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Opinion
Page 4 University Dally Kansan, March 25, 1981
The Chinas Syndrome
Former President Gerald Ford is visiting Peking this week, not to play golf but to act as a messenger for President Reagan. Ford is believed to be reassuring the Chinese that Reagan is deeply concerned about the status of Chinese-American relations.
Reagan's assurances to China are probably an attempt to diffuse Chinese anger over the possible sale by the United States of F-16 jet fighters to Taiwan and Reagan's pro-Taiwan campaign stance.
However, no matter what reassurances the administration may offer, the Chinese aren't likely to be pacified. That's because after nearly 35 years, the Republic of China and Taiwan each still profess to be the one and only China. The communist government on the mainland views the Taiwan
Taiwan, on the other hand, somehow expects the world to believe that it will someday "reclaim" the mainland—an idea about as realistic as Britain "reclaiming" its 13 American colonies.
President Carter bolstered relations with the mainland by downgrading U.S. support for Taiwan, Reagan, however, now appears to be burning the candle at both ends, hoping to stay on good terms with both China and Taiwan. But the mainland won't remain on good terms for long if the United States continues to support Taiwan, so Reagan had better choose one or the other. The time will come to decide which as a "friend" is in America's best interest.
Computer dating services replaced by advertisements
It probably all started with a Scope mouthwash ad. Or maybe it was that wart remover, Compound W. You know, the one where a distrust but devastating darling female gargles with Scope or puts a foul smelling liquid on her warts and ... Vocalia nobilis in her hands, she get the touch on two legs holding her hand or asking for a good kissless bath.
For that matter, it might have been a Maybelline mascara commercial, I can't be sure.
JUDY
WOODBURN
to lovelern and impressionable teen-agers was the same: Gate rid of those unsightly pimples, smell good, quit scratching your nose. You won't have to, you'll have more dates than you can handle.
A lot of people grew up with that lesson, and they took it to heart as adults. There must be millions of people like this. Their breath is generally unoffensive, they have soft, manageable hair, and they drink Diet Pepsi, because we still looking for that special someone.
I guess the ads were wrong.
Lately, it seems, these people have been fighting fire with fire by taking out their ads. It makes sense. If a commercial can convince them to buy a certain kind of toothpaste, why can't an ad get them a date, too?
The back pages of some big-city newspapers now are plastered with guests for companionship in tiny black type. Once in a year, the personals of the Kansan or Journal-World.
There's even a whole new magazine devoted to the pursuit of a date through advertising. It's called Intrico, a slick magazine with about 15 pages of personal ads smack-dab in the center. Just next door in Missouri, a couple of women are compiling a book titled *Introducing our women names* of "Missouri's most eligible bachelors."
And then there's the woman in New York
who edits a catalog listing available pei lovers. This is for the kind of person who believes "if he doesn't love Fido, he can't love me."
Used to be, people only sing songs about classified romance. Remember the one by "Hot Wax" that started out like this: "Wanted: young man single and free. Experience in love preferred but we'll accept a young trainee."
Used to be, you immediately felt sorry for those poor anonymous souls who were so bad off that they had to advertise for friends. Jeez, they must have been a bunch of losers.
But they're not anymore. Or the ads say they're not, anyway. They're professionals—stockbrokers, writers, professors and scientists. Unless their self-provided statistics are really exaggerated, they're not only, either.
So why are these people lonely? And why doesn't 'hello' work anymore?
Well, first off, you don't have to see "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" too many times to know that it can be a waste of time—and even dangerous—to meet people in bars these days. The sheer awareness-looking stranger you need to be able to relieve your of your money or your life.
The scene isn't much better between the hours of nine and five either. Does the name Mary Cunningham ring a bell? She was the bright, capable and incidentally beautiful woman who was shot down from her job at the Bendix corporation because she had a questionable relationship with the top executive there.
Her plight taught women and men another lesson. Business and pleasure don't mix. You can't become too close to anyone with fear for oomidify your credibility.
But the best thing about mail-order romance is the convenience. Like the now-passe computer date, it's a real timesaver. Busy people don't have to waste valuable lunch hours or evenings doing stupid things like getting to know one another. All they have to do is take but are ad specifying the recipient's name, job, email, witty, serious, nature freak, co collector, neo-Marxist—and then wait for qualified people to apply.
And it's a lot easier than smiling or saying hello.
KANSAN
The University Daily
(USPS 685-644) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Thursday during June and July except Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 60455. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $15 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student subscriber prices are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
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Lawrence, KS 4044
Business Manager Terri Fry
Vice president holds special position
By WALTER F. Mondale
who does nothing but deliver pandering praise of a president. The president should want—and people do respect—sound, factual, reasoned arguments in his behalf. The vice presidency is important enough not to be demeaned by its occupant delivering obsequious flattery.
New York Times Special Features
Third, as a spokesman for the administration,
stay on the facts. A president should not want,
anything that would harm the administration.
Second, do not wear a president down. He should be bright enough to catch your meaning the first time. Give your advice once and give it well. You have the right to be heard, not obeyed.
WASHINGTON—For any vice president to play an active, useful role in the government, he must first have the confidence and trust of the president. But, basing my opinion on four years' experience in office, I think that President Carter and I had more than a personal relationship. There is a set of institutional values that should be built up for the relationship to succeed. There is a set of rules he should follow—for him to strengthen the presidency.
Fourth, understand your role as a spokesman. This does not mean that you must defend every idea that comes out of an administration. A wise president, who values the role of his vice president, will be forced of forcing the vice president to speak for something with which he fundamentally disagrees.
First, advise a president confidentially.
The only reasons to state publically what you have told the president are to take credit for a success, or to escape blame for a failure. And either way there is no quicker way to determine your effectiveness by the president and lose your effectiveness in the government.
that allow our aunty assignments. If such an assignment is important, it will cut across the responsibilities of one or two cabinet officers or other agency heads and embroil you in a debilitating bureaucratic fight. If it is meaningless or trivial, it will undermine your reputation and squander your time—as most vice presidents have found.
Sixth, a vice president should be ready to assume the presidency. We all know the story of Harry S. Truman's succeeding to the presidency on Franklin D. Roosevelt's death with no delay. The Manhattan Project—the building of the atomic bomb, which had been going on for a long time.
President Carter did not want me to need
several months of on-the-job training in the presidency, if the need should have arisen. As he often said, President Carter wanted me to be ready the same moment the nation would need me to be ready. And there was no better way to do it. There would be prepared to pursue the course we did.
Finally, not a rule so much as a wish: To strengthen the president, a vice president should have complementary experience and abilities. There is no magic mix of qualities, but a vice president can better help the president if his political experience, his background in executive or legislative government, his attachments to constituencies, his knowledge of foreign affairs—if in each vital field of experience he complements the president's experience.
And as vice president, he must be able to get along with the president. The relationship is intensely personal. It is founded on professional need, but it must proceed on personal respect.
In my case, President Carter treated me better than any president has treated his vice president.
(Walter F. Mondale joined a law firm upon leaving the vice president. This article is adapted from a lecture on the vice president Minnesota, where he is a Distinguished Fellow.)
Letters to the Editor
Solidarity's reasons omitted from article
To the editor:
In the March 6 article on Student Senate budget hearings, the Kansan reported the fact that Student Senate voted to reduce Latin American Solidarity's budget request from $1.645 to $450 (in the preliminary cuts). This fact was explained, however, in complete isolation of Latin American Solidarity's explanation of why a budget increase was justified. Because of this somewhat one-sided reporting of the events and discussion of that day, I include here some of the questions and answers that were given to Student Senate to warrant our budget request.
It was reported that Student Senate's decision to cut our budget was based on the argument that they "questioned the substantial increase," although I did answer a variety of questions pertinent to our activities, membership, goals and educational approach to the matter.
It was also reported that "Latin American Solidarity presented a request for $1,645, a $1,500 increase from last year's allocation." The truth is that last year, at supplemental budget bearings, Latin American Solidarity asked for $1,050 of which a more $85 was granted.
Latin American Solidarity survived and grew! And although Latin American Solidarity's existence is not conditional upon Student Senate funding, the fact that is the money we ask for in our 1981-82 budget request (increased only $855 from our 1980 request) would allow us to more consistently investigate and to offer more detailed information on the reality of Latin American living situations, economic history and modes of political expression.
Latin American Solidarity objects to the fact that the Student Senate would focus on our increase in the budget rather than on the purpose of our group and the increased attention now being paid to Latin America by the KU student population—some of who may actually end up in El Salvador—and student organizations, by the KU faculty and administration and (albeit superficially) by the local, national and international press.
Latin American Solidarity is obviously one of KU's most active student organizations and Student Libraries.
Since the overthrow of Somoza in Nicaragua, and because of the civil war in El Salvador, there is a growing desire to know what the "crisis" in Central America (and Latin America generally) is all about. We have responded to this desire to understand contact with individual and groups, having informational files on these countries and by offering public forums to discuss these issues.
The increase in our budget therefore is justified in this manner, and we demand that our original budget request be granted in order to meet this goal. The president, faculty and administrative population.
Rhonda L. Neugebauer
Latin American Solidarity budget coordinator
Department checked
To the editor:
After the allegations made in the Kansas City Times of Feb. 13 had been seen by the members of the department of English, a careful internal check was make to determine whether any English courses could have been used improperly, out of sequence, with peculiar enrolment patterns or taught by personnel not fully authorized to instruct in such courses.
We have reliably ascertained that the department of English did not teach, staff, authorize or approve any such courses. In fact, the department was never consulted in the creation of such alleged courses or notified of their existence. The requirements of the various schools within the University of Kansas and the existing checks for fulfillment of requirements make it impossible for any student to fulfil graduation requirements in English in any course offered at the university. The requirements in English, taught by the department of English at the University of Kansas, or by properly transferring equivalent credits from another institution of higher learning.
This information is furnished for the sole purpose of demonstrating the noninvolvement of the department of English in any educational programs for which irregularities in staffing, teaching, content and evaluation have been alleged.
Gerhard Zuther
Gerhard Zutter
Chairman, department of English
Liberal arts defended
To the editor:
The column written by he Neufeld in your March 10 edition has left me angry, frustrated
I am angry because of her willingness to sacrifice reasonable assertion to superficial "sophistication." A degree in the liberal arts will rarely cause either unemployment or doom one
to manual labor. In fact, my concrete experience as an adviser in the department of English has led me to conclude that our good students do get good jobs.
I am frustrated because Neufeld appears to believe that Acting Cancellor Shankel's recent statements concerning academic programs at the University are mindless platitudes signifying nothing. She contends, moreover, that "it's hard to see how anyone could be crushed by the charges the Kansas City Times made against the athletes." How one can not be upset with charges that state faculty at this University violated both academic standards and University regulations?
It may be more interesting to find illicit payments being made to athletes, but I consider the charge of faculty knowingly circumventing their academic standards to be far more serious.
Finally, I am bitter. Neufeld's statement that "50 percent of all college advisers are reckless dolls" is inexcuseable. It is inexcuseable because it is not true. It is fun to blame others for one's own troubles, but that does not make the accusation true. Certainly honest people do this. They are more dramatic than the simple story that many, many advisers have done their job well.
It is also more dramatic to print the horror stories than those multitude of tales that accurately show how advisers have spent long hours doing excellent advising. Such advising may not always take the form of statements advises like to hear, but it is honest and accurate and neither "dolish" nor "reckle." But then, it is easier to use cute, cynical labels and paste them on groups of people than to carefully qualify one's own generalizations. Neufeld is, of course, not a "reckle dolt"; she is simply an apprentice columnist.
Neufeld clearly seems to believe that she has been able "to ignore the foolish people who stand in her) way." How about the people, ideas and books that may have made some contribution to her life? Are none of these to be found at the University of Kansas? Perhaps; Neufeld has been so blinded by this question that on the other hand, being humane and careful with one's words does not make for an interesting column. And Neufeld does want to write an interesting column.
Stephen H. Goldman
Susan E. Johnson
Associate professor of English
Coordinator of Undergraduate Advising, College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences