University Daily Kansan, February 8, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas (USPK 65-6440) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall Lawn, Kansas 6645, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday. Sunday, holidays and periods second class postage law at Lawrence KS 6644. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $29 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student postage law at Lawrence KS 6644. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $29 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. The University Daily Kansas (USPK 65-6440) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall Lawn, Kansas 6645, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday. Sunday, holidays and periods second class postage law at Lawrence KS 6644. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $29 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county.
MATT DEGALAN Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
DUNCAN CALHOUN MARY BERNICA
Retail Sales National Sales
Manager Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
DAVID NIXON Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE DAY
FEB.8,1985
To an anxious friend
You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people — and, alas, their folly with it.
But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is proof of man's kinship with God.
You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger.
No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed, it is most vital to justice.
Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion — that is to say, free utterance decently and in order — your interest in justice is slight.
And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expedition. This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence.
Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whover tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood.
When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.
So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold — by voice, by posted card, by letter or by press.
Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world. William Allen White
The Emporia Gazette
July 27, 1922
Core proposal
"In the face of increased specialization in our society and in higher education, the need for strengthening this sense of community at the University of Kansas is clear . . . The University Core Curriculum seeks to prevent the further unraveling of undergraduate education and at the same time to recognize individual differences and indeed to celebrate diversity."
It took three years to get it this far, and it probably will take another three years to get it enacted. But a uniform core curriculum, such as the one recommended by the University Core Curriculum Committee in its report issued last week, is a good idea.
The proposed curriculum would require students in all schools to take one hour of a University tutorial, nine hours of English, three hours of math, 12 hours of a second communication system such as a foreign language, 18 hours of foundation classes such as humanities and social sciences and a three-hour senior seminar. This would be in addition to individual school requirements.
Core curriculum, the committee members said, would introduce students to a variety of subjects, some that their disciplines might never touch on. And that, in turn, would give them grounds for further study.
But even Deanell Tacha, vice chancellor for academic affairs and chairman of the University Core Curriculum Committee, admitted that one perfect core curriculum does not exist many do. There are just too many classes that students should take, too many things they should know before they go out to face the real world.
For this reason, the program needs to remain flexible. Many students know what they want to study, and they want to be able to take certain classes at the University of Kansas. Committee members say that education is too specialized, but there was a reason behind all of the specialization. The world is becoming more complex.
Having students study the fine arts and humanities is fine. And it is true that many might never enroll for an art history class if they were not required to. For students with very concentrated majors, such as architecture or pre-med, a core curriculum might be a relief. But students should not have to lengthen their stays in traditionally four-year programs just to gain exposure to theatre and Aristotle.
A core curriculum is a good idea — this one just needs to get the wrinkles ironed out.
Defense budget remains exempt
A few months after President Reagan took office, the Washington Post reported that a five-year projection placed total military spending in that period at $1 trillion. Leaks of that projection were on target, but they caused an uprower in the Pentagon. A massive search ensured for the official who had revealed what President Reagan's military buildup would cost the American taxaver.
And he says that the billions more sought in military spending will be used as a bargaining chip to force the Kreskin negotiate an army reduc-
Lie detector tests were instituted, and there was a strict clamp down on reporters seeking such information.
Reagan, who now wants about a 13 percent increase in military spending next year, says cuts would be very risky. He charges that the Soviets have conducted the biggest military buildup in history.
Both Reagan and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger are refusing
to budge on the Pentagon budget, putting any proposals to cut in terms of a threat to national security. Congressional leaders are responding by calling Weinberger a "draft dodger" when it comes to doing his
Farmers, small-business men and women, and students deprived of college loans under the new strict rules will be left out in the cold if Congress decides to go along with the president.
United Press International
But the hardship cases, particularly the farmers, already are being defended. There will be screams when Reagan presents his new farm program, taking a jaundiced view of government subsidies.
HELEN THOMAS
lawmakers. Reagan threw down the gauntlet against opponents of his big military increase.
"The defense of our nation is the one budget item that cannot be dictated solely by domestic considerations," Reagan said. "Despite severe constraints on our budget, we have a very strong military buildup of the Soviet Union
In an East Room speech to
- the largest military buildup in world history."
The president has put his demands in near apocalyptic terms for the future.
Reagan continues to disdain economic experts, who he said had made wrong forecasts as long as he had been in office.
He told reporters that he thought
his budget blueprint with a $144 billion deficit would surpass economic projections and would start the country on the road to setting the date for a balanced budget in the future.
"The outcome," he said, "is that we will establish that we have government spending on a downward path that is going to lead out here to where we can set a date for actual balancing of the budget."
Reagan has warned Congress that he will take his case to the American people if the legislators do not go along with his heavy cuts in domestic spending and spiraling spending for the Pentagon.
The challenge is there. He is a popular president and often successful in staging a blitz to put across his views. But this time around, the American people will have the figures before them and they can decide whether he has put the nation on the right course or not.
Map ignorance brings state of misery
At the beginning of each semester, students in several courses take quizzes on the basic geography of the United States. And of those students an amazing oblivion to national makeup.
Now, this is basic. Not geography trivia, like which two states border the most other states (Missouri and Tennessee, eight each). And not world geography, a subject in itself.
One Kansas hometown was marked on the map about 150 miles from its true position.
And a lot of U.S.-born and-bred students can't do it, and some cann't even get close. Being confused on a few names is under stress, but being clueless is not, unless a student has a genuine learning disability.
In quizzes taken this semester,
several students from Kansas
could not even identify the states
that were in Colorado andaska
was in Colorado, and on so.
Accuracy worsened for states farther away, when the student entered any name at all — several
This is basic. Take an outline map of the United States and write the name of each state inside its boundaries.
entered as few as six names. the name Michigan might go in Utah. the name Mexico might go in Texas. And so on.
By the way, Mexico is not a state. It is another country. And there is no state or country called Old Mexico.
I try to make allowances. I confess I'm a map freak. Maybe
DAN
HOWELL
Assistant
Editorial Editor
some people simply lack aptitude for handling a blank man.
I remind myself that, as Will Rogers said, "Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects."
I speculate on the effect of the electronics age in which only one's immediate experience seems to matter. Or on the way air travel people from place to place without revealing their relative positions.
But, in the end, I just can't believe that U.S. citizens can graduate from high school so
Basic national geography belongs in the same category of learning as the addition and multiplication tables — which, I suppose, some students also cannot complete.
William Johnson, associate professor of geography, said recently that this semester's first attempts at map completion in his course to Physical Geography courses looked better than usual.
Knowing places enriches one's knowledge of people, events and culture. Movies and magazines have an added dimension.
ignorant, and lacking in curiosity about their own country.
National news and issues make immensely more sense when joined to a knowledge of places And so do sports - especially rivalries - which also make a pleasant way to learn.
But many of the errors I have mentioned came from those unsigned first quizzes. What were last semester's quizzes like?
Johnson said U.S. students often aren't ready to learn climate and topography because they don't know where the states are.
"People don't have good mental maps. They don't see distances well or estimate travel times well."
A friend who grew up in Abilene told me once that an Abilene couple started on a trip to Dallas by driving on Interstate 70 west to Salina. There they intended to turn south onto Interstate 35. Dallas is in Texas, which is south of Kansas. Near Mexico, as a matter of fact.
people who do best are Europeans and East Asians.
"It is miserable." he said. "The
However, the couple missed the interchange and continued west. My friend insisted that they realized their error only when they saw signs about the next delivery—many exits being Denver.
We live in a nation and world of relationships. We say that understanding each other helps. I've often found that knowing classmates' geographical backgrounds helps me appreciate them.
Students often hear advice that if they don't know words, they should use a dictionary. Let me, with Johnson's affirmation, add a corollary: If you don't know a place, use an atlas.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Snow surprises?
To the editor.
Surprise! It's snowing again. Well,
at least it shouldn't be a surprise. If
snow removal in Lawrence is any
gauge of winter weather, then snow
is a surprise.
Snow removal is of course expensive but necessary. Some side streets in Lawrence never experience the scrape of the snowfall. The effect of this is obvious: snowpacked and i roads, making driving both hazardous and a headache. (Not to mention damage to streets from subsequent melting and freezing.) It would seem that snow removal forces could be
much better prepared for these timely winter "surprises."
Wilton, Conn., senior
Test at poor time
To the editor:
The KU-KState basketball game is frequently regarded as the sports event of the year. Students spend their cold, hard cash for the coveted single ticket or season ticket. They look forward to it. However, for some fans, their efforts will be wasted. Unfortunately, the Computer Science
200 midterm has been scheduled during the game.
Frequently, students must give up some extracurricular activities for
I realize that it is almost impossible to schedule all events with no time conflicts, especially in a university the size of KU. Lackily, there is a simple solution to the problem. The test, now scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m., could be moved to 6 to 8 p.m. This change will enable the students and faculty to see most of the game. The slight time change would not affect the efficiency or fairness of the test. Only a short announcement during class is needed to inform the students.
academics. However, a sacrifice is not necessary in this case, since a simple time change can solve the problem. Considering the time planning and money put into this KU tradition, an hour's difference in the test time is worth the effort many times over.
Academics and athletics are both important aspects of college life. They can coexist. My suggestion can make a balance possible. I encourage all the students currently enrolled in CS 200 to discuss this with their instructor-course coordinator as soon as possible.
Kathy Donaldson
Topeka sophomore