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Friday, January 15, 1992
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
GOP seeks to return to political mainstream
Last month, with the election of Bill Clinton as president, the Republican Party experienced its first real taste of failure in 12 years. The party had firm control over the executive branch for three terms and seemingly had a stable view of what it stood for.
The November election seemed to have changed that. The party is divided more than any other time in recent history. The moderate wing of the party blames the radical right wing for the defeat in November, citing Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan's call for a religious and cultural war to preserve the soul of the country. Many would agree that the harsh, intolerant rhetoric of Houston drove away many women and swing voters from the party.
In an effort to assure voters that control of the party has not swung to the radical right, Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector formed the Republican Moderate Coalition. This group's main purpose is to convince the public that the Republican party is not the party of intolerance and exclusion. They feel that the majority of people in the country are fiscally conservative but have a social conscience and feel that is what this party should reflect.
The Republican Party seems to have the same problem that the Democratic Party had in 1972, when George McGovern and the ultra-liberal faction took control of the party. They deferred to a minority of their party where views were somewhat out of the mainstream. It took the Democratic Party two decades to repair the damage done by internal fighting and find a coherent, centrist message. For many in the Republican Party, 20 years is much too long to wait.
JEFF HAYS FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Fans should be better behaved
Fritz Edmunds
The excitement of Jayhawks' basketball games in Allen Field House is tough to surpass! Fan participation, especially that of the students, adots to the excitement. Unfortunately, each year some freshmen need be to teach that the University of Kansas is not the place for classless actions. Cussing and swearing at officials and visiting teams needs to be discouraged in those students who are away from their mommies for the first time. Early in the season these students, still of high school ilk, confuse vulgar language with enthusiasm. True fans need to quash in others even a hint of the "Ass-hole" chant throwing opposing teams free throws! And confused spectators screaming four-letter words at players or referees should be reminded ... "Hey, this is KU"
Fritz Edmunds
Overland Park law student
Self-teaching too accessible at KU
When a university's purpose is to prepare young minds for full participation in our ever-changing, modern society, the university must change with that society. Therefore, I don't expect the University of Kansas of today to be the same University of Kansas that I graduated from in 1987. As times have changed, the University has strived to maintain that same cutting-edge quality education that I experienced as a KU undergraduate. Despite such accolades, I think it's time for the educational
priorities of this institution to be re-examined. As I opened the December 10 edition of the University Daily Kansan, I noticed an 1/8 page advertisement for 75 independent Study courses, which are also called Continuing Education correspondence courses, being offered at KU in the spring semester. When students take "self-taught" courses, they are simply taking correspondence courses *in person* as opposed to doing so through the mail. Did KU get its reputation as the "Berkeley of the Midwest" by being a correspondence school? It will be able to maintain such educational standards to being a correspondence school? It's understandable that remedial courses like MATH 002 are self-taught, but graduate-level HPYC courses, but grade-level PSYC courses? I think it's great that continuing education courses are available for those who wish to continue their higher-education careers, but continuing education courses weren't intended for the purpose of *starting* one's college career. Teaching fundamentals through a correspondence program is a surrogate education; a facsimile of the real thing. Which do the taxpayers of Kansas need more from their state institutions: impressive research awards or solid undergraduate programs? When KU freshmen who live on the Lawrence campus have class schedules full of correspondence courses, I think KU has put the cart before the horse. KU needs to be less of a research facility and more of a school.
Paul Hahn Lawrence
KANSAN STAFF
GREG FARMER
Editor
Editor
STEVE PERRY
GAYLE OSTERBERG
Merging editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
MELISSA TERLIP
Retail sales manager
Aest Managing ... Justin Knell
News ... Monique Guilain
... David Mitchell
Editorial ... Stephen Martino
Campus ... KC Trauer
Sports ... David Mitchell
Movies ... Monique Guilain
Features ... Lynne McAdoo
Graphics ... Dan Schauer
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Campus sales mgrs   Brad Brason
Regional sales mgrs   Wade Baxter
National sales mgrs   Jennifer Porter
Co-op sales mgrs   Haily Hessel
Production mgrs   Amy Stumbu
Marketing director   Ashley Langen
Angela Inglis
Creative director   Holly Perry
Classified mgr   IJ Torney
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THE BAGHDAD NIGHTLY NEWS
Spring semester offers chance to turn over a new loose-leaf
I love new notebooks. I prefer the spiral kind with pocket folder dividers, but any new notebook has the same effect on me.
At the beginning of each semester, all those clean, white, lined pages beckon to me almost hypnotically, waiting for words to be written on them. They represent good intentions, a "new start," a "clean slate."
STAFF COLUMNIST
There is promise in new notebooks:
this time they will be filled with
nuggets of knowledge in orderly,
well-crafted penmanship. They will
be resource gold mines, valuable
works of art.
However, I suspect that by the end of the semester these once crisp, even-edged notebooks will be thin, floppy replicas of their previous forms, covers only partially held by curling wire, pocket inserts bursting with handouts and frayed syllabi.
The pages will be scribbled with a bizarre assortment of unrelated writings; lecture notes; doodles; requirements; directions to a friend's house.
"Maybe this time..."
Semester notebooks are diaries of a kind. They chart our progress through courses, acquaintances, events, seasons. Mine always begin with hope. There are no mistakes yet, because we want to really ace the schedule this time.
And as they reflect what we have listened to (learned?), they are also records of personal growth and change: This is where I was at the start of the course; this is where I am when it is completed.
Still, the eternal optimist in me says
Psyches go through changes, too,
during a semester. Some become
more content, eager to expand still
further; others become as ragged as the notebooks. Wouldn't it be great to finish a semester all neat and organized and just full of insightful wisdom that is clearly, indelibly inscribed on our minds?
Chances are that neither the notebooks nor I will come out that way. A lot of the words will be forgotten, erased from memory as soon as the test is over. Not because I consider the text to be important; my mental file cabinets are full and I know I can look up some things when/if need them later.
But in the crunch time of mid-terms and finals, trying to reconstruct it all into a comprehensible whole, I sometimes wonder why I'm doing this. I don't think I'll ever get stress in my life. Why not just chuck it all? My notebooks are a mess.
Then, suddenly, it's over. I'm
on the grade, or dismayed, depending on
the grade.
And I go buy new notebooks for the next round, another new beginning.
This space in the Kansan is another new beginning. It won't always contain such cheerleader enthusiasm.
Day-to-day isn't like that. There are important and often divisive issues on which to comment. But as with all new endeavors, this column begins with hope — of learning, growing, being able to contribute something worthwhile.
I'll guess that everyone probably harbors some amount of optimism or at least positive resolve at the beginning of each semester. Whether it's to stay up-to-date and just simply "get through it," only the degree and immediate goals differ.
Whatever the hoped for outcome, today we' all on even footing
As of now, I have two, fat new notebooks. My first class notes are neat, readable, sensible, complete. There is no pressure; organization is all. Resolve: keep up with the reading, make advance outlines for papers, forget what I did to my GPA last semester (and the one before that).
The pages wait. Clean slate
let's go for it.
Cecile Julian is a Leawood senior majoring in journalism.
Confusion: The 'prix' of sophistication
While browsing through a restaurant directory, I suggested to the blonde that we might try a place that was newly listed.
She asked if it was expensive and I said that it had a "prix fixe" dinner.
"A what? she said. I repeated "Prix fixe."
I repeated, "Prix fixe."
"How is it spelled?"
I spelled it aloud and again said:
"Prix fxe."
STAFF COLUMNIST
"You're not pronouncing it correctly." "She said.
Why not? I'm pronouncing it exactly the way it is spelled.
"No, no. If you say it that way, it sounds, well, it sounds obscene."
I said it again: "Prix fixe," the way it is spelled. And she may be right. It did sound like it might be a phrase describing some sort of male surgical procedure.
Then why isn't it spelled pree feeks?
"Because it is French. And in French, pree feeks is spelled 'prix fixe.'"
"The proper pronunciation," the blonde said, flaunting her refined upbringing, "is pree feeks."
How stupid of me. I had almost forgotten that the first rule of the French language is that almost nothing is pronounced the way it’s spelled. When the French invented their language, they rigged it that way just to make the rest of us feel inferior. They also thought that if they had a language that was almost impossible to learn, the Germans might not invade them.
"Pree feels," the blonde said. "It simply means fixed price."
Talready knew that much. The question is, why do newspaper and magazine restaurant listings in the United States, where most of us speak one form of English of another, insist on
using “prix fixe,” which is pronounced “free feeks,” and means “fixed price,” instead of “fixed price,” and is pronounced “fixed price.”
My guess is that the vast majority of Americans do not know how to pronounce "prix fixe." And a great many don't even know what it means.
My newspaper, I'm sorry to say, is no exception. We have "pix fixes" scattered all through our restaurant listings. I asked a few copy editors, and they said such matters, why we don't just say "fixed price". They weren't sure.
One of them said he thought we did it when reviewing French restaurauns here is my brother Lester Preis and my uncle Chester Preis."
If so, we're being inconsistent. We may even be discriminating.
For example, when we list a German restaurant, we don't say "fester preis," which is German for fixed price.
Fester preis. It has a pleasant, homelyry. It sounds like the name of somebody who lives deep in the Ozarks. "Howdy, I'm Fester Preis and
I was going to include the Greek version of "fixed price," but Sam Siamis, who owns Billy Goat's Tavern, said: "Fexe price? You crazy? In Greek joints, we no got fexe price. We charge what we can get."
Another copy editor told me that "prix fixe" is used so widely that it had become the accepted, common meaning for "fixed price."
That didn't make sense to me, either. I've never picked up the financial pages and read a story that said:
"Three steel companies have been accused by the antitrust division of the Justice department of prix fixing, which assures says, to drive up the prix of steel."
Years ago, when Chicago was strictly a meat-and-potatoes town, we didn't have such linguistic problems. I suppose that as we became more sophisticated, this was the price we paid.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
Mystery
by David Rosenfield