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Opinion
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Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 13, 1980
Unfinished business
Last Friday, on the first day before Easter break, most KU students were hard at work packing up their cars and planning homework avoidance strategies.
And last Friday, the Kansas Legislature was hard at work, too, at finishing up the first part of its session.
During the session, the legislature completed some big tasks. For example, it approved a $700 million appropriations bill that included KU's budget for fiscal 1983.
But some lawnmakers are complaining that their colleagues didn't work hard enough—either during their eleventh-hour session last Thursday and Friday or during the rest of the session.
"Are they going to go home having done nothing for schools, nothing for highways and having set the stage for a financial crisis in 1983?" Governor Carlin asked during a weekend interview with the Associated Press.
The answer is yes. Between 8 and 9 p.m.
Friday, both houses of the Legislature
decided to adjourn and to mop up their
unfinished business on April 27 and 28.
In those two days, the legislature will try to settle some of its leftover conflicts over school finance, the proposed highway fund and the intangibles tax.
And many say the fate of all these issues hinges on the fate of the minerals severance tax—or more precisely, on the extra money that the tax's supporters say it will bring in.
The future of the severance tax is cloudy. Even though the House of Representatives approved it last week, the Senate later defeated it, 21-19. Now, supporters of the tax are trying to resurrect it and swing more votes to their side.
Much clearer is the fate of a subject that is much closer to our hearts—the KU budget.
Last week, the legislators approved a $570 million appropriations bill for Kansas Board of Regents institutions. The bill now awaits the Regents' approval, and insiders say that that approval will come quickly.
Among other things, the bill zives KU:
Among other things, the bill gives rise
· a 7.5 percent faculty salary increase,
not the 13 percent increase that the
University and the Regents requested.
- a $800,000 enrichment grant to boost the salaries of individual business, computer science and engineering professors. The fund originally was to hold $1.5 million.
- $254,444 to pay for salaries of 16 more full-time unclassified staff members.
- a 8.75 percent increase for the student hourly program. KU can use the money either to increase hourly wages or hire more students.
- In many ways, the Legislature's version of the KU budget does not meet the expectations of many at the University. The 7.5 faculty salary increase and the $900,000 enrichment fund are much needed, but they could be too little, too late.
- a $900,000 enrichment fund to boost the long-awaited Haworth addition in the coming four-year period.
However, considering the economic climate, the University probably did not fare too badly.
Nuclear porn. "On the Beach." "Fail-Safe."
"Alas, Babylon." All of these deals deal with nuclear destruction. All are nuclear porn, a term in a few years ago by an Esquire magazine writer.
At the very least, we should be grateful that lawmakers acted on the appropriations bill more quickly than they did on the severance tax.
If they hadn't, we'd all be in legislative limbo.
'Ground Zero' spreads nuclear porn
Ground Zero Week was a nuclear porn festival. Last week, the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice and various departments on campus participated in a public literature dealing with the biggest bang of them all.
Nuclear porn is very similar to erotic porn. There is an initial excitement. In spite of ourselfs, we are thrilled by talk of such massive destruction.
But soon, the excitement dulls. Figures become jumbled. The degree of destruction becomes relative. You discover that nuclear war is unthinkable. It is thinking the incomprehensible.
It's fairly easy to confront the fact that United States and the Soviet Union have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over. But that's not the kind of destruction the weapons would inflict.
There is a whole new language—vulnerability, parity, reductions, freezes. A new bowl of alphabet soup—MIRV, ICBM, MAD, M-X. There are conversions.
For example, a one-megatron bomb is equal to 1 million tons of TNT, which is equal to a 200-mile freight train packed with it, which, exploded, would melt 1.5 tons of ice into instant steam. But an average bomb is usually 20 megatrons. And the answer to how to compare one- and 20-megatron bombs.
What does all this mean to the average person who is scared of dying in a nuclear war? Those who took the time to attend last week's events were very interested in the issue.
But judging from the numbers that stayed away, nuclear disarmament is destined to strike the KU consciousness the way KU divestment, the Middle East and nuclear power have.
older people, activists who regularly get involved in causes.
The teach-in on disarmament was the most informative event of the week. About 170 people attended, though 52 chairs were set up in the Kansas Union ballroom. What was impressive, despite the numbers, was the wide cross-section of people who did attend-students, faculty,
The disarmament conflict was borne out in two panelists' statements:
"This preoccupation with nuclear war is a form of illness. It is committing suicide for fear of death," Harry Shaffer, professor of economics and Soviet and Slavic Studies, said.
Don Vouch, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel,
said, "The very weapons we are concerned about have kept the peace for these three decades. The conventional forces would reduce the nuclear risk."
Everyone makes a convincing argument when they passionately believe in a subject. But how do you convince them? How can you make it work?
DAN TORCHIA
have plausible arguments? The more you learn,
the more you're confused.
The many variables became especially evident when the question-and-answer session began. The talk turned to statistics—how the United States is vulnerable because its population is clustered on the coasts and the Soviet Union's is scattered. The same is true, it was pointed out, for the industrial centers of both countries.
We have no equal yardstick to measure the superpowers' superiority. It depends on how many warheads they have on a certain kind of aircraft and how much makes for different standards of superiority.
But some say the numbers are irrelevant and the only issue is how to eliminate the weapon.
About halfway into the session, one such advocate stood up to comment, lrate because he was angry.
"I think the colonel has talked enough. We need to look at the fact that an imperialistic
economy and exploitation is the cause of war," he said. "If we need to take it out in the streets, that's what we'll have to do, the way we did in Vietnam."
Some of the crowd applauded. He continued . . .
"War is done by the profit-makers. It is them who are doing this."
"Rockefeller, Reagan, those kind of people.
They are raining the economy of the country!"
Workforce Reagan, Reagan.
They are raping the economy of the country!'
"Who the hell are 'Them'? " Vought asked.
"Rockefeller, Reagan, those kind of people.
but the evening's last question held the key to understanding people's fears.
"What are the chances of my generation having to do something like this with his 30s to the frontline in last year's 80s and 90s to the frontline in last year's 80s and 90s?"
"Unless we have a radical disarmament, I don't think we'll make it," said John Duerkens, a physician at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.
"Enjoy life. I agree with you," Shaffer said.
"I'm pessimistic, but not to the point to move to Tahiti. We better start working and stop counting," said John O'Brian, associate professor of systematics and ecology.
"I suspect we'll survive," Vought said. "The United States has a residual pragmatism to it. I think the world needs it."
The survival question is the key to understanding why the disarmament movement is growing nationwide. People are becoming preoccupied with the fear that they will die from a nuclear attack. The fear of a possible attack and fear of a potential Pear has always been a factor in deterrence.
Now, people are not only afraid, they are certain that it will happen. That adds a new dimension. But many people are still not aware of the enormity of the issue. That was evident by the low attendance of the Ground Zero Week meeting in October, and attitudes, nor does it even make the issues clearer.
All you reach is a "higher sense of befuddlement, using the Moore, Tom Moore, a darker and more objective
The mighty realms layeth siege and maketh war
HOW TRUE-MAN'S GHOST APPEARED TO KING RONALD, AND WARNED HIM NOT TO FIGHT, AND HOW BY MISADVENTURE OF AN AWACA BATTLE BEGAN, WHICH DID ESCALATE TO A GREAT HOLOCAUST. Being the third part of Trilogy of Tales taken from accounts of ages long ago, and especially from Sir Thomas Malory.
The first step is to learn dispassionately about both sides of the issue. In the nuclear disarmament game, the stakes are too high to rely on morality.
So one night, King Ronwald dreamed a wonderful dream, and in his dream sat King Ronwald in the richest cloth of gold that might made. And the King thought there was under him, near within his hemisphere, an hideous deep black communist plot, and therein was all manner of infiltrators, and guerillas, and military advisers, foul and horrible.
And then the King cried as he lay in his bed:
"Military aid, military aid!"
Then advisers and yea-men awaked the King, and he was so amazed that he wist not
SIR CLAY of Horton-upon-Otter
where he was. And then he fell on slumbering again, not sleeping nor thoroughly waking to the dangers of nuclear war all about him. So it seemed to the King, verily, that there came True-man unto him with a number of Third-World countries with him.
So when King Rowland saw him, he said: Welcome, True-man, I weened ye had been dead. Ah, what been these ravaged ladies that were the same people that dwells in their hair and faces scarred and bloody?
Sir, said True-man, all be the Third-World countries for whom our realm have fought for when I was a man living—when all of the forces in our forest stopped here—and since that time.
And all these are those that this realm did battle for in righteous U.N. quarrels. And because we did battle for them for their right, they have brought us hither unto this predicament. Thus much hath History given me leave, for to warn you of your doom. For an ye fight with Sir Breznev, as ye both fought with Sir Breznev, and the most party of your people on both parties. In no wise do ye battle, but take ye a SALT treate. And proffer you largely.
Then True-man and all the countries vanished in a sudden cloud shaped as a mountain.
So then they departed and came to Sir Brezhnev at Kremlin Castle, where he had a grim host of an hundred thousand, and there they entrapped Sir Brezhnev long time. And at the last, Sir Brezhnev was agreed for to have Afghanistan and Poland by King Ronwald's days, and after that, all the world, after the days of King Ronwald.
sellers, advisers and yea-men, and charged them in any wise to take a treatise with Sir Brezhnew; And spare not: proffer him as well, and wheat as much as ye think reasonable.
And anon the King called upon his coun-
Then were they coundescended that King Ronwald and Sir Brezhney should meet betwixt both their hosts, as of at Yalta, when Rozevelith and Joestalla in met days of
And when King Rinowald should depart, he warned all his chain of command that, an they see any missile fired: Look ye come on brevetion, the traitor Sir Brennay, for I in no wise trust you.
yore, and each of them should bring fourteen diatoms.
In like wise, Sir Brezhney warned his host that: An ye see any manner of missile fired, look that ye come on fiercely, and so slay all that ever before you standeth, and lay it low in smithereens, for in no wise I will not trust for this treatise.
were agreed and accorded thoroughly. And wine was fetched and they drank together. Right so came an AWAC out of a little air base and stung a pilot on the tail. And so when the pilot felt him so stung, he looked down and saw that the pilot had moved to slay the AWAC, and rued none other harm.
And so they came with this word unto Ronald. Then said he nothing of open cheer in a mystic statment, and so he went into Air Force One.
And when the host on both parties was the AWAC go down in flames, then they blew trumpets and horns, and shouted grumility of war. They would press their button. And then all manner of brittle loosened.
And never afore was there never seen a more doleful battle in no Christian land, for there was but bombing and disintegrating, and blowing and leveling, and many a grim ultimatum was there given of either to other, and many a deadly blast.
And thus they obliterated for all the long day, and never stinted till the strategic cities and defense plants were laid to the cold and contaminated earth. And ever they fought still, till it was near night, and the holocaust lit the city. Then the enemy planted an hundred million钻 dead upon the down.
And so they met as their pointment was and
Then was King Ronwald wood-wroth out of measure when he saw his people so slain from him. And so he looked about him and could see him. He said to Duke Hailewulf that no on-live, but one knight. Duke Hailewulf
Jesus, mercy, said the King, where are all my noble marines become? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day! Would to God, said he, that Jesus was the Messiah, Sire Brezney that has caused all this misfortune
My time passeth on fast, said the King, Therefore, said he unto Duke Haigwulf, take thow here Hicailre my good sword and go with it to yonder pentagonal lake's side; and when I had come across these throw Hicailre with full might into water and tell me what thou saw there.
So Duke Haigwulf departed, and by the way he beheld that noble weapons stockpile in his hand; and then he said to himself: If I throw these rich armaments in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss. And then Duke Haigwulf had Hicaliral under a missile slo. And so, as soon as he might, he came again unto the King, and said he had been at the pentagonal lake, and had thrown the sword back at it, whence it had come.
What saw thou there? said the King, Sir, he said, I saw nothing but the waters wap and waves wan. Ah, traitor untrue, said King Haigh thought that his commander him go again and throw it in. Duke Haighwould think it sin and shame to throw away that noble military might, but obeyed, and took Hicallure up, and went to the five-marchers who set fire the sword as far into the water as he might.
And there came a mushroom cloud above the misty water, and met Hicallire, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished; and then vanished away with the sword in the water.
And the last gleam of the sun wend its way through the day's black clouds, and caught on the sword, but vanished as it sank into the lake. Then all was dark, and the night was come.
THUS ENDS THE DOMESDAY TRIOLOGY
Editor's note: Ben Jones, a Kansan columnist, unearthed the Sir Clay manuscripts in Tintgell Castle in Cornwall during his year of study abroad.
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Letters to the Editor
Not all KU women aspire to be playmates
To the Editor:
In her March 29 article, "Closet Playmate" Lisa Boltton did more to harm the efforts of women today who wish to elevate their status in society beyond that of playboy Bunny material than Playboy magazine does each fall with its "Back to School" feature.
Her claim that "every woman" at the University of Kansas secretly indulged in the fantasy to be "chosen" (a misuse of the word, if we ever heard one) for the feature imposes her values on those who do not wish to adopt them and is downright false in at least five cases.
Ms. Bolton feels that "fame is brief and thrilling" and that "most people grab it if they
can." She may have been referring to women grabbing at the chance to appear in Playboy magazine, but the underlying tone of the editorial implied that women also secretly participated in the world of Playboy.
Diane Olmsted, Chicago graduate student
Fight for loans
To the Editor:
Strong and responsible support for the continuation of Guaranteed Student Loans is urgently needed as the hour of decision by the Bank has come to a close. Representatives know that the weakening of
higher education would be detrimental to America's national interest.
The administration's budget would give away billions of dollars in price supports for farm products to the owners of factories in the field, thereby fueling the fires of inflation, but not one cent for Guaranteed Student Loans for graduate students.
Denying assistance to graduate students would restrict America's progress in technology and
Robert L. Gulick, Jr.
Dean of admissions
American Graduate School of International Management