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University Daily Kansan, April 27, 1982
What we stand to lose
A disturbing petition drive has begun to overturn the Student Senate budget and keep $493 allocated to Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas away from the group.
The drive is disturbing because it calls on Chancellor Budig to step into the funding process and rob the Senate of what is undeniably its most important, and some would argue only, power — the power to allocate the student activity fee.
If the chancellor steps in and calls a halt to the process this time, then he can do it anytime, and Senate's power is nonexistent.
To his credit, David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, has taken a hands-off approach to the budget once Senate has passed it. But a deeper, more subtle danger lies in the motivation for the petition.
No one can deny that GSLOK is an organization with a long history at KU. Nor can anyone argue that the group serves a definite group of students as well as trying to provide information to the entire student body. In fact, the only real issue, the viability of GSLOK
as an organization, has never been questioned.
Instead, those out to block GLSOK's funding say the majority of students oppose giving student fee dollars to the group.
This nation was founded and perpetuated on at least the principle of majority rule. But rule by the majority can easily become the tyranny of the mob unless it is tempered with concern for the rights of the minority. And we are, all of us, minorities in one way or another. Be it skin color or religion, occupation or political orientation, or sexual preference, we are a world of minorities.
If we forget that — the commonness that links us all despite our differences — if a few thousand students at KU can become divided into "us" and "them," then there is nothing to prevent any of us anywhere from falling vindictively upon one another.
Indeed, the stir raised by this incident is evidence that GSLOK needs the allocation it is receiving, for the money will help the group teach us that homosexuals and lesbians are, like the rest of us, people more than anything else.
Low quality television fare reflects viewers' poor taste
I had planned another "goodbye" column — not as sentimental as the last one — but when I read about the latest network ratings, well, I couldn't be silent.
The American public has once again proven it has all the good taste of a paramecium. And the networks have once again proven that they know exactly how to appeal to said paramecium.
exactly now to applain ME. OK, I can buy "60 Minutes" as the top TV show. Those coolhand boys make journalism seem really exciting; they're sort of muckrakers in Brooks Brothers'. But once we get past No. 1 — Good God!
Look at the Top 10. We've got "Dallas" in No.
I live there, and Joe, it just isn't so anit. And
TRACEE HAMILTON
gets even worse — No. 6 is "Three's Company," a jiggling T&A show for every fat slob who beches up beer and nashes on his undershrift before dropping off in the Lazy Boy.
But, in a dubious victory for women's rights, we've got "Magnum P.I." at No. 4 — a studmuffs exhibition aimed at shrieking adolescents and restless housewives.
Then, there are the shows that are just plain bad with little or no T&A: "Simon and Simon" at No. 7, and No. 8. "Falcon Crest." (Picture Dallas with grapes instead of oil.) "The Love Boat" sails along at No. 9 (Order your Nuke the Love Boat T-shirt today!).
But No. 10 is the killer — a tour de force in imbecility — the "A Team." I'm sorry, but I can't get excited about some fat guy with no hair, little clothing, lots of jewelry and a mouth the size of a giant TV screen screening that I'd better watch his show or he'll beat me up.
With a Top 10 of that caliber, you might as well brace yourself for the unavoidable fact that the most powerful thing
ect to are no worse.
Geez, "ABC Monday Night Football" even
exez.
made it. Think back, sports fans. We spent a lot of Monday nights watching B-rate movies when the players were on out strike. How quickly they fregret!
"Gloria!" — I hesitate to criticize Gloria out of love for the late Edith Bunker, but I could throw up in my shoes every time that show comes on. And that's as kind as I get.
And that is what he said.
Actually, I like No. 14, "9 to 5," mainly because the cast is good. The script, on the other hand, is odorous.
UBS won the ratings war, ABC placed, and NBC showed, even though it accurately bills its Thursday night lineup as "the best night of television on television."
"Cheers" should have cleaned the clock of a dog such as "Dynasty," but not *People* prefer aging, TV stars with skimpy clothing and stretched faces, jumping in and out of discovering their son's lover's daughter is their from a previous marriage before the amgissa.
Of course, CBS had one clear advantage — the last episode of M*A*S*H, a ratings blockbuster. (Don't you get a funny feeling now, watching the rumors of Hawkeye's various problems, such as his itching, sneezing attack when a soldier's uniform triggered a forgotten but horrible memory? I don't think we should't have been so shocked when he ended up in the asylum.)
CBS, thankfully, didn't join the miniseries war. Its yearly contribution to that effort was "The Blue and the Gray," a very good historical docudrama.
ABC, with repetitive intensity, hyped its "novels for television" with sickening abandon. "The Winds of War" finally settled the question of why McGraw died in "Love Story" — lack of talent.
"The Thera Birds" took a wonderful book full of rich characters, chopped it up, overplayed the sex, and gave the plum role of Moggie to a man with no experience in her way out on paper bag. The public loved it.
And to top off my disguise, "Hill Street Blues," by far the best dramatic show on television, didn't even get a mention. There is no God, except the one named Nielsen.
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Letters to the Editor
Comments on 'Buried Child' wrong
to the editor.
I was surprised to learn in the Kansan in a letter by Denis Quinn that I am a KU administrator. In fact, I am a KU student who, together with 32 other students, clerks, professors, administrators and spouses, showed his support for the KU cast of "Buried Child" which was honored by have won the American College Theatre Festival.
To the editor:
Michael L. Hogle Lawrence senior
such puzzles could be pointed out that not only did KU's "Buried Child" perform at the Kennedy Center, but that KU's own Jack Wright was invited to perform "The Sage of Emporia" at the prestigious Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. His two outstanding performances highlighted his masterful interpretations of histories and drew national interest through interviews with Wright on National Public Radio.
It is interesting to note that such a hallaballo was raised about 33 students, clerks, professors, administrators and spouses, who all paid their own way to Washington, D.C., to show their support to the KU theatre department. I wonder how many letters to the editor would have been written to the Kansas and the Lawrence Journal-World about 33 boosters traveling to a KU football bowl game. If anything, there would be letters about why so few traveled.
So please tell me, Quinn, what is so wrong with about 33 proud supporters of KU and KU's fine arts program actively demonstrating their support for superior achievement?
I admit I missed the point (if any) which Quinn was attempting to make in his letter. However, I do disagree with his bittling KU's championship performance of Sam Sheepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. In the way which Quinn picked and chose portions of "Buried Cats" could have made him like an episode of "mystery." Obviously the play does redeeming value for many, as demonstrated by its awards and by rave reviews in such publications as the Washington Post.
Mallin presumptuous
To the editor
Regarding Harry Mallin's "Mindless idiots"
article of April 21.
I always find it amazing and somewhat scary when I run across attitudes such as his. Amazing, because he obviously thinks he is such a superior being that it is okay for him to make sweeping generalizations about a lot of people he doesn't even know. Scary, because he is purportedly a journalist with the power to influence the public, and ready access to an outlet for his opinion to a society already stiffed by rampant prejudgment.
I don't believe I've ever known anyone who could gaze into someone's eyes and ascertain that their mind was blank. Interesting, too, is his ability to scribble down notes as fast as he can and still gaze at the same time. He can then manipulate people and then label who he does not pass his unfathomable criteria for "intelligentia" with not-very-cute little names. What talents!
Kim Rauch.
Hutchinson junior
It is just too bad we can't all be as intelligent as he seems to think we should be. Perhaps he could take the matter up with God.
Kim Rauch,
As far as "tilling up space that might as well be filled up by a lump of manure" (as he so eloquently described a person in his article) is concerned, that is exactly what his article put
Senate apathetic
to the email
I am appalled and frankly out of shape at the academy and irresponsibility our Student Senate showed at its April 20 meeting in dealing with the bill to fund student organizations.
It is truly sad when a group like Hilltop Child Development Center, that provides a tremendous service to this campus, has to suffer a complete budget cut because of the apathy of senators. I am so very sorry you are getting sleepy or getting bored. Your selfishness and cold-heartedness are typical of Student Senate, though, and it does not surprise me that you decided to add another consideration of the time. Of course, two hours is an awfully time to make decisions about such unimportant issues as the funding for student organizations.
Loren Busby, your strategy worked. You bored the senators for at least an hour with your long, drawn-out explanation of the Finance and Auditing Committee's recommendations for funding the organizations. And you, pathetic senators, fell for his deceiving tactics.
To the editor:
I will grant you this, senators, I admire your confidence in the Finance and Auditing Committee. However, your system of checks and balances is questionable. With a vote of 27-21 against the amendment to the budget in which $5,500 would have been taken from Consumer Affairs Association and divided equally between the Kansas Defender Project and Hilltop, would you not agree that this issue deserves more consideration? I realize this was debated for quite a long time, but unless you were totally ignorant of your surroundings, senators, you would have realized that other people had new amendments to bring up dealing with these groups. But, because of your irresponsibility and general lack of concern for anyone but yourself, you chose to ignore any possible alternatives.
I find it hard to believe that this body of supposedly intelligent student representatives is so closed-minded.
And to put my neck a bit closer to the gullotine, next semester this will change. After May 13, I, too, will be one of the beloved student senators and you can count on me to put up a fight each time I see the least little bapathy creeping out of your little bodies.
Tracey Thompson
Tracy Thompson
Finance and Auditing committee member
Bible applies to all
I should, however, like to question whether these men have gone far enough. You will no doubt be surprised to learn that there is a group within society, many of whom misguidedly call themselves Christians, who are equally flagrant in their denial of the word of God, but who are oddly neglected as a target for righteous moral indignation. I refer, of course, to bankers.
The Bible contains many explicit references to the fact that lending money at interest is wrong. "You shall not demand interest from your contrymen on a loan of money or food or anything else on which interest is usually demanded." (Deuteronomy 23:20). Also in Exodus 22:25; "If you lend money to one of your neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an exortioner by demanding interest from him." Leviticus also contains the admonition in 25:37. Bankers lend money at interest. So I do not think they should escape the condemnation so courageously heaped on the homosexual community by these two gentlemen.
Recently you published two letters about Christianity and homosexuality. One was by Joe Vusch (April 18) and another by Glen Kailer (April 19). We owe a great debt to them.
Bob
gentlemen for pointing out the biblical evidence for the wrongness of this obscene perversion.
To the editor:
It is true that modern capitalism could not survive unless people lend money at interest. Yet I do not see why we should allow this as an excuse. I do not suppose many Christians would stop criticizing homosexuality if it was the basis of society, so they cannot condemn a condemnation because they happen to be more accepted, more respected and less subject to prejudice.
Connected to this issue was a curious item in a recent issue. Here it appeared that many present-day Christians, including the illustrious Jerry Fallow, were actually defending capitalism. Since capitalism depends on the lending of money for profit, this is a strange point of view. Perhaps God has changed his mind since He wrote the Bible, in which case we owe a great debt to Falwell for pointing this out. How fortunate we are to live in an age when there are such great prophets who can tell us that when God said that it was wrong to lend money at interest, what He actually meant was that it is right to lend money at interest.
It is now being emphasized that too many of the non-users of those particular habit forming drugs should face the mirror as they look down their respective noses. They too have a drug habit injurious to themselves and their families, which is just as addictive and just as difficult to shake. Their drug is nicotine, which enters the body via cigarette smoke.
Sam Mitchel, United Kingdom graduate student
to the editor.
Most people look down their noses at groomingifiers, uses of cocaine and other addictive drugs, wondering why the users aren't smart enough or do not have the will power to just kick the habit, protect their health and save the money they are wasting.
The good news is that 65 percent of Midwestern college students, KU included, have either conquered the habit, or had the good judgment never to have started it.
Nicotine also a drug
To the editor:
Thomas C. Ryther,
Lawrence resident
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 Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters.