Page 4 University Daily Kansan, February 9, 1962
Opinion
Education strikes out
President Reagan's proposed 1983 budget clearly demonstrates the value his administration assigns to education.
If the budget is approved, higher education, particularly graduate study, will become a luxury available only to those wealthy enough to afford it.
Reagan's proposal calls for the elimination of graduate student loans from the Guaranteed Student Loan program.
His proposed cut would affect 400,000 graduate students nationally and 2,500 graduate students in Lawrence. Last year, KU graduate students received approximately $10 million through the loan program.
The cuts to education are particularly galling when compared to the $33.1 billion increase Reagan requested for defense spending.
While the president is willing to funnel increasingly larger amounts of money "to restore our margin of safety and counter the Soviet military buildup," he is ready to ignore the need to develop the minds necessary to accomplish this task.
The GSL program was established during an era when Americans believed that education was an important and valuable asset to the development of civilized society.
But in his relentless quest for the elusive balanced budget, Reagan is willing to sacrifice the greatest of all national resources—the human mind.
In addition to massive cuts in aid to college students, Reagan's budget also includes the elimination of the Department of Education and the $2.9-billion cut in the Title I program, which provides remedial help for disadvantaged children.
The only break Reagan is willing to give to education is a plan he will present to Congress later this year that would provide tuition tax credits to parents with children in private schools, another one of his breaks for the wealthy.
Reagan may not be "balancing the budget on the backs of the taxpayers," but he is trying to do it at the expense of education, a move that can only promise serious consequences for the future.
Aunt's funeral strengthens family's weakening bonds
We gathered last week to remember and honor Alice Lignon. We were at her house, with adults packed everywhere and the children running under the tables and adults' legs. Conversation flowed freely, more so than it had at any other time that weekend.
It was a time to talk, relax, to eat and drink and maybe smile a little. Alice Lignon, a great-aut, dawn at 59. For eight years she fought leukemia, until the medicines gave out. She fought it four years longer than the doctors offered her, until her body grew tired, but her snirit never did.
There is nothing newworthy about this column. Family ties and death are not typical
DAN TORCHIA
topics for a college newspaper. But they exist and need to be reckoned with. As society becomes more mobile, the chances of students returning to work in their hometowns are slim.
Extended families—aunts and uncles and grandparents living close by and being actively involved with the immediate family—seem almost extinct now.
Yet such families do exist. Most of my family still lives in the Kansas towns in which they were born and reared. The ties there are very strong, and we appreciate when I visit only once or twice a year.
As students graduate and move into jobs, they decide how strong their family ties will remain. In families with an ethnic tradition of a strong family, the traditional ties grow weaker as succeeding generations assimilate into American society.
In one weekend my family, whose ancestors came to the United States from Italy in the early 20th century, was able to re-establish ties with members who had lost touch.
Three generations gathered in southeastern Kansas that weekend. It was a homecoming and a chance to rediscover family history. The girls were at the Orange Alison Ligeon wedding, Mrs. Alice's house at 42
Camp, an old mining community, was the house the first members of the family settled in.
The Catholic Church teaches that death is a time of celebration and sorrow. The sorrow is meant to remind us of our own mortality, and the burden it must honor to the person's life. We tried to do this.
The rosary service, the funeral and the short service by the grave offered a testament to the dead as well as for the living. Gathering in a group somehow made it that.
After each gathering, conversation was easier
when it was not too rosy; we caught up on
news after the initial hour.
"We got a lot of snow in St. Louis. I don't know if we're going to get home."
I'm due in August. This is my last chance for a girl."
"You ought to talk to Frank, he makes good sausage. I don’t mumble, but I’ve had his, and it’s fine."
The talk also turned to Alice, how she celebrated the 40th wedding anniversary in the hospital the week before she died and how she remembered that week detailing her funeral arrangements.
"The word 'luekemia' scares me to death," she wrote, an unintended pennant that described an eight-year-old fear. Alice loved to dance. She had asked that no "sad music" be played at her home. Then she sang songs from her youth—"Oh, Johnny, Oh," "Sunrise Serenade" and "Sentimental Journey."
She added an admonishing postscript to her letter, saying, "Don't go too much on my funeral." She was worried that they had never had much money.
After the funeral and the grave-side ceremony, we drove back to 42 Camp where the kids and food were waiting. The children were too young to realize what was happening, and they saw their weekend trip as an adventure. Their play eased their parent's sorrows, just as the parents would comfort them when they began to ask where Alice was.
That would be the best memorial to Alice Lagon.
Later, the children may have to be taught to understand the ties that drew their parents back to 42 Camp. They will have to be taught that children can be close even when they live far apart.
"Yeah. who savs those Japanese fellers make better cars than we do?"
U.S. auto industry not laughing now
By the 1920s, only 12 years after Henry Ford introduced the automobile, automobiles had been on the road for a long time and the Army was
We had sprawled our cities and suburbs so that only cars could move us about efficiently. Four of every five people, now, get to work by automobile and have no feasible alternative.
But rising fuel prices, the unhealthy U.S. auto industry, inflation and recession have made automobiles an expensive necessity. In 1979, 142 million U.S. drivers were shelling out 20.3 cents for every mile they drove, and prices have risen since then.
Cars cost about $10,000 this year compared to about $6,900 in 1979. So if you bought one in 1979, you better hang on to it, since prices aren't about to come down.
What's that? You say you have a '70 that you plan to trade in next year?' You say it's on your calendar.
Surprise! Despite all the news about how Detroit just can't make them like they used to, the average car will last about 150,000 miles.
Does that sound like a tall tale? Janet Guthrie, the first woman to race in the Indy 500, drives a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda, and has driven it for 171,000 miles. She says that older cars are easier to maintain and that maintenance is the secret to a car's longer.
She's a race car driver, though. She knows about cars. What about the ordinary Joe?
But maintenance can be expensive. Large
Edward Donaldson of Eugene, Ore, drove his 1968 Mercedes 1 million miles. No, that's not a typographical error. He drove his car 1,000,000 miles, and then took it back to the dealer to use for publicity. The dealer gave him $30,000 in exchange.
Donaldson said the secret of his car's longevity was maintenance-fixing things before they fell apart, when they were just old, dusty instruments, and changing the oil and oil filter often.
repairs sometimes cost more than the car is worth. Maybe, but they cost less than the price of a new car. Besides, remember that 20.3 cents per mile the average driver pays? Only 8.5 percent of that amount goes for maintenance. Depreciation accounts for 31.4 percent, gasoline for 29.2 percent, insurance for 15.2 percent, finance interest for 11.1 percent and miscellaneous costs for 4.6 percent of that amount.
So, except for miscellaneous expenses,
maintenance or the lowest expense drivers
Still, most people skip the preventive maintenance and drive their cars until they
are rust buckets, complain about shoddy Detroit workmanship and trade them in on
They find that prices have gone up considerably since they bought the old car. But.
Yes, steel prices have risen. Several years ago, steel makers wanted to raise their prices $6 a ton, and auto manufacturers complained they would have to pass that price increase on to the car consumer. A car weighs about one ton, so the price increase would have risen about $9. They rose about $65.
What consumers pay for when they decide to trade one and a half tons of old steel in on one and a half tons of new steel, is not the fact that the auto industry's failure to face reality.
Small foreign cars have been buzzing around American streets for years, but for a
long time they were oddities in the eyes of Detroit automakers. What Americans really wanted were big luxury cars, new models every year, Detroit automakers said, and that's exactly what their manufacturing lines were set up to create. What a coincidence.
When Volkswagen introduced the bug in the United States, Detroit automakers tried to laugh them off the streets because they refused to change their model every year, kept their prices as low as possible and offered 30 miles per gallon.
Consumers weren't laughing.
New Detroit automakers are crying. They wouldn't be, though, if they had stopped trying to tell U.S. drivers that they wanted cars to listen to what U.S. drivers really wanted.
They could have gradually changed their manufacturing lines to produce a few small, fuel-efficient cars as an alternative. Instead, they have been forced to switch over manufacturing processes all at once, when business became so bad that major manufacturers were going under the one-third of the autoworkers were, too.
Experts say there will be some big changes in Detroit before the U.S. auto industry gets back on its feet. They predict innovations like electric cars, solar-powered cars, ultrasmall, ultra-efficient commuter cars and increased fuel efficiency in diesel and gasoline. But nobody is predicting that Americans are going to stop driving cars.
However, all those changes mean that cars will be more expensive than ever, so Americans will be forced to start maintaining them longer.
No longer will people be able to use cars as one and a half tons of scrap metal, temporarily pressed into the form of status symbols. They will learn to regard them and care for them, as the finely designed, well-tooled machines that they are.
Letters to the Editor
Columnist's subject alive, well and living in Lawrence
To the Editor:
I would like to call your attention to the Feb. 2 column of Jolynne Walz.
Walz uses a high school friend as the basis for her column. I am the person to whom she refers.-Shahin Adhieh. Walz is inaccurate in her writing. She does not have written about my without consent.
First, I did not "come into" her life as she would suggest. The truth of the matter is that I only knew Walz through our mutual attendance at Shawnee Mission South High School.
Walz is incorrect in saying that I came to this country in search of a cure for cancer. I did have cancer when I was a child, but I was cured when I lived in England, long before I ever came to this country. Nor did I come to this country from Iran. In fact, I have never even lived there. My parents are Iranian and for that reason I carry an Iranian passport. I was born in Ethiopia.
Finally, I would like to clear up some rather important misunderstandings about the Bahai faith, particularly its relationship with the Iranian government. The Bahai faith is not an off-shoot of Islam, nor is it "perchance against the Iranian government." It is a doctrine of the Bahai faith to obey all the laws of the country one lives in, and to stay out of politics.
In the words of Jacques Brell, Shahin Diahieh is alive and well and living in Lawrence.
Third, my cancer has never gone into remission and I was never sent to South America to escape the draft or possible death. In fact, I have never been to that part of the globe.
Shahin Ahdieh.
Prairie Village senior
Secondly, I object to the manner in which she treats me throughout her article. Her description of me as a tag-along requires imagination since I only met her on three or four occasions.
Shahin Ahdieh.
Caution necessary
To the Editor:
After reading the editorial, I am inclined to draw the conclusion that there is improvement in the recruiting policy of the Kansan. It is really encouraging and inspiring to see journalism as are qualified and experienced as those Herron enumerated in her article being positioned.
I wish to congratulate Vanessa Heron on her success in occupying the most important position she has held for the company.
Her introductory column was historical and educative.
The Kansas City Star, Aug. 30, 1981, featured an analytic article on the educational standards of journalism. Several opinions and suggestions concerning the deteriorating standards were given. Most journalism deans and teachers quoted in this piece blamed the degradation of journalism education on rising enrollments in journalism schools and the students' poor grades. In their profession - English - Advancement in technology was another factor considered.
But one important point needs to be mentioned along with the policy changes of the Kansan and Lakeland governments.
Del Brinkman, dean of the KU School of Journalism, had a different view on the subject.
city's low standards on that school's admission of minor students.
"They admitted a lot of minority students. That in itself was a good thing to do, but in so doing they lowered their standards and they've never been asked to come back up." Brinkman was quoted as saying:
As a student from Nigeria, I am not sure I fall into the minority fold. Still, fear, uncertainty, depression, sadness and embarrassment are common in my life. Hail, I feel like a dancer each time I see the dean.
Nevertheless, caution is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of a journalism career in the face of such incredible feelings, remarks and comments by the highest official in the William Allen
Vanessa's appointment and her pragmatic introduction sprinkled temporary relief on my
Apollo E. Dimbo,
Port Harcourt, Nigeria, senior
Apollo E. Dimbo,
Equal opportunity
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to Teresa Riordan's column, which stated that, because most GSP-Corbin residents are white, the KU residence hall system doesn't further racial equality.
I have to wonder what Hyland's definition of equality is. To me, equality is achieved not in numbers, but in opportunity, and any female student is a current or permanent student has an opportunity to S-Ortho1.
As Riordan laid out, prospective residents of the hall do need to send their contracts in as
early as possible. She asserts, however, that middle-class white Kansans "know" this, implying that there is some kind of conspiracy going on to keep blacks out of the hall.
There's no conspiracy.
The system is fair as it is: the first contracts sent in receive top priority. If blacks want to see more minority students living at GSP-Corbin, they must cast their masters and friends know that the hall fills quickly.
rths
But maybe most black women don't want to live there anyway. Lewis and Ellsworth walls may hold more appeal for them because, after all, those halls are to black sororites and fraternities what GSP-Coriin is to the white collar: a place to recruit guests and little sisters.
Patricia Crocker, Topeka freshman.
Riordan had the ethnocentric idea that most black girls want to stay in GPs-Corbin, but don't know about the application procedure. I think that they just don't care to live there.
Racial equality means the same opportunity for everyone, and that currently exists in the KU housing application process. Racial equality does not mean equal percentages of blacks and whites in every dorm. To have equal numbers, KU would have to adopt quotas, with race specified on the contracts. That truly would be discrimination.
Avoiding discrimination is vitally important.
So is ensuring freedom of choice. Let the hall residents decide for themselves where they want to live, because it is not the job of a university housing office.
KANSAN
(UBS$ 650440) Published at the University of Kassam
and Tel Aviv University. Subscription for June and July祭
day, June and July祭 end on Saturday, Sunday and
Monday祭 day. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $27
for a year. Subscriptions by phone are $649 for a
year. Outside the county. State subscriptions are in a
yearly subscription.
Footmatter. Send changes of address to the University Dada Kanoi, First Hall, The University of Kanoa, Nigeria.
Vanessa Herron . Natalie Johnson
Managing Editor . Tracey Hamilton
Editorial Editor . Karen Schuster
Campus Editor . George Geee
Campus Editorial Manager . Joe Rebein. Rebeine Chaney
Assistant Campus Editors . Joe Rebein. Rebeine Chaney
Sports Editor . Hargot Hagerstrom
Associate Sports Editor . Gin Stripes
Makeup Editors . Liam Mansson. Lillian Dava.
Wire Editors . Ellen Marker. Terra Kordan.
Photo Editor . Ian Mann.
Staff Photographers . Jon Hardesty. John Hankmanker.
John Fisk. Tracy Thompson. McDonald Mark
Head Copy Chair . Jane Bryant
Copy Chiefs . Cindy Campbell. Charlie George
Columniere . Bren Abatt. Brian Hawkins.
Dan Torcha. Jolynne Wash, Lake Isabella
Tort Rivertown. Thomas Tiernan. Tiernan,
Ben Jones. Ann Horrberger
Retail Sales Manager . Ann Howard Shalwari
National Sales Manager . Howard Shalwari
Classified Manager . Sarah Burno
Tourteletta Manager . Larry Leathenden
Retail Sales Representative . Barbara Bain.
National Sales Manager . Howard Shalwari
Associate Manager . Sarah Burno
Tourteletta Manager . Larry Leathenden
Retail Sales Representative . Barbara Bain.
National Sales Manager . Howard Shalwari
Associate Manager . Sarah Burno
Tourteletta Manager . Larry Leathende