UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
SEPTEMBER 21, 1978
ASK vote irresponsible
Fiscal irresponsibility—it's a phrase that politicians enjoy dropping time and time again, but one with which the Student Senate apparently is unfamiliar.
Nevertheless, it aptly describes their overwhelming approval last night of a 10-month provisional membership in Associated Students of Kansas. The vote wasn't even close—52 to 10 in favor of joining ASK.
Ivo or anyone.
It was a surprisingly easy victory for Mike Harper, student body president, who had negotiated a deal with ASK hierarchy this summer for a reduced-cost trial membership.
COURSE
KU STUDENTS, according to the Senate vote, want to fork out $2,500 of their fee money for the privilege of joining a student lobby. Of course, one should ignore the fact that KU already has a student lobby—Concerned Students for Higher Education. It's not good enough, the Senate seemed to say with its vote.
with his vote.
Also one should ignore that CSHE's budget is a mere $600. It's better to pay $2,500 to an outside group and get 30 percent representation. At least that's what the Senate voted to do.
WITH ASK membership, one is told KU will be part of a "unified" student
voice working for the benefit of the six Kansas Board of Regents schools. Of course, it would be too selfish for KU to spend the $2,500 to beef up its own lobby.
Now that students have made their choice, KU probably will be backing ASK's likely goals of a 3-cent cigarette tax, voter registration by mail and decriminalization of marjuana. One is supposed to forget that Harper, only last week, refused to support the cigarette tax.
Also ignore any arguments that KU's lobby would be diluted or that KU students' positions would be compromised by ASK membership. The Senate seemed to be able to ignore such arguments easily enough last night.
THESE IS one hope, however. Only Wichita State and Pittsburg State universities have approved KU's trial membership. The other member schools are expected to vote later this month.
If one school votes against KU's membership, the deal is voided. But from all indications, this isn't likely.
So like a good fiscally irresponsible student, grin and bear it—the Senate did.
During his prince he was one of the most centerfielders in baseball. At age 9 feet 9 inches tall, he was no power hitter, but he batted three home runs and wielded a magic glove in the outfield.
Curt Flood recalls controversy
He was a vital cog in the glory years of the St. Louis Cardinals, playing in the World Series in 1964, 67 and 86. At the age of 32, Curt Flood was the class of his field.
In October of 1969 the glory came to an end. Curt Flood and three other Cardinals were traded to the Philadelphia Philies for Willie Allen, Cookie Hojas and Jerry Johnson.
TO MOST baseball fans, Flood was just a troublemaker. He wasn't playing by the rules, he was trying to destroy everyone's fun. Of course, it was much different from
It was a typical trade, no different from the many trades carried out in baseball every year. But this one became special. Curt Flood refused to report to the Phillies, instead suing baseball for $1 million over its once-hallowed reserve clause, that peculiar law allowing antitrust laws that allowed baseball owners to own players so they were slaves.
So,the battle was on.
What Flood was doing was a rare, almost unheard of heat. He was staking his entire livelihood on his belief in an ancient, and simple, principle. He explained his motives in 1969 letter to baseball commissioner Bowie Kunn: "I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes."
Kuhn, with characteristic insight,
responded: "I certainly agree with you, that
you, as a human being, are not a piece of
property to be bought and sold . . . However,
I cannot see its application to the situation
at hand."
"What I wanted was a fair and equitable agreement between the players and the owners." Flood last week in Kansas and Oklahoma, a former member of the Oakland A's broadcast team.
Students face a dilemma on repaying their loans
By STEVE M. COHEN N.Y. Times Features
NEW YORK--Three classmates, all of them Ivy League honors graduates, just defaulted on their student loans. I almost envy them. They may have to live with the stigma of bankruptcy—a consequence of which my bank frequently reminds me—but I have to live with a repayment schedule that makes the local loan sharks appear reasonable.
Their reasons for default were understandable. They were not out to thank their responsibility or make a political statement about the unreasonableness of college costs and financial aid availability. They were simply unable to repay their loans and afford to live in the city where they were employed. They, and thousands like them, have been forced to make a simple, distasteful choice: sacrifice career opportunities or default.
principles
CONSIDER MY own case as an example of someone rather luckier than most, and yet about to be forced into the same
I attended an Ivy League university where the annual cost was about $6,500 each year. Because of military service, I was eligible for benefits under the G.I. Bill and needed to borrow only $7,500 of the total $28,000 cost.
Upon graduating, I was again lucky. I accepted a good job with long-term career opportunities that paid $13,000. Moving to New York City, I was confronted with the economic realities of a modest lifestyle.
or take business taxes,
my take-home salary was $760 a month, which I spent as follows.
shows:
* $270 - rent for a small, walk-up studio apartment
- $80—food
• $50—lunches
- $50—lunches
- $20—telephone
- $20 - gas and electric utilities
- $20—gas and electricity
* $50—subway fares
- *$20 - national*
*$10 - newspaper and magazines*
- $200 - clothes; a $200 investment in several shirts, skirts;
ties; items not necessary in school or the Navy, but suddenly
necessary in college.
- $30 - furniture - a $300 investment for a bed, dining room table, chairs, dresser, desk and dishes
- MY TOTAL monthly expenses were $660. This left me $10 a mpt for savings and/or repayment of my student loan
- $50—movies, sport
- $10—doctor bills
However, my student loan payments were about $150 each month, or $50 more than I had.
Although the university is understanding about temporary repayment deferments, other creditors are not. Because the loans are guaranteed by the government, the banks would easily accept my default.
easy access. And this situation is distasteful, but not impossible. Although my lifestyle is not quite spartan, it is far from middle-class comfortable. I cannot afford a car, vacations or dinner out. I have no savings.
For many others, including my defaulted students, it is more difficult. Without veterans' benefits, they had to borrow more to attend school. Later they found that most starting salaries were not as generous as mine. With a college education, it was insulated from the realities of finding a job, coupled with the living, it is little wonder thousands of young people default
default
ONE SOLUTION is the Tuition Advance Fund. As proposed, the TAF would provide up to $5,000 a year to students, to be paid back after graduation at the rate of 2 percent of annual earnings until the advance and a 50 percent premium were paid. A student could not default. With no earnings in a given year, the repayment would simply be deferred. In my case, the TAF system would mean a first-year repayment of $225, or $18.73 each month.
$12.50 each month
between the two approaches—an $18.75 monthly payment under vs. a $150 monthly payment under
There is a disheartening psychological pressure imposed by the current system. I have no savings. I postpone needed treatment. And I worry about a younger sister who has worked hard to gain admittance to a prestigious private college, but who may not be able to attend because she was born into a middle-class family. Merit be damned, she may have to forfeit the honor and opportunity of a first-rate education.
WE are to solve the dual problems of financing higher education and preventing defaults, then we must implement a solution that recognizes the difficulty in securing funds to attend college and the reality of jobs after college. Recent graduates don't want to default. But they don't want to give up good jobs or eating either.
Steve M. Cohen, a graduate of Brown University, is an account executive at a New York advertising agency.
"IALSO wanted to explode many of the myths about sports, baseball particularly, that were held in this country. There were lots of things that were wrong with the game of baseball, lots of inequities, and contracts were one of the more obvious things."
Perhaps understandably, baseball did not look kindly on Flood after his suit. After a brief 13-game tryout with the old Washington Senate, Flood was back in action; he was blocked. Flood had challenged the system, and the system began exacting its punishment. Flood became despondent as he watched his case, and his career, wind its way through the league.
And after five years in Spain, Curt Flood has made a peace with his past. He returned to his home of Oakland, Calif., last year to be near his family, and this spring he was hired by maverick owner Charles Finley to broadcast the A's games. After eight years of turmoil, Flood had returned to the game that was his first love.
playing out the option year of their contracts.
The first hearing in New York last six weeks. Not one of Flood's fellow players came in support. Even Bob Gibson, the fireballing pitcher who had roomed with
When Flood stood in federal court in 1970 and told the judge, "I am a man, not a consignment of goods to be bought and sold," he knew it meant the end of his career. Yet, he says now that if he had to it again, he'd do it exactly the same way.
"I WOULD have been afraid, too." "Flood said," it had a good idea that I didn't stand a chance of winning. It was one black man against 19 millionaires.
Flood for 10 years, was nowhere to be found. They were afraid.
Sensing the situation, Flood fleed to Spain, where he bought a bar and concentrated on his second passion after baseball, painting. He also took part in the Supreme Court had ruled against him, 8-3.
"I just felt then, and still feel, that any person, no matter what his field, should have the chance to control his life," Flood says. "No one person should have the power over others that the owners used to have over players."
"I don't regret challenging baseball. I regret that I didn't win, for I would be a much wealthier man, but I'm glad it was not tough and have been easy for someone else to quit.
"No, I wasn't bitter, if by bittter you mean screaming, kicking the walls and forever hating baseball." Flood said. "I had expected to lose."
Despite the loss, Flood had paved the way for baseball's current state of free-agency. Two years later, in response to a similar action by pitchers Andy Messmersmith and Dave McNally, an arbitrator handed down a ruling—later supported by two federal courts—which forced a revision of baseball's reserve clause.
VETERANS NOW have the option of retraining a trade, and playcans can now be hired to play a trade.
"I knew I'd never quit."
Nine numbers are simply too many under proposed ZIP code change
Those people in Washington who run the U.S. Postal Service thought they did us a favor last week when they announced the addition of four new numbers to the ZIP code.
Their intentions were good, but they certainly went about it in the wrong way.
Postmaster General William Bolger and his gang have decided that five numbers in the ZIP code aren't enough. So they've decided to give us four more. The first five numbers will be the same, but four more will be added.
Sometimes within the next two-and-a-half years, the extra numbers will be added, thus establishing a different ZIP code for every station. The Assistant Director General I. V. Dorey
Second, they say, we will have more efficient mail service. New sorting machines will be added within five years, reducing labor costs. They say work that once took 20 workers to do then will take only eight. That's the good part of the job. We'll have people, because seven of every eight dollars the Postal Service spends are for labor.
Postal service officials say the benefits from this change come in two parts. First, officials promise fewer rate increases. Postage rates for a first class stamp have increased from 10 to 15 cents just in the past two years.
But the benefits will come only if people continue using ZIP codes. About 95 percent of letters mailed in the United States include the Zone Improvement Program codes now.
However, all that may change with nine numbers jacked off. Five. Nine numbers are
Postal officials, however, already may recognize that. They say they are "aware that some people seem to exert the attention of new numbers in their their actions that impressively personalized."
The officials go on to say the extra numbers are a relatively small price to pay to help move the mail quickly and hold the line on postage rates.
However, that promised efficiency and stable rates can never happen if people don't use the numbers. And the Postal Service has no assurance that they will.
The city of Lawrence serves as a good example of the confusion that could result.
Lawrence has now only two different ZIP codes—60644 for the city and 60645 for the University of Kansas campus. It's simple for residents and students to remember what ZIP code to use when they mail a letter inside the city.
After the extra numbers are added, that could change. Bill Reynolds, manager of customer service at the Lawrence post office, said he didn't believe it was possible to exist in Lawrence because the Postal Service didn't done anything on the local level yet.
However, the number could be in the hundreds. If four more numbers are added, giving every block its own ZIP code, remembering what code is for what block will be much more difficult. For persons in aweance, it will be next to impossible.
Even ZIP code directories will be of little use because of the number of codes. So, many people won't use them. After creating a Service still will accept encoded letters.
But what probably is the biggest joke of the Postal Service's attempt is that there simply will be too many ZIP codes with nine million, 999,999,999 ZIP codes will exist—one less than a billion. The United States now has about 217 million persons, which means there could be more than four-fifths of all ZIP codes for every fourth country—or even one ZIP code for every fourth person in the world.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Monday through Thursday during June and July except Saturday, and Sunday and holidays. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 64052. Subscriptions by mail are $1 for six regular issues, and $2 for two special issues. Third-class student subscriptions are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
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Editor Steve Frazier
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