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University Daily Kansan, January 25, 1983
Price spiral is dizzying
"As night follows day
So the increases in the price of education go on. As perennial as the change of seasons and north winds in winter, inflation eats away at the shrinking pie that higher education is becoming.
Students are already bracing for next year's scheduled 20 percent increase in tuition at Regents institutions, but the lastest news is that more price increases are on the way.
Housing fees will go up from between 3.4 to 11.8 percent in residence halls, scholarship halls and apartments because of a requested increase that was approved last Friday by the Board of Regents. David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, said the increase will barely cover the rise in utility rates during the last year.
On top of that, the Student Activity Fee, which helps finance the KU Band, Forensics and the Kansan, among others, may rise between 50 cents and $1.50. Right now, the fee is $20.50.
That's a relatively small amount, but every little bit hurts.
The increases in the price of education are really nothing new, but they come at a time when financial aid eligibility requirements are being tightened, and the dearth of jobs makes it much more difficult than it used to be for students to find work inside or outside of the University.
The state legislature is justified in saying that students must expect to bear their fair share of the educational burden, but we have to wonder if some students are not being priced out of higher education altogether, or if high school students and their parents are not thinking twice about the chances of getting a college education.
We can only hope that when the Kansas and federal legislatures get down to the work of government, the issue of education does not become just another opportunity for political one-manship.
We have, if nothing else, a right to hope.
Satellites spawn danger
First, Skylab breaks up over Australia. Then Cosmos 954 dribbles radioactive debris across northern Canada. And now Cosmos 1402 dumps fiery balls of junk above the Indian Ocean, while its nuclear reactor meanders across the sky and slowly crumbles toward a mid-February re-entry date.
So far, each successive failure in space has brought more press, more speculation and more worldwide panic.
"Space is no place for nuclear reactors," says Thomas Armstrong, KU professor of astronomy and physics.
Space seems to agree. The latest satellite is one of several Soviet-made radioactive spy ships that have fallen out of the sky and crashed to earth in the past years, flung by nature's forces from a low-altitude orbit. According to Armstrong, another Soviet satellite could run amok in the same way and fall in the future.
No one, as yet, has been injured by these man-made meteors, and scientists — at least those from the country which made the malfunctioning machines — say there is little chance anyone could have been hurt.
But one thing is certain: in the future, the world powers will send up more of these satellites, not less.
Thousands of objects are now circling the earth, and many of these are derelicts. Press reports say the Soviet Union is currently spending almost twice as much on its space program than is the United States, launching probes and satellites with a fury that resembled the U.S. Apollo missions of the '60s and early '70s.
The conquest of space is a glorious and vital goal. But until man, at least Soviet man, learns to deal effectively with his wayward space children, strict limits on launches must be enforced.
Because soon, whether it be Cosmos 2001 or 200,001, a tragedy is sure to happen.
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KANSAN
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Rock music's message deteriorating
Time has numbed us to the legacy of the 1960s. The hippie's jeans became the sorority girl's fashion, the commune member's acid trip gave way to the corporate executive's cocaine ride and front row love blossomed into high divorce rates, and women and Phyllis Schlafting rented about hephes.
And rock music, another former symbol of rebellion, has also sagged into the mainstream
Popular rock always has made millions of dollars, but the extent to which so much of the music of today sounds similar makes you wonder why there wasn't fucked all the creativity out of modern musicians.
Whatever the cause, the cheaping of rock has made a mockery of those who looked to this art form as a way for young people to question their world and inspect their inner selves.
But the balance of popular music composed during the past five years is a mere echo of the tapestry of innovative sounds and articulate lyrics created 10 and 15 years ago.
It's like comparing a Michelangelo painting with a Bazooka bubble gum wrapper.
Highlighting Billboard's Jan. 13, 1968, and Jan. 13, 1973, lists of top LPs were The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, Arlo Guthrie, Yes, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, The Who and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Compare that list with Billboard's tops from Jan. 15, 1983: Men at Work, The Stray Cats, Ozzy Osbourne, Pat Benatar, Billy Squier, Missing Persons, John Cougar, Toni Basil, Judas Priest, Sammy Hagar, The Little River Band and Foreigner.
Can the music of Billy Squier or The Lakers River Band match the arrangements and complexities of the music of Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer? Do Pat Batarat and John Cougar compose as well as Lennon and McCartney?
The musicians in the first sample represent a broad spectrum of musical styles and influences, from folk to acid rock. The music in the second group ranges from slow drivel to fast drivel.
The lyrical quality of the bulk of modern rock, if this is possible, is greater than the music.
whereas Bob Dylan had his protest dreams,
Joni Mitchell her pastoral poetry, and The Who
DAN PARELMAN
and The Rolling Stones their rage, today's musicians lobotomize their listeners to a variety of topics with synthesizers and electric guitars.
John Cougar's cliche-ridden hymns to football player-cheerleader romance, Foreigner's and AC-DC's tributes to lust and Journey's hollow exhortations on love all we seek of the same shallowness. These performers are either too cowardly, too stupid or too secure with their platinum albums to explore the themes of their music with any death or intelligence.
This is sad, indeed, considering that the audience of today's rock music does not read novels, much less poetry.
Yesterday's rock provided an art form that the current generation appreciated. And it was their own.
The death of rock, at least the anesthetization of it, strips away this art form that is as close as the radio or turntable. Instead of being encouraged to think and to look at their world and themselves, adults who listen to and buy music often go back to lyrics and the processed music wash over them.
Listening to the factory-product music of today is as rewarding as playing Pac-Man or watching "Dallas." Rock music has become another deftless amusement, a cheap thrill, belched out by capitalist America and gorged on by consumer America.
And if the state of a people's art is an indication of the state of the people, our generation would do best not to claim Ozzy Osbourne and company.
God help us if today's young adults are as valueless as the bulk of their music. I hope they don't think about themselves, their relationships and superficially as today's sonn writers seem to.
But lower literacy scores and the perpetuation of the "do it if it feels good" philosophy are signs that either rock's messages are helping to shape or the rock industry knows who it is catering to.
Rock music was never the agent of communism that some conservatives claimed it was in the '60s. No, rock has become as American as rock and Diane s" Tastee Freeze.
And as far removed from truth as the 1960s are from the 1960s.
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.
Letters to the Editor
Keep research unclassified
When I left the aerospace industry last year to return to school, I looked forward to the variety and openness of a university as compared with the more restricted atmosphere surrounding the government contract work. I have thus noted with interest the recent articles in area papers about proposed changes in University policy that would allow classified research on campus.
To the editor.
First, we should recognize what we're talking about when we speak of bringing the "cutting edge of technology" to campus. In some fields, that means military-sponsored research. Thus, to the questions that must be asked about the propriety of classifying academic research, we must add questions about the propriety of using educational institutions for military purposes. Is it appropriate? Would that have a reasonable What about work on its component parts? Any research that improves the state-of-the-art of weapons technology ultimately refines the means to kill or maim.
Second, there is more involved here than just the principles. Classified work must be kept secure and must be performed in secure areas that do not presently exist. Is the University willing to invest in the permanent alteration of its facilities that will be required? These working with clearance and those working without have to be segregated in some way.
Third, the changes would undoubtedly bring a major shift in research emphasis to some fields. The aerospace engineering department, for example, expects a doubling of its research budget if classified work is allowed. Since only a given number of research projects can be undertaken, classified research will crowd out less esoteric work. Where will this leave the graduate students who either can't perform classified research or prefer not to? They would seem to be as restricted in their opportunities as the professors who advocate a change now claim to be. Moreover, since the proposed policy prohibits using classified research to fulfill academic requirements, the students seem to be more than a sort of "technological trickle-down".
Finally, by allowing classified research, the University would be effectively removing itself
from the broad struggle against government-imposed secrecy. The changes a responsible University should seek are not in the restrictions to free information in the restrictions to free information exchange.
Dirk Deam.
Dirk Deam.
Law student and graduate research assistant
Farms are not a special case
In response to "Family farms battle for survival while bank foreclosures continue," by Matt Schofield (Jan. 20); this represents a distortion impressed of what is happening "down on the farm." I think the article's title is a widely held public belief that's full of emotion, but not centered on fairness and what's reality to other businesses.
Recent farm programs, such as the payment in kind program, are bathed in the family farm ideology that the farmer is the backbone of our country and that his well-being is essential to our livelihood. This family farm concept is a misnerom in the sense that it depicts farmers as being more virtuous than other people; there are many benefits to their financial funds. The farmer is a very honorable individual, yet I don't think he should be embellished with over-equality.
Within the past few weeks, articles on farms that were sold to pay debts have grabbed newspaper headlines. The stories are disheartening, but shouldn't other business foreclosures be equally as solemn and newsworthy? I think it should also be realized that there was a lender with no credit score, and that that lender didn't act out of spite but rather to protect his business.
I don't feel that the farmer should be put on a pedestal and be made immune from a sluggish economy. I especially don't see why marginal farmers should be supported by government farm programs and allowed to survive in a time of excess production just because they are farmers. Why shouldn't farmers be subject to farm taxes or be like other currently hard-earned businesses?
Brent Larsen, Lawrence, Kansas