University Daily Kansan, April 17, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Dalkan Kaiser, UNSP 60/40 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffler Fint Hall Lawen. Kanze 60/45 daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday and final periods. Second class postage贴于Lawen. Kanze 60/44 Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Inaugural County and $15 for six months or $1 a year outside the county. Student postage rates vary depending on student status and address changes to the University Dalkan Kaiser, 118 Staffler Fint Hall Lawen. Kanze 60/45
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Milkv outbreak
Most of the time, it's one of the least controversial drinks around.
but these days, people in several states are steering clear of milk the way teetotalers avoid whiskey.
Salmonella poisoning, thought to have originated in an Illinois dairy, has affected more than 3,000 people in Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.
Researchers working around the clock have been trying to determine where and why the contamination occurred.
The source of the highly contagious bacteria is still unknown. Complicating and exacerbating the situation, some dairy workers improperly disposed of part of the contaminated milk.
Professionals, with specialized training, will have to find the cause of the salmonella poisoning, treat the victims and work toward preventing such an outbreak in the future.
But the average person must also take some responsibility to slow the spread of the highly contagious bacteria.
Scientists and health officials have stressed the role of the average person in containing the outbreak - the second worst salmonella outbreak in U.S. history - by giving extra attention to personal sanitary habits, such as careful hand-washing before handling food and after using the bathroom.
The improper disposal of the contaminated milk was an example of people acting without thinking, adding to the problems of the salmonella outbreak.
Probably before too long, people in the five affected states again will be washing down turkey sandwiches and bites of cherry pie with tall glasses of cold milk.
But until then, it will take the efforts of both health experts and the average person to stop the spread of the disease and then to eradicate it.
Country clubbing
The University Orientation Planning Committee relented and revived a favorite student institution last week. Orientation week, affectionately known as Country Club week, will live again in August.
Orientation week is the time in which students return to Lawrence, seek academic advising, enroll, pay fees and become acquainted through diverse cultural and artistic activities.
Country Club week is the time when students blow into town and show off their hot tans at all the bars that are offering 10-for-one drink specials. People meet all of their old friends and plenty of new ones and strive mightily to start the semester without a clear head.
Oddly enough, all of these events fall in the same week.
A few years ago, the committee tried to solve the problem by crunching orientation week into two days, crushing student's motivation to return early and party.
This move resulted in confusion and anger, particularly for incoming freshmen who actually might have taken advantage of orientation opportunities.
In conjunction with the orientation cuts, the University of Kansas decided to keep residence halls closed until orientation time.
"They can't party if they have no place to stay," the committee reasoned.
This was a flagrant discrimination against residence hall dwellers, who needed as much time as possible to get settled in the August chaos.
But the orientation planning committee repented. Students can drink a toast to the committee next semester or better yet, take advantage of the countless orientation opportunities.
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LETTERS POLICY
Subway case recalls act of true hero
As the case of Bernhard Goetz, the so-called New York subway vigilante, continues to take unexpected twists and turns. I can't help thinking back to a ride I took on Chicago's elevated train when I first moved to
I was living on the north side of town. I was working weekends then, and one Sunday after work I got on the el — Chicago's version of the day. The car we about half full. People were mucking their own business.
Among the riders in the car were four young boys — white kids. They were around 12 or 13. One of them had a little transistor radio that he was carrying, but not playing. Four black kids got onto the train. They were all wearing white shirts and the white kids, but still awfully young, they seemed to be around 15.
For most of the ride, things were uneventful. Then, just as we were pulling into a stop, the black kids walked over to the white kids.
"Let me see you radio." one of the black kids said to the boy who was carrying the radio.
The black kids moved into the aisles next to where the boy with the radio was sitting. The same one said it again, "Let me see your radio."
Three of the white kids stood up to leave the car. It seemed that they were getting off the train earlier than they had planned, to avoid trouble with the boys who were bothering them about the radio.
So the train stopped and the doors opened, and the three white boy
One of the white kids said, with his voice shaking a little. "Let's get off."
stepped out of the car and onto the platform.
But the one white boy with the radio was still in his seat. He was there because he couldn't get out. The black kids purposefully were blocking him and not letting him through.
He said, in a plaintive voice, "They won't let me go." For a moment, no one in the car did anything. I was one of those people, and it doesn't make me very proud to confess that I just sat there with the rest of the rider.
But I have to tell you — it wasn't a case of people refusing to get involved. Things were just happening very fast, and in those first moments
no one thought to do anything. It didn't seem to be a conscious decision on anyone's part. Time and inertia were winning out.
Then an older black woman stood up. She was in her 50s or 60s. She walked half the length of the car. Apparently the motorman had noticed that something was amiss, because we had not moved. The doors were still open, and we were still sitting in the station.
She walked right up to the black kids who were blocking the white kid's path, and she said something. "I know you are right this minute. I said let him go!"
The black kids, surprised, moved out of the way.
The white boy, still holding his radio, ran through the aisle and out of the car where he joined his friends.
We started moving again. But the woman was not finished with the black kids, "You should be ashamed of yourselves," she said. (I am approximating her words here; this happened about 15 years ago.) "Look at yourselves, acting like bums. What would your parents think if they saw you out here behaving like a bunch of hoodwuns?"
The black kids didn't say a word
they respond to it they just sat down
"You keep acting like this and your
are going to be filled with
troubles."
— it just makes me sick to see boys like you acting the way you act."
And then she returned to her seat.
And then she returned to her seat.
What does this have to do with Bernhard Geeth? Well, nobody shot Bernhard Geeth? Well, nobody got robbed, either.
What happened was that someone with a voice calling for civility stood up and spoke out for what was right.
That woman was not representing the viewpoint of Berhard Goetz — the viewpoint that says a person is threatened and fire if he feels threatened.
And obviously she was not representing the viewpoint of the young man who harassed Goetz — the viewpoint that says a person has a right to take whatever he can take from others.
Rather, she was representing the viewpoint of the rest of the world — the people who just want to be able to mind their business and be left alone.
Right now the headlines are asking, "Bernhard Goetz: Hero or Villain?" I'm not sure he's either. But if you want to know my idea of what a hero is, you don't have to look any further than that woman on the el train on a Sunday evening. That's what a hero is.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Benefit and risk
To the editor:
It's widely believed that KU benefits financially from alumni enthusiasm generated by its men's football and basketball programs. If so, the main beneficiaries are the KU faculty — simply because the greatest portion of KU's expenditures are made on their behalf.
Yet until now we faculty have accepted these supposed benefits while allowing others to bear the associated risks.
Thus, KU's acquisition of the services of Jerry Johnson is a real step forward morally. For he has a record of violence toward teachers.
Arthur L. Thomas
Arthur Young distinguished professor of business
Arthur L. Thomas
Aid Soviet center
While Gerald Mikkelson, professor of Slavic languages and literatures and associate professor of Soviet and East European studies, paints a gloomy picture, William Fletcher, professor of Soviet and East Eur. languages, the other is also seems to assure that all is fine and we should not panic
The article titled "Soviet Studies Center loses federal grants," which appeared in the University Daily Kansan on Thursday, leaves me wondering what effect such a loss of federal grants will have on the Center for Soviet and East Europe and to the University as a whole.
To the editor:
If this University is committed to producing students who can adequately compete in today's world where every issue seems to be couched in East/West relations, the University should come to the rescue of the center and salvage this situation.
scholarships to this campus. The presence of these scholarships not only adds prestige to the University but also exposes students to scholars they would not have met for the center and federal grants. One would recall that since last semester, the center had been able to attract scholarships like Andrew Conteh. As a graduate of the Soviet educational system and as his country's former ambassador to the Soviet Union for years, he has provided his students with vivid insights into Soviet behavior.
Such a person is an asset to the University and without the University coming to the aid of the center scholars like him will be lost to the
The center needs to be sound financially so as to continue to provide and attract world renowned
I urge the University to help salvage the center.
Against divesting
Nigeri, Nigeria, graduate student
Victor E. Archibong
To the editor:
So the elders have now joined the students in harassing the Endowment Association on how it invests its funds. If they are sincerely about it, each will now drive his Ford or General Motors car down to the junk yard and take a ledgehammer to it.
Surely no conscientious, self-respecting protester or resolution passer would want to be caught driving a car made by a corporation that has a huge investment in South Africa. You can now show up at every campus office in which an IBM tpwriter or other IBM equipment is in use.
The worst part of the whole affair is that those who have made
The African investment of each of the above companies makes that of the Endowment Association look like a dune in the church collection plate on Sunday morning. I looked for but was not really expecting to find, an accompanying endowment for the Endowment Association for the millions of dollars of aid given to student loan funds and other worthwhile campus projects.
on-the-scene studies agree that divestment would hurt most of those in South Africa we'd all like to see helped.
Thos. C. Ryther
professor emeritus of journalism
Business classes
To the editor:
There is a crisis in the School of Business. Since 1981, the number of business majors has doubled, while the number of full-time teachers actually has declined from 78 to 72 The school does not have the funds to hire additional teachers. If we can manage the costs, staffed, we then must ask the question: How much of a teacher's time is spent teaching?
At this writing, one of my business instructors has canceled class four times in as many weeks. The reason he gave was that he was very busy getting his doctorate. He also talks extensively to our class about reteaching and teaching in many classes. I have less sympathy for the teacher shortage when only a fraction of time is spent teaching and classes are neglected.
I agree that research is valuable. It brings instructors and the school recognition. In this crisis situation, there must be a change. Use what funds there are to pay teachers to teach extra classes. Let people who enjoy teaching benefit from taking on more work.
I find 20 hours to a full-time job
Paying what I do to go to school here,
I feel I should be taught by more
full-time teachers.
Kenneth Boyd St. Louis senior
To the editor:
Sad fate of mind
In response to Paul Hahn (April 12
Kansan): Damnant quod non intelli-gent.
Loyd Jackson Easton senior
Map flips Americas and ideas
Much of how we view the world is shaped by our geographical perception of where things are in relation to each other.
"Ever since maps were first drawn, certain countries have been located at the top, others below," an explanatory note on the map says.
This point was made by a friend of mine who brought into the newsroom a map titled "The Turnabout Map." The map is geographically correct, but South America is placed on the top and North America on the bottom.
'Since 'on top,' over, and 'above are equated with superiority, while 'down there,' beneath, and 'below
imply the reverse, these wholly arbitrary placements, over the years, have led to misconceptions and misjudgements," the note says.
It certainly was fun to look at the map. There, where one expects to see Chicago, was my hometown of La Paz, Bolivia.
On the West Coast, where one expects to see Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the eye is on Santiago, Lima, and Guayabu.
In the places where one expects to see the cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia on the East Coast, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Buenos Aires.
People's reactions to the map were mixed. Some stood, gazing at it, trying to figure out where the traditional points of reference were.
I am not trying to make any great point here or say that all maps should be printed upside down from what we are accustomed to.
Some gave it that "this is some kind of joke and I'm not going to fal for it" look.
And some studied it, appreciating the new perspective this map offered
After all, we are used to north being up and south being down, and we all like to have a certain amount of stability in our lives.
But it doesn't hurt to change our perspective once in a while.
As President Reagan put it so eloquently on his trip to South America several years ago, the country is made up of different countries.
There is a large continent to the south of the United States, at which most people never really have stopped to look or think about
This realization struck him after he toasted "the people of Bolivia" during a state dinner in Brazil. Unfortunately, to some people, if you've seen one South American country, you've seen them all.
Although that is not true, it gives a measure of the imbalance in knowl edge many U.S. people have of the rest of the Western Hemisphere.
As the makers of the map say, the Turnabout Map 'serves to correct the imbalance. It focuses attention in new directions toward areas of exploding populations, energies, and potentialities. It is geographically correct... Only the perspective has been changed."