Opinion
Page 4
University Daily Kansan, January 20. 1983
Thanks, Jim Thorpe
"I have always liked sport and only played or run races for the fun of the things and never to earn money...I am very sorry, Mr. Sullivan, to have it all spoiled in this way and I hope the Amateur Athletic Union and the people will not be too hard in judging me."
When Jim Thorpe wrote these words to Jim Sullivan, the American commissioner of the 1912 Olympic games, he did not know 71 years would pass before he would receive the world's final judgment. That verdict was announced this week, when the International Olympic Committee returned Thorpe's gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon to his family.
The tribal war yells from the Sac and Fox Indians, and the tears of joy that they shed, came much later than what should have been necessary. Thorpe — professional football and baseball player, Olympic champion, and perhaps the greatest all-around athlete of this century — died in 1933.
Lawrence can proudly, and rightly, boast of being the home of Thorpe for two years while he attended Haskell Indian Junior College. The world's greatest football player learned to play the game there, and also became interested in track.
"I'm sure father is with us here today, and he would say one word — thanks," William Thorpe said Tuesday.
But Lawrence owes more to Thorpe than Thorpe owes to it. He was a true legend, though a maligned, soft-spoken one.
Many of us, remembering our history, would smile at that word. For, when King Gustav of Sweden proclaimed in 1912: "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world," Thorpe's reply was barely audible:
"Thanks, King."
Press is no political tool
Tit for tat
Apparently that's the attitude of the U.S. State Department when it comes to abusing press freedom, because this week the department responded to the expulsion from Poland of a United Press International correspondent by ordering a Polish correspondent in the United States to be expelled also.
The State Department, rightfully, was trying to show its disdain for the unwarranted deportation of American journalist Ruth Gruber and didn't try to hide the fact that the explosion of Stansilaw Glabinski of Poland was a direct reprisal for Gruber's treatment.
In fact, the department noted that there had been no improper behavior on Glabinski's part, when it announced that he had two days to leave his home near Washington after about six years in this country.
But it seems more than slightly hypocritical for the United States to grumble about lack of respect for free expression in another country, and then respond in kind.
This is standard operating procedure for the State Department, but press freedom should be a way of life in this country, not a political tool to be granted and revoked at the discretion of diplomatic bureaucrats.
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Family farms battle for survival while bank foreclosures continue
"They were weddin's, all in them houses. An' then I'd want to go in town an 'kill fokes. 'Cause what'd they take when they tractored the folks off the lan?' What'd they get so their 'margin a profit' was safe? They got *pa dyn* on the groun', an 'Joe yellin' his first breath, an 'me jerkin' like a billy goat under a bush at night. What'd they get? God knows the land 'ain' no good. . . But them sons-a-bitches at their desks, they jus' chomped foole in two for their margin a profit.'
— “Grapes of Wrath” — John Steinbeck
Times are pretty bad.
Farmers are losing their farms at a rate higher than any we've seen for quite a few years. But unlike the dust bowl years, there is no illusion of a land of plenty in California left to flee. To packing up the jailoy and leaving doesn't do much good if there's no place left to go.
We grow up idealizing the farmer. Americans see him as the last pioneer, silhouetted against a vast horizon.
Dave Smith, Douglas County extension agent, has said that even some of the most secure farmers in the area are starting to feel the financial strain.
Last year wasnt a good year," he said. "This year isn't going to be much better. I would say there are a number of farms in this area with serious financial problems."
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.
To the rest of the world, the American family farmer is the epitome of freedom. Any problems that come up are between a man, his tractor and his land.
In the 1930s, Steinbeck described farmers standing steady through hard economic times and dealing with the dust bowl.
In those hard times the farmer was able to survive until a monster of men, not of nature,
MATT SCHOFIELD
started, flexing its muscles. Banks started calling in loans and selling the land.
But the cause of the latest farm exodus isn't unyielding crops, or drought. Instead the modern jecust comes in the form of a job too well done.
That was in the '30s, but them sons-a-bitches are at it again. And if they are not stopped this time it could mean the death of the family-owned farm in the United States.
Farm foreclosures rose by 240 percent in 1982 from 1961. Although far short of the rate during the Great Depression and dust bowl years, the farm foreclosure rate is higher than it has been since 1970.
More than an entire wheat harvest sits in storage bins across the state. The oversupply of
grain in the last few years has forced grain prices down (wheat sold for more than $5 a bushel in 1974, this year the price dropped below $3 in some parts of Kansas). As the price for each bushel goes down, a farmer has to produce more wheat to break even. More wheat means still lower prices. Thus the cycle continues ad infinitum.
At the same time that farm profits have been falling. interest rates have been going up.
The result has been that farmers are finding it more and more difficult to make payments on credit.
Two weeks ago in Springfield, Colo., we finally reached the point at which farmers began to fight back. The result was that we saw pictures of battered farms, pictures of farmers running from teargas cannisters and pictures of the American dream going down the tubes.
Long-range solutions to get the farmer back on his feet exist. But long-range plans don't cut
An immediate moratorium on farm foreclosures is needed in Kansas or we are going to have a statewide moratorium.
Such a moratorium would put pressure on banks and other loan institutions, but they would
From what we are seeing now, the family farm might not, and in an age when our value system revolves around a self-serving principal of emotional satisfaction, we need the picture of the God-fearing, honest, hard-working farmer more than we ever have.
Times are pretty bad when farmers have to fight.
Handle bad profs with care
You've had a week of classes and you seem to be settled comfortably into the safe, pseudowomb of campus life. But all is not fine in the best of all possible worlds.
Some of us landed in the inevitable hands of what I choose to call shoddy education. In other words, the lots were cast in the great, soft brain of our teachers and some students united up with bad teachers.
A bad teacher is not necessarily a bad person. One does not go hand in hand with the other. A bad teacher may be disguised as the griming man woman you pass every day in the halls Westco.
But that innocuous-looking man or woman is not just another number in the data banks of the bank.
for the sake of economy and time. I'll hencefort refer to my hypothetical bad teacher as Professor Bad, or Professor B., to those who
HARRY MALLIN
know him well. This is not to say that all bad teachers are men. Personally, I've had both men and women that were bad teachers.
It's inevitable that we, as students, will end up in a class taught by the honorable Professor B. He teaches in every department, school and college of the University.
Years ago, Professor B. was hired by the University because of his prolific work in the field of research. He was a learned man, and only could be considered outstanding in his field.
But something went wrong when Professor B was placed in the classroom to face eager young minds.
He looked upon the multitudes and from somewhere deep within his data-filled body, a rumble was heard. But instead of meaningful
out or comprehensible knowledge pouring out of his mouth, a confusing mute facts, figures and names.
The genius of Professor B. is not, was not, and
never will be as an effective communicator.
It's a shame, because he has so much to say and so much knowledge to impart. What's worse is that there are so many eager minds that really need that knowledge.
Professor B. doesn't have an obligation to entertain us. He should, however, by the very definition of his job, be able to instruct us.
I'm not speaking of the instructor you are angry with because he gave you a 'B' instead of an 'A'. I'm talking about the instructor who gave you an 'A' that you are not very proud of because you know that you got absolutely nothing out of the course but that grade.
So what can you do once you've found yourself in the palsied hands of a bad teacher? By now, he certainly has a healthy tenure under his belt and he might not care whether you like him or not.
First, consumerism works in the academic marketplace, too. Why did you pick that section in the first place? Get out while you can — if you can.
Perhaps the course is required and Professor B. teaches the only section. This is a rare occurrence. Most departments are quite aware of this, so try to keep him away from such circumstances.
Go to the head of the department, see anyone in the Student Assistance Center or talk to William Bafour, the University Ombudsman. You don't know what an ombudsman is, look it up.
There are other options open to you, but don't be a close and stand by while shoddy education happens.
Professor B. works at campuses all over the world. He is at Yale, M.I.T., Oxford and even at Johnson County Community College. When he outs, his brothers will take his place.
But we don't have to stand by and watch it happen. We're all protectors of our own standards of education.