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Wednesday, September 13. 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
What started in Munich as a super show ended Monday like a gaudy and tragic Las Vegas hoop show that could have forged, but hopefully never seen again.
However lofty its ideals, the Olympics is a stumbling, lethargic holdover from a quieter and more simple time. These days, whether we particularly like it or not, sports have become painfully wedded to big money and big business. Now, so apparent that only the most optimistic or ignorant deny it, politics is unabashedly a reality of modern sport—and in particular, the Olympics.
Now, through the accusing pomposity of news commentators we question posture on the winners stand, frantically looking for some sign, bat of an eyelash or flick of a nose, that might signal political protest.
In that comprising position a well-timed belch could signal some new and outrageous protest to the enemy. But when he dealt with sternly by the powers that
be. The same commentators become a bit more than coy and reluctant, though, before they call obvious or negatively motivated decisions just that.
It must be this sacred Olympic ideal they are protecting.
The time has come to either own up to the failure of the Olympic myth and continue from there, or stop the games now before we further corrupt that principle in a blind and futile effort to meet it. When a disgruntled loser even suspects a judge's bloat or ideology cost him the race, more than his own ability—it is time to kiss good-bye the ideal of pure sport and prepare to deal with political and economic sport.
This is a distasteful reality and one that many refuse to accept. Dreams, when they die, die hard and leave painful scars. The Olympic dream is in its last throes and should be allowed to fade quietly—to be replaced by a less romantic but more honest vision.
Thomas E. Slaughter
A Busing Lesson
By ERIC KRAMER
Guest Editorial
School busing is an issue that now is touching the lives of more and more Americans, and we now are beginning to hear the emotional outcries of many white parents and students. If we take away many of the surface and false issues, buses cost money, busing is dangerous and it can be a real issue. The real issue. Are the rich, poor, black, Chicano, Indian and white children of this nation going to go to school together?
I went to a high school in southern Arizona, south of the Gila River, a land first owned by the Papago and Pima Indians and then conquered by the Arapahoe tribe in to the area and brought modern irrigation and black cotton pickers.
One day the people of the community decided to build a high school, and so the blacks, whites, Chicanos and Indians brought their books, filed in and started to learn wood shop, American history, English, Spanish and physical education. We not along fairly well
This is not to say that conditions were not tense at times. I still can remember the time the big black kid from the cotton camp took after the principal with a straight razor. I still can remember the time that a group—of what you might call poor white skimmed by the Skane Valley Raiders tried to change the Mexicans' authority as the dominant group.
I can remember the bloody shirts.
the screaming teachers and the fat police.
I can remember how my sister used to hide her money in her shoe to increase the chance that she still would have it by lunch time.
I can remember the time a group of white clowns pulled off a stunt with a white gloves to mock the action of two black American athletes at the Olympics in Mexico City. Memories of the tense days that followed still are vivid in my mind. But I also can remember how those white and black kids found out that they would have to be living and working and studying together for a long time. I can remember how they got together as friends on the football field and fought the hopeless fights against the huge Phoenix and Tucson schools.
I remember my friends. I remember the good beer parties and running from the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) police out on the reservation. I remember eating tamales and drinking wine with my Chicano friends after midnight most nights as was juvenile in the black bars where the police were afraid to come in to arrest us.
Yes, the tense times did come, but as we grew up together we learned that we could become friends. If the people of this country are going to learn to get along, they are going to learn how to behave. And the schools seem to be the best place for our children to learn this lesson.
James J. Kilpatrick
WASHINGTON — The younger generation may find this hard to believe, but once upon a time the opening of school was a peaceful and pleasant event. In many communities, of course, it is still. But it is a dismaying experience to glance about the country and to mark the miseries this month.
School Opening No Longer Pleasant
Continuing a trend of recent years, a number of private and parochial schools will not open at all. Without some form of financial aid, perhaps in the form of tax credits to parents, the closings are bound to increase.
Ironically, a number of public schools also failed to open their doors last week. The teachers had gone out on strike.
Still other schools began the fall semester in moods of open or barely concealed bitterness, brought on by overuse of the classroom of achievements of achieving racial balance.
To make bad matters worse, this past year has produced additional evidence that in many states the taxpayers have had it. They are rebelling against taxes to support an educational system that no longer commands their affection.
Other elements contribute to the unhappy picture: Here the parents are
quarrel over sex education. There the parents are aroused at the poor teaching of reading. In nearly every city one finds angry complaints against 'permissiveness.' My own mail reflects a rising resentment against "slanted textbooks." The dissatisfaction is deep, pervasive and mountine
The saddest part of the story is that we are losing certain images and intangibles that once had great value—teacher, teacher, the neighborhood school the confidence of a community in its educational system. True enough, the old days had their bad aspects. In the 1960s, teachers were bused by the reason of color in the skin. Almost everywhere, teachers were underpaid and overworked.
Everything seems to have gone wrong. Once again, not only in the South but in northern and western cities also, children are being bused by reason of the color of their skin. A new militancy has taken over the teaching profession. Thousands of dedicated teachers and students with ideals—they want no part of the new trade unionism—but the image has been lost.
In Philadelphia, for one example, some 13,000 teachers went on strike last week. The school board, $2 million in debt, had asked that most teacher salaries be frozen at last year's rate. A proposal was proposed that the five-hour work day be extended to five hours and 40 minutes. Pay scales now range from
$8,900 for a beginner to $17,000 for a veteran teacher with a Ph.D.
Incensed at these requests, une-
Philadelphia teachers' union called a strike. The union demanded pay raise
averaging 34 percent—enough to pay
for nine months' work. The union
did altogether at the extra 40 minutes.
The school children of Philadelphia were not the only victims of the new militancy. Strikes or strike threats were reported in New York, Illinois, the Islands, and Michigan. Belajeargan school, unable to wring larger appropriations to governing bodies, were struggling for compromises based upon fringe benefits and the yielding of authority. From Florida came a brief but infuriating piece of news: It transpired that some school teachers, paid $10,000 per day, were targeted this summer on the grounds that they were unemployed in July and August
Maybe things will get better. Both major parties seem to be committed, and are hardly, to some form of tax relief for educators and students; ordered racial-balance busing has been delayed in such critical areas as Richmond, Los Angeles and Detroit. The Basic Education reports occasional indictments against academic values. But the encouraging news is lost in a violent climax. For most families, most teachers and most students, it was September once were happy times. When will those come again?
(C) 1972 The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Readers Respond
Library Inefficiency Charged
To the Editor:
In response to Mr. Radd's letter, bemoaning Watson Library's early and holiday closing, I would like to add a few observations both as an employee and a student concerned with its use.
We often hear the complaint that KU's library remains open less than any major university library in the country, while the pat response is that if more money were available, hours could be extended. Based on two years experience, I would
Since library patronage drops off steadily from 9 p.m. until 11
suggest that this is no more than so much hot air. Make-work jobs, feather-bedding and administrative bungling are the rules of the day. I'm my owner, a job that costs me alone, expenses easily could be trimmed by scheduling only enough workers to do the job right. As anyone who has patronized Watson Library will attest, there are always two or three reading, standing around, etc.
p. m. (the present closing time), wouldn't it make more sense to extend the hours and reposition the dead weight? Does make-money actually when we are supporting it with tuition and tax dollars? I believe that these and similar questions regarding any aspect of student life are integral and deserve an immediate answer.
Gregory Justis
Wichita Senior
Circulation Department
Employee—
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 and address in the town; faculty and staff must provide their name and address; others must provide their name and address.
Jack Anderson
Sneeze, Wheeze Remedies Investigated
WASHINGTON - Sen. Gayler Nelson D-Wis.) is quietly investigating cough and cold remedies, which earn $1 billion of their producers from the nation's sneezes, sniffles and wheezes.
He will concentrate on Allerest, Benzedrex inhalers, Contac, Coricidin D, Dristan, D, Dishalvatic S, Sinutabs, Vicks, Vickins, Vicks Ta-Vro-Neil and similar over-the-concocions.
All of them contain substances which Nelson's staff has found to be dubious, if not dangerous, and soon upon a study of medical literature
Many of the capsules, sprays, pils, inhalers and drugs featured in TV commercials, they have found, could be dangerous for them. But they can cause heart trouble, high blood pressure and thyroid disease.
temporarily drying up nasal passages.
even for people with the simple sniffles, too heavy a drug-storable dosage may cause irregular heartbeat. Certain eruptions and urinary problems.
While the commercial may advise that the medicine be taken as directed," there is sedum alcohol in the medicine what the drug may do besides
Nelson is particularly critical of the cold cure industry's failure to provide adequate information to sufferers. The same TV show, which shows a husband having a cleavage, cleared sinuses, might well show him not awakening at all if he were a heart patient.
Indeed Nelson has found that there may be a "congestion rebound" from the anticongestants, which leave the nose more stopped up than ever. If this is followed by indiscriminate use of nose drops, the mucus can regain, the mucous tissues can be damaged as to invite infections of the sinuses and middle ear.
The Federal Communications Commission, which could compel TV to give specific warnings on medicines, has left the cold commercials largely unregulated. plans to use the FCC to govern the laxness on various drug commercials.
He expects to open the cold remedy hearings—with a flair for timing—at the beginning of the sniffles season in November or December. Government officials, doctors and scientists will be invited by the nation's makers, of course, will be invited to respond.
"From Samir to the Eagle," began a typical message, "We await your gift. The sky is clear and the job well done."
terrorists may have received orders from a clandestine headquarters in Syria. However, they have also paid lip service to the Palestinian cause, have kept their guerrillas on guard and operational operations.
The Central Intelligence Agency has reported from Damascus that the Syrian government's agreement with Yasir Arafat, leader of the largest Palestinian guerrilla organization as Fatah, "to仁 in the extremist organization" is a step toward trying to cause any further troubles in
"He could not guarantee 100 per cent that there would be no further provocations by the fedayeen against Jordan, as neither (Syria) nor Fatah had full control over the extremist elements in the radical fedayeen of Iraq and the 'accident' sponsored by one of these organizations was always a possibility.
side Syria or to cause troubles with Jordan."
messages.
At the height of the Olympic drama, when the Black September terrorists were moving their Israeli hostages to the Munich airport for the unexpected shootout, guerrilla radio transmitters in Syria broadcast a number of coded messages.
The CIA, quoting the private remarks of Syrian Army Chief of Staff Mustafa Talas, added;
"He added however that Syria and Fatah were fully agreed on a
There is other evidence that the
Talas was quoted by the CIA as saying: "We have had enough of Arabs shedding Arab blood. The enemy is Israel, and when the enemy gets close we can fight as much as they like against the Israelis."
"We fought the Jordanians in September, 1707," Talas is quoted by the CLF. He lost some of his tanks and men; nobody won. And for what purpose? We were taken in by the fedayeen in 1797, but we are absolutely determined we have something a thing to happen again."
policy of no further provocations against Jordan and that Arafat had promised to force the radical organization in Syria into line."
It may be significant that the emphasis was on avoiding trouble with Syria's Arab neighbors. The United States' provocative acts against Israel.
Coded Messages
The Syrian Army chief recalled the military showdown between
Jordan and the Palestinian guerrillas in September, 1970, which spawned the Black September movement. Jordan was given heavy back Syrian tanks that had been sent to help the guerrillas.
Copyright, 1972.
by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
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Griff and the Unicorn
By Sokoloff