Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, March 6, 1981
That's the way it is
One of the most unpopular jobs in the world has got to be that of the bearer of bad news. In ancient times, if the news the messenger brought was bad, the bearer often lost his head.
But there one's one bearer of bad news, and good news, too, who brings America the news tonight for the last time. Walter Cronkite—CBS news anchorman, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and possibly the most recognized man in the country—and ends his 19-year reign on the evening news tonight. That's 19 years of bringing America the news "the way it is."
Not many prominent public figures are trusted these days, but Walter Crontite is. It's the sort of trust you have with your own family—in this case, the TV family—and you just know your Uncle Walter wouldn't lie to you.
Cronkite's popularity can probably be traced to the element of trust. Quite simply, for most Americans, if Walter Cronkite says it's so, it's so. And in case you have any uncertainty about it, he ends each newscast by reaffirming the way it is.
When he began as CBS anchorman in 1962, television network news was in its infancy, a bare experiment. Then as now, he stood out above the other news people. These days, TV anchormen are slick, glossy plastic people turned out on assembly lines and trained to deliver the most superficial news possible, but that's not the way Walter Cronek did it.
Cronkite is different because his personality manages to come through. When covering moon shots, he was just like a little kid on Christmas morning; you'd almost be ready to believe that it was his exuberance, and not a Saturn 5 rocket, that made each mission successful. And his levelheadedness was like the Rock of Gibraltar amid the mayhem of a political convention. Chicago '68 was bedlam, but as long as Walter Cronkite was there reporting it, you knew things couldn't stay bad forever.
For almost two decades, he's presented the news for CBS without the sensationalism of ABC or the gray monotony of NBC. And unlike his cinematic counterpart Howard Beale, he didn't crack. He didn't abuse the power he held.
And no matter how famous he became, he was still basically a Missouri boy at heart. He may have brought American its news from New York or Cairo or Vietnam, but he was still one of us.
Somehow, America must now manage without his trusted presence at the TV helm. His successor, ace reporter Dan Rather, will probably do an admirable job, but of course it won't be a Cronkite job. Cronkite will still be around to do occasional documentaries, but it won't be the same. A 19-year chapter of American life closes tonight. Sad as it may be, that's the way it is.
Green ribbons on campus symbolize Atlanta's tragedy
Letters to the Editor
To the editor:
I know for most Americans there was a heavy sigh of relief when the hostages returned from Iran. We watched on TV as the nazi prayed for them, cried for them, and in a fruitless rescue attempt, several Americans died for them. We also watched and saw symbolic yellow ribbons being worn and displayed in a dramatic gesture to say that we were concerned for the quick return and well being of our fellow Americans.
Today we have a similar "crisis" that can show us one comfort and empathy for—the other.
"America host holdage," the subtitle of the former late-night news program, could now be changed to "Atlanta host holdage while America looks on." Children in Atlanta are afraid to be by themselves, to go outside and many of them are even afraid to go to school.
The parents and children in Atlanta feel helpless as well as terrified. Black Mayor Maynard Jackson has established a $100,000 reward fund; the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has a very large task force out; and the city's police have streets and neighborhoods for missing youth.
They are afraid of a killer (or group of killers) who has thus far left a grisly trail of 19 murdered black children. They have been shot, stabbed, asphyxicated, strangled, and killed, but he has been so badly decomposed and mutilated that the cause of death was hard to determine.
We can also show support by wearing our ribbons again. This time we will wear green ribbons as a symbol to our brothers and sisters in Atlanta, whom America cares for, prays for and is just as concerned about as it was about the hostage crisis.
There is a feeling in Atlanta and all over American that blacks as well as whites have a general indifference to the civil rights gains made in the 80s. This feeling is perpetuated by the seeming lack of concern about these vicious murders. Is this true? Are we content with the way things are now? Don't we even be content with how much more we are misleaved and brutally killed? Let's show care—make a donation and let's tie a green ribbon 'round' on old oak tree.
Dereck J. Rovaris Topeka Junior
Architectural atrocity
I feel that I cannot let pass without comment the recent publicity about the proposed Adams Alumni Center here on the campus. I will continue to reject both contemporary architecture and
To the editor:
the best of our historical past in architecture.
To build a building such as this in the last quarter of the 20th century under the aegis of the National Architecture Foundation, a lack of concern about the aesthetic quality of our physical environment, which will not be lost on the students who have come here to study architecture as an art and as a profession.
Professor of architecture
One may certainly feel that the modern movement is dead and choose to substitute in its stead one of the more historical styles, either in its pure form or in the neo-mannerist from that seems to be so seductive in its attraction to students and professionals alike. It is inexcusable to accept a building that is neither good contemporary design nor a sensitively designed, detailed and well-proportioned building of a past period.
In those instances in which we have control over the important decisions being made, we must by the results of our choice. The proposed building has a distinction to the University. Charles Kahn
Subsidies hypocritical
In regard to the Kansan editorial of Feb. 27, 1981, concerning the self-sufficiency of the United States Postal Service and the proposed postal rate increases:
To the editor:
Perhaps the reason the proposed postal increases are so distasteful to many people is that postal rates have been held at an artificially low level in the past by government subsidies. Just imagine what it would cost to have someone pick a letter up at your front door, sort it out from thousands of others, transport it across the country, re-sort it and then deliver it right to your friend's house in New York City. When you really think about it, 20 cents seems very reasonable for such a service, if not downright inexpensive.
One must remember that each taxpayer must pay for government spending, either through taxes or deficit-spawned inflation. But on top of this, subsiding the postal service actually would be unjust. There is no reason for a person who sends five letters a month to subsidize another person who sends 2,000 letters a month.
In light of the unjustness of this (or any) government subsidy, it is highly hypocritical of the University Daily Kanasa to condone it. The Kanansa has always tried to further justice and human rights. Though it may be sweet in the short run for lower postage rates, clearly, government support of the United States Postal Service is flirrantly unjust.
This is exactly what government subsidies do—benefit one at the expense of another. It actually would be forcing the first person to pay for the other's mail. It is only legalized theft. Surely the more equitable system would be for each to pay for what he uses.
Letters Policy
Edwin Martin Cooley Wichita junior
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is after the first line of the article, you should include the writer's class and home town or faculty and staff position.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
Such ethical decisions unfit for kids
Down through the history of public education in this country, public schools have been the battlegrounds of some of society's most fiery controversies. First it was the teaching of evolution. And then it was racial integration. And after that, voluntary praver.
The most recent controversy to hit public schools has been the one that now rages over the teaching of "values clarification." "Values clarification," or "situational ethics" as it is also called (another name is "secular humanism") is a new approach for guiding students by their teachers, figure out for themselves how to sort out the complex ethical dilemmas that constantly confront them in life.
However, Laura Becker, principal of New York School, one of the three elementary schools
Concerned parents objecting to the approach have correctly argued, first, that high school is not the place to teach ethics as such, especially not a brand of ethics with which many may happen to disagree, and, second, that in any event, school students are too young and immature to understand the meaningful way the philosophical complexities related to a given ethical question.
School administrators across the country have chosen a most novel way to meet these criticisms. They recently have expanded "values clarification" programs to include junior high and even grade school students. One such expansion has just occurred in Lawrence. The department of Education (DBE) Teaming for Responsibility, Identity and Belongingness in Education Systems.
Under this program, which consists of more than 100 different "values clarification activities," the students, beginning in kindergarten, are asked, in front of their classmates, such questions as, "If you could smash one thing and only one thing, what would you smush?" Or, "For what do you think you would lay down your life?"
Needless to say, if local parents were concerned about the previous programs, they are up in arms over TRIBES. Housewives Barbara Hanna of Eudora and Janet Hoover of Perry have become so outraged that they assembled a 22-page critique of the program.
These, of course, are just a few of the ethical problems that are constantly confronting the author.
in Lawrence where the program is now being tested, is all about TRIBES.
"I think it's wonderful because kids are developing listening skills and mutual respect for each other, and they're stopping to think about it," she said in a recent newspaper interview.
Let's see. Kids are "developing listening skills." Could Principal Becker be saying that
ERIC
BRENDE
kids find it easier to pay attention to a teacher who asks, "If the atomic bomb were going to fall in 10 minutes, what would you do in that last 10 seconds?" or to one who asks them to do their arithmetic?
But then, kids are also "developing mutual respect for each other" and "stopping to think about their behavior before they act." Who could argue with those results? The answer is anyone who realizes that it is important "for kids to be kids."
Furthermore, the particular brand of ethics being used in this case is not necessarily a valid one. Situational ethics teach that there are no absolutes, that what's right or wrong depends on the situation and the person's frame of mind at the time. Morality is what the fourth grade learns, or more likely, "fee." It is. All, situational ethics is a dubious approach to morality.
But even if the children were mature enough to handle TRIBES, with its ludicrous hypothetical life-and-death situations, ethics as such should not be taught in public school in the first place. For good reason, that subject has traditionally been reserved for the family and the church.
Simply put, grade school kids are at an age at which they just have to be told 'what's right and what's wrong.'
At worst, it is an open invitation to amorality. The two distracted Kansas women were paraded incensed over one character severely viciously and the excuse named Karen Horne, who as a doctor, "Will
teach you to be an ideal sexual partner, to enjoy pleasure and bring pleasure, and fulfillment to other people.
Any criticism of TRIBES altogether mystifies its creator, Jeanne Gibbs, La Fayette, Calif. The program, she has said, is used as a model in 15 states, with about 25,000 teachers using the program nationally." The 22-page critique of the two outraged Kanans was "the first attack ever on TRIBES." On the critique specifically, Gibbs said, "I think it's very dangerous . . . In their protests, they are trying to impose a minority opinion on a majority."
But who is imposing a "minority opinion" on whom? Gibbs confirms approval of TRIBES by the majority with lack of awareness of TRIBES by the majority. If a majority of parents actually support their children, they are doubtful that they would give their wholehearted assent to it. In truth, Gibbs can only speak confidently for an elite band of secular humanists, who constitute a definite minority of the population. It is their "opinion" that she is pressuring on the real, but unspectacular, majority.
Gibbs is guilty not only of intellectual dishonesty but also of the very offense that she accuses others of committing. That's hardly model behavior for the person who designed the program now being taught in thousands of our nation's public elementary and junior high schools.
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David Lerner
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Tiered New
Pot Shots
Retail Sales Manager Larry Lebenood
You see, my body's trying to kill me again. I think of my mind and my body as two separate, mutually hostile entities. Every semester at mildermys, my mind tells my body, "You won't drink coffee or coffee and cigarettes and read textbook gibberish until your eyes blew. And you'd better like it!"
Midterms are here. It's time to self-destruct.
My body retaliates by slamming itself into
They are boring and overbearing, and, fortunately, they are easily identified.
Grown-ups often can be found at the unit end of, long skinny cigarettes. They refuse to dance if they are around.
All grown-ups should be prohibited from attending parties.
H
Grown-ups come in all ages and sizes. In fact, I encountered my first at my party for my ninth
It was, I think, the only appropriate response.
I'm not alone. When a friend walked out in front of a car, I mentioned rather loudly to her that she had nearly been turned into a pancake. "So?" she said.
Vanessa Nerron
walls and trying to walk through doors without opening them first. This has its advantages. The day I got my body up before it wanted to, my foot alithered angrily off the ladder to my bunk bed before climbing in. I slipped down, waking me up before my Vivarin for the first time in three years. I may make it a routine.
I can take a few bruises and permanent scars, but my body's beginning to get insistent about the battle. Lately it's been taking me out into the world and I've been trying to eat a rabbit in front of the oncoming headlights.
I didn't.
---
birthday
At their own gatherings, grown-ups like their drinks dry, their wirt wry, and they make sure that all four food groups are represented on their refreshment tables.
"I think we are too old to eat cupcakes," she said. "Don't you?"
A surplus of grown-ups usually spell the end of any other party, so count them carefully. And watch out for the kind who turn into grown-ups only after they are safely inside.
The "grown-up would" contribute much to the
treatment, but probably wants to
drink up all your gills and tonic.
In general, if the doorbell rings and a grow-up is standing on your porch, don't answer the door.
Saturday nights were fun. Used to be able to catch an early movie or some late dinner, maybe even do some studying before 10 p.m. Then there was time enough for 30 minutes of casual intoxication (nothing too intense) before the evening's main event. Sit back, feet up, tune in to NBC and prepare for laughter.
Ah, sweet laughter that is no longer; they have given their show away! That's right. "Saturday Night Live" is dead. Say it: "Saturday Night Live" is dead. Sit up straight, take a deep breath and face that somber little Sonia staring back C'mon, big college kids don't cry, Rosamadana could've told you that much.
Not that the "new generation" hasn't been giving a chance. ("God, I'm sure! Excuse me for living!" But (sigh) it just isn't, well, the same, exactly, without Gilda and Dan and Lorraine and Jane and . . . and where'd they all go, anyway? And she's not sitting on the couch, and laugh and . . . sit back and the smiling Song yeah, that's when Saturday nights were, well, fun.