Page 4 University Daily Kansan, February 4, 1982
Opinion
Black present, past
This week, Black History Month begins. Since the 1920s, the country has dedicated this part of the year to the remembrance of the Black past.
The idea was suggested more than 50 years ago by Carter Woodson, a black educator and historian, who realized that much of the history of black Americans had already been lost, perhaps forever.
In coming weeks, the University of Kansas will observe Black History Month with dance and poetry, songs, speeches and seminars.
And the University Daily Kansan will observe the month by beginning a series of articles on blacks and minorities in the University community.
The Kansan series promises to be informative and insightful, but it also points up a problem Black History Month shares with all special periods of remembrance.
What happens when the holiday is over?
Would he, now for the, the Kanson?
consider its obligation to black readers taken care of after printing a few articles. It would be easy, but wrong.
On March 1, after the speeches and dancing end, Haitians probably will still be in Miami interment camps. The Voting Rights Act will still be in danger. And millions of black teenagers will still be unemployed.
For the moment, let's enjoy the programs that students, faculty and administrators have been preparing for months.
In the past 15 years, KU has built up the largest Black History Month calendar in the Big Eight—a calendar that serves as an example to other universities.
But everyone—especially everyone in the press—should remember that the problems that face blacks will still exist after Feb. 28. And we should work to alleviate those problems during all 12 months of the year.
There is no season for sensitivity.
Think twice before eating that cheap fast-food burger
What's for dinner tonight? Let's open up the refrigerator and find out. Uh, oh. You forgot to go to the store, so you have to drive over to the restaurant where the King Ring and order a burgler, Fries and Coke.
When the counter attendant shoves the burger over the counter at you, you count out about two or three dollars, then take your tray over to a corner table and start to eat.
That looks good. You take a bite of the burger. Some special sauce oozes out of the bun and you lick it off your fingers.
Do you know what you're really eating?
Yes, it is hamburger, made from beef that has been inspected as many as six times by the FDA.
JOLYNNE WALZ
pesticide DDT per million parts of the fat in the meat.
But hamburgers are the people's favorites,
and what the people want, the people get.
"It's real beef, but the lowest quality beef you can buy. Spiraling beef prices have hurt the fast-fur food burger industry so much over the past two years that they have started introducing non-hamburger sandwiches made with pork, chicken and fish.
South American beef is so cheap, and of such poor quality, that it's only legal to use it as a fast-food meat.
Domestic beef, made from cattle that eat scientific diets of grain and fattening chemicals, is about four times as expensive as imported beef from South America, which is made from grass-fed beef. So American beef has cleared from the tropical forests. So, South American beef goes into your burger.
So the rancher clears some new pasture, and the cycle is repeated.
To graze the cattle that produced that cheap beef, ranchers had to tear down part of the Amazonian rain forest and promote grass growth there. While the cattle grazed, they trampled the soil. Because the soil in tropical rain forests isn't very rich in nutrients—most of the nutrients there come from dead and decaying jungle plants that the ranchers have cleared—the grass isn't very luxurious and the cattle soon graze sores. The grass is soaked with weeds that are toxic to cattle. The ranch has to be abandoned five or 10 years after it is cleared.
A similar land clearing procedure is used by native Amazonian Indians, but they clear only small portions of land, plant and harvest it for a few years, and abandon it soon enough so that the jungle grows over it again and refertilizes the soil.
Even the Amazonian Indian planting system is endemic. About one ton of soil per hectare is eroded.
Up to 200 tons is eroded off each hectare of ranch land each year.
That's OK, though. Go ahead, take another bite of your burger.
Cattle ranchers may have destroyed 200 tons of the Amazonian rain forest to provide the cheap beef that went into it, but so far, only about five percent of the rain forest has disappeared. That's not much.
It's not. But we're destroying 50 hectares of rain forest every minute. At least 50 hectares of rain forest have disappeared while you've been reading this. And experts predict that if that destruction is slowed, all the Amazonian rain forest will be lost, tails and preserves, will disappear in 40 or 50 years.
Go ahead. Eat that burger. What do we need a rain forest for, anyway?
Not much. When it disappears, most of its plant and animal species will disappear too, but there are about 4.5 million known species of plants and animals on earth. Unfortunately, about 3 million of them are in the tropics, and many are valuable to man.
Wild forerunners of some of our domesticated food crops, such as rice, originated in the tropics. It's important to preserve the wild species because breeders can cross them with the domestic species to improve resistance to insects and disease, or to improve nutritional value
Thousands of insects exist in the tropical forests; too, and many them are economically valuable.
For example, Florida citrus growers imported $35,000 worth of parasitic wasps from the rain forest and used them to get rid of other bugs that attack fruit trees. They also purchased $35 million they would have spent on pesticides.
And pharmacologists are just beginning to test rain forest plants to see if they have any medicinal value. Already, 70 percent of anticancer drugs are derived from tropical plants.
So far, we're doing all right without those undiscovered drugs, and maybe they won't be discovered anyway. We can do without improved strains of rice, too.
But, what about the atmosphere and climate? When the jungles are destroyed, rotting vegetation and burning wood releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that will warm the climate drastically if the deforestation continues at its present rate. If the climate is warmed too much, ice tied up in the polar ice sheet can melt, causing water in them to raise sea level to the height of the Statue of Liberty's nose and inundate all the major coastal cities in the world.
Go ahead though. Finish that burger. Nobody really believes that our passion for cheap beef smothered in special sauce will flood the world and change civilization as we know it.
But just in case, maybe next time you should order the fish sandwich instead.
Gun control not reducing crime rate
Letters to the Editor
I will try to keep this letter short, and not bore
them with facts longer than the column to which I object.
To the Editor:
The University Daily KANSAN
(USPS 850449) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Monday and Thursday during June and July except Saturday, Sunday and holiday Subscriptions are $14 for six months or $76 for six months. Subscriptions are $13 for $15 in six months or $7 a year in Douglas County and $1$ for six months or $3$ year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $12 per month.
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kannan Dhall Fint Hail, The University of Kansas, Kansai, USA.
Editor Business Manager
Vanessa Herron Naturalist Jill
Sales and Marketing Advisor John Obertan
General Manager and News Advisor Rick Masse
First, I appreciate that Dor Torchia, in his Jan. 25 column, did not mention John Lennon's death or the attempted assassination of President Reagan. That he did not mention these events is about as close to the facts as the rest of his column.
I wonder how the Morton Grove handgun law will lower the city's homicide rate. There hasn't been a homicide there in years. Torchia's estimate of the existing gun laws was far short of the actual total. He also failed to prove any connection between strict gun control and the crime rate, or that additional laws would save lives. The cities in the United States with the most strict gun control laws, with few exections, have the highest crime rates.
I fail to see how additional laws will stop criminals who are already breaking laws. I do wish that people would stop penalizing law-abiding citizens, and give rights from those who are causing no problems.
I will stop with this thought. According to FBI figures, only 0.003 percent of the handguns in the United States are involved in crime of any kind.
Charles D. Coffman, Jr.
"American
THE DEMOCRATS RESPOND
Women still fight to make men move
By ADRIENNE CHRISTIANSEN
Guest Columnist
The very notion of women and power stirs up intense feelings of antagonism and contempt in many people. Not without reason, men often see the feminist movement as a direct threat and an attack upon their own power.
On February 4, 1972, a group of women at KU decided that seizing power was the only way to obtain basic services for women on campus and to "make men move." In a bold, well-planned plan, 20 women and 4 children peacefully seized the East Asian Languages building and held it for 13 hours, vowing not to leave until their demands were met.
The February Sisters, as they called themselves, were deemed "gangsters, hoodlums, criminals and philosophically bankrupt" by the University Daily Kansan University to create services that would recognize the basic needs of women and enable them to attend KU more easily. They demanded that there be a way to get birth-control devices and counseling on campus. They also insisted on a women's studies program for all students at the child care facilities and that women be hired for faculty and administrative positions.
The demands seem pretty mild by today's standards, but in 1972 they were daring, controversial and threatening. KU was no exception in following the "policy" that
anything that wasn' directed primarily or at all toward men was seen as impractical, the effect of which is clearly evident.
KU women now enjoy many services as a direct result of the February Sisters, women who were angry enough to move and take power that had so long been denied to women. Unfortunately, the University of Kansas has a long way to go before women are on a par with men. It is high time that feminists get riled up again and force the University, in a non-violent way, to finish the job it has barely begun.
If, in 1982, a group of women took over 'another building, there would be a long list of demands to make the University responsible to its female population. Sone of the demands might include the hiring of more women faculty members. KU has a number of high-ranking women administrators, but they are people not seen on the daily basis that women faculty are. Female students must have women as role models and mentors.
In the area of athletics, KU really short-changes its nationally ranked and respected women's teams. KU bookstore receipts and possible beer sale profits at football games are horrible ways to finance women's athletics, even in part. The ideas themselves are honorable, but they are unreliable and uncommitted methods to pay for women's athletics. Male teams certainly don't have to count on the generosity of book buyers to determine their budgets—they use gate receipts.
Women's basketball, for example, might charge $1 more and still be able to retain its loyal following. Another possibility would be to use the money KU was sure to pay in Title IX violation fines. The entire Title IX issue has practically been dropped by the Reagan administration. Why not give the $40,000 or so to women's athletics?
Other demands would include rigid enforcement of the new sexual harassment policy, putting more lights on campus questioning the showing of pornographic materials. Perhaps the University could make instructors work on the problem of sexist language.
Even these possible demands are only a beginning, just as the right to vote, equal pay or the ERA are only beginnings in combating the ugly and vicious policies of discrimination. Sexist actions are perpetuated and feminism is not tolerated. Feminists get angry and act on that anger, sexist and discriminatory actions will remain at KU.
Our sisters who have gone before us have demonstrated very clearly what it can take to make men move. Women at this university have a rich history of fighting for rights and services that are needed. The February meeting was a lesson that is as true today as it was in 1972.
Adrienne Christiansen is a senior majoring in women's studies and a member of the company.
Roosevelt's actions left lesson to be learned
That Franklin Roosevelt had both a sense of his greatness and a sense of identity with the common man was evident when he said to a friend, "If any memorial is erected to me . . . I should like it to constitute a block about the size of this (desk) and placed in the center of that green plot in front of the Archives building. I don't care what it is made of, whether limestone or or whatever, but I want it plain, without any or whatever, and with the simple caning. 'I remember of it.'"
Rosevelt's wishes were honored, and the stone is appropriate to the nature of his presidency. As with the memorial, he was particular about his simple statemanship. He was also characterized with something that would meet basic needs. This characteristic is a clue to his accomplishments.
These past few days Roosevelt has been in the memories of many Americans. Last Saturday marked the centennial of his birth. The occasion has revived debate about whether Roosevelt was a traitor or a martyr; what he did and the agencies to feed a depressed government was a blessing or a bane.
A set opinion of Roosevelt the politician does not rest quietly in the Archives, because he, more than any other man, shaped the issues that still guide our world. But Roosevelt the man is at rest, and his personal qualities will not change. We can learn from them.
History mainly is a study of men. We can argue Roosevelt's politics until the NRA eagle rises out of its own ashes. We can examine the frequency and length of depression basking in the sun, or electronic waves. or we can respond directly, as Roosevelt did to a proposal to add the Depression's starring artists to the WPA program: "Why not? They are human beings. They have to live. I guess the only thing they can do is paint. There are some public places where paintings are wanted."
counts is the ideals, and those will bear some keeping still about."
Rosevelt acted on instinct rather than on theory. His maxim is "Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." The inflamed contempt this premise drew from FDR's political opponents may be better understood if compared to a scene from a television episode of "M*A*S*H* in which a sniper is firing on the
But such an attitude shells ideals for the kernels of human kindness they contain. Roosevelt had ideals, but he never allowed them to be welcomed to mechanisms, and rarely rhapsodized on them. So no need: ideals were implicit in actions. As Frost wrote, "What
BEN JONES
4077th. Major Frank Burger spurs us, "We can't just sit here. We've got to do something—and we deserve desperate absurdity causes Warwick Pierce Perkins with Frank—I think we should do anything."
Roosevelt's enemies may have thought his proposals just as foolhardy, but his experimentation was not born of flying sweat beads and wild-eyed panic; was governed by the unbounded optimism that most characterized the man. Playwright Robert Sherwood, a speechwriter for Roosevelt, wrote at the end of his massive biography, "Roosevelt and Hopkins," "He (Roosevelt) was spiritually the healthiest man I have ever known."
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Roosevelt's robust psyche allowed him to laugh in the midst of the darkest days the world had yet seen. His critics did not understand that his humor and seeming disregard for grave situations allowed him to cope with responsibilities greater than any other man had faced. He operated on instinct, ordered policy like a whispered plea to avoid play and no time out." One has the tremendous feeling of going at it blindly," Eleanor said at the start of his presidency.
Rosevelt could face the ominous future unhesitably because his soul was bolstered by a profound religious faith that kept him from taking himself too gravely.
Even those who knew him best confessed his method mystified them. Commentators have noted the extraordinary "luck" of this republic, to have come upon a great president at each of its crises. But Roosevelt derived the conviction necessary to act from his belief that it was not luck.
A sense of intuition and fearless destiny characterizes genius and makes possible their overwhelming accomplishments. It could be that they do not so much think as they intufully know. The are not paralyzed by deliberations, Roebuck's most famous image, that has made him fear itself", might be paraphrased, "we should be careful not to be careful."
Shakespeare bragged he had never struck through a line, once he had written it. A critic retorted he wished the Bard had struck through a thousand because of technical faults. Nevertheless, the imperfections in Shakespeare's plays are covered over by the spontaneous sense of flow. There is a rough charm that would be so spoiled by too much polish.
More important, Shakespeare's carelessness about how he stated an idea, so long as he said it, allowed him to be prolific, to our benefit. Consider what we as students could accomplish, if we could overcome the doubts and feelings of unpreparedness that cause us to procrastinate in littery; if they are not seized upon mind, they flee.
Those who are unsatisfied with initial efforts often deliberate painfully over minute details. To strive for perfection is admirable, as long as the obligations deadlines are met. Past that point, extreme deliberation becomes self-indulgence at the expense of others.
The first step toward overcoming our limitations is to accept them and work with them. Roosevelt's palo did not cripple him so much as he did anyone who could understand the hardships of others.
Every task requires something of a leap of faith to begin. The valuable lesson Franklin Rossette taught us is to respond to a situation that is difficult, and to worry later about what happens later.