OPINION
University Daily Kansan, March 21, 1985
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University, Daily Kansan, UBSF 60-840) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Fint Hall. Lawen, KanZN 6045, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods Second class postage paid at Lawen, KanZN 6044. Subscriptions by mail are for $15 six months or longer.
MATT DEGALAN
Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
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Another disgrace
If a leader is to be judged by the people he picks to carry out his policies, history will judge Ronald Reagan harshly.
The list of Reagan's original top aides reads like a rogues' gallery. Consider just a few who have come and gone, leaving a trail of controversy and ineptness behind.
- Alexander Haig, former secretary of state, who ignored the constitution and smugly proclaimed that he was "in charge" when Reagan was shot in 1981.
- James Watt, former secretary of the interior, who leased federal land to oil and coal interests at the expense of the environment and eventually was driven from office in the wake of his infamous "a black, a Jew, a woman and a cripple" joke.
- Ed Meese, originally one of Reagan's top four advisers and now the attorney general, who accepted loans from people he later appointed to government positions and whose financial dealings, while just inside the law, have been far outside the ethical standards expected of the nation's top law enforcement official.
This list is a short one; there have been others, and everyone has their favorite. Labor Secretary Ray Donovan, however, tops the list of the disgraced. Last week Donovan resigned after a New York state judge refused to dismiss an indictment charging Donovan with defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4 million.
Donovan was wise to resign last week, but the decision should have come sooner. Labor relations have been rocky under the Reagan administration and much of the blame must be laid at Donovan's feet.
With the appointment of William Brock, Reagan has made a step in the right direction. While not an ideal labor secretary, the former senator and GOP national chairman marks a great improvement over Donovan, who lacked experience as well as ethical standards. Considering Reagan's track record on Cabinet appointments, Brock is as good of a choice as one could expect.
For the world
Just when it looked as if yuppies were going to overrun the country and "looking out for No. 1" was going to become a national pastime again, someone had to blow it by doing something thoughtful — kind, even.
And amazingly, the gesture came from the people who needed to care least. They already have avid fans and are loved around the world.
United Support of Artists for Africa, or USA for Africa, released its song "We Are the World" last week. It was co-written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones and sung by about 50 of the top recording artists in the United States.
Behind the whole idea was a musician named Bob Geldof, who was the force behind for Band Aid, a conglomeration of English musicians who produced an album in December to help Ethiopians.
The music is incredible. Never before, and probably never again, will Cyn迪 Lauper and Huey Lewis sing a duet. And it isn't every day that you hear Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen singing opposite each other.
Sure, they are milking everything possible out of this they have made T-shirts, sweatshirts, posters, a picture book. a video, the single and an album.
But from all this, the organizers expect to send as much as $250 million for people in Africa. And even better, some of the money is staying here, to help the hungry in the United States.
The single costs only $1.98 and is well-worth buying. Consider it an investment in someone else's life.
In a news release issued as the talks started, Dole and Byrd tried
But would they have gone to Jakarta?
Members of Congress are mostly a tough-skinned group, but one thing almost guaranteed to rattle some cages is criticism about junkets — those trips abroad so nobly labeled fact-finding missions.
Witness the recent behavior of the Senate's two Bobs, Republican leader Robert Dole and head Democrat Byrd.
Saying it was the Senate's duty to see the initial session of the U.S.-Soviet arms talks first hand to properly fulfill its obligation to ratify treaties, the two Bobs led a group of 10 senators to Switzerland. Negotiators from both sides did little more than introduce themselves.
What was most interesting was that the two Bobs seemed to spend little time observing and much explaining why they were observers.
to justify their presence in Geneva, Switzerland.
They quoted Secretary of State George Shultz welcoming their move. They reminded the public of the Senate's constitutional role to advise and consent. And they issued a joint statement describing
JOSEPH MIANOWANY
themselves as officially designated observers on the U.S. delegation.
On their return, there was more of the same. But this time, the observers declared victory.
Dole said, "The Senate has an important constitutionally based role in the process of achieving any arms control agreement."
He also said that the bipartisan effort had strengthened the hand of the negotiators in their meetings with the Soviet delegates.
In speeches on the Senate floor the following day, the two Bobs continued. The observers, the majority leader said, "were not negotiators but had a substantive role to play, to serve as the eyes and ears of the Senate in Geneva."
Thank heaven. Without 10 pairs of Senate eyes watching, the remaining 90 members might not know what a handshake between U.S. and Soviet negotiators looked like.
The trip was apparently such a success that the Senate leadership has decided, at least for now, to go through with plans to send members over to Geneva every once in a while to keep their eyes and ears focused on the talks.
But more than a few people wondered if such a quasi-permanent Senate base would be established if the talks were being held in, say, steamy Jakarta, Indonesia, rather than picturesque Geneva.
And it wasn't just the normally surly media that was complaining.
No, at least one senator who remained in Washington to deal with more mundane subjects like the deadlocked Senate Budget Committee struggling with whether to recommend a tax increase, said he saw some problems with the trip.
"Dole's gone over there for a photo opportunity," declared Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C.
Maybe the two Bobs explained too much.
Maybe they should have followed the lead of the House, which had planned to send an even larger delegation to Geneva, then announced it would send no one and finally wound up sending a more modest contingent.
That group, knowing it doesn't even have the excuse that it ratifies treaties, neither sought nor received much attention.
Don't write off an ancient art
Underneath my bed back home,
there is a box full of old letters.
They just shut up and enjoyed.
Some of those cards and scribblings, yellowed and a bit dog-eared, have been there for years, and I don't reread them often. But they are treasures of time and I won't discard them.
A note from a friend sharing the news of her pregnancy. Mom's admonishings to sleep more and worry about school a little less, and a humorous P.S. jotted atop a cartoon torn out of a New Yorker magazine, instantly recall thoughts and feelings of a person and a time somewhere in my past.
The contents of my letter box may not reflect great literary accomplishments, valuable historical information or even humor that others would find funny. But those stacks of envelopes, some pretty and fine quality, others recycled and worn, hold priceless treasures.
For letter-writing, one of the most personal art forms in existence, is a dying art.
of living, trade off the time that it takes to write a letter for the expense of a telephone call.
Most of us, caught up in the frenzy
It's easier to have a conversation over the phone than to face an empty sheet of paper where we pour out thoughts to someone miles away.
Perhaps some of our reasoning in
MARGARET SAFRANEK Staff Columnist
opting for a phone call has to do with our desire for instant gratification.
Punch a few numbers in on the telephone and not only will we be able to put forth opinions and express what we will also get something in return.
But while the telephone has done wonders (or communication, the longest and most intimate of phone
conversations cannot take the place of a warm, caring letter.
Phone calls, even the welcome ones, generally come at a time that is convenient for the caller. Someone calls and we are elated to hear his voice on the other end of the line. But we have little control over the situation and occasionally, the caller gets less than our full attention because we are in the midst of fixing dinner or have just finished an argument with a roommate or are preoccupied with tomorrow's exam.
But a letter. Ah, a small treasure that we can slip into our pocket, waiting for just the right moment to sit down and savor the contents, taking it as slowly as we might a cup of finely brewed tea.
Or should the mood hit us then and there, we can open the contents and quickly share the news of a friend or family member, devouring it in one quick gulp.
But however we choose to quench our thirst for contact with another, with a letter, no one will intrude on our mood or schedule, to find
us in the appropriate frame of mind for their conversation.
And a letter is ours to read and reread, to tuck away and bring out again at some future date, when we want to remind ourselves of that person or even to come across it by chance, when we discover it months later, tucked into a book that has sat on the shelf awhile.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters are an ink-strewn link to our past.
While a phone call can be distinctly remembered for a particular sentence or for its interruption in the middle of the night, with time, the recollections of a phone conversation fade.
The paper may yellow and the ink fade but, however faint, the contents of a letter come back in full, despite years that have passed.
To the editor:
I had a chance last Wednesday to play lobbyist for the KU Bands at the Student Senate meeting. While watching the meeting, I was appalled at the way the parliamentary procedure produced insufficient time, tired minds and an amendment that only met the needs of three of the four groups who chose to rebut the budget as prepared by the subcommittee.
The ads do their best to convince us that "long distance is the next best thing to being there." But I'll trade a good, long letter that I can indulge in at my leisure for most telephone calls that warm my heart only temporarily.
I only hope that the reasoning behind the amendment had nothing to do with the fact that they were tired of the subject at hand. Does financing have to be strictly controversial or incur large increases in student fees? What group's problems can be looked at with any amount of seriousness?
The problem I see is an overall ambiguous attitude by a Senate concerning one of KU's finest assets and greatest traditions. Have you ever heard the alma mater played on a scratchy 45 rpm record over a loud speaker? I don't think you want to either.
The band program will not start to suffer next year because of a lack of money. The program is already experiencing cutbacks, and the amount of participation is still rising.
Rock Chalk Revue, commencement,
convocation, Vespers and numerous
concerns, which on the bottom line
costs money.
Perhaps our expenses are overlooked because of our high-quality output. The bands are constantly performing in student events such as
Jason Reynolds
Joplin, Mo., senior
student president, KU Bands
Money matters
Gene Budi and the Student Senate have done it to us again. In the name of freedom of speech, they continue to spend our money on their politics. Somehow, that was never what freedom of speech meant to me when I was looking through the Constitution.
To the editor :
I always had the idea that being forced to spend your own money to pay for some militaristic, anti-
That doesn't change the fact that by a determination of the Student Senate, my money is now intended to line his pocket.
democratic anti-Semitic to come and give a speech was a violation of your own rights to freedom of speech. To Warren D. Wilhoite, who expressed himself by saying, "If you dislike me I will not speak." And the forum, "I probably won't."
When will the administrators of this University understand that supporting the rights of controversial groups to express their opinions becomes a violation of the rights of the majority when student activity fees are used to pay for their expression?
Does Gene Budig feel that Farrakan, GLOSK, Praxis, College Young Democrats, et al., will somehow represent the majority if he insures that they all receive financing? I fear he is sadly mistaken.
Twenty years ago, when the campus was regarded more as a forum or even a war zone for the debate of political radicalism, perhaps this would have been the only way of keeping the peace.
However, in the mid-'90s, Mr. Budig, I think some of us are starting to recognize that we have a government that is designed to deal with our social ills. Admittedly, its workings are often cumbersome and delayed by its bureaucracy, yet it works
yrs more. Advances have been made in civil rights, albeit slowly, over the past twenty years. They have benefited from peaceful marches and protests, but riots, car bombings and other terrorist temper tantrums have only aggravated tensions of racism, setting them deeper, instead of helping to alleviate them.
Those who are against Farrakhan have a right not to have their activity fees used to finance his speech. Those who are for Farrakhan have a right to hear him.
Farrakhan's appearance can only be an embarrassment to the cause he professes to support, as his dogmatic militarism is entirely out of place in civil interaction.
Currently, organizations devoted to the advancement of the black cause are receiving a comparatively vast amount of the funds collected by the activity fee. Should they choose to
support Farrakhan, let them finance his trip.
David Klaasen Scandia junior
Let his finances be supplied by those organizations whose memberships choose to support him, not by a tax imposed on the student body, including members of the very minority he so ardently opposes. Anything else will be but a perversion of democracy.
Misrepresentation
To the editor:
During the course of that meeting, I and another Jewish student made speeches condemning the bigotry of
in recent weeks, the University Daily Kansan has run several stories in regard to the impending visit by the notorious Louis Farkranak. Of all these stories have been accurate, but lacking in a key detail, it is about the coverage of the March 6 Student Senate meeting. The coverage was horrible.
Farrakhan and calling for a negative vote on the Senate floor. This speech was not mentioned at all by the Kansas. What was mentioned was when a representative of the Black Student Union and myself went before the Senate to report that we had come to an understanding. The understanding was that Black-Jewish relations were at an all-time high, and the fact that we opposed Farrakhan was no reflection on the current status of Black-Jewish relations at the University of Kansas.
it was not a changing of my mind or swaying of my opinion. If the reporter present would have listened to my first speech that night, she would have realized that I was not speaking on behalf of Hilfer because my view conflicted with the official Hilfer statement.
because of the irresponsibility of the Kansan, many of my friends and colleagues are angry with me and wonder how I could do such a flap-flip. I would appreciate it if the colleague would be more responsible in the future.
Michael Geller
St. Louis junior