1359
1968.APL2
Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 24, 1981
Marvin monstrosity
They've apparently fixed that new sculpture down in Marvin Grove. Or, at least, the tarp covering it has been removed. The tarp had been placed over the sculpture after it was broken by people climbing on it.
Yet the sculpture was just as attractive with a tarp over it as it is uncovered—which must say something about the "beauty" of the piece.
The sculpture, on loan to KU, is called "I-70" and represents cars speeding along the interstate. Or that's what it represents to the artist, anyway. To most people, it probably represents an explosion in a scrap metal junkyard.
pects others to appreciate the creation, too,
it must be a work the public can relate to.
And an art object on display in public implies that the artist expects others to enjoy it.
But it's doubtful the average person will enjoy something that looks like a kindergarten Tinkertoy creation. True, art depends upon the eye of the beholder, but there comes a point where art is art and garbage is garbage. "I-70," unfortunately, is a borderline case.
"I-70" is supposed to be the beginning of a sculpture garden down in Marvin Grove. But if the future sculptures are going to be cold black monstrosities like "I-70," then perhaps the University would be better off planting more trees and flowers—things far more pleasing to the average person's eye.
The Kansas Board of Regents is raising our tuition 22 percent. President Reagan is threatening to cut federal grants for students, and we're all sounding like stuck pigs.
Reagan's economic plans bound to hurt poor hardest
I honestly don't know what students were expecting. They should have realized they were in trouble on the night of Reagan's election.
It's easy to blame the Regents and the Kansas Legislature for our wars, but they're not alone. The United States
JANE
NEUFELD
economic policy, and Reagan is no supporter of the arts. He likes guns and factories.
After all, we need defense to keep America great and factories to stimulate the free-market economy, but what good are students? They're just radicals and vagrants
Reagan's economic views have gotten a certain amount of free help recently because everyone feels sorry for him because some nut shot him. People were impressed when he walked into the hospital, bleeding profusely and spitting blood. He's so brave, they saved a valiant.
Gallant, yes. Smart, no. Just because someone gets shot doesn't mean that out of sympathy we should pass his half-baked fairy tale policies.
The Democrats in Congress are trying hard to slow down and modify Reagan's budget and tax cuts. However, Reagan, fresh from his hospital bed, is fighting for every detail of his program, unchanged. His advice is to claim that the people gave him mandate when they elected him.
Every damn fool who wins an election thinks he has a mandate from the people. It's far, far more likely that he won because he's got a nice twinkle in his eyes, or because Carter came across as an incompetent man. He doesn't understand because anyone had a deep understanding and appreciation of his economic or political views.
The poor people, the unemployed, the elderly and minorities get to tighten their belts and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, another of those interesting balancing acts that the Reagan administration keeps advocating for the unfortunate aduts and lazy
people who don't have the good sense to be rich white men.
As Newsweek magazine calculated, the tax cut for a family of four with a $10,000 a year income will be $26. Some gut instinct tells me that if I were suddenly handed $26, I would not invest it. I would buy several mammoth rinses of Rizu and drink until I fell down.
Anyway, they'll eventually profit because we'll have a strong economy again. Reagan is going to give everyone a tax cut to help cut the budget. People will invest their tax cut in America.
In that light, Reagan's support of tax cuts for corporations makes sense, because they are the ones likely to invest the money. He is also waiting for the government to improve business conditions be expected to take care of the people who are hurt by federal budget cuts.
I asked my roommate, the business major,
if she thought smart businessmen would put
the welfare of the public above their desire for
a life given me a flawless blood-chilling smile.
"We that has the money likes to keep it," she said.
Reagan seems to feel the same way. He's caught in some perverse and strange time warp, where the flag waves boldly, smiling mothers serve apple pie and poor and unemployed people starve quietly and don't ask the government for help.
And, of course, good money can be wasted on something so trivial as helping students learn the lesson.
It's going to take more than a peep talk about waste and fraud to help the poor. And believe it or not, colleges can be quite useful in developing a better job market Reagan anticipates.
But I don't expect him to change his policies. Actually, I don't mind too much. I always expected Reagan to be elected and was rather pleased when he was, because if Carter's incompetence caused the country to vote conservative four years later, I can hardly wait for the liberal backlash that Reagan is sure to insure with his twittdom.
I'm going to wait for this so-called "conservative mood" disappear to that nameless place that houses the Edsel and Shaun Cassidy. Liberalism will rise again. By that time, however, it will probably be too late for our season of college students to wrap their eager hands around federal money, and I hope those students who voted for Reagan eat Alpo and live in roach-riden slums until they graduate.
Pot Shots
In late April, there is a morning when every student wakes up in a cold sweat realizing that those papers that weren't due until the end of the semester are due on Wednesday.
The first impulse of most students at this point will be Step 1: crawl back under the covers,
This impulse is an appropriate one because, as
Vanessa Herron
Corner a friend (or former friend) and tell her at length exactly how much work you have to do, how behind you are and how you will never be able to catch up.
the axiom says, "If it looks like you won't succeed, give up." Or something like that.
Here are several other strategies for alleviating late April anxiety with creative
Try to eat foods that have been scientifically proven to be unfit for human consumption, such as hot, greasy doughnuts, cheap ice cream and chocolate candy. Try not to have academic guilt feelings with gastronomic guilt.
The friend probably will visit in knit.
Take at least 20-2 minute study breaks or
take a break.
If all else fails, return to Step 1, but this time,
pull the covers over your head.
If you ignore the last week in April, sooner or later, it will go away.
As Mother Nature fans the flames of spring and the weather outside grows more and more enticing, it only stands to reason that what goes on inside grows less and less compelling.
So here it is—the moment that none of you have been waiting for because none of you even knew it was coming; the winners of the "What-To-Do-In-Class-When-You're-Bored-beyond-the
Limits-of-Human-Endurance" contest. Winners of this contest—and you'll recognize yourself, I'm sure—receive one free visit to the professor's choice to explain their inattentive behavior.
1st Place: Hide your watch and drive your car. Give him what time it is at three-minute interval.
2nd Place: Read what you should have read already for class.
3rd Place: Bite your fingernails into attractive ovals.
For the engaged couple, it's the "chance of a lifetime."
4th Place: Try to figure out your cumulative GPA.
6th Place: Look around the room to see who else is sleeping.
For the television viewer whose comatose eyes are glued to the set, it's a chance to see something that's not there.
Wedding show brings TV to a new low
5th Place: Sleep.
For the rest of us poor occasional television
coverage, please log on to television's
newest entertainment program.
It's "Wedding Day"—NBC's attempt to bring the story of love and marriage, with real people, into the air.
And, to make the viewer more at home with the soon-to-be-married couple, NBC has provided a few "get-together" so he can truly be a part of the wonderful occasion.
The program is scheduled to have its premiere June 8 and run for four days during its tryout. The half-hour daytime show will feature real people (who, of course, are just like you and me and want to be on television) as well as celebrities who say their埋爱你移在 an NPC studio.
And if all else fails, try actually listening to the teacher. It works wonders.
The proverbial bachelor party is the first segment of the half-hour show. Here, in the comfort of a television studio, the bridegroom and his buddies sit around and do all those things bachelors do at bachelor parties. (From what I hear of bachelor parties, however, my guess is that some of the more lewd and lascivious activities will have to be censured.)
7th Place: Think about sex.
Then, so the bride, too, can have time with her friends, there's the "bridal shower." Here the bride-to-be can sit around and giggle and coo over the third toaster and fifth handy-dandy slicer-dicer-mixer she unwraps. She and her friends can blush politely about the honeymoon nights and exclaim over the idyllic days to come.
With the preliminary festivities finished, and
The newly-married couple—an elderly couple, a second-time-around couple, a computer-dating couple or a boy-men's girl-men's couple—are given the sunset to a honeymoon they have earned by
the television viewing audience truly "close" to the couple, the wedding ceremony itself takes
CYNTHIA
CURRIE
providing all of us with a moment in their life as we moment watching the sponsor's advertising.
All of this couple stuff tends to bring back the memories of the game shows of the past in which couples were pitted against each other for the coveted prize bestowed at the end of the half hour. Chuck Barris' "The Newlywed Game" was the epitome of tackiness and triviality, encouraging husbands and wives to humiliate each other for a cheap laugh.
"Wedding Day" won't exploit couples, according to the executive producer of the show which, by the way, is brought to you by Osmond Mansfield and Kelly Green, you "Donny and Marie" and Hawaiian Punch.
"It encourages people to do something good to be on TV," Deane Barkley, the president of MTV, said.
Love-filled, all right. Love-filled to the point of exhaustion. If this sad tale of apparent insult and defiance was meant to
possible spin-offs, which are the ultimate result of a successful television show.
In "Honeymoon Heaven," the camera would zoom in on the newlyweds and discreet fuzz at the appropriate moment. "Moments of a Marriage" would take a look at the day the washer died, the dog wet on the new lime-green garaget and little Suzy got sick all over the velvet couch. It's all just a little touch of Americana that you, too, can be a part of.
According to the latest Harliequin romance and the stories my grandmother tells me, a wedding is not entertaining, it may be that she is fetching a good thing to an extent it can't reach.
Personally, I have nothing against marriage.
I have nothing against the people who want to be married on television in front of God-knows, not when they show how, isn't "Wedding Day" 'gait a bit too slow.'
It's sad that the viewing audience would get to the point where such a show as this would even be considered by producers. And, unfortunally, you'll watch the couple's "romantic," moment
Even the Osmonds have reached their limit with this one. The sugary-sweet family's name won't give "Wedding Day" the blessing of pseudo-success.
I'm not interested in seeing people I don't know getting married to other people I don't know and, most likely, will never see or know of you. You can't surprise him and his pollsters will even watch the debacle.
If all goes well, the couples scheduled to be married on the show's first week will drive into the sunset, live happily ever after, and thankful for their presence in a painless divorce from the further episodes.
406 Bartos '81
Reign of terror halts Guatemalan reforms
By STEVE OLSON
GUATEMALA--When I saw Mateo not long ago, standing beside a smooth post on his veranda, he said, "I had no idea this would happen when I started."
Twelve years ago, Mateo's life was different. The black beans and corn he produced on his acre and a half in the Guatemalan highlands did not last his family, all young, until the next harvest. So each November he left his home for work on a plantation on the humid southern side.
New York Times Special Features
One year when he returned, Mateo—I am not using any real personal and town names—decided to attend agriculture classes offered by a U.S. church group. Though he viewed change with suspicion, he decided that new farming methods did not conflict with his people's ways.
When the corn sprouted that year, he sprinkled fertilizer around 10 plants. Those plants grew tall, their leaves almost as dark green as the pines across the stream. Unlike the familiar spotty cobs 3 feet away, their large ears were filled with kernels.
Each Thursday he walked to San Lucas for class. In a faded green sweater, blue pants patched at the knees and tire-tread sandals, he lapsed like the dozen other Indians in his class.
Not so cautious as some fellow Indians, Matee planted the seeds closer together the next season, fertilizing each plant. From his field, which had never yielded more than 900 pounds of seed year ago, he planted a second year, it produced 6,750 pounds. The church group hired him to teach agriculture. Three afternoons a week, he walked two to five miles on the mountains to give classes, returning in the dark. After the earthquake in 1976, he learned how to plant seeds, planting them this along with fertilizer use and composting.
For several years, things went well for Mateo. He bought two more acres of land. Then early one October morning, he saw one of his students at the San Lucas market. "Alejandro desapareció!" his student told him—Alejandro had disappeared.
where Mateo and his students bought fertilizer. Mateo knew that anyone suggested social reform was labeled a communist by the government. But now the paramilitary and police-willegal "death squads" were kidnapping, torturing and "disappearing" Indians like Alejandro who had not been involved in politics.
The success of the co-op where Alejandro worked displaced plantation owners who depended on cheap labor. As Indians like Mateo became self-sufficient, they no longer worked for low wages on plantations. Politicians and businessmen who had a vision Alejandro who showed leadership potential. They considered revolutionary anyone who helped poor people.
Every day newspapers reported the discovery of five to 10 bodies. Mateo had seen articles accompanied by photos of firemen dragging corpses up out of ditches, the heads sometimes flopping around as the faces had been hacked with machines or blasted with guns so that they could not be identified.
One night not long after Alejandro's disappearance, an acquaintance of Mateo's was shot to death in San Lucas. The family could only suppose that Chepe's assassins had mistaken his identity. He was a carpenter who had never been interested in politics.
Less than a month later, Carlos, a fellow teacher with the church group, desaparecid. At 12 a.m., a jeep pulled over beside Carlos's house, where he was sitting in his whitewashed adobe. Three plainclothes Ladinos (non-Indians) waited in the idling jeep while two others walked to the rough-hewn door and knocked. When Carlos's wife answered, one of them grabbed her, hitting her cheek with his Gahl automatic rifle. The two pushed into the door and pulled Carlos out to the jeep. He has not returned.
The death squads sent “hit lists” naming people they intended to kill to the newspapers. Last May—because of the agriculture classes he taught–Mateo's name appeared on a list, along with other names of local priests and one old man who organized labor 30 years ago when the government encouraged it.
At his students' urging, Mateo quit teaching in
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Twelve more of Mateo's friends have desapareced since Carlos did. Newpaper counts say
July. He started taking different paths home each time he returned from San Lucas, and sometimes he slept at friends' houses or in the cornfields.
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Matoe looked much older when I saw him in February. As he stood beside the veranda post, I noticed that his hair was graying. It was then, as he grew older, that he drifted clouds, that he said, "I had no idea . . ."
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The other day, he took his family to the southern coast for the first time in nine years. He did not tell anyone what plantation they were going to, saying only that they would not return.
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(Steve Olson—be requested a pseudonym to protect individuals in this article—a journ-
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