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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, June 29, 1983
Government on holiday
As students of the largest university in Kansas, we have a big problem. We have student representatives who don't seem concerned about how our money is spent, at least by their recent actions. When summer rolls around, other, more important matters take precedence and we, the students, must take the back seat.
We are taking the back seat while our student body president's summer job takes the front seat.
Many other responsibilities come along with the title of student body president. Two of these added responsibilities are the KU representative on the Student Advisory Committee and the Facilities Committee of the Board of Regents.
The Student Advisory Committee was created by the Legislature in 1974 to advise the Regents on student concerns. The Facilities Committee is responsible for recommending funds for new buildings and maintaining existing buildings.
Recently, the Regents conducted its annual budget recommendation meetings. In the course of these meetings, SAC and the Facilities
Committee presented their budget requests. It's not pocket change.
How come Lisa Ashner, student body president, didn't attend any of these meetings? It is her duty as student body president and she didn't bother to represent our school, the largest of the state's universities. Not only has she damaged the credibility of SAC, she has damaged the reputation of KU.
When Asher was reached for comment, she said, "I would have gone if I could. If it had been a dire matter, they would have contacted me."
And according to the SAC constitution, if she couldn't make the meeting, she was required to appoint someone else. Vice president Jim Cramer didn't show, either. No one did.
How much money constitutes a "dire matter" for Ashner? One million dollars? Two?
But about 24,000 students of this University were affected in some way by those budget meetings, and we think she should have been there.
It's time to take a closer look at the way our elected leaders care for our future. It's obvious that this administration doesn't give a damn.
Exercise religious tolerance with newer ways to worship
Let's go on a witch hunt. It fun. It's exciting. It's daring, and — incredibly — it's easy. Anyone can participate. Be one of the many who have wrongly persecuted the Way International, a biblical research and teaching ministry, and its members.
It is ironic that in this day and age of social progress, there are still those who long for Salem. With all the charm and dash of Reverend Trask from the Dark Shadows television series, they search out followers of the Way with a new brand of McCarthyism; "The Bad Guy" or "What terrible dehave these people engaged in to solicit this onslaught? Merely to profess religious beliefs
CHARLES LAWHORN
that differ from those of traditional, organized sects.
organization. That's why members are sometimes "rescued" through the efforts of loved ones and volunteers.
I used the word "persecute." A strong word for a journalist, you say. Or is it? Would you consider it persecution if a local religious leader attempted to have a husband and wife, teachers in a school, evicted from their home and driven from their neighborhood because they held Way fellowships in the evenings? Would you consider it persecution if this same family was continually harassed and threatened by members of this same leader's church? This story is true. The family lived in Pittsburgh, Pa. last summer. This episode is but one of many thousand that occur each year, fueled by a variety of religious orders.
Whatever happened to the privacy of the home and the freedom to worship in your own way? After all, this is America, right? Land of the free, home of the Well. how "free" are we when citizens of this country are denied their constitutional rights, and how "brave" are those who stalk followers of the Way in the name of some cause?
Oh, really? The term "brainwashing" is so missed that it can apply to the indoctrination of a child in a Sunday school class, and "rescue" is a perfect euphemism for kidnapping. Through various deprogramming tactics, like being tied to a bed around the clock while denied the opportunity to sleep or excrete, some of you might even be coerced into believing that you were Howdy Doody. The same people who applaud these procedures would probably also applaud illegal wiretaps in the name of "justice."
DR. Victor Paul Wierwile, founder of the Way International, has been accused of being biblically inaccurate, brainwashing young minds and siphoning their money into the
Money does play a role, I'll admit. Some organized churches may covet the funds received by the Way, funds that they might otherwise have to line their coffers. Remember, money is power. The deprogrammerkndappers are after the bucks also, like Carla Pfeiffer of Norfolk, Nebraska. Carla runs a "rehabilitation center" there, and charges $15,000 for each deprogramming. If her claims to have completed 100 deprogrammings are true, Pfeiffer has raked-in $1.5 million — that's cold, hard cash.
Way followers have been called heathens because they don't believe in the Trinity. The Way has also been called a cult. It is true that the Way has not found what they consider sufficient scriptural evidence to support the doctrine of the Trinity, but they do believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The word "cult" is another one of those cute words that gets thrown around alot. Our society likes to use the word "place," which is the chief tool of Way. If you want to generate fear out of ignorance about a religious organization, just label it a cult — it's easy.
Does anyone out there have an open mind? Some of our ancestors came to this land on the Mayflower, seeking freedom to worship God as they chose, not as the state chose, or as some other group chose. Our law of the land, the Constitution, was drafted to preserve these rights. The witch hunters should have no jurisdiction here. Let's keep God, and Country. Place labels if you will, promote whatever doctrine you desire; but exercise tolerance, and allow others to serve and worship their God as they choose.
Shallow depths hold all the answers
If you've been following the news at all lately, you've heard about the education controversy. People are screaming that the quality of education in America is downright disgusting and that something ought to be done about it. Some people recommend meritocracy, but that's not the curriculum that students must take; still others suggest that teachers ought to be stirring up.
I'm not here to discuss what should be done with the teachers. I honestly don't know. I don't advocate hanging them, though. Except my evil kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Babcock. Once, she made me put my head on my desk and I sleep right through my graham crackers and milk.
What prompted this sudden interest in education was an article in the June 1983 issue of Kansas Alumni magazine. The article contained several embarrassingly foolish passages culled from the English and history papers of KU freshmen. The article is titled "Freshman Bloopers." Before I explain the melancholy feeling I got from reading this article, enjoy a few laughs at the expense of some fellow students;
"There were many causes that caused the American Revolution. The causes of war developed because the king was trying to remain a powerful nation . . . But the French naval army invaded and conquered and beat the British. Thus the seas of democracy were planted. Although the effects may not have been as severe, the results will never be known."
Could someone please explain the strategy of a naval arm? Don't bother, there's more:
While some smokers act respectable to signs
and distinguish their cigarettes, others continue to inhale cigarette. smoking. Who does this surgeon general guy think he is, anyway?"
Who is indeed? But read on.
" . Industries are always dumping their wastes in the shallow depths. Like pollution, most of the murders in the United States are caused by people. We should remember that
HARRY MALLIN
there are other forms of entertainment besides killing people."
For instance, try a friendly game of backgammon. But that's beside the point.
gambitum. But that little brazenness
Isn't it a little brighter to realize that all of
the authors of these passages probably possess
driver's licenses? How would you like to make a
left turn in front of someone who writes about the
"shallow depths?"
Oh. No, worse yet, how would you like one of them representing our University at a Big Eight gathering? The only consolation that I get from reading those unpleasant passages is the satisfaction of knowing that they will, one day, be competing with me for a job.
I ask you, follow upper-classmess, were we ever that bad? And I don't mean in grade school,
etner. Reading those passages makes you understand what the phrase "a mind is a terrible thing to waste" is all about.
There you have it, some concrete evidence that the quality of education is low. The question is whether KU can, in the short span of four years, take the young, incompetent mind, capable of thought only up to the memorization of Journey song lyrics, and refine that mind into a mature, complex computer, capable of understanding what Einstein was talking about.
In the course of that four years, the wide-eyed student will pass through many stages. The freshman year, which we have already examined, is filled with new, educational experiences. There are books to read, new friends to meet, and for some, new drugs to experiment with.
The sophomore year is filled with more of the same. The books are harder to understand, more expensive and heavier. The friends are becoming closer and the drugs require heavier
The junior year often brings the learning experience of an apartment. Here is where the students use his or her many years of education with utility bills, groceries and crooked landlords.
The senior year is where the bulk of learning takes place. Courses accelerate toward graduation, when you are swept out into the real world. The future is in your hands, finally. It is now your responsibility to act respectable toward signs and distinguish your cigarettes.
signals that learns, acquires, And, and after four years of attending the University, I can confidently say that the teachers learned me real good.
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters.
Dole says review and freeze are solutions to arms control
By SEN. ROBERT DOLE New York Times Syndicate
WASHINGTON — Is there any doubt that there are simply too many nuclear weapons and warheads in the hands of the superpowers? There are about 9,500 strategic weapons on our side and at least 8,500 on the Sovet side. Will we just keep modernizing our weapons in constant attack? Or should we just stop building weapons now, or freeze them at current deployment?
Our nuclear arms are more and more costly, eating up resources that we would like to spend elsewhere, or not have to spend at all. Yet we have an obligation to mount a defense that remains second to none, and specifically to counter the numerous Soviet intermediate-range missiles that now threaten our European allies.
In my view, the key to arms control lies in a mutual comprehensive review of the staggering
Our nuclear defenses depend upon our triad of manned bombers, submarine-launched missiles and land-based intercontinental missiles. That three-pronged force provides both flexibility and a measure of surplus capability, but we cannot be under the illusion that a first strike could demolish our nuclear triad.
The crucial third leg of the triad is the land-based intercontinental missiles. In recent years, the Russians have lavished attention on such missiles. Their intercontinental missile warhead arsenal now is three times our own total.
The challenge to arms control then is to correct this imbalance by developing a proposal
that reflects the dynamics of the triad structure so that the forces retained on both sides would no longer be disproportionate to national defense needs.
The president deserves full support for his efforts to negotiate realistic arms control agreements at the talks on intermediate-range missiles in Europe and on strategic arms reductions. He has gone the extra mile in giving our negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland, the necessary flexibility to meet our goals then flexing the muscles that the Soviet Union is serious about arms control.
And with that flexibility in mind, we should pursue a nuclear freeze and a comprehensive arms control proposal that includes all strategic and intermediate-range nuclear forces, among those under development. But we must realize that there are thousands of warheads on both sides that have not been specifically addressed in detail at either set of negotiations going on in Geneva. By including them all, we can get down to comparing our relative weapons to see where reductions can best be made — that is the essence of our "triad plan."
The precise proposal must not limit the United States to nuclear forces inferior to those that the Japanese
If agreed upon, the triad plan would be a long-term accord with provisions for reviews from time to time looking to even lower force levels.
With an eye to what these weapons are supposed to do — rather than to a rigid formula — we can best see how to limit them. Let's put it into practice. We need a number of nuclear defenses and let's make it work.
Robert Dole, a Republican, the senior U.S.
Senator from Kansas.
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