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Wednesday, October 3, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN commer Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Airport & Progress
Lawrence needs a bishop airport
Cairnfield airport
Lawrence needs a bishop airport
boosterism didn't die in Kansas when the grasshopper invasions and droughts arrived back in the 1880s. At least boosterism is alive and kicking in Lawrence. And did local boosters get their way, a $2.5 million expansion project will be alive and kicking in less than a year.
But is a bigger airport really necessary? Proponents of the project say it is needed to attract more industry to Lawrence to keep the city growing. What must be answered, though, is whether growth can still be equated with progress.
There was a time when it could.
During most of this country's
existence, more people, more land
cleared, more cities founded, more
factories built—in short, more
automatically meant progress.
Today, however, Americans are awakening to the cruel fact that the Earth is a finite place. There is only so much land, so many natural resources and room for so many people.
So what does all that have to do with an airport expansion project in Lawrence? Well, it seems that the way Lawrence's population is growing has led to an increased airport, improved facilities are just what this city doesn't need.
The 1970 federal census showed that Lawrence's population had increased about 40 per cent over that of 1960—the third consecutive decade in which the city had grown by 40 per cent. In 1960, 32,858 people lived in Lawrence. In 1970, there were 45,698.
By 2000, if the rate continues, the population will be 105,000. In 27 years, Lawrence could be almost as big as Topeka is today.
What's the difference between 45,000 and 105,000? Tim Miller of Lecompte lent his name to the editor of the Lawrence Daily Journal-World.
The Monroe Doctrine was one of the country's first attempts to tell other nations what to do, and thus it would be termed interventionist. Monroe warned Europeans to stay out of the domestic affairs of the United States, however, because it had validity, however, because it attempted to control activity that would have adversely affected the United States.
Miller said a middle-sized city like Lawrence meant "convenience in reaching all parts of town; a low crime rate; relatively unscarred traffic; a pleasant countryside within easy reach of town; clean surroundings and clean air; xcess of major urban areas; and a government that is relatively responsive to the citizenry."
Lawrence will not die if it fails to attract new industry because of its existing airport. It will die, however, if it grows until a megalopolis stretches through the Kawaii Hiver Valley, and washes away by Topeka, its destiny of Lawrence's identity and its way of life.
It also means a friendly town where people know their neighbors and care about their neighbors, where people return from vacations glacier to farm and knowledge that they live in the kind of city that is becoming a rarity in an age of urban dominance.
It's time for Lawrence to quit employing a keep-up-with-the-Joneses mentality concerning its growth and that of other Kansas cities. It's time for Lawrence to stop classifying growth and progress as complementary processes.
Carrot & Stick
—Hal Ritter
The House Ways and Means Committee last week denied the Soviet Union most-favored-nation trade and tariff privileges unless the Russians conformed to a condition attached to the privileges—that they allow freer emigration of Jews to Israel.
This question is almost as old as the nation itself. During the French Revolution, a dispute arose between the Federalists and the Jeffersonians over support for the French rebels. Still remembering the glorious cause of 1776 the Jeffersonians wanted to back the rebels. This country finally decided that it wasn't any of our business which faction gained power in France.
Belief in individual freedom is one of the traditions of the United States, and it is understandable that lawmakers are indignant over the abridgment of individual liberties in the U.S.S.R. But it is time to ask ourselves whether it is within the scope of American foreign policy to use the carrot-and-stick approach to control the purely internal affairs of another country.
It is time to apply the principles of the Monroe Doctrine to our own foreign policy by not trying to impose internal policies of other countries.
Business ties involve private interests and are hard to regulate. CIA meddling is difficult to estimate intelligence-gathering.
However, the most obvious form of interference, the "carrot-and-suck," technique is the easiest to eliminate and that should be the first step in removing ourselves from internal affairs of foreign nations.
Lawmakers should ask themselves when making foreign policy whether the activity they are involved in or actual direct effect on the United States.
Orders to stop sinking our ships, to stop detaining our tourists, to stop stealing our business secrets are legitimate conditions to attach to granting special privileges to a country because America would be directly harmed by these activities.
However, Soviet emigration policies neither injure nor benefit Americans; they only make us indignant.
—Elaine Zimmerman
Corrupt Usage Destroys Favorite Words
As a person who loves the English language more than flowers or wine, I may have a tendency to defend it too much when someone changes, and that is part of its strength.
By JACK SMITH
The Los Angeles Times
I rarely use the word I anymore unless it is the first word of a sentence, which some of my critics say it too often. Is most contemporary authorities agree with me on me. My favorite argument is the one made by Berger and Cornelia Evans in their dictionary of Contemporary American Usage. I take the liberty of quitting it in full.
sad, 'I'm glad it was me instead of you.' A local newspaper thought they could improve the dying man's words and quoted him as saying, 'I'm glad it was I.'
Recently I confessed to having written something I regretted, and said, "The person who wrote that was me." In the numerous letters I received, I was forgiven for what I had originally written, but not for using "me" instead of "I."
"Me. In natural, well-bred English, me and not I is the form of the pronoun used after any verb, even the verb to be. When you speak in a question, the bait intended for Franklin Roosevelt, nee
ONE MIGHT ASK just who is the authority on the American language, now that Mencken is gone. Theodore Bernstein of the New York Times has nominated David Levine, an 18-year-old little too stiff for my ear, I nominate Copperdust, because of his modest approach.
In his indispensable book, "American Usage; The Consensus," Roy H. Copperd, of the USC journalism staff, calls the ex-commissioner (her, him, us) standard usage.
Copperal's book is not merely his own opinion, but a consensus of the several American scholars who consider themselves authorities, including Copperad himself. Thus, his book tells us what Bernstein says about me I and who whom, and also what Bryant, the Exames, Flesch, Power, Gowers and Gowers say.
Unfortunately, Copperud and his colleagues can't keep up with the damage
THE WORD GAY, for example, is lost, except as it means homosexual. Without arguing the merits of homosexuality, I think that it is wrong to wonder wonderful three-letter word which described a feeling, an attitude, a mode of conduct, that no other word described. I have looked it up in my Dictionary of crimes, and up there is nothing to take its place.
that is being done to the language by people who use it recklessly. Too many words are being used for a specific purpose that destroys them for any other purpose.
There is no one to blame for this, and I don't mean to blame anyone. I suppose the homosexuals wanted a word that was gayer than homosexual, and found it. So it is. My regrets will not change it. Gay means homosexual.
I would still like to put up a fight, though, for chauvinist. Chauvinist, or chauvinism, was one of the big words, many of them from the French, that I learned in high school. I remember being making. Some of the others I remember are ephemeral, exegesis and heuristic.
THEY ARE WORDS that are not often seen now, except in the writings of William Shakespeare.
I give them up without malice, except for chauvianist. Without looking it up, I wondered what chauvianist was. Why did women choose that word? Obviously it was a word of French origin. Chauvianism was a French word, and still is. A French person who did not imagine himself or herself superior to all other people is unimaginable.
Would it be interesting to look back to the origins of the word chauvainvism? Here's what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say:
Today the word chauvin means a man who is unilateral to women. So it not a word *chauvin*.
"Chauvin: The surname of a veteran soldier of the First Republic and Empire, Nicholas Chauvin of Rochefort, whose demonstrative patriotism and loyalty were celebrated, and at length, ridiculed, by his comrades."
Still, I believe in manners. I like women who let me get out of the car first. I like men who tell me not to drive.
Calif. Legislature Intrudes in Schools
By JACK MCCURDY
The Los Angeles Times
In Sacramento, Calif., last year, a father settled into an easy chair in his living room one night with his daughter's "new math" textbook, preparing himself for the inevitable questions about her weakest subject.
What he discovered in the textbook appalled him.
"I was convinced," he said afterward, "that if I knew all that was in the book I would not know a damn thing about how to solve math problems."
His interest aroused, he then decided to
look through all the state elementary math
books.
He came away convinced that the so-called computational skills of addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division had been neglected—at the expense of the theoretical concepts and problem-solving approaches which underly the new math.
All of this wouldn't have amounted to much—parents have been puzzling over the wonders of new math for a long time now, except that this unhappy father was not just
HE WAS LEROY GREENE, influential chairman of the state assembly education committee, who happens to have the math background of an engineer (which he is).
had added. He already concerned by substantial drops in state math test scores of elementary pupils—then called a public hearing to delve deeper into the problem.
showed that other parents—and some teachers—shared his misgivings.
bearing to serve deeper into the problem.
And the letters he got after the session
A teacher said that after using the state textbooks, pupils "may know a number of ways to multiply but may not be able to do any."
The upshot was a directive from the state legislature ordering the state board of education to adopt a new series of state standards, which emphasize arithmetic computation skills.
The toughly-worded resolution—authorized by Greene—also called for a new stress on developing in pupils 'the ability to mentaly add, subtract, multiply and divide simple numerical computations at the elementary level.'
THE RESOLUTION REPRESENTS a race intrusion by the legislature into the
Griff and the Unicorn
by Sokoloff
Goals of Black People Remain Ill-Defined
Is It Time to Try Again?
The Washington Post
The question, posed by white people, has made the full metamorphosis from serious inquiry to statement of exasperation to good nature joke.
By WILLIAM RASPBERRY
It may be ripe now for a reincarnation as a serious question, but this time posed by you.
WASHINGTON—"Just what do black people want?"
From the Georgia Black Power Convention to Gary and the post-Gary "think tanks," the emphasis has been on strategy; How do we make it happen? The implication is that there is general agreement on what ought to happen.
specifics of what is taught in classrooms and stop just short of legislating
The implication ought to be the subject of some serious, thoughtful, systematic discussion.
Should the model be, say, Howard University, whose estimated 12 per cent share of the tuition fee He made us what we should it be West Virginia State, founded as a black land-grant college in 181, integrated in 1954 and predominantly white today? Or are both
TAKE THE MATTER of black education. Two recent pieces in the Washington Post helped to highlight the absence of unanimity. The first was an article on the
The other piece was a column by Roland Evans and Robert Novak reviewing the failure of a bipartisan, biracial group of scientists who had developed alternative to antibacteria lesiology.
According to the columnists, the six members of the group had joined in a statement opposing the antibusing integration but also calling for compromise.
future of black colleges, weighing whether they should in fact seek to continue as black
WHAT IS AT QUESTION here is not the specific compromise statement. The columnists didn't tell much of what it contained. What concerns me is the assumption by the NAACP hierarchy that its constituency-black America—ranks integration as a major, perhaps overriding, minor state that they suspended its Atlanta branch for during to accept a compromise calling for more staff integration in exchange for less busing.)
It also is the most drastic step taken in what appears to be a modest retrenchment against the new math in various other states and several local districts within California.
But the outrage of the NAACP's Clarence Mitchell Jr. and others effectively smashed the anti-immigration agenda.
according to Evans and Novak, by putting overwhelming pressure on the two black members of the group—both freshmen congressmen.
Is racial integration still that much of a major goal for black people? It clearly used to be, in the days when it was far more liberal, but now it's Supreme Court's 1964 degree that wipe out inequality before the law and, shortly thereafter, inequality of educational outcomes.
But is it now? Or is there a dichotomy between those who favored racial integration as a worthy goal and those who saw it (but no longer do) only as a tactic for ending discrimination against black children?
THE QUESTION OF black goals goes far beyond education, of course.
What are reasonable goals for blacks in politics, for instance: A share of the general political power proportionate to their numbers? Political control of those areas where blacks predominate? A situation in which race is irrelevant, with honesty and political philosophy being the overriding considerations?
BUT FOR BLACKS, the questions address the point of what sort of accommodation a minority should seek in a society or body also. These are questions of survival.
White people can think in nonracial terms because nonracial and white-dominated are pretty much synonymous, which makes them less likely to think little more than intellectual exercises.
What image should hover in the minds of black people when they dream of their ideal community or church or social group: A black situation with a sprinkling of whites? A white situation with a tubanue? Everybody黑? Nobody clearly black or white but just vaguely people?
Maybe the old goals are still mostly valid.
Maybe there needs to be an updated strategy.
Maybe the day of national strategies for black people is over, and local, ad hoc decisions are the only kind worth making.
And yet, there is too much the assumption that the questions all have been asked long ago, and long since answered; that the only way to answer these wavies to implement, those answers.
Other states are having second thoughts about the impact of the new math after they, like California, saw math achievement test scores slip.
But it strikes me that an awful lot of people are making maps without having access to real-world data.
Th a sti certo by H recor
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In New York, curriculum planners are deemphasizing some of the new math concepts such as "sets" and the distinction—between numerals and numbers. *eastern*—between numbers and numbers.*
In New Hampshire, state officials are in local school district devote more energy to their jobs.
IN TEXAS, ONE STATE official reported "people are asking some very critical questions" about the new math after a test of the learning system, and feeling of a decline in academic skills."
Janes Gates, executive secretary of the National Council of the Teachers of Mathematics, said there has been "lots of static in many localities across the country that we do not lose computational skills in whatever program we are using."
Perhaps, he added, "the pendulum did swaps a little too far toward the abstract."
It is generally thought among educators that elementary teachers still do not understand the new math well enough to teach it effectively.
That the new math is still plagued by problems nearly a decade after its official introduction in California seems obvious. But the reasons are not so plain.
THEY ALSO FEEL that the textbooks still leave much to be desired.
Parents schooled in traditional math will probably never be able to fulfill their role in mathematics.
The math they learned in school focused on rote memorization of how to compute and how to arrive at arithmetic solutions according to a single, prescribed method.
Their children—ideally, at least—are being taught to look for various ways to solve math problems and in the course of this search, to understand the fundamental principles beneath the mechanics of computing numbers.
This is the kind of ability that will be required in the technological and computerized world of the future, an ability quite different from simple computation.
With this new concept come new terms—such as "algorithm" and "base two numeration"-which confound the teaching of finding many parents and teachers as well.
AND MANY THINK that, despite the shortcomings, a tremendous amount of progress has been made in reforming math instruction in the public schools.
The California test scores in the area of reasoning—which is associated with the new math concepts—dropped much less than computational skill scores, although they also are now below the national average.
Greene is more skeptical about the "rogress" made.
"It is absurd to get out of school without computational ability. We need to figure how much a thing costs, how to make change, how far you can go on so much gas, how to read a timetable. These are real problems."
And many persons probably would agree with him.
Yet, it would be a mistake to characterize the current reaction as a threat to the status of mathematics in public schools. Mathematics is too deeply embedded in the public schools. And while grumbling continues, no one is advocating a return to the status quo that was established doubts about the value of the new math
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