OPINION
1
The University Daily KANSAN April 16, 1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
1. The University Daily Kansas (USK 650-649) is published at the University of Kansas, 181 Staffer Fint Hall, Lawrence, KS 60035, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding holidays. Mail $1 for six months or $2 for a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a $1 semester paid through the student activity file *POSTMASTER*. Send address changes to USK 650-649.
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY
Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
CORT GORMAN
CERT Sales Manager
National Sales Manager
JANCE PHILIPS    DUNCAN CALHOUN
Campus Sales Manager    Classified Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
A welfare study
Many people have the wrong impression about welfare in America.
People receiving welfare aid are often considered to be in a unique class demographically different from the society as a whole.
But a recent study has discovered information to the contrary.
But a recent study has information to the contrary. Many people receiving welfare seek the assistance only as a short-term solution to financial problems and for the most part fit middle- and upper-class demographics.
Faced with temporary financial difficulties brought on by illness, death of a spouse, adverse local or national economic conditions or other such misfortunes, people often turn to the welfare system only until they are able to get back on their feet.
Other findings from the study show that, contrary to what many think, most of the children raised in families receiving welfare do not
For too long, those accepting welfare assistance have been subject to many stereotypes and misconceptions.
themselves go on welfare after leaving home and starting their own families.
The in-depth research of The Panel Study of Income Dynamics, sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation, and three private foundations, involved interviewing a representative national sample of individuals from more than 5,000 American families each year since 1968.
The study showed that one in every four Americans lived in a family that received some income from welfare sources at least once.
The study should help people understand that welfare assistance helps quite a few individuals and families who later go on to pay taxes to support the programs that once aided them.
The University of Kansas Athletic Corporation has decreased student participation in athletics for no good reason.
The athletic board had 21 members before the changes, and now it will have 17.
Students usually demand involvement — especially in issues as volatile as KU athletics. But now the KUAC has cut student membership on the board by 25 percent, and students are the losers.
The rationale for the change is that many other university athletic boards had fewer members than KU. Because of this rationale, some members thought that KU should fall in line with the others.
Conformity, however, is a strange reason for cutting the number of student members to three,the number of faculty members to eight and the number of alumni members to five.
The board will have two ex-officio members from the administration, one of which is athletic director Monte Johnson, who now will be able to vote on issues.
Also, the board will have two other nonvoting members from the administration.
The findings of KUAC's two-year study of other university boards across the nation, which led to the changes, showed that most boards had about 11 members.
One must wonder whether KU board members will request a further cut when the effects of this most recent one subside.
Before the changes were voted on, the board simply seemed to rubber stamp the athletic director's whims. And now that fewer members will be on the board, that function is hardly destined to change.
So in taking account of the board's recent changes, the underlying reason remains unanswered. Whatever the reasons, however, students should work to regain what they have lost.
And when all things are considered, the lack of a good rationale for the changes makes the move seem all the more ominous.
Need to know the facts
In Massachusetts, where there's a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs, a Boston TV reporter has been quizzing the candidates on their knowledge of the facts.
Politicians from both parties have fared the same — miserably. Two Democrats couldn't name the prime minister of Israel (Yitzhak Shamir); none of the Republicans knew how much of the federal budget goes to defense (28 percent). Other voters only
what the income level is to qualify for Medicaid; two Democrats were unsure which side the United States supports in Nicaragua (the rebels).
It's a great idea for the press:
Let's stop asking politicos about their opinions — all we get is hot air anyway.
Let's just ask 'em whether they know as much as the average 10th-grade civics student. Politics will never be the same.
The GOPers could only guess at
New York Daily News
LETTERS POLICY
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten on one sheet of paper, double-spaced and should not exceed 200 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should be written in his class and bound to faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
Recycling should be accepted
But it is legal in residential areas of St. Louis, even though the Board of Aldermen originally was opposed to the idea.
Digging through someone else's trash is subject to regulation in many cities around the country.
After hearing from groups that work with the poor in St. Louis, the city officials changed their minds.
In Lawrence, people, poor or not,
are allowed to go through someone
else's trash, but not allowed to
remove any of it. Look but don't take
— even if someone has thrown it
— even if someone has thrown it away.
Somewhere in the legal rulings there is a message about this wealthy society of ours.
Anyone who ever has rescued something from a trash heap knows
MARGARET
SAFRANEK
Staff Columnist
that perfectly good objects frequently are discarded.
A shirt that hangs in the closet, unworn, for more than a year, finally is tossed out. Plants, a little brown from a semester's worth of neglect, are more easily discarded than brought back to good health.
And the overstuffed chair, a bit worn and too heavy to carry far, just as easily is left behind
The story is repeated countless times around the country: The usable is thrown out with the used.
But cities vary a great deal in the way they treat the issue of digging through someone else's garbage.
In Boston, where the rich and middle-class have few qualms about
joining the poor in scavenging through the trash, the activity provides profitable entertainment
And they proudly point to their possessions that once sat on a trash heap — pleased with the best bargains one could find
For some of the better trash scavengers, just any trash will not do. They know where and when to find the most bountiful discards.
A Yale student and top-flight trash scavenger friend of mine, remarked that he had learned how to determine the strength of the economy by the type and amount of things that people discarded
In good years, people have recovered entire bedroom sets from the refuse set out for the trash collector.
Some people who have been at the game long enough even have developed a "sociology of scavenging."
But even in lean years, a good trash searcher can find odd pieces of
furniture, used clothing, nearly full boxes of laundry detergent and plenty of half used spiral notebooks or of some colleges and universities.
If people would get used to the idea of recycling more than just aluminum cans, both the givers and the takers would benefit.
Who wouldn't feel better to know that the coffee table that had served them so faithfully through the year would not end up as firewood?
Instead, this still-functional piece of furniture, our foot rest, step-ladder and sometimes holder of coffee cups, could be selected from the discards in the alley and go off to another home.
Likewise, who wouldn't be pleased to discover that someone carefully
had cast off a carpet, setting it aside from the real garbage for the perusal of anyone who might be able to use it?
People have learned how to make an art out of recycling trash in some cities.
The thrower-outers make an effort to put the usable goods separate from the used garbage. The finders-keepers are neat about removing the items carefully replacing the items they need to take from the pile of discards.
Some city ordinances have been passed because of problems with people going through trash and leaving a mess behind.
But even when the litter is not a problem, there are people who want scavenging to be against the law because it is a distasteful idea.
The solution is to think about it as creative recycling rather than going through someone else's garbage
Advertisers cheapen Olympics
It's just a matter of attitude.
David Letterman, the Official Television Talk Show Host of the 1984 Virgin Islands Olympic Team, was joking. He thought.
Instead of depending on government subsidies, donations and a lottery, which are the standard ways of financing the Olympics, the nonprofessional broadcast rights and nonprofit official cards.
Letterman said the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee was still offering sponsorships for the Official Groot and the Plastic Tubing of the 1884 Olympic Games.
The committee has given about 150 companies, classed as sponsors, suppliers or
JESSE
BARKER
Staff Columns
This represents a triumph for capitalism and private-sector financing the United States can be proud of. Still, some of the advertisements are going to seem a little ridiculous.
licenses, the right to advertise their products as official.
Letterman may have lied, for example. The Allied Corp., a sponsor and producer of chemicals in plastics and other things, may manufacture the Official Grout and Official Plastic Tubing.
The committee's budget for 1884, $474 million is only 3 percent of what the Soviet Union spends on military spending.
In the world of poultry, Foster Farms pulled off a coup by being picked to supply the Official Chicken of the 1984 Olympic Games.
Sponsors paid $4 million to $13 million, suppliers donated goods and services, and licenses paid a fee to use the Olympic emblem or the mascot. Sam the Olympic Eagle.
The Official Elephant Gun of the 1984 Olympic Games is the Weatherby Mark V Magnum. Because elephant hunting is a new event and the athletes will be inexperienced, the committee has already warned Shelley Winters, Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor to stay clear of Hollywood until the competition is over.
The Official Programmed Music of the 1984 Olympic Games is Muzak. In a new event testing endurance, athletes will sit in dentists' offices, read back issues of Cavities Today, Modern Molars and Orthodontics Illustrated, and listen to Muzak. The last athlete conscious wins the gold.
Before the medal-winning marathon runners mount the review stand, representatives of Vidal Sassoon, the Official Hair Care Consultant to the Athletes of the 1984 Olympic Games, will comb and curry them for the cameras.
Arrowhead Puritas Waters sells the Official Water and the Official Drinking Water, but Pieris is the Official Mineral Water of the 1984 Olympic Games.
Sponsorships are still available for the Official Distilled Water, Official Salt Water,
Official Ice Water, Official White Water,
Official Toilet Water, Official Hard Water,
Official Heavy Water, Official Rain Water,
Official Running Water, Official Deep Water
and Official Holy Water.
So far no Official Fire Water has been endorsed, but Anbeuser-Busch is the Official Brewery of the 1984 Olympic Games.
McDonald's is the Official Fast Food, Coca-Cola is the Official Soft Drink and M & M Mars is the Official Snack Food of the 1984 Olympic Games.
See U.S. runner Mary Decker endorsing the products. See her eat a Big Mac, large fries and apple pie, wash them down with a Coke and then eat a Snickers, all as a pre-race snack.
See Mary run. See her collapse after half a lap, tossing official Food all over the track. No loss. She would have been disqualified for the caffeine in her bloodstream anyway.
Other products already endorsed are the Official Carpet, Official Typewriter, Official Commemorative Belt Buckle, Official Plastic Costume Jewelry, Official Gasoline and Motor Oil, Official Cream-Filled Pie, Official Bus Token and Official Water Polo Ball.
If all this strikes you as leaning toward the ludicrous, take heart. It could be more absurd. The committee says the limitation of sponsors in the Olympics is a function in the commercialism of the Olympics.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Story misguided
To the editor:
I am compelled to say something in response to Mary Sexton's article on the International Festival of Arts at University Daily Kansan, April 9.
First, she neglected to mention two of the eight musical groups on the program: the India Music Club (which includes the KKU Club) and the KU Russian Choir.
She described the Chinese costume display admirably, but gave a less than accurate account of the evening's festivities.
Second, the common denominator of all the acts was not singing and dancing. For instance, the India Club's dancers did not sing (although there was pre-recorded singing in the background); the India Music Club's musicians sat on the stage; the Indian raga music; and the Russian Choir's performance included no dancing.
Finally, can one really consider the Chinese Club's costume exhibition "singing and dancing"?
These criticisms may seem minor to some, but such inaccuracies raise the question of the credibility of the University Daily Kansas.
Ann Harrison
Toneka graduate student
Topeka graduate student
Clarifying issue
To the editor:
As a professional linguist I should like to comment on the recommendation of KU's Office of Affirmative Action requesting all KU schools to avoid the use of such words as "he," "woman" and "man" in course descriptions.
The issue of "sexist" language has been clouded by a number of basic misunderstandings. One is caused by the confusion of terms.
Sex and gender are quite separate phenomena, sex being a distinction we observe in animate nature (not in the animal world) because of its distinct we see only in language.
I would like to comment the Student Senate Finance Committee on its decision to cut financing for Gay and Lesbian Services of Kan-
Gender is in fact arbitrary in a way that sex cannot be. Thus are languages in which gender distinctions are completely absent, and others in which gender plays a fundamental role.
Don't veto budget To the editor:
Professor of linguistics
W. Keith Percival
But no difference in sexual behavior has ever been shown to depend on this.
So the idea that tinkering with a few terms (calling chairman chairpersons or waitresses walt-person, etc.) will have a miraculous emancipatory influence on American society, strikes me as chimerical.
Mere linguistic fiddling will not change brute facts. My recommendation to feminist purists would be this: If you really disapprove of a language and English, speak English and learn Turkish.
Indeed, some genderless languages, such as Chinese and Turkish, are spoken by people who have discriminated against women more drastically than have speakers of a gender-based language such as English, and within Europe no difference in sexual mores, sex roles, or the like can be observed between, say, the Poles and the Russians, who speak languages with gender, and the Hungarians and Finns, who speak languages free of gender.
Unfortunately, our student body president, Carla Vogel, seems to think such action is an injustice.
If you want to give money to GLSOK because its sexual preference is different, why not finance all types of sexual deviance?
Is it fair that I must support my own social life because I am a heterosexual, and the homosexual is there. What justice is there in that, Carla?
Please, Carla, make the homosexuals support themselves like the rest of us. Don't veil the budget recommended by the finance committee.
Jon E. Brenneman Kansas City, Mo., junior