OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN April 19, 1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kaman (USP5 658-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer Fint Hail, Lawrence, KS 60042, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding final periods. Second class postage paid at lauwerey. Kan 60044 Subscriptions by mail are #15 for six months or #27 for seven months. Student subscriptions are #13 for six months or #27 for seventeen months. POSTMASTER: address changes to address
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
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Editorial Editor
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A $3 increase in the student athletic fee would be "painless" and would never be seen by students, says one member of the Student Sports Council.
The same type of logic could be applied to pick-pocketry, a painless and unseen craft. As you stand at the ticket window, the department painlessly slips its hand into your back pocket and removes $3.
On Monday, the council recommended raising the amount of involuntary student subsidy for athletics from $4.50 to $7.50 each semester, which could bring an additional $120,000 to the athletic department annually.
The fee now goes only to nonrevenue sports, but the council recommended placing the additional revenue into the general coffers with no strings attached.
Any increase in the fee would have to be approved by the Student Senate, Chancellor Gene A. Budig and the Board of Regents. If the Senate acts in the best interest of KU students, the plan will never reach Budig.
Council members said that the fee would keep ticket prices from rising and that it would make financial
support from students more proportional to that of other Big Eight schools.
So the athletic department needs more support from students? The requested increase in the athletic fee seems hypocritical in the wake of a recent athletic board decision to eliminate one of the student representatives on the board.
More money and less say in how it's spent seems like a helluva deal for the department, which was coincidentally the source of information that led to the sports council's decision.
Perhaps the council and the department have forgotten that although the price of a student season football ticket will not increase next season, the schedule has one less game. That represents a built-in increase in the ticket price for each game.
But the most bothersome aspect of the proposed increase is the underlying assumption that students are not doing their fair share for the department. If students want a winning team, the reasoning goes, they will have to pay for it.
If winning is in fact what students want, let's see it first — before we pay for it.
Last week, a friend and I were sitting on the porch of Hawk's Crossing, and he struck up a conversation about the protest groups now operating on campus.
Remember the summer of '80?
That's the year thermometers went over the 100 degree mark on dozens of days, and it was impossible even to go swimming without sweating.
It was Friday afternoon. It was finally sunny and mild, and the cold beer getting warm in my glass mead me to change the table
He was fed up with what he called misguided tactics by some and irresponsible behavior by others. He had heard of his frustrated complaints.
Looking back at some of those seasons is like a walk down misery lane.
No one told me Kansas weather was comfortable, or even tolerable. However, have we really deserved the weather extremes we've suffered through during the past four years?
I think not.
Is this kind of sweltering, freezing and water-logged climate indeed meant for those of us who work so hard at KU?
“It’s about time this rotten spring weather broke,” I said. “This recent bad spell is something really to be fed up with.”
GARY
SMITH
Staff Columnist
Last summer was also a steamer. However, farmers didn't lose as many crops as they did in 1980, nor did hundreds of people die. But the weather indeed was wretched.
part of last winter, and how about that snowy winter of '81-'82? Missing!
Miserable!
Although it's been pleasant the past few days, nature had the audacity once again to threaten us this year with a late spring.
Then, last year, nature pulled what has to be one of her most unpopular pranks to date. She just plain forgot about spring and we had to wait until June to lay a blanket down and catch some rays.
Old Mother Nature did a superfreeze number on us in the early
Warner was right when he said long ago that. "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."
But imagine what would happen if protest groups on campus gave it a try.
One organization, call it peri- colaxis, would be a coalition of people with liberal attitudes dedicated to good weather for everyone.
Percolaxis would assemble a large group of students who would march down Jayhawk Boulevard with signs to protest Mother Nature's unseasonable weather practices.
Ah, yes, I guess Charles Dudlev
Of course, Perolcasia soon would lose sight of their original objectives by launching a campaign that would be the vice for reporting bad weather.
Their goal would be to educate the student body and get them to join their logical cause by exposing nature's practices in public.
Naturally, the student body would become confused as to the condition Percolaxis was protesting, and the group's membership would remain static while the issue died.
The conservative organization,
Young Americans for Frostbite,
would certainly come out in favor
of Nature's mastier practices.
The members would ally themselves with a wealthy national coalition that would flood Lawrence with out-of-state aid and threaten the effects of the "bleeding heart" anti-bad weather consensus.
They wouldn't stay long, but they would stay long enough to turn everybody off with irresponsibly radical demonstrations. Everyone, that is, accept Mother Nature, who would probably rain heavily on their protest parade down Javhawk Boulevard.
Of course the Young Americans for Frostbite would be happy with the rain, even if they preferred snow.
Their manufactured signs, including "Good weather through superior tornado power" and "The only good forecast is a deadly forecast," would reflect their at-arent typical conservative contradiction.
They also wouldn't appreciate the National Weather Service reports and would promise to attend. The weather forecasts the following semester.
Soon, however, the agitators would take their money and skip town without fulfilling their promises, leaving only a skeleton group of irresponsible supporters to monitor pervasive weather at KU.
Trampling on dignity
But two recent Supreme Court decisions that allow government authorities to infiltrate factories and fields to interrogate workers is by no means a humanitarian solution.
The United States undoubtedly has problems with illegal immigrants, and the government must find a solution to avoid the loss of more U.S. jobs to aliens.
The court's logic in its decision was that when workers are asked whether they are U.S. residents or legal residents, the workers are not compelled to respond and that they could leave during questioning.
Unless the questioning would be so intimidating that workers would think they could not leave, such questioning does not violate the Fourth Amendment, the court reasoned.
Some workers, though, will refuse to answer questions even though they are U.S. citizens. And government authorities may think they have the freedom to get answers by other methods.
The court is leaving too much to the discretion of the individual immigration officer and is inviting more violent confrontation between government officials and the public.
The approach to intimidation in the court decision seems strange. The court said that the government might enter the workplace and question workers while immigration agents block the doorway.
For many, the mere presence of many government agents is intimidating. The use of billy clubs is not an essential ingredient in intimidation — it can be verbal.
In any case, the court has given the government much-desired freedom in combating the problem of illegal aliens. And the rest of the nation can only hope that the innocent remain unscathed.
Illegal immigrants are a problem. The solution is not, however, legalizing raids that could come dangerously close to trampling on human dignity, as well as the Constitution.
A large contradiction
President Reagan's actions often contradict his words.
It is hardly surprising that the Soviet Union is skeptical about the arms control initiative when the United States is making such efforts to improve and increase its own program.
that chemical weapons be banned around the world, he wants Congress to approve his request for money to build a new chemical weapon production facility.
Although they may agree with what the United States in theory is proposing, many countries may question the sincerity of the United States in seeking such an international agreement.
Most world leaders would probably agree that reducing and perhaps even eliminating chemical weapons is a good thing.
Saying that the United States must not be caught unprepared, Reagan stressed the need to modernize the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile.
At the same time Reagan is urging
If the president wants to convince world leaders that the United States considers the issue a serious one, he should reconsider how loudly these actions contradict his proposal.
Letting fear get the better of you
There is no real question about it: the hottest film director in the world today is a fellow named Bob Giraid.
Giraldi doesn't make movies; movies are passe. No, Giraldi has made his name and his fortune directing the only kind of films that truly count in 1984: television commercials and rock videos.
In those two areas, Giraldi's name is money in the bank. Not only is he the man who directs the Miller Lite Beer commercials, which are among the most honored and popular television commercials of all time; not only is he the man who directed Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video, which is the most popular music video in the short history of that art form; he is even the man who directed the famous Michael Jackson Pepi commercial, in which young Jackson's hair caught on fire.
As you can tell, no director's star shines as brightly as Bob Giraldi's these days.
Ah, but it was not always so. Just a few years ago Bob Giraidi embarked on a project that could have sunk his career like a boulder dropped into the middle of a placid pond.
I know, because I was the person he wanted to work with. All I had to do was say yes and — poof! — that's what you would have heard of Bob Giardi.
This all started when I received a phone message that a Mr. Giradi in New York wished to speak with me. I returned the call. Bob Giradi said that it was urgent that we meet in person. He would飞 to Chicago; we
And now that he has reached the heights,the story can be told.
must sit down in private.
All he would tell me about the subject of our meeting was, "This is very big."
Naturally, I was intrigued. Giraidi flew to Chicago and, at the appointed hour, I took a cab to the Mayfair Regent Hotel. Giraidi had instructed me to meet him in the hotel's tearoom.
It was not hard to spot him. Most of the customers of the tearmore were little old ladies. Giraidi was wearing blue jeans, had a scraggly neckline and had a hyperkinetic glow in his eye. He outfitted out of every other in his body.
I introduced myself. Giraldi got right down to business.
"It's about the magazine article," he said. I was puzzled, "What magazine article?" I said, "About Frank Jr." he said.
I understood. A few months prior to our meeting, I had written a magazine piece about Frank Sinatra Jr. It was a bittersweet story; it was about young Sinatra playing out of the-way clubs and lounges to those who had come to see him only because of his father's name.
"What about the magazine article?" I said. "I think we should make a movie of it." Giraaldi said.
I was stunned. The article had been downbeat and fairly, it had told of the troubles Sinatra Jr. faced in trying to build his own career in the shadow of his father's fame. I was struck by how readily translate to a successful movie.
"You mean a made-for-TV movie?" I said to Giraldi.
"No!" Giraldi said. "A real
movie! A movie for the movie theaters!"
I said that the idea puzzled me. If
I sat in the tearoom in silence. Giraaldi's energy level seemed to be increasing by the moment. I thought he was very confident of his plush chair like a helicopter.
BOB GREENE
Syndicated Columnist
Frank Sinatra Jr. could not draw enough people to fill a small club for the cover charge of a couple of drinks, how could we expect the story of his life to fill thousands of dollars over the country at five bucks a seat?
Giraidi didn't seem to be listening.
"I even have a name for it," he said.
"We'll call it . . . 'Frank Jr.'."
And then he made his pitch. Would I consider quitting my job to work on the movie with him? We would research it together, I would write it, he would direct it, and then we would just wait for the money to roll in.
My head was spinning.
"Of course, the problem of the old man," Giraildi said, referring to Frank Sinatra Sr. "I figure either he has a brain or he has our brains, I broken."
There was a momentary silence, and then the sound of Giraldi laughing wildly.
I saw my life passing before my eyes. This Giraldi was an enthusiastic, self-confident fellow. Should I warn caution to the wind? Should I give up my job, join forces with him, move out to Hollywood and tell everyone who asked that I had quit the column "so I can write the definitive movie about Frank Sinatra Jr."
I looked at Giraldi, who was positively twitching by now. I told him I'd call him in a couple of days.
Which I never did. The more time passed after our meeting, the more the idea seemed terrible to me. I had heard about it before, but I snuck that smacked more of certain failure.
So I didn't call Giraldi back, and "Frank Jr." never got made, and Giraldi went on with his career and I went on with mine.
Resigned to the fact that he would not be working with Bob Greene, Graldi settled for Michael Jackson. The rest, of course, is show business.
Still, though, there are nights I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what would have happened if I had listened to Giraudi and had given it a shot. The man is a genius.
Maybe I hadn't seen a smash hit movie in Frank Sinatra Jr.'s life, but perhaps the movie was there after all.
Maybe Giraaldi had been planning all along on dressing Dr. Jr. in one white sequined glove and setting his hair on fire . . . but we'll never handle. Some questions are destined to go without answers, and life goes on.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letter ignores reality
To the editor:
I enjoy reading the University Daily Kansan, especially the "Letters to the Editor." The letter April 12, 1984, from Lee D. Gilitin regarding the need of feelings for the need of an immediate response.
The last paragraph of Gittin's letter contains the quote: "Now that you've danced the dance, my dear, it is time to pay the fidier."
It is interesting that the woman who danced and who also pays should have her "fate" or privilege before a decision decided by those who do not ever pay. Some women give up their rape, to deliver a child that will be deformed, to
Accepting responsibility in a pregnancy also includes the decision to choose not to carry a pregnancy to a full term. I hardly believe that the majority who make this decision do so as an "easy way out."
And, in answer to the charge that we have gotten
have health severely hindered with a pregnancy, or a number of other reasons that would be of utmost importance to the mental or physical health of the woman who is pregnant.
Anyone who has not experienced pregnancy cannot fairly understand the emotional turmoil that would occur, whether one goes through full-term pregnancy or chooses abortion — for whatever
away from the Bible, Matthew 7:1 says: "Judge not, lest he be not judged."
Those who believe that any pregnancy should never be terminated, should be asked to contribute to homes for those children who are unwanted or are institutionalized or hospitalized; should help provide for medical and educational needs, especially the severely handicapped.
.
And, if these people would give some of their time to the many, many neglected children in this world instead of condemning a decision someone chooses to make regarding birth or abortion, they would be in a far better position to understand the feelings behind these decisions.
Connie Kindsvater Lawrence resident