Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 30, 1981
Opinion
Prevent a new scare
Mearthyism and witch hunts marked an ugly era that ended in those not-quite-so-happy days of the 1850s, right?
Maybe, but maybe not. A new feature of the 9/11th Congress is a Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism—which unfortunately looks as if it has the potential of becoming what the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee was 30 years ago.
One possible explanation, which ought to worry a lot of people, is that the new wonderously conservative Senate sees a communist threat inside the country. Perhaps, some disgruntled Democrats would say, because the Republicans are back in power, the days of the Red Scare are on their way back.
On the surface, the new subcommittee looks good. After all, why let those terrorists run around loose? But then, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are already doing as much as ever to prevent terrorism. So why is a congressional subcommittee needed?
Certainly, since the demise of detente,
there are indications of a growing paranoia
toward the Soviet Union. Look at some
conservative leaders, who, like Alexander
Haig, see the Soviets beginning their master world offensive. And there are still some people out there who think there's a commie under every bed and two Reds in every garage.
These commie-hunters are reminiscent of the fellow in Monty Python who was convinced he was being followed by a giant hedgehog named Spiny Norman. The more agitated and paranoid the man got, the larger Norman grew—up to 800 yards long, we are told.
That's not to say the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism will necessarily lead to a revival of McCarthy tactics. After all, a new Red Scare would require at least one demagogue and lots of spiteful people willing to vent their hate. But who can doubt there must be a few could-be demagogues in the Senate? And has hate been eradicated in the last 30 years?
The good news is that the subcommittee hasn't done much since January; Congress has been much too occupied with Reagan's budget proposals. Still, perhaps disbanding the subcommittee now would be the wisest course of action—before trouble has time to blossom. Just like the thought of another Vietnam, the possibilities are indeed frightening.
Rude awakenings confront students in University offices
The trouble began when I sat in the wrong section of CS 200 on the first day of class. On that winter day, I realized that for the rank-and-file KU student, life can be pretty rank.
That day, when my name did not appear on the class roster, I realized that the instructor was watching me.
VANESSA
HERRON
seemed to be above average I decided to enroll in his section.
At the time, I was unaware that this simple action was against departmental policy, but I was soon to be rudely—very rudely—awakened.
"I'd like to know if I can change class sections," I said, entering the room in search of a chair.
The following account approximates the one that actually took place in the Computer Science offices; only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
No, I just think a teacher in another section is pretty good and I'd like to get into
"Well that depends," said Mrs. Snagglebudget, the gray-hainted keeper of the drop-splits. "Do you have a schedule conflict?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "You can't change sections for personal reasons."
My face grew as hot as it did before I had
taken it. And Yvonne Zaklowiky in the
background.
"That's right," she replied. "It's a personal reason and it isn't allowed."
"Do you mean that wanting a good teacher is not a good reason to change classes?"
When I asked who had made this rule Snagglebubdget referred to me. Ms. Nosefile, in an adjoining office. I had much the same conversation with Nosefile, who finally referred me back to Snagglebudget when he for the origins of the department's rule.
Apparently, this rule simply existed because no one knew where it came from. They only knew that I had to follow it. No exception. No personal reasons.
After this head-on collision with the invisible powers that define schedule conflicts and personal reasons, I called the Office of Health and Wellness. All, I was a student and this was my affair.
A secretary in that office listened to my first sentence, then referred me to the dean of journalism, to the office of academic affairs, and to the chairman of the CS department.
Because I did not wish to return to the den of Smugglebaggle, I gave up, and remained in Florida.
This story is only one example of the misfortunes that befall students when they deal with unreceptive University officials.
Most students can recount their favorite horror stories of hassles, run-arounds and annoyances.
for example, there was the Winfield sophomore who wanted to be a business teacher. In one afternoon, she was shuttled among five different offices trying to find a job with an apt and a suitable course load. Finally, she took the easy way out—she changed majors.
Then there was the woman who tried to turn in a magazine to the library, five minutes before opening. A library worker, standing 10 feet from a window, listened to the student's response and then walked away only after the student threatened to drop the delicate periodicals into a night depository.
The worker took the magazines, then shouted through the window, "All right—now."
The student took off, but only after she made the hand gesture that is appropriate for her purpose.
Then there was the victim of late enrolment who stood in the wrong line for 45 minutes and then was told to move to the back of the correct line and start again.
All of these situations could have been more pleasant if more people had realized that students were human beings. And as human students, student's needs are simple—a little courtney, a little understanding, and someone to them before pushing the hold button.
Perhaps the secretaries, administrators, cashiers, and clerks that I have dealt with would have been more polite if they had been more speaking to a rich and famous columnist.
Or maybe they would have been even less polite.
At any rate, journalists and other thick-skinned types are taught to ignore rudeness and keep trying. But who knows how many other students who need help or information have given up after the third phone call, or the fourth brush-off?
But the fact remains that without students, the University would not exist. The library would have a little trouble raising and spending money, and the days at administrative offices would be much less exciting. After a white, secretaries would even be reduced to shuffling papers and putting each other on hold.
It probably would be more convenient for most KU offices if there were no students to up their telephone lines with pleas for help, because one no to one suggests bending University policy.
KANSAN
Actually, at KU, such students do have offices and individuals to turn to as the Office of Student Assistance, the Information Department, or the University professor who is the University ambassador.
The University Daily
However, it is insulting that at a University of this size, so few offices are specifically designed for students.
(USP$ 600-849) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Thursday during June and July except Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Secretary's address is 210 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10022. Subscription fee $35 for 1st year or $38 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
Postmaster: Send addresses of change to the University Dalky Munson, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas.
Editor David Lewis
Managing Editor ... Ellen Iwamoto
Editorial Editor ... Don Munday
Art Director ... Bob Schaud
Campus Editor ... Scott Faurt
Amateur Campus Editor ... Gene Mayer
Business Manager
Taral Kw
Retail Sales Manager Larry Lighthouse
National Sales Manager Larry Light
General Manager and News Advisor Rick Musher
General Manager Chris Gorman
To Put It Bluntly, Things Don't Look Too Good
Excess trash poses severe problem
The enormous garbage dumpster waited hungriily all last week on 12th Street, its 40-foot jaw gaping wide enough to gobble up any kind of trash that was fired in its direction. Place there temporarily by the Lawrence Public Works Department, the giant dumpster in the middle of the Orsad neighborhood's valiant annual effort to purge itself of its accumulated garbage.
As the dumpster's lead grow with every grimy contribution, the Oreed spring cleanup once again proved successful. Lots of dedicated people once again took to the alleys to scour them of debris, leaving in their wake a community that was just a little bit cleaner.
It was something to be proud of.
But the oversized dumpster provided another, more grave reminder: With that pride must come the sad realization that no matter how much concerned people do to straighten up their cities, they still won't have a remedy for it. The problem of trash disposal in the United States.
It used to be that just getting trash into the appropriately marked can was enough. The airwaves were peppered with commercials admonishing us not to be litterbugs, and we drew a certain amount of civic pride in just touching the trash in the can. Throwing tugs away was good.
But as one scientist and author recently observed, there is no longer any "away" in
And it takes more to avoid the litterbug label these days than just tossing that trash into a dumpster somewhere. Beyond that dumpster lie 100,000 acres—much of it prime land—needed just to get the trash out of our way. And for every four pounds of trash in that dumpster, one pound of hazardous waste is dispersed somewhere else in the environment.
You and I produce three to five pounds of trash a day, and every day, hundreds of thousands of dumpsters just like that one on 12th Street are filled up and hauled off, carrying enough refuse to stuff the New Orleans Superdome from floor to ceiling twice a day.
enough trash to fill the Superdome 14 times every five days.
Looking beyond the dumpster like this, it doesn't take much to see that we may soon be up to our ears in our own wastes if something don't change.
From time to time, clear-eyed people look beyond the dumpster, recognize the problem and set about to change things. They start recycling projects. One of the first in Lawrence was n°1
JUDY
WOODBURN
Whomper, a reclamation center that was born in 1971 of Student Senate funding and later went independent. It was a worthy project, and had a great deal of success both the Lawrence and the community.
Inside of five years, however, it went completely broke.
Like many other such small-scale, independent recycling projects nationwide, the Whompr just could not collect the volume of waste from a building make a profitable haul for a private contractor.
According to George Williams, director of the Public Works department, it takes a population of at least 100,000 before city-wide recycling efforts could even begin to pay for themselves.
Reclamation centers are not even feasible on a
*xtlewide basis for towns as small as Lawrence.
And experience has shown that if it's not profitable, it's not going to work. The only recycling efforts in Lawrence that seem to have had much monetary success at all are those involving the resale of aluminum cans. Companies such as Alcoa pay up to 29 cents a pound for the cans because of the raw materials for aluminium must be imported at a very high cost.
Granted, in some areas of the country.
recycling efforts have proven successful. In Oceanport, N.J., there is an ordinance making recycling mandatory. Fines for not separating newspapers from other garbage range from $5 to $200, the town's mayor estimates that it will collect and about $4,000 a year in garbage collection costs.
With a few such models of limited success, hope springs eternal in towns like Lawrence where people care about the environment. Just last year, the city commission allocated $42,000 for the initiation of a recycling center. At first, the center will deal only with scrap wood, which can be ground into chips and reused, instead of being hauled to the landfill outside town.
But most of the time, the dedicated people who struggle to make recycling a success are fighting an uphill battle. The market for used newspapers, which can be used to make insulation and other materials, fluctuates dramatically. And before bottling companies will even glance at used glass, it must be sorted according to color and crushed into tiny pieces—a mean and expensive task for small, independent recycling projects.
The fact of the matter is that independent ecology groups and community recycling projects cannot be expected to bear the burden of curing this society's throwaway illness, and recycling efforts alone will not be enough to purge our society of the litterbug label.
Industry and government also have got to start looking beyond the dummer as well.
Atl
It's easy to lean back in an ecological armchair and say that when recycling becomes profitable to manufacturers, they'll do it. But by that time it may be too late.
feeling is integrate own dorm
As it stands now, beverage containers are the only consumer products manufactured with recycleability in mind. With a deposit system like this one, both consumers, retailers and bottlers all have an incentive to ensure that containers don't end up in the trash heap. Why not extend that system to contain bottles pickle and bottle caps? Why not provide tax companies who make use of such systems, or place taxes on products made from virgin materials?
The atl with Jayl to Susan Jayhaw
Special to the Kansan
"But merits < discusse
Though arranger made for out of the
JOHN sports arrange
Sydn where
SUCI insulat immed said.
American tourists best kept safely at home
"KU r"
"If they should b"
You can
grow u college
learn to set then
'Athle
deserve
"The
"You've
there.
are bu
point o
Athlete have a football normal other a and has athletes
Sydr "You a good class feel lil
An about, people
should
"Yo the th up."
You amou
By KATE POUND
LUMERIK, Ireland—It started quietly, slowly, about the end of February. None of us were prepared because the beginning was so gentle.
But then came March 17, Paddy's Day, and while the Irish Army was getting jarred on Irish coffee—that's about one part coffee to one part whiskey—the onlaught came. Busloads of American tourists began to sweep in that shannon Airport to airport to airplane harrier and made of real Irish plastic and every St. Patrick paperweight within three counties.
Syd
meas
for de
"T'
them
on tir
There is nothing more embarrassing to an American living abroad than an American tourist. Those living in Ireland suffer the most, as thousands of bright-green cuckoos abide across the country saying, "Oh Harry, that it's cute!" and "Aln'ta got any hot dogs!"
The Tourist Season! Oh Lord, from the ininitiates of the tourists save us. Head for the hills, hide your accent, pretend you don't speak English. Whatever, whatever you do, don't let a ourist hear your American accent. And you're not the only one to eat it either, or they might mistake you for a tourist.
spenders, naive and frequently oblivious. They wave big cameras which they don't understand and flash 10-pound notes like Monopoly money. They demand Ketchup for their frencfies in a can. They demand Ketchup for their frencfies in a can is served on chips and can't understand why no one cares about the Royals or the Yankees.
American tourists are, collectively, loud, big
Occasionally, one encounters a tolerable tourist. These are generally young or well-traveled and prefer to observe quietly, on their own, away from the tour buses and the Knights of St. Michael. Tourists can be somewhere in Chicago. For the most part, however, tourists are to be avoided like VD.
It is more difficult, however, to spot the nontourist American. Americans living abroad tend to pick up the traits of the country in which they live. They are familiar with the area and know the difference between red wine and white wine, but you can realize that an Irish restaurant offering cannacks serves French crepes, not the big flapbacks and maple syrup of the truck stop on I-70 outside Hays.
A frequently enjoyed activity in Europe is "Spot the Tourist." Usually this game is quite simple—one just looks for someone with a camera and plaid slacks and who's suffering from jetlag. A more difficult variation is "Spot the Van." American travelers often use a van, and the description applies with the addition of a loud voice and of Mozart' amdrays, with "Salzkamp, Birthplace of Mozart"
To spot the non-tourist American, one looks at the shoes—Nikes or big hiking boots are dead giveaway, as are Topsiders. If the shoes don't provide the necessary clue, check the hair color—blondes in Ireland, reds in Italy and Spain are frequent on American. T-shirts with like Stephen Hall Intramural Team are good clues, too.
Tourists are easy to spot, too, by their eating habits. They usually flock to McDonald's or Baskin Robbins instead of spending less money at a restaurant. You can also eat or a huge chunk of an Austrian chocolate cake.
Wherever they are and whatever they are doing, tourists are a plague that the world tolerates in vast numbers. From now until the end of September, Europe will be convulsed with tourists of every nationality—the Americans, Japanese and Australians and the throng of British tourists from former summer filled New York and Boston accents as the descendants of immigrants return to seek their roots.
The natives will put up with comments such as, "But my grandmother's cottage should be right here. Who put up this factory?" and "I didn't know you had television." They and all Europeans will ignore stupid comments and smile at slights, showing grace and hospitality to their guests—just as long as all that money keeps flowing in.