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Opinion
University Daily Kansan; March 10, 1983
Disturbing commentary
Alumni contributions to the KU athletic department are skyrocketing, department officials announced Tuesday, thanks to a fund drive that asked members of the Williams Educational Fund to double their contributions for athletic scholarships during the next two years.
Although the final total of the drive won't be figured until the April meeting of the KU Athletic Corporation board, many contributors have already doubled their gifts, this despite two of the worst seasons in recent years in KU football and basketball.
"Right now the mail is coming in so fast that we're just trying to keep up with the immediate responses to the contributions." Bob Frederick, director of the Williams Fund, said.
Frederick and Monte Johnson, KU athletic director, went to a lot of work to bring in those contributions, and the money will certainly benefit the University's athletic program. The
department's budget was the second lowest in the Big Eight.
Nevertheless, it throws an ironic light onto an issue now being considered by the Student Senate Finance and Auditing Committee: a $15 academic services fee to be charged students because no money can be found to adequately support KU's libraries, academic computing or instructional equipment needs.
Alumni last year, through the Kansas University Endowment Association, gave $100,000 for library acquisitions. But the Endowment Association has refused to renew the grant. Instead, it will sit back and watch as KU students take on an unprecedented responsibility for financing basic academic necessities.
It is wonderful that KU alumni have responded with such generosity to the needs of the athletic department. But it is sad to know that, truly, in the eyes of alumni, the football program is more important than our libraries.
Life outside classes and bars often ignored in university
The ivory tower. People talk about it as if it was an impenetrable fortress, a place of refuge where students go to learn about the real world, but are rarely touched by it.
I am amazes me when I talk to some of my fellow students who don't read newspapers or watch the news on television. They live in the most crowded cities and their time is consumed by going to classes and bars.
Not that all you have to do is read newspapers and watch the TV news to be a member of the media.
Another step in the right direction is that rare occurrence when we find ourselves unexpectedly confronted by a real-worlder. These "windows," allowing us "ivoryites" to catch a peek at the real world, are priceless in the experience they give us.
The real windows can occur just about anywhere and anytime.
They do not happen at McDonald's or anyplace where your fellow students work. A student is not
HARRY MALLIN
a member of the real world, no matter how much he works. I work more than 30 hours a week at three different jobs and still consider myself a full-time student.
A real-worlder is a person you have almost nothing in common with except that moment in time in which fate has brought you together. Real windows are ephemeral; sometimes they pass quicker than a conversation at a traffic light.
Here's a classic real window
Over Christmas break I had the brakes on my Volkswagen checked and adjusted. It was in one of those auto service centers that are thoughtful enough to have a TV to watch while you wait.
when is innocently watching "The Brady Buchi"
when a clerk came up with that the man
looks like he isn't something.
Had my car fallen off the lift? No, the mechanic just wanted to tell me something interesting about Volksewagen brakes.
His name was Meri — it was embroidered on his uniform — and he was covered from head to toe with grease. Merl and I talked about cars while he finished adjusting my brakes.
How to talk about cars was one thing I learned from high school. You needed to know about Holley carburetors and Quadrajets and so on before they would let you graduate.
But talking to Merl was an experience. We didn't talk about Hooker Headers. We talked about the quality of German engineering. I listened to a discourse on German ingenuity by a man who probably hadn't been further east than Eudora.
Meri is a member of that society known as the "Salt of the Earth." The uneducated, the poor, the unemployed and the fortunate are among them. They seem to be too unhappy about their positions.
Meril, with his sparsely toothed smile, seemed happy to talk about how there was no speed limit on the German autobahn. Meril will never see the autobahn, so he's content with driving up and down 23rd Street in his sputtering Ford pickup truck.
You don't have to get your brakes fixed to encounter a member of the real world. Right now, you can just walk around.
Some facilities operations workers are from the real world. Most - KUPD officers are real-worlders. But, I'm sorry to say, most professors are not.
Some professors are merely overgrown "ivyites," residents of that exclusive condominium, the ivy tower. Simply because they live here does not make it any different.
Is it necessarily bad to live in the ivory tower? Not if you are here for the right purpose. That purpose being to study for a major or to teach those who intend to learn.
The people who are here merely because their parents are footing the bill or because they don't think they can handle the real world are useless units, taking up space in the memory banks of the University's computer.
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Letters to the Editor
Foreign student tuition bill baseless
To the Editor:
This is in reference to a March 2 Kansan article.
A Kansas House committee's approval of a bill that could raise foreign students' tuition fees appals more than just the foreign students. State Rep, George Dean, D-Wichita, who introduced the bill, claims that "we" are footing the bill for the rich foreign student's education. Whom does he include in that "we?" Certainly not me — an American from this nation's school system. $1,000 and like others imagine that this money is allocated among the various schools. Where does the rich foreign student's $1,100 get allocated, if not also to the various schools?
KU is hardly the home of rich foreigners. Georgetown and Berkeley universities do a fine job of attracting that breed. But then perhaps they are just more welcome there; Dean seems to think the current economic state of Kansas warrants a higher charge to foreigners seeking a cheap education here. I am from Washington, D.C. Why not also charge me for seeking a cheaper education in Kansas? Or would that be un-American?
"I am reminded of a bumper sticker I saw." "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." Accept the bill at KU and the latter will be the rude awakening of a future KU student who will miss the interaction with foreign students.
Is the additional revenue worth the ignorance?
Washington, D.C., junior
Egoism acceptable
To the Editor
In his Feb. 28 editorial, Matt Schofield states, "We are inhabitants of an immoral, or amoral, age and society." This in itself is a fair enough claim. However, he goes on to say that the immorality of society is due to our having placed too much emphasis on individual rights and that "we have lost any idea of what community or social good is." He is putting forth the proposition that altruism, a doctrine which demands that a person act only with concern for others, is moral, and egoism, which declares that man must act in accordance with his own self-interest, is morally evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To begin with, Schofield's opinion that during the past two decades egoism has been the dominant code of ethics is incorrect. The criterion by which most people judge today's social issues is whether something promotes the social, or common, good.
Egogism holds that man is an end in himself; altruism holds that man is a means to the ends of others and therefore, that others have a moral right to the property of any one person. Recently a Chicago television station interviewed a woman who was a recipient of various welfare programs. When asked what she thought of recent cutbacks in those social welfare programs, she claimed that the government was acting unjustly. She said, "I got my right to that money!" If Schofield's beliefs are consistent with what wrote in his editorial, he would agree with such a statement "being due to the altruits that she was correct in saying what altruists would contend that she has a moral right to the taxpayers' money. Egogism, on the other hand, contends that man (in this case, the taxpayers) is not a means to others, that he must not sacrifice himself to others or sacrifice others to himself. If this is immoral, then I must be crazy.
Some people might say that egoism does not allow for helping others. This is clearly wrong. An egoist may still help others, but only if it is in his self-interest to do so. I might be perfectly happy to give money to a friend who is down on his luck, as long as it is in my self-interest and does not constitute a sacrifice. Scholars other hand, seem to believe that a person is interested in giving of life to anyone who is in need. This type of thinking is incompatible with freedom (as of the common good) and it
must be denounced if our society is to lay any claim to being moral.
Bill Freeto
Hinsdale, Ill., junior
Bill Freeto
Way story clarified
To the Editor:
I would like to clarify and correct several inaccuracies contained in the Feb. 28 article that Julie Heabeler wrote concerning The Way International. I feel that I am qualified to answer her statements as I am a graduate of Power for having taken the class in January of 1981.
She states that PFAL costs $200 to take. Since the middle of 1981, the minimum donation has been $40. As to the teachings being "repetitive," PFAL is a comprehensive study of the accuracy of the Word of God and how practical application can be made in everyday life of the promise that Jesus made to Christians in 1834. He then demonstrates how any of his classes have made him a better person. I myself have sat through plenty of repetitive KU classes.
Heaberlin quotes an unnamed source in her attempt to discredit speaking in tongues. The celebration of Pentecost by the churches is the commemoration of the Apostles in Jerusalem receiving tongues from God. The Apostle Peter, in explaining this phenomenon to the curious lookers, states that it is the literal fulfillment of the prophecy recorded in Joel 2:8-32. I personally would rather take the Word of God over the word of an unnamed person.
The question of money and finances seems to concern Heaberlin. She quotes a figure of $4,300 for each 11-month semester of the Way Corps. While that may seem excessive, remember that The Way College of Emporia is a private institution, unlike KU, and receives no public funding. Most private colleges, religious or otherwise, charge a very high tuition rate as compared to public schools out of necessity. The 11-month semester that the Corps go through contains not only classes and materials, but a physical fitness program and other training.
The title that was mentioned is optional, and unlike other "Christian" ministries, the leadership does not solicit funds nor does it chastise anyone for not contributing. The church teaches that neither of money, time, work or whatever, will be returned more than abundantly to the titer.
The founder of The Way International, Victor Paul Wierwille, is paid a straight salary by The Way International and does not skim off any of his earnings other way from the contributions of others.
Cliff Ratner Lawrence senior
In closing, I would like to challenge anyone to enroll in and complete the class on Power for Abundant Living and then disprove, from the Word of God, any of the statements made in that class. I am sure you take on my challenge will find that it is impossible to do.
An intolerant tirade
To the Editor:
I believe that an article in the Feb. 25 Kansas has done a disservice to the students of the University of Kansas. It did not accurately all of what Harnish Fraser said in his speech.
Fraser, sponsored by the KU Conservative Forum, stated that nuclear war would be God's punishment to mankind for the moral decay in our society. He then proceeded to list homosexuals, lesbians and abortion as signs of this decay. One was supposed to assume that if we were to rid ourselves of these causes, a peaceful world could more readily be achieved.
Fraser also singled out Amnesty International for attack. According to him, this human rights group is a communist front group attached to Moscow.
Fraser, a Catholic; sees the only salvation of
mankind in the Roman Catholic Church. And to paraphrase an old saying, "Converts are always the most fanatical of followers." Fraser's talk was more hawkish against that what did not occur with Jesus.
The Kanas would have done well to expose this man for what he is: a moral totalitarian who would dictate to all his "laws" of conduct. It is of interest to note that those who scream the loudest about the communist threat are in many ways more powerful than any other, another set of unbending, unenlightened rules.
If I were a member of the Conservative Forum, I would be very embarrassed to associate my group's name with someone as Fraser. Surely, they can do better than that.
John Rodgers
Agra graduate student
'Much Ado' review off
To the Editor:
In the Ebook,
Kevin Lollar's review of "Much Ado About Nothing" (Feb. 22 Kansan) requires a response from another observer.
Director John Gronbeck-Tedesco's chosen setting for "Much Ado was" not a "nere historical displacement" for me, but rather an illuminating device which made the characters and their social structures gleamingly accessible. I also suspect it de-mystified the Elizabethan language for some by placing the production within a more familiar historical context. The use of the Charleston dance is wholly logical in this context, yet Lollar seems disappointed that the creative idea "worked" for the audience by eliciting laughter. Moreover, the dance does not only amuse but contributes significantly in putting the audience at ease with the world of the play via a familiar social activity.
The 20th century setting of the KU production does not inherently confuse the audience, as Lollar suggests, provided that the audience can free itself from its own preconceived expectations. Good critics respond to the show they actually view, not the ones they anticipate or desire, and they allow that specific event every opportunity to affect them. The Kanan review of "Much Ado About Nothing" strongly suggests that the critic was unable to satisfactorily experience, much less assess, his own inadequacies as an objective auditor than through any of the production's aesthetic inadequacies. Lollar writes that the director of "Much Ado" "does not trust his audience to enjoy Shakespeare without the gimmicks." I would have to counter that Kevin Lollar does not trust himself to enjoy a production that varies from the conventional.
Harry Parker Lawrence graduate student
Follow smoking signs
To the editor.
some people do not wish to breathe air with cigarette smoke in it. These people may not wish to breathe air with smoke in it for health reasons, or simply because they prefer to breathe air without a cigarette smoke in it. There are other people who do not mind breathing air with cigarette smoke in it. In fact, some of these people smoke cigarettes themselves, and need to be able to smoke cigarettes several times a day.
in order to make life more comfortable for all of us, certain areas inside buildings have been set up for people to breathe air which is free of carbon dioxide and other areas of a building, smoking is allowed.
I am writing this letter because I would like for people to avoid smoking in nonsmoking areas. It would be common courtesy if they would choose to go to another area to pollute the air with their cigarettes or if they would postpone smoking their cigarettes until they were in another area.
Topeka graduate student