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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, April 21, 1983
Soviets offer rare view
The Soviet athletes now visiting Lawrence will see much more of KU life than the Kansas Relays that brought them here.
In the six days that the Soviet track and field team is here, the athletes will tour museums, go to a hoedown at a Lawrence barn, eat breakfast with the governor, visit Haskell Indian Junior College and squeeze in a few races. And that's just for starters.
The gifts that have been and will be given to the athletes are also pure Kansas, from sunflowers and wheat to KU cowboy hats. They'dine on Midwest fare of barbecue and prime rib, and they're even staying at an American institution, a Holiday Inn.
It all sounds like a wonderful vacation, but it must be a coach's nightmare when it comes to training schedules.
Yet the Soviets have shown enthusiasm for what some would consider a tiring schedule — a schedule that was carefully planned to show the visitors as much of life in the Midwest as possible.
The sponsors of the whole show, Athletes United for Peace, have done an unbelievable job of putting together the week-long visit. Their goal of setting up a friendly competition, without the usually dominant political overtones of international competition, has been realized in a lively cultural exchange that is benefiting not only the residents of Lawrence, but the Soviet athletes as well.
According to their coach, the athletes traveled here because they were invited to compete in a tradition-rich athletic event, not because of politics and not to bring home medals for the glory of their country.
This friendly competition and the accompanying meeting of two distinct cultures so often at odds, will be more beneficial to all involved than any political meeting or demonstration could ever be because the contact is person-to-person, not government to government. It is an opportunity that we do not experience often enough, and one we should not let pass by without savoring it to the fullest.
'Mindless idiots' waste time energy as finals approach
I'm walking down Jayhawk Boulevard and he's there, staring at the pavement with a happy grin on his face. Some people may call him poetic. Some people may say that he's happy and jucky. But it it's 11:45 a.m., his class is much longer ago and I'd call him a mindless idiot.
There she is. She's sitting in the classroom, not more than 10 feet from me. I am scribbling down notes as fast as I can. Her paper is blank. And as I gaze into her eyes, I can see her mind is blank, too.
And there they both are, sitting together in the bar, a half-empty pitcher of beer between them. They are talking about his car or her new haircut
HARRY MALLIN
or how their parents don't understand. They rarely talk about school, and when they do it sounds like this:
"I can't believe that teacher. We just had a test three weeks ago and he's having one this Tuesday." He looks disdainfully into his glass, watching the speck of cigarette ash swirl in the yellow current.
you can say "Tuesday?" she asks. "Did you say Tuesday? Uh, today is Tuesday. You just missed your class."
class.
"Aww, man! And I had a pretty strong 'D' in that class, too. There goes that class out the window."
Okay, so it's a pretty extreme example. But look. They're all around us. Occupying the seat next to you. Watching the soaps in the Union. Munching on a limp pickle in Westerville. Holding the camera with the Tan behind you are your friends, neighbors and classmates, and they are surrounding us.
I say "us" because most of "them" don't bother reading the Kansan, much less the opinion page. The closest they come to absorbing anything from the Kansan is when they hold it over their heads when it rains and the ink runs down their arms.
"Bummer, man. This ink ran down my arms."
How do they make it? They have sheer numbers on their side. One or two or more per hundred manage to slip by, skidding on the downhill side of a 2.0 GPA.
They sail through the University like petals in the stream, their empty heads bobbing in the endless flow of students down the Campanile Hill.
I'm not talking about the guy who occasionally blows off a test. I'm not talking about the woman in your group who didn't uphold her end of the deal and ruined the entire project. I'm not even talking about the guy who blows off an entire semester and uses his student loan to pay for a month in the Bahamas (God forbid!).
I'm talking about the empty seat next to you that actually has a person in it but might as well be empty. A body is sitting there but it has no mind. It's filling up a space that might as well be filled by a lump of manure or perhaps by that friend of yours who mentioned that she was going to class but it was fitted out to insulate that your friend is anything like a lump of manure.
Do I sound too self-righteous? I admit. I occasionally must skip a class or two. I have my reasons.
We all have to stop once in a while and realize that there's a hint of the ridiculous in the endless barrage of tests and projects that confront us every semester. But if you have a better way for professors to establish your skill, I'm certain they'd be glad to listen. It's not their fault that the occasional doft manges to slip by. It's all in the percentages.
So what happens when the echo-head hits the pavement of the real world, proclaiming, "I are a KU graduate!"? Is it a bla on the rest of us? Does it decrease our chances of getting a decent job once the market discovers KU is churning out so much un-intelligentsia?
The answer is a resounding No! Why? Because almost every other university is doing the same thing. It's probably always been that way, too.
Where does that leave us then? With 13 column inches of senseless babbling? Perhaps. But I end with this one question, directed toward Peter Cox, who is clearly using their entourage, that may help unify my theme.
want in the hell are you doing here?
Good luck on finals.
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Letters to the Editor
KU students should vote for BOCO
To the editor:
Traditionally, this election has had a poor voter turnout. As this year's senior class president and president of the Board of Class I would like to see this year be different.
Today, KU students have their final opportunity to vote for the four people they want to represent their class on the Board of Class Officers.
Board of Class Officers, BOCO, is a very important student organization. The people who are elected have a large responsibility placed upon them. They are responsible for the planning of many activities that are a vital part of your education. You should have on each student's college life, it is important that you carefully choose the people you want to represent you.
So I encourage you to look carefully at the candidates for office this year and scrutinize the promises they make to you. Most importantly, exercise your right as a student and vote.
Martin Pryor.
president. Board of Class Officers
Pookie not symbolic
To the editor:
What is the big deal? The McColum Hall elections were conducted last week. A small stuffed animal named Cookie Bear won enough write-in votes to be elected vice-president. The whole business was written up in the Kansan, and everybody in an official capacity is pretending to be shocked that a stuffed animal could legitimately be elected to office.
It is all such tripe. What does the hall government do, anyway? Who in any given hall, outside of close friends and family members, could name its membership? And what condition could the general inactivity that seems to pervade the ranks of government, big and small?
It has puzzled some of my colleagues that 33 KU administrators would fly off to Washington, D.C., for the weekend to see a play. The mildest criticism has suggested that such a junket betrays a certain insensitivity to the present financial distress in the academic community.
Hall government is essentially unseen, anyway, and I am inclined to think that the more unseen it is the better. You eat your food (such as it is), do your homework and hope to have enough time to be social. This would go on whether or not the various sciences that constitute 'McCollum's hall government even existed.
I admit I had such uncharitable misgivings myself — until I read the Sunday Lawrence Journal-World's laudatory account of the play that inspired KU's elite to飞 a thousand miles. The play was not overworked that provided exactly the right tonic for play (if not underpaid) administrators.
So the election of Cookie Bear symbolizes nothing at all. All it does is reduce by one the number of student office holders at KU who think they are God's gift to the parliamentary process.
Edward M. Graham,
McCollum resident,
Baltimore senior
Electing stuffed animals just might be the most effective way to cut waste in government; nobody will ever accuse Pookie Bear of abusing his privileges. But let's be thankful that Pookie Bear's opponents resisted the temptation to make a joke of the McCollum Hall elections by making an issue of his race (or anything significant, either).
The leading character in the play is an alcoholic who murdered his wife's baby and buried the body in the back yard. (Good stuff, eh?) The paternity of the murdered baby is not revealed in the play. This device allows the audience to daily with the idea that the murderer
D.C. trip extravagant
To the editor:
Dennis B. Quinn,
One of these ladies is insane and another is a sadist with an artificial leg who likes to terrorize people. The mother's promiscuity endures right into senility, as she pursues a current affair with a priest. In the end, a grandson, who has come back home to reminisce about the good old days, inherits his inheritance in the grandmother's guilt. He turns the old man dies; and the insane son digs up the child's body from the back yard and carries the bones up to his mommy's bedroom: Curtain!
As you can see, this is all sheer frofty escape. After weeks of wrangling with the sordid details of the budgetary crisis, the administrators need a few follies and some cultural uplift. It is wrong to accuse these hard-working drama-lovers of extravagance; a weekend in Washington is well within their (or the University's) means, and they will return from our nation's capital refreshed and filled with a renewed dedication to all the highest ideals of our civilization.
was the father or (get this!) that the child was
fathered by either of the happy couple's sons.
professor of English
Gay religion question
10. 17 Reading the April 11 Kansan article about Julian Rush, the gay "minister," causes me to wonder what god Julian Rush claims to serve.
To the editor:
women. Thank you.
It is clear from reading the Judeo-Christian Bible that their God does not condone the practice of homosexuality. Look for yourself!
New Testament: Romans 1:26-27 and 32 — "For this reason God gave them over to their degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their hearts any kind of sin or vice, and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."
Old Testament: Levittus 18:22. "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is
God has given men standards to live by, and to meet God on His terms we must try to live according to those standards. Desiring to become ministers of God means that we not only try to live by those standards but also set an example and teach others to do the same.
Leviticus 20:13 — “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they murder their own death. Their blood-sufficiency is upon them.”
If Julian Rush is claiming to be a servant of the God spoken in the Bible, then how can he ignore what God has said concerning immoral sexual relationships?
If Julian Rush does not believe in the Bible and the God it speaks of, then what God does he serve?
Daphne Michelle Butler, Olivette, Mo., senior
Festival fills void
To the editor:
Are we living in an age that is culturally void? According to a column that appeared in the Kansan concerning John Irving's contemporary writings, indeed we are becoming culturally void. I am pleased to see, however, that the students, faculty and administrators of the University of Kansas are willing to support the arts and disprove this idea.
It has truly inspired me to see the enthusiasm and support that has been generated here at KU for the student arts festival, "Inside Out: A Tribute to the Arts." As the Cultural Affairs
Committee of the Student Senate began organizing for "Inside-Out," we were not quite sure what the response would be. The following list shows just a few of the widespread organizations and people that were supportive and instructive, based on the idea of "Inside-Out" to become a reality:
Sarah Roeker and The Arts Team; Facilities Operations; Hashing尔杰 Hill; Jim Long, Bill Towns and the Kansas Union; Ann Ewsole and the Office of Student Organizations and Activities; the Student Senate; the University Daily Kansan; the University Events Committee; the University Students' Doug Dillmun; Anm Fidler; Brad Mazon; Kim Metcaff, Joffre Preske; Sarah Selcov and Patti Sherrwin.
As quoted from Jacob Bronowski, "Man, his imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment, but to change It. And that series of inventions by which man from age to age has remade his environment is a different kind of evolution — not biological, but cultural evolution."
It is my hope that a cultural evolution of sorts will be evident at KU by increased student participation in "Inside-Out" in years to come, as well as in the many other cultural opportunities available, and that the University of Kansas will continue to grow as a shining example of an age moving toward cultural enrichment.
Shari Rogge.
Co-chairman, Cultural Affairs Committee
Film in poor taste
Last week, I found an ad for the film "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravitans" on our bulletin board. The film was to be shown in a theater. The ad did not say who was sponsoring the film.
To the editor:
I object to the use of any University building or equipment to encourage the continued abuse and "sexploitation" of women. If the showing of this film or any other like it must be approved by representatives of the student body, it is time they reached for the integrity that should be a part of this University. This film and others like it are demeaning of both men and women.
I do not argue that men and women have the right to view films such as these in their home or in a privately owned theater. I believe in free agency. There is, however, no place for such practices in an educational institution.
Rissa J. Heaton
Secretary, mechanical engineering
To the editor:
Safety limited viewing
On behalf of the Magna Charta in Kansas Committee, I wish to thank all of the students, staff, faculty and citizens of Lawrence who gave so generously of their time, their funds, and their talent to make the Magna Charta work. Without them this remarkable event would have been impossible.
Our only regret is that the contractual limitations necessary for the preservation and safety of the fragile, 768-year-old document made it impossible to extend viewing past the closing hour in the case of damage to abide by these restrictions we could not have had Magna Charta here at all.
Our final count showed that approximately 6,500 people from 185 Kansas communities as well as from out of state saw Magna Charta during its three-and-a-half day stay. At least some of those who saw it were people who had been too far back in line to see it on days and were able to take advantage of the "rain check" brochures we handed out at closing time.
Alexandra Mason.
Alexandra Masson.
Co-chair, Magma Charta in Kansas Committee.