Simison, who has been an ardent supporter of Union needs openness and direction. Yet throughout the editorial he does not define what he means by “openness” and direction.
BSU Still Active, Leader Says
The BSU has definite goals, and we feel that we are accomplishing most of them. Most black students feel that the BSU is as open as it can afford to be.
Historically there have been bad relations between the Kansan and the BSU. It seems that whenever a person in the BSU says something to a reporter, the facts are twisted around. The Kansan, in its articles, consistently been biased against the BSU.
BLACK STUDENTS understand that we aren't considered a high priority of the University. This can be seen not only in the written instruction, but also in the writings in the Kansas.
Every year around funding time, the BSU comes under various false attacks from the Student Senate and the Kansan. The BSU has been accused of not spending funds, of
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misallocation of funds, and of discrimination.
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SIMISON, IN HIS editorial, said that blacks at the K-State game harassed and picked fights with some white students. I was in the stands, and, to my knowledge and the knowledge of other students I have conferred with, only one incident occurred. This incident was initiated by a white student who insulted a sister.
OUT OF THE power plays come new games. If those playing the "coattails" game pick the right person, they may be rewarded with the promotion they seek.
The reports in the Kansas have consistently distorted the facts that deal with Simpson's experience and its relationship to Simpson's odious act of April 2. Simpson told me in a telephone conversation that most people be talked to though the fight in Robison gym had a ractal basis. No black voter was involved.
biting. A strong grievance procedure should be put into effect, as well as an open-door policy that includes the top officer. Other remedies might include internal recruiting procedures, training of the supervisory programs. Most important, impartial assessments should be made on each employee by a manpower development expert who isn't directly involved with the worker but who weighs various persons' opinions and is included, in that of his immediate superior.
Simpson also reported that the BSU had only spent $29.7 of its allocated $353. Yet for some reason he failed to mention that over the weekend he spent $300 in his借本 but wasn't yet recorded on the books.
and their ideas. They may recommend the transfer of a qualified assistant whom they view as threat. They try to get others to take care for them, and others within the company and their staff.
NEWS STAFF
News Adviser . . Suanne Shaw
BUSINESS STAFF
For the individual caught in political turmoil, the answers aren't quite so easy. Frank Canciller, president of a personnel service, says employees should "always leave themselves an out," meaning an alternative to their current job. He says the psychological cost of staying often is greater than quitting.
One true statement in his editorial was that the BSU got solid results in the early going. The University, under pressure from faculty members, did recruit black faculty department, did recruit black faculty members, did set up a minority tutoring program, and did form an administrative office to deal with minority affairs. All of these efforts were successful to black students because of the BSU.
... Hal Ritter
Business Adviser . . . Mel Adams
Business Manager
David Hunke
The ones who pick the wrong coattail may face the crude political consequence of being fired. Or instead of dismissing an officer with no authority to torture him by slowly stripping him of his responsibilities, constantly relocating him to wear down his patience and tolerance, putting him in a "deadwood" area, kicking him in or forcing him into early retirement.
THE UNIVERSITY GAVE black students these concessions because the political atmosphere was right. Riots, student unrest, and racial strife were prevalent throughout the whole United States during the late 1960's. Nevertheless, the University did not ready to take these concessions back when the political atmosphere detached this.
the operations of a Minority Affairs Advisory Board that was appointed by last year's chancellor. Among the members of this board were the vice-chancellor, student officers and faculty members of the faculties. This board has proceeded to change, dilute, and almost destroy the programs set up to help black students. The administration tried to fight this board. Now that the time is right, the administration has decided to take back its concessions. Simpson failed to give the ISU any credit for helping black students make it at a predominantly white
There are many examples that I could cite to show that the BSU is not stagnant. BSU is very much active and is working to provide its services. Should this include giving interviews to reporters who distort the facts? Does this include giving stories to persons whose interest is diametrically opposed to that of black students? Does this include giving stories when their concern is a story? I would answer "no" to all of these questions.
If Simison had done some research or had any knowledge of politics, he would have been a better candidate. He reported that the BSU fought racism in the early going by getting concessions from the University. Yet he failed to report that the university was failing to teach the year by trying to keep these concessions.
TO ALLOW THESE people to join the ISSU would lead to our own self-destruction.
EARLIER THIS YEAR the BSU opposed
Harold Lazarus, dean of the School of Business at Hofstra University, doesn't agree. "Dropping in copping out," he writes, "a better way is to try to change the system."
Auren Uris, author of numerous books on business management, advises the worker to "Take heart—office politics never last forever." He adds that there always is the chance that a change will be brought about by new political activity.
any person interested in working in the interest of black students.
Simison made a true observation that the racial situation would stay the same. The reason is that as long as writers write stories that are filled with half-truths, one is-sided, and are derogatory toward the BSU, as Simison's was, black students will be more attracted to the attest of the Kusan and the relationship between blacks and whites will deteriorate.
I have nothing personal against Bob Simison because I and black students in general know that he and the other reporters on the Kansan are nothing more than tools of the administration. I know that they should not bother me, would like to think that the BSU is dead or stagnant. I hate to dismount them but we are very much alive.
—Michael Moore, BSU Chairman
Editor's Note: Although Student Senate records showed March 22 that the BSU had spent only $89.27 of its allocation for $35 for this year, unrecorded expenses totaled $164.00 and $322.28. These additional expenditures weren't entered in the senate's books, however, until Wednesday.
THERE IS GENERAL agreement about the common remedies for an organizational emergency.
What all the warfare frequently amounts to is a loss for the corporation. Energy, effort, time and brain power are dispassionately used for performing. Lower-level staff members can become demoralized and fearful. Customers can be alienated, and valuable goodwill lost. Executives also may start defending themselves with a defensive memo to protect themselves.
The Los Angeles Times
By HARRY NELSON
Want to Be Superman? Pop a New Super-Pill
Want to be dynamic, active and creative for the next three months until you get the new account out of the way? Great. Take pill A.
A brain researcher at the University of California at San Diego predicts that scientists are on the verge of developing exquisite new drugs without side effects that will allow users to select the life-style they desire.
Or suppose you're a hockey player, and your wish is to summon every bit of aggression you can muster for the tide in this game. Just turn up on a demon waltake. Take Fill B.
These are two examples of what researchers call chemical coping agents—in effect drugs that enable the individual to interact with his environment in very precise ways.
According to Dr. Arnold Mandell, chairman of the department of Psychiatry at San Diego, chemical coping agents are a useful resource for patients by-product of brain research.
Surgery to alter behavior—so-called psycho-surgery—has received considerable public attention as a possible method of mind control.
Just as nuclear energy can be used for constructive or destructive purposes, learning how the brain works increases the need to have apps that are "good" applications of that knowledge.
Griff and the Unicorn
bv Sokoloff
But many scientists, including Mandell, see the manipulation of behavior by chemical means as having more practical applications than as ethical, moral and legal implications.
Of course, chemical agents that affect behavior have been around a long time—at least since the introduction of Milton, the first tranquilizer, nearly 20 years ago.
Once then, a number of other technologies have energized and anti-aliphages present.
Until now, however, they have been prescribed to combat some disease state—depression, for example. Only recently, according to Mandell, has it become apparent that some of these drugs have spurred rising states of mind in health persons.
An example is a recent report that advertising executives in New York take a commonly prescribed antidepressant, not because they are depressed but to increase their psychic energy to the point where they can work 20 hours a day during a campaign.
These properties have been revealed during experiments aimed at learning more about brain chemistry. For example, scientists looking at certain molecules may be more impressionable and other drugs to understand the brain chemistry that accompanies those states.
Another drug already in existence appears to have the capacity to stimulate creativity. Still another drug has the very same ability to be bearable in separate from a loved one.
The observed results give the scientists clues as to what may be some of the subtler effects of the drugs. By progressively altering the molecular structure of the drugs, it is possible to make new agents that have far more precise effects.
"The drugs now available are like shotguns compared to the more exquisite agents coming up." Researchers engaged in learning more about researchers engaged in learning more about brain chemistry.
The ethical and moral problems will arise when the newer drugs are available.
Society will then be forced to decide whether—and under what circumstances—it wishes to allow "normal" behavior—or behavior—or the behavior of others—by simply taking a pill.