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University Daily Kansan. October 2. 1981
Opinion
Sticky rise in prices
And now, just in time for the holiday season, the U.S. Postal Service proudly presents the 20-cent stamp.
Yep, on Wednesday the Postal Service voted itself another two-cent increase in the price of a first-class stamp, with the change to take effect Nov. 1. The separate, but not necessarily equal, Postal Rate Commission had already rejected three formal requests earlier in the year that would have raised stamp prices. The commission obviously was not going to cooperate, so the Postal Service merely went around it.
Not to worry—all this was totally legal. However, it does make one wonder about the practical use of a Postal Rate Commission in such situations, given the balance of power.
In any event, an perceptive person should have seen the increase coming.
After all, Postmaster General William Bolger has been saying for months that the Postal Service would continue to lose massive amounts of money unless it got another rate increase. Did any of you doubt for a moment that the price hike was only a matter of time? Several groups are challenging the increase, but even if they win the battle now, they are destined to lose the war in the near future.
Perhaps one of the most amusing responses to the rate increase came from Norman Halladay, head of the National Association of Greeting Card Publishers. "I'm shocked," he said. "I can't believe they are doing this right before Christmas."
Cheer up, Norman. At least when friends get a card from you this year, they'll know you really cared enough to send it—even if it's not the very best.
Authentic and useful footnotes now banned to back of books
Bv CHARLESL ZERRY
New York Times Special Feature
AMHISTER, Mass. "The footnote is an endangered species. I mean the real footnote, the one found at the foot of the page instead of at the end of the chapter or the back of the book. The threat to the footnote comes from publishers and authors who find them unsightly, costly, forbidding.
This is nonsense. The layperson as well as the scholar enjoys footnotes. They can be charming, an encouragement to read on, worth every penny of the extra expense.
"The Letters of Evelyn Waugh" might easily have been published without any interruptions by its editor. But then we never would have learned that the "pornographer" who Waugh said fed a horse vodka and got bitten for his pains was Norman Mail, 1
Such information keeps us reading, but the main job of the footnote is to interrupt. Simply
A stern, no-nonsense lecture on the 18th-century belief that the universe was a smooth-running machine is being delivered. Suddenly, from the bottom of the page, a voice whispers, "It should be pointed out, however, that de Matrice, the author of the famous book 'Man The Machine', has said that he stoked the machine too well." 2 The reader is intensely grateful for this human interruption.
1 Mark Amory, ed., "The Letters of Evelyn
Parker" [New Haven: Ticknell & Fowers, 1800], p.
572.
2 Daniel Bell, *The "Coming of Post-Industrial*
*New York: Bk Books (1973) 167*, p.349.
*NY: Bk Books (1973) 167*, p.349.*
Being human, authors sometimes miscalculate, of course, which is part of the charm of footnotes. That gentlest of philosophers, William James, once interrupted his discussion of the brain to reassure the reader. "Nothing is easier than to familiarize oneself with the mammalian brain," he says. "Get a cat, let it eat your food, and unravel its parts." 3 Only a reader with a strong stomach will gain the assurance James intended.
3 William James, "The Principles of
Philosophy, Chicago. Encyclopedia Britannica,
1921."
Publishers have no stomach for any kind of notes. At one time notes ran conveniently down the side of the page. Called cut-ins because of the indentation in the print that allowed them to nestle close to the relevant text, they have all but been eliminated. Footnotes, or bottom notes, as
they once were called, are increasingly being
somewhere between the appendices
and the index.
Now publishers have come up with a new gimmick to make footnotes hard to use. The game goes like this. First you must fix in your mind the number of the footnote, say 27; then you to remember the page number on which footnote 27 appears, say page 96. Then you must turn to the back of the book, trying to keep your place with an inserted finger, and scan page after page until you discover one headed "footnotes for Pages 81-107." By that time you have forgotten the footnote number so you must go back to the original page out again, sitting small and suity, in the text. Only enthusiasts for acrostic puzzles and nine-digit ZIP codes can possibly persist in this game.
The publishers' fear that footnotes will discourage general readers is misplaced. The reverse is true; the more difficult the text, the more welcome is an interruption.
In a fit of self-mortification, a friend of mine was trying to fight his way through an explanation of Kant's categorical imperative. The explanation, by an Oxford professor, was short, but after 60 pages my friend's eyes glazed over. Fortunately, a footnote interrupted.
"It is extraordinary," the professor wrote, "how early the human mind seems able to grasp the universality of moral law. A small boy of five, not especially conspicuous either for goodness or intelligence, was presented on a flag day with several flags. One of these he was kind enough to give to me. Later he gave another to his sister, who rewarded him with a sixpeace. Whereupon—surely on the assumption that his sister's action was a manifestation of universal law (even if this was not without advantages to himself)—he asserted, "If G. gives me a sixpeace, then I professor will have to give a sixpeace, too." "4 My friend felt as if a window had suddenly been opened in a rather stuffy room; children's voices, distant band music drifted in. Refreshed, he managed to start marching through the text again. Someday he may finish it."
4 H. J. Paton, "The Categorical Imperative: A
King's Game of Philosophy" (New York:
Harper & Row 1983)
A critic once wrote that a writer's footnotes ran along the bottom of his pages like dogs yapping at the text. Publishers would like to use a footnote for someone to offer some dinky kernel at the back of the book.
I hope the publishers get bitten for their pain.
Ghope bye. Clyb writes a weekly column for The Amherst News.
The longest-running Greek tragedy in recent history is not playing at Athens' Theatre of Dionysus, nor is it a Broadway hit. It was right here in lawrence on KU's West Campus.
Starring in the production are about 60 plaster case models. The set is located at Bennett. An actual model was kept as K1 Willow Corner.
Artwork neglected in classic fashion
Elizabeth Banks, who doubles as curator for the Wilcox Collection and booking agent
The life-size cast, along with lesser players that include ancient Greek coins and pottery, premiered at the drafty tin shed near 15th and 16th Street a ago, and they have been booked here ever since.
Informally appraised at a value of $75,000 in
As long as the collection is low on the administration's space-priority list, KU students will continue to be cheated out of the university. It can only happen if the University's most valuable collections.
Obviously, there is no classics museum in the now-completed Wescoe. Thus, the valuable pieces of the Wilcox Collection remain in the tin shed, where many of them have become water damaged. An apparent lack of genuine concern for the collection on UNLV administration has destined the works of art to remain in the storage shed indefinitely.
CORAL BEACH
The Wilcox Collection, which was moved from old Fraser Hall in 1965 and placed in 'temporary storage', 'was to be housed in a museum', for the then-nonexistent Wescø Hall.
for the tragic tin-shed show, has been trying to find a more suitable showcase for her players for the past several years, but to no extent could she have dreamed would be a nightmare for most other agents.
Nothing would please her more than to receive the cancellation notice for the Wilcox Collection's gig on West Campus. Such a notion would mean University officials had finally found room for the collection to be properly displayed on campus. Banks could then pay the fees from her players, and the statues could truly do justice to their love scenes.
But it is unlikely that the Greek heroes will have the opportunity to play for an audience of KU students in the near future. The reason is the space shortage at the University.
1966, the collection, according to Banks, could have easily doubled in value by now. Is a damp, dirty, drafty tin shed a suitable location for a collection valued at more than $150,000? If the collection in question consisted of football equipment, University of Miami would answer this question differently than they have for the Wilcox Collection.
If the cultural, educational and aesthetic value of the Wilcox Collection has not touched the hearts of the KU administrators, the monetary value, and the fact that the collection is a financial asset to the University, should have tempted them to act by now.
Not only are the pieces now in the collection continually appreciating in value, but the collection as a whole is growing in size because of an annual allocation earmarked for the purchase of new pieces. The officials must approve each piece before collection, if for no other reason than to protect the financial interests of their institution. Have they no business sense at all?
Granted, relocation of a collection the size of the Wilcox Collection is no small matter, especially when much of the campus is undergoing renovation. However, plans should be made to give space to the Wilcox Collection so that it can be moved quickly once the dust settles.
Several suitable locations will become available after the Watson renovation is completed and all of the books and equipment are moved back to the library. One of the more appropriate locations for the Wilcox Library law library reading room in Lippincott Hall.
The fact that the collection has been "temporarily stored" since 1965 is proof that previous administrations placed little value on the collection itself and on the numerous benefits it has to offer KU students. We can only hope the University's new administration will be able to shed some light—literally, as the storage shed is dark as well as damp and drafty—on the collection and its future.
Whatever the reason for the pennies being there, I must conclude that it's the Dyche honeybees that are responsible for the penny shortage I keep hearing about.
American outlaws shrouded in romanticism
Last month, tales of the old outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde were brought to life as seven inmates escaped from the Kansas State Penitentiary at Glenview, Illinois. An outsider outlaw hideaway of the Missouri Ozarks.
Yet these men garnered something of a public following (not the least of which was a posse of 400 law enforcement officers) during the week that elapsed before the last of them was captured. I confess I was not too immune to this sympathy, even though I could not rationally justify it. However, I think I can rationally explain it, with the help of a y-year-old who said, as the search centered on his Missouri hometown, "it's better than the movies."
These four were, shall we say, unattractive individuals. Murders. Rapists. Kidnappers. Two of the convicts had to their eternal credit the crime of robbing a honeymonkey couple of $B and raping the 16-year-old bride in a motel room as the rapper was forced, at gunpoint, to watch
Pot Shots
A couple of things bother me about Dyche Museum. First, there's all that goop on the trees out front. Take a look; where else on campus are there trees with icky white goope them? I hope this goope isn't escaping from a jar of formaldehyde somewhere.
Motion pictures have so instilled in our culture
And second, in that big North American habitats exhibit, how do they get the little prairie dog to pop up out of his hole? Do they use the hole for a little shock therapy, or what?
But most of all, I wonder about that bonev
Don Monday
Could bee they're running a bank. First National Bee, so to speak. The queen bee and another bee are intricately insured? Is the wounded compass daily? Or there a severe penalty for early withdrawal?
Look at that little tube the bees to go in and out of the hive. See all those pennies inside.
tree exhibit on the upper floor. You know, the display where the beehive is.
Are they robbing gas stations by night?
Or—judging from the preponderance of pennies in the tube—maybee they're mugging gumball machines.
Now, where in blazes do bees get all that money?
Instead of continuing to ask the government to supply more money for loans, we need to rid the loan system of these thieves so that a bank can lend a loan, and who will pay it back, can get one.
A lovely bunch, college students are. We scream and kick because Congress is drastically reducing the size of the student loan program. No one will be able to afford an education any more. But before anyone screams bloody murder again, we let's甩 out those who aren't paying back their loans. They are one reason the program is being cut.
The Kansas University Endowment Association lost $78,000 last year in delinquent student loans. That money could have paid 170 in-state tuition for one semester. Instead,
Brian Levinson
it has been written off and the rest of the
students who borrow money are paying the
amount.
Nationally, the federal government loses millions annually in defaulted student loans.
George Stewart, the Endowment Association's controller, said it was difficult for him to understand why students borrowed textbooks. "I don't understand promise. Don't understand it either," George.
How 'bout it? Let's put pressure on these cheaters. City governments often print the names of delinquent taxpayers, maybe we should consider a similar policy.
In recent years the telephone company lobbed another log into the hell of modern life. With Bell Telephone's Call-Waiting system, I have moved phone conversations often sound like this.
"Hey, Martha- it's Burf Bielsal all the way from Montana!"
"Balph! This is Burf!"
"Calling from Hungry Horse, Mon.!"
"How's the little woman after twenty years
Raloh?"
"Bielski? Burf Bielski?"
"Has it been that—" CLOCKETY-CLICK
-long? Let me put you on a ford in a minute.
(Ten expensive minutes later) "Sorry, Buff. I thought that might have been the president calling, I sent him a letter last week concerning my plan for the economy."
"Fine, Ralph. So how—" CLICKETY-
CLICK "are you?"
"Uh . . . Burl, could you hold=Burl? Oh,
Burt? Hera, Burth, burnd up on me!"
Although this Call-Waiting system was designed for important people, most VIPs know better than to employ rude devices. I suspect Call-Waiting sells best to the person who wants to be the one for fame to be phoned his way But for the child who bears tidings of only curiosity and concern, Call-Waiting's CLICKETY-CLICK often gives a slapstype in the face.
the notion of the outlaw as an attractive adventurer that our eyes have trouble readjusting.
Recently I saw "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." Who, with even the slightest bit of daring in his soul, could resist pushing for Kris Kristofferson to pull his gun on the deputies? The slack-jawed, lackadaisical manner of Kristofferson contrasted with the Kid" irresistible. We all like naturals.
But draw a bead on Billy the kid as he really was. A photograph of William Bonner shows us
BEN JONES
a small, impish face curled into a weak snake. There is little of Kristofferson's broad, bronzed, easy-going grace. The movie was a glorification of a coward.
The American fascination for fugitives goes deeper than a strip of cellulose. The United States, developing from an untamed land, has had a history characterized by rambunctious criminal activity, and men in stiff-starched collars. I wonder whether our frontier past, combined with a flexible class structure, has not produced a national sentiment for the underdog that is stronger here than in other nations. For Joe Suburb, who aspires be a hard-raveled mobile, it is a natural viewpoint to take.
The common obstacle to such aspirations is "the system." An escaped convict is pitted against the system in high drama; he is alone, and the rest of his struggles against regimented suppression.
From this detachment from society arises brazenness. A "iifer" can say what he likes because he has nothing to lose, having lost everything already. One tends to admire anyone who speaks his mind on all fronts. I am disturbed not because convicts can be honest, but because honesty surfaces so rarely anymore that even to a very intelligent person they one is led to wonder to what extent expediency governs the words and actions of those of us with a stake in society.
Unlike the convicts, very few of us can afford to toss caution to the wind. As students, we must consider commitments and consequences; the convicts had no such concerns. Their "jobs" were life-appointed and waiting for them back at Lansing. In a sense, this "job security" makes it easier to live. We have more integrity than many of us, for he can afford to be his own man, though it is in bonds.
Such a role hints at our concept of tragedy and perhaps explains why even the devout Milton could not overcome an unconscious sympathy for an antagonist whose actions were single and spurred by the moment. In "Paradise Lost," the character Satan actually emerges with qualities
much more vivid and attractive than those of either God the Father or the Son: Milton's inspirational fires created for Satan a much better literary figure.
In a similar way, the escaped convicts provided much better "copy" for journalists than did the law; the cons had better quotes. The last inmate to be captured was asked the question, "How did we get the wolf the ordeal was over. He responded in the truth dauntless spirit of Milton's Satan:
I have a feeling the inmate wasn't alone in his wish. Inherent public sympathy for the wrong side sees to indicate that human nature is naturally evil and must be ruled by reason. Just as government must have a safeguard of checks and balances to prevent abuses, so society have prisons to contain individuals who break its laws. It does no good to argue that prisoners who can outwit the system by escaping a maximum-security institution should not be caught and put back—that argument would undermine the very purpose of a prison.
To understand the true character of the escaped convicts, and to realize the true necessity of prisons, a quote by a hostage of the escape is helpful. The man, forced to drive for the convicts, said, "I was in prison for five years and I knew some bad dudes, but I never was aware of them until three days ago." And then three. They just don't give a rip about anything or anybody."
To wish for the freedom of such men is to want our own destruction. I'll leave that one to the psychonahual, but the phenomenon raises the question of what strives for freedom without jeopardizing society.
Any profession will reward talent and effort with a loosened yoke. But such freedom to step out of the pecking order must come as a privilege, not from pointing a 12-eye shotgun at someone's nose. We certainly should not be glorifying actions of the latter sort.
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