Thursday, September 23, 1971
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
It looks as though beer, or as some call it the "student's favorite beverage," is finally coming to the Student Union.
Beer Blast Blahs
Good show.
The Board of Regents concerned about things of a more heady import, apparently consider the once controversial issue a non-issue.
The history of the great fight to get beer on campus pales in historical perspective. It was an issue, way back when, that prompted dire promises from universities and candidates, countless petitions, and an occasional protest.
Then came the ruling excluding cereal malt beverages from the classification as alcoholic beverages and the subsequent decision $ ^{th} $
beer could then be sold and consumed on state property.
Now all that seems left is for Frank Burge, whose problem it is now, to decide just how the Union will handle this new headache.
It is a bit anti-climatic though, that an issue once the cross borne in anger and defiance, now causes few sighs of contented victory.
It has been done at other schools responsibly and to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. Probably, the introduction and response will be casual and less than cataclysmic—as it should be.
Somehow, the thought of a keg party in the Union Ballroom isn't really that exciting after all.
—Tom Slaughter
Registration Counts
There are approximately 20,000 potential voters at the University of Kansas this fall. At the present time less than 1,000 students have expressed a willingness to vote by registering.
In a limited sense they are right,
a word would make very little
difference in selecting these
However, consider these facts. Third district Congressman Larry Winn, a conservative whose voting record corresponds closely with President Nixon's every wish, won last fall's election by less than 10,000 votes. Reynolds Schultz, a lieutenant governor who has issued both racist and anti-student statements, won his election by 8,000 votes. Vern Miller, the attorney general who has a fondness of awakening people in the
Individuals who haven't registered have often said they would not do so because one vote would not make any difference.
early morning hours, beat his opponent by 20,000 votes.
The meaning of these figures should be clear. A consensus or even a majority of student opinion can be expressed effectively, and others will acknowledge, and all other people over 18 will register and vote en masse.
Registering at this time is a simple process that involves down to the city clerk's office, bringing one's age, and signing one's pass.
Waiting for the next election to register would be a horrendous mistake. The legislature may well take steps to limit student voting power by making it difficult to register where one goes to school.
The registration books, which are closed until after the Sept. 28 election, will open Sept. 29. Take advantage of your right to vote.
Brad Avery
Kansan Staff Writer
Brad Avery
Garry Wills
Radical Jews Speaking Up
It is fortunate that the only "radical Jews" most people know of, in America are the JDL followers of Rabbi Kahane. Yet these do not offer a radical alternative to this country's Jewish Establishment. They agree with its goals—but pursue those goals with less muted or moderate tactics.
There is a Catholic version of the DJL, called "Sons of Thunder." Its members rally to the Right Wing magazine, Triumph, and have raided a Washington hospital for performing abortions. They obviously agree with his stance on the subject of abortion, but carry their opposition to a wild extreme.
A TRUE CRITIQUE, and an alternative, to the aims of the Jewish Establishment, is offered by radicals like those who belong to Jews for Urban Justice. They do not like the way American and Israeli foreign policy have coalesced, making it practically impossible for a young Jew in America
to be a dissenter from our foreign policy without being called "a self-hating Jew" by who those queen an obsolete Zionism with blanket support for Israel, and blanket support for Israel with communist cold-war policy for America.
The interesting thing about these "radicals" is their deep theological traditionalism. They are not "secularized" liberal Jewish activists, but keldered hard questions, and do it from the sacred writings and religious duties themselves. Why, for instance, if Israel is Zion, have Americans of the Jewish Establishment not returned to it? There is a basic gull in the refusal to criticize religious violence or removal of anything done by the authorities there is the price of not going there
THE RADICAL JEWS have a bibliically founded basis for their criticism of Israel. The nation-state cannot be Zion at the final Sabbath,
since the Messiah has not manifested himself. There is a growing Zion in Israel; but that does not mean Zion and Israel can simply be equified. The hope and striving for Zion exists also in the ancient Jews, who believed that the Israel falls off from the ideals of the true Zion, radical theologians recall how the ancient Jews asked for a king like that of the other nations—i.e., for conventional power—and the prophet to lead them, but God gave them a king because of their resistance and lack of faith.
The radical Jews find this same lack of faith in reliance on the American jets of cold-war confrontation with Russia in the Middle East. They do not say that the nation, once it exists, should be free of all national considerations; but they believe that the Muslim aspirations, also by the Palestinians, who are neither "Arab reguines" nor "annexed Israelis", but a people striving for independence as themselves did a short while ago.
IT IS UNFORTEST that patriotic dissent from American foreign policy is so often thought of as disloyalty. It is even more cruel to call a Jewish critic of Israel policy a traitor to his people. His accusation is public accusation, though he feels a special affection to Israel (more particularly to the Zion in Israel), to match his loyalty to America. (The parallel is a Catholic American's loving concern for the Vatican as well as for Washington—may we feel both are at times mistaken.)
The radical Jews, laboring under this double accusation of disloyalty, have been required to think through their obligations, of loyalty and responsible criticism, with extra care. The way they have done this, as asserted above, is the model for others who feel the inevitable dividend of the human condition.
Copyright, 1971, Universal Press Syndicate
James J. Kilpatrick
Welfare Solution: Abolish It
WASHINGTON - A gentleness in White Plains, N.Y., has come over with a new skill, retaining answers yet offered to a leading question of the day. The question is, what should we do about public welfare? His answer
That is, of course, only a part
the approach suggested,
Leonard M. Greene, author of
The Green Eagle, Plan M., Greene is no crackpot.
He is president of the Safe Flight
Instrument Incorporation in White
Plains, he is a computer
mathematician, the holder of more than 50 patents. Five years ago he was
honored by New York State as
a recipient of the "Dear John" for his work with the disadvantaged in his own company.
Greens' revolutionary plan, if I understand it correctly, goes a step beyond all the schemes she has tried to enact for tax or a "guaranteed annual tax," he proposes to give everyone, the earnings, an identical "fair share," start with—for children, $80 for every adult, $400 for every child
THEN HE WOULD do two things. He would first dismantle the whole grooming, creaking, and cleaning of the public welfare, leaving just enough apparatus to mail out the monthly checks. He would then revise tax rates as so as to benefit people in the poor rich. In the process, he would remedy what he views as the worst single fault in the system, an easel plan, which is that it soaks everybody—especially the poor
In his recent speech to the Congress, President Nikon dealt at some length with the virtues of work. "Hard work," said the president, "America's greatest." We cannot maintain our standard of living, he said, "without continuing to work hard." The good life, in the President's view, "is the working life." And finally recognize once and for all that any work is preferable to well fare."
Green offered some specific examples of how the then-pending bill would work. Under certain circumstances, a family could pay the bill for the year, might head the presidential admonitions and find work producing another $5,000 in annual income. This is good? From the family's point of view, it would pay out $4,513 in taxes and lost benefits, leaving a net improvement of $487 for working
would take $703 of the $7,600
total, leaving $8,900 in net cash.
On up the line, of course, the tax
bite would be ferocious, and the
government would recount its
foreign debt to ensure you could say Nelson Rockefeller.
For the time being, at least, despite Mr. Nixon's plex to keep him in office, the plainly is on the back of the Senate's stove. The Finance Committee will be absorbed the next week with the President's New
Economic Policy. It seems unlikely that Chairman Russell D-L (D-La.) will then direct his energies toward the Family and reduce the emphasis for FAP is rather less than unrestrained. But the welfare mills will continue to cry out for correction, and the Green Party has been seen seems—might offer a useful starting point for trying anew.
(C) 1971 The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Kilpatrick today endorses a solution to welfare dilemma by abolishing welfare and giving the poor tax credit and increasing social spending.
In testifying before the Senate Finance Committee a year ago,
TELL IT TO THE gue on public welfare! Greene's point is that under the existing system, and especially under the administration' elaborate plan, is simply to ask people preferable to welfare.' Instead of providing incentives toward work, these plans actually penalize work. Why should a person on welfare go out and get an income of 67 percent of his earnings will be taken from him in taxes?
all year.
GREENE'S IDEA may have bugs in it; I don't mean to endorse it out of hand. But his application, starting at zero income, his plan would pay the typical family of four $2,600 a year in cash. If the family earned taxes would be collected. On the second $1,000 in earnings — the family is now at a gross of $5,000 and it can't be paid. If the family earned $5,000 in outside taxes
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Readers Respond
TotheEditor:
Education; Junk Mail
Gentlemen:
I have a at a few comments on Mr. Hay's editorial on grading (9-12) and make none, but leave it to someone in the education department more experience in the history of present innovations in education. I suppose it is just as well to add my comments and let the expert comment.
First, Mr. Hay writes that "Almost from its very beginning the school has attempted to act as judge and jury of a student's intelligence." The grading of students is actually a relatively new addition to the curriculum, only in the last century with the growth of American free public education. (Of course, I am sure Mr. Hay would have wanted European university of much earlier times, who was literally the employee of his pupils, could take on such a task on their strengths and weaknesses, but this is hardly the "rigid" grading system which Mr. Hay describes.)
Second, the familiar argument that a student is afraid to study a specific subject beyond the grade level that his grades in other subjects should lead him to describe different group of students from those I have met, or been a member of, as teacher or student.
Finally, Mr. Hay takes issue with the importance of grades in the qualifications for colleges, careers, and honorary societies. I agree with him that the wrong part of the structure. Because grades exist, college
admission boards, personnel departments, and honorary societies use them; if they ceased to exist, these bodies would be considered evaluate applicants. And, while this is not the place to debate alternative methods of evaluation, the reason for in education is at least in question.
Having quibbled over details with Quirk, Hay, however. I must now acknowledge my general agreement with him. Studying in the UK is understandable as a decretion to learning. Grades are not an indication of success in other pursuits. (That, however, may not be true.) A recent survey indicated that the highest-paid graduates of a law and a business school were not those with the highest grades, nor those with fewer than other familiar means of education they were the tallest.)
It is grossly unfair to grade on the basis of performance without regard to differences in age or background, as considering the importance grades have assumed (because colleges and personnel documents are important to a teacher presume to make the fine distinction between, say, a low D and an F? Several of them may be in my office, on the day I had promised grades would be available, agonizing over the last few of the ax, can attest to lack of confidence in this point.
I respect the teacher Mr. Hay mentioned, who did not talk about grades on the first day of class, but I am surprised that he would walk with it. I would welcome the chance to avoid giving grades that meant
any more than a help to the student in self-evaluation. And if I can help such a system develop, I will.
But all we have said is conventional wisdom among education experts and workers, who are studying grading systems and alternatives for decades. I recommend their work to anyone interested in grading systems, whether on a class, college, or university level.
-David C. Lantz
Graduate student and assistant instructor in mathematics
Mertztown, Pennsylvania
To the Editor:
When I picked up today's issue of the Kansan I was pleasantly surprised by its bulk. Some courageous expose, or perhaps a scandalous exposure, reasoned, would warrant this excess of paper and ink. Then 'this blue thing' dropped from between the pages to the ground. I could observe that the sidewall was littered with these goodies.
Well, it was nothing but junk mail that had somehow interrupted our own newspaper. That our own newspaper unbelievable; that it did happen disgusting. I suggest that the earth has borders to include ecology and conservation, and that the Kansan staff take it upon itself to collect all this blue garbage that they campus and have it recycled.
I think that I shall never see Junk mail as lovely as a tree.
—Michael Sternlieb Lawrence senior
Griff and the Unicorn
By Sokoloff
"Copyright 1971, David Sokoloff."
Letters policy
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must provide their name, year in school and home town; faculty and staff must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.