University Daily Kansan, February 13, 1985
Page 4
OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas, USPK 650-640 is published at the University of Kansas, Kansas Staffer Flint Hall. Lawken, Kan 6005, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods Second class payment帖告Lawken, Kan 6004 Subscriptions by mail are for $15 six months or $12 a month. Counts may be paid in advance. Payment帖告 pass through the student activity see POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall. Lawken, Kan 6005
MATT DEGALAN
Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
DUNCAN CALHOUN MARY BERNICA
Retail Sales National Sales
Manager Manager
SUSANNE SHAW General Manager and News Adviser
DAVID NIXON Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Folding under federal pressure
For years, Kansas lawmakers have considered raising the legal drinking age, but after weighing the arguments of moralists, minors, tavern owners, beer lobbyists and others concerned, they have always resisted.
This year they have a little more incentive, albeit negative, to make it a crime for people under 21 to drink alcoholic beverages. President Reagan, the self-appointed champion of states' rights, last year signed a proposal into law that would allow the Department of Transportation to withhold some federal highway money from states that fail to raise their legal drinking ages to 21 by Oct. 1, 1986.
Despite the federal pressure, Kansas legislators should follow the example of their colleagues to the west. The Colorado Legislature killed a proposal last month to raise its state's legal drinking age for 3.2 percent beer to 21.
At issue here is whether all people between the ages of 18 and 21 will be forced to take the rap not only for the irresponsible actions of a few in their age group but for society's complicated problem of drunken driving.
There are already laws prohibiting people from drinking and driving. Properly enforced, those laws should remedy the problem as well as any law remedies any problem. Besides, why does anyone think that people who are willing to break laws that prohibit drinking and driving will abide by one that prohibits them from drinking at all?
Whether drinking is considered a right or a privilege, it is a practice that carries a measure of responsibility. Most 18- to 21-year-olds don't drink and drive and should be rewarded for their responsible behavior, not punished with unnecessary restrictions.
It may be a tired, old horse that trots out every time the drinking-age issue comes up, but that doesn't make it less true: People between the ages of 18 and 21, recognized as adults when it comes to military service, marriage, contracts and criminal statutes, should not be treated as children when it's time for a little refreshment.
SUA's way to play
There is nothing to do on this campus — absolutely nothing to do.
Come Friday evening, that phrase is as common as cold weather.
Oh, but we would beg to differ with those who utter the phrase. There are many things to do at the University of Kansas. Maybe they are just so close that it is hard to distinguish them. Maybe it would help if we pointed some out.
Take, for instance, movies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday — and almost every night for that matter. Movies are always a good option, especially when they don't cost much and they aren't far away?
Or what about strolling through an art exhibit? The Union Gallery often shows off local talent as well as traveling displays.
Maybe not that either. How about joining a club? No matter how odd your friends tell you your hobbies are, you can find a club to join. Bridge club, chess club, backgammon club — you name it, and they probably have a club for it.
And if that doesn't interest you, what about attending a forum or entering a photo contest or planning your spring break trip?
The point is that there are many ways to kill time on campus. Another point that should be made is that all of these activities are sponsored by the same organization — Student Union Activities.
According to Bryan Raleigh, president, SUA has eight student committees with more than 150 students serving on them.
Besides being almost solely student run, the organization is also almost solely self-sufficient. Last year, it had a budget of about $400,000 for all of its games, trips, forums and movies. Out of that, the Kansas Union contributed $45,000.
It is one of those organizations that is of the students, for the students and by the students, if they would just utilize it, Raleigh said. Right now, the movies are by far the most popular activity. But SUA keeps offering new activities, hooning that they will catch on.
He's right. The activities are there - people should give them a try.
And it beats staying home,waiting for the spring thaw.
The University Daily Kansan invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 625 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. Columns can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject columns.
GUEST COLUMNS
A couple of university economists have predicted that the occupational skills most in demand when graduating from college will spring up at theantinorial level.
The practicality in Vacuuming 405
Computer programming and other high-tech jobs aren't even a distant second, they say. behind janitors office clerks and sales personnel.
I can't predict how accurate this forecast, published in Omni magazine, might be, but I assume our educational institutions already are adjusting their curricula accordingly.
Here are a few courses that might be added to the college catalogs that will be coming out this year:
Sweeping 203 — A class in sophomoric floor cleaning for which freshman sweeping or two years of high school sweeping are prereq
follow at least one semester of sweeping. If mopping is completed before sweeping, there could be a lot of unnecessary dust balls.
Moning 314 - Recommended to
Dusting 404 - Available only to seniors who have completed courses
in sweeping and mopping and need the credits to graduate. Includes instruction in distinguishing between oily rags and feather dusters.
DICK WEST United Press International
Vacuuming 405 — For advanced students only. Students will study proper uses of electric vacuum and other power cleaning appliances.
Bathroom Scrubbing 117 — A complete course in the rudiments of bathroom cleaning, including on-
the job training in gymnasium rest rooms after basketball games. Beginners will be taught the best way to play stalls, wash basins and toilet bowls.
Money-Changing 313 — Required of all accounting majors and recommended for anyone intending to make a career at the cash register. Course includes practice on new digital cash registers, plus instruction in the operation of credit card machines.
Lost-and-Found 210 — Not required, but highly recommended as an elective for students who plan to take graduate jobs in department stores.
Paperwork 310 — Everything you always needed to know to handle a desk job, including secretarial tutelage and balancing and balancing on the boss's knee.
Filing 215 - Although each
individual company has its own filing system, this course will familiarize students with various types of file cabinets and drawers. It will also acquaint them with alphabetical folders.
Resumes 419 — In lieu of midterm exams, students may will an actual resume for presentation to the employment office of a recognized janitorial, secretarial or clerical service.
Exchanges 309 — Recommended for students who have completed Lost-and-Found 210 and must mastress a post-holiday gift exhIck
Trash-Bagging 711 — For postgraduate students desiring a refresher course in disposing of trash in plastic bags. This course would be particularly valuable to alumni employed in cleanup crews at large outdoor municipal stadiums.
Civil rights for all,including unborn
What would you think if I freely used the term "migger," or more accurately, the phonetically Southern word "miga."
Would you consider me unenlightened if I said that everybody who could afford a "nigga" should own one? We want to give individual if I treated "niggers" with respect to their economic value?
or course, every sensitive,
self-repecting citizen of this
country would shout me down if
rights that any man or woman is bound to respect. They, like the blacks of old, have been branded
advocated blacks as non-persons who possessed no legal rights as humans. I would, or should, be stoned if I advocated that a black's worth was based on how much cotton he could pick.
But that viewpoint would have, at least in part, encapsulated how white folk in the mid-1880s felt about some of their fellow humans. It would have encapsulated the view of "Christian folk" during the pre-Civil War period, who at best sat in quiet acquiescence while negroes were bought and sold and dragged back across state lines.
Isn't it wonderful that today we bank in the beautiful stream of self-enlightenment? We applaud ourselves for being so aware and grateful to the rights of humans, not it tremendous love in such a sensitive world?
So why are we murdering our unborn?
You tell me how far we have progressed from 1857 Dredd Scott and his team to Justice Taney wrote that a black had "no rights which the white
You tell me how far we have progressed from 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford case, when Chief Justice Taney wrote that a black had 'no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'
Now, we say the unborn have no rights which any man or woman is bound to respect. They, like the blacks of old, have been branded as sub-human . . .
We claim to live in an age of fairness, an age when the grossest inequalities are over. But the shadow of a man named Hitler still lies over an older generation, a branded Jew whose identity was when Jews were branded as sub-human and sent to gas chambers.
citizens because they were 1) blacks and 2) slaves.
Now, we say the unborn have no
We who are enlightened say that such a holocaust could never happen again, and yet we turn another deaf ear to the approximately 17 million babies who have been aborted since 1973.
as sub-human because they are 1) unborn and 2) dependent on their mothers.
I believe in a strange, outdated, dead and forgotten God who some say appeared on the earth in human form. Some say He rose from the dead. And I believe that His Father said, "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter If you say, but We never think that God who weighs the heart perceive it? Does it he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?" (Proverbs 24-11-12)
I can't see 'enlightenment' in this society when we will fineseome $5,000 and give them a jail sentence for killing an unborn eagle, and yet pay a physician to do the same thing to a human.
In an earlier time of this country's history, an entire nation was torn apart by the question of who should be and what rights they possessed.
I won't be still. I won't sit in quiet acquiescence while we murmur our unborn. I won't allow arms to move. We've moved with cold steel instruments.
I will scream in this darkness that many call enlightenment. I will call it murder until it stops. I won't be still.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Tim Erickson, Chanute junior, is a student in the School of Journalism.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
Victor Goodpasture will be delighted to know that someone shares his feelings of patriotism. This patriot, however, takes exception to his letter, which appeared in the Feb. University Daily. The student who wrote by Goodpasture, obviously an avid follower of Ronald Reagan, is predictably, misleading.
He takes exception to the "negative connotation" of the term "Star Wars," supposedly "dubbed by the liberal press." Admittedly, "Star Wars" is a somewhat sensationistic alismic expression. Perhaps a more accurate one would be "Orbit Wars." Because, as we must realize, the growing number of satellites being placed in the earth's orbit, for "defense" purposes, simply creates another potential battleground. "Star" may be a misanmer, but "Wars" most certainly is not.
Few would dispute Goodpasture's statement that the Soviet Union has committed "innumerable atrocities." He mentions the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as Soviet involvement in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, which is an unnerving allegation.
However, he doesn't mention numerous CIA assassination plots, including a series of bungled attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, president of Cuba. He also neglects to mention continued U.S. military and financial support of many fascist regimes Both Guatemala and Chile, for example, have records of corruption, oppression and brutality matched by few Communist-bloc countries. These "pro-Western" nations use U.S. arms to terrorize their own citizens.
Robert J. Neyer Jr
Lenexa freshman
And there lies the hypocrisy of Victor Goodpasture. For he condemns the Soviets for their actions, yet seemingly condones the United States for similar actions.
A word of advice: You may have to go a little deeper than the evening news or Time magazine, but the truth is there for those who care.
Institute of Peace
To the editor:
The proposal for a national peace academy was the target of Bryan Daniel's attack in his column of Feb. 6. In his first sentence he says it hasn't been in the news recently. Before writing his column, he had consulted the New York Times Index and read the articles it cites, he would have discovered that the Institute of Peace was authorized by law last October when President Reagan signed the defense bill, and that Congress appropriated an initial $4 million for the institute, not the $20 million to $30 million stated by Daniel.
In coming weeks, he will read that President Reagan has appointed its board of directors, which the law requires him to do by April 20.
Although Daniel does not object to research about conflict resolution, he doesn't want it supported by the federal government and concedes that such research should be left to the opinion that controversial research should be left to the private sector.
Daniel misunderstands the nature of research. Since its purpose is to extend the frontiers of knowledge, it inevitably provokes controversy by challenging existing ideas and practices, and by comparing rival theories. The United States has long established a strong support in the public as well as private sectors, on problems of importance for the general welfare.
I would be surprised to learn that Danielexplores the proposed expenditure of millions of federal dollars on research for Reagan's contro-
versal “Star Wars” strategic defense strategy. Does Daniel regret the millions spent by our government to advance the frontiers of knowledge on the causes and treatment of cancer? Does he advocate cessation at KU because, as a state university, it is in the public sector. Not likely.
I fully agree with one thing Daniel says, and that is his frank admission that "my opposition has a purely political component." The rest is rationalization. This alone accounts for his criticism of a publicly funded agency for research and education on peace and conflict resolution.
E. Jackson Baur
search and seizure — all as other citizens enjoy it — taken from them; and now their right to freedom of thought and free dissemination of ideas is being threatened — in schools of all places!
E. Jackson Bath professor emeritus of sociology
Narrower schools
To the editor:
To the editor:
Rather than to create a society of ill-informed and narrow-minded citizens, I always have seen schools as institutions whose purpose is to educate and broaden perspectives — perhaps with the result of creating a more humane and understanding population.
The recent article (Feb. 6) about restricting curricula in schools points to a dangerous problem. Not only will students be kept ill-informed on many issues and concerns most likely to affect their lives, but they will be cheated of opportunities and other important concepts — such as "organic evolution," which was listed among the topics threatened by censorship.
I find it disturbing that, first, students had their protection from
Students have a right to access to diverse philosophies and the right to understand them. They have the right to learn about various "values and moral standards" different than their accustomed ones, and the right to learn how to analyze and evaluate these views for themselves.
I also find disturbing the question of where such thinking will spread.
Joe Schott
Council Bluffs, Iowa, senior
I was happy to see your concern involving the plight of those poor Gertrude Sellards Pearson girls. The fact that cold showers have kept these academic wizards from attending classes is a problem of paramount proportions.
Shower problems
I do feel, however, as a responsible newspaper, the Kansan might also mention the problems concerning other KU students. Those less fortunate whose problems involve bankrolling the Kansan would have to suffer magnitude than the GSP crisis but nevertheless important. Problems like rising tuition or the poor living conditions perpetuated by Lawrence slum lords.
I wonder how many GDIs who reside on Ohio, Tennessee or Ken-
wes start every day with a cold shower and never miss Class
regardless.
My advice to all those poor red-cHECKed GSP girls is to have daddy pay for you to live somewhere more conducive to your lifestyle. Let's fill GSP with students more interested in education and less concerned about the temperature of their daily shower.
Dallas Petersen Shawnee Mission