November 13,1984
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Dalkan, Kannan, UNPS 650/640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuaffer Flint Hall. Lawen, Kannan 650/640 daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods Second-class payment帖位 Lawen, Kannan 6604/635 submission by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $2 a year outside the county. Student payment帖位 Lawen, Kannan 6604/$18 for six months or $2 a year address changes to the University Dalkan, Kannan, 118 Stuaffer Flint Hall. Lawen, Kannan 6604
DON KNOX
Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
JILL GOLDBLATT Campus Sales Manager
SUSANNE STEW
General Manager and News Adviser
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
'Yes' on boycott
By voting today and tomorrow, students have a chance to do more than express disgust with apartheid in South Africa.
Casting a "yes" vote for the referendum on South Africa is an active way of voicing opposition to this form of racial segregation, that few people could consider just or humane.
The referendum on the ballot, if passed, would prohibit student organizations from using Senate money to buy products from companies doing business in South Africa.
For many months now, people have expressed outrage about apartheid, where blacks and colorads are treated as less than even second/class citizens.
The general counsel of the University has said that the Student Senate bill, if enacted would violate state laws.
Yet, even this legal opinion is not sufficient reason to vote against the referendum.
It would not be the first time in history that a law has been changed when the dictates of a situation demanded it.
If passed, the referendum would necessitate some work: investigating which companies do business with South Africa and finding out which other companies could provide those same goods or services. People would also have to work to get the state laws changed, if necessary.
But such details do not make enactment impossible. Other universities have already taken similar steps, so have some city governments around the country.
The Kansas University Endowment Association has a policy allowing donors to specify that their money not be invested in companies doing business in South Africa.
Thus, the Endowment Association must already know which companies are unacceptable as far as the South Africa issue is concerned.
The referendum deserves a "yes" vote. The bill will be not just a few voices, but the University, condemning apartheid. And it is time that students send this message.
Often it is not the banner headlines that tell the truest stories of our times, but the daily scenes that, alas, are more vivid and "never seem to make the papers.
For the past few weeks I have been traveling constantly. I have been in several airports a day. America's airports are congested with men and women hurrying down concourses on their way to planes that will take them away, or to cabs that will take them into this downtown and that.
Busy airports hide lack of direction
After being part of the airport crowds in cities north, south, east and west, I finally had to stop in my tracks and ask the question:
Where is ever you going?
Official airline guides report that every day there are 24,365 commercial flights in the United States.
Think of that. Neary 25,000 times every day, passenger planes take off for destinations in other parts of America. That doesn't even count flights bound for international destinations. One carrier alone American Airlines — says that it takes three to 30 million passengers a year.
We have heard for years that ours has become a mobile society. However, to walk through airport after airport, in the midst of crowd after crowd, forces a person to think about what that means. Did our parents' and grandparents' generations live this way; were they moving from city to city at such a dizzying, relentless pace? Easily available commercial air travel was an important part of their 'parents', and not of our grandparents', but even in the heyday of railroad travel, did Americans feel so eager to bounce around their nation like pingpong balls?
Where is everybody going?
A mobile society is not necessarily a rootless society, but one has to wonder what this kind of constant traveling does to the national psyche. There must have been a time when the thought of going from say, Chicago to Seattle, or from New York to Dallas, promised sufficient diffusion and flow that tripping trip qualified as a special event in one's life – certainly something that a person would remember and talk about for some time to come.
No more America's airports have come to resemble in feel and functionality, but where in the country on a moment's notice has become routine. The
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and hometown, or faculty or staff. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
- Weary-eyed flight attendants roll their suitcases-on-wheels down yet another concourse in the middle of a day that might place them in six different cities.
- Vendors with carts sell portable food to passengers hurrying down airport hallways; often a business traveler's day is packed so full that no time is open for a real meal;
- Brand-new computerized machines in some airports accept a traveler's credit card and print him a ticket on the spot, without the benefit of a human clerk. The message is obvious: Cross-country travel has become routine that one should be able to buy a ticket as easily as a candy bar.
- Young fathers in business suits stand at pay telephones, cooing baby-talk into the mouthpieces so that unseen toddlers across the miles will have had at least some contact with the traveling men before the day is done;
The thought of those 24,965 passengers flight a day is a bit abstract, but when one stands in Los Angeles International Airport and watches an airplane taking off, waiting to board a 747 bound for the East Coast, the thought has to recur:
- Travelers automatically give their "frequent filer" code numbers to airline clerks, who feed those numbers into computers so that the
- travelers will receive free flights at some future point along the line;
- Passengers luggag far too much carry on luggage aboard flights, so that they do not have to waste an extra 15 minutes on the other end waiting for their bags to appear on the next city's moving carousels;
BOB
GREENE
Syndicated
Columnist
Make sure everybody goes.
If a person were to stop and ask
each passenger his destination,
undoubtedly a list of perfectly logical
The Reagan administration shouldn't act so outraged if Nicaragua chooses to arm itself to the teeth against an aggressor many times its size and might. So, too, the Sandinistas should have expected U.S. spy planes to buzz over for a closer look at the mystery crates.
But the incident should make both sides realize just how close they are to letting their games get out of hand, and that they'd better get serious about finding a peaceful solution soon.
specific sights that greet one in those airports tell the story:
answers would be the result. Travel is so constant and so easy that a person needs very little excuse to go out. It is also one of some different spots on the continent.
However, what was it like in the days when people's first instinct was to stay home, not take off? What was it like when people were reluctant to leave their hometowns, even for a few days — when going from here to there was a big deal, not undertaken lightly?
As a person who has become a part of the airport crowds of the '80s, I feel a longing for those days. I suppose that Americans might not have been as "free" back then, but it's not freedom I see in the faces hurrying through the airport concourses. Instead, in those faces I see a subtle, almost-hidden kind of oppression. We all want to know what a part of a speed-up society that technology has made possible, but not palatable.
"The extremists are ready to import whatever arms they think are necessary to defend their country." Stansifer said. "The others think it would be playing right into the hands of Reagan to bring the MiGs into the country. That would give Reagan an excuse to invade or to attack, by aerial attack, the bases in Nicaragua."
Where is everybody going?
Where is everybody going? The travelers' tickets might contain the literal answers, but if the question is asked in a more meaningful sense, the travelers might not have a clue.
The Sandinistas are playing their own games, too. The ruling junta said that it wasn't expecting any MiGs, but that it felt free to ask for them to defend itself. Charles Stansifer, director of the KU Latin American Studies Program, said last week on KANU-FM that Nicaragua's leaders were divided over whether to get the iets.
Get serious
LETTERS POLICY
That is an inexact science at best. No MiGs had been seen last week and some officials were doubting that there were MiGs in the crates at all, but other officials were warning they wouldn't rule out a bombing strike if the crates were confirmed to contain the Soviet jets. Such an act by the U.S. could well have ended the games and led the way for full-scale U.S. military involvement.
All it would take is some new element, such as MiGs, to upset the so-called balance of power in the region, according to the U.S. So we keep fighting the Sandinistas with speedboats and advisers for the contras, and with economic pressure. We watch and wait, using our spy satellites and "crate-ology" to study what Eastern bloc countries might be moving to the Sandinistas, based on markings on shipping crates.
After an unconfirmed report last week that a Soviet freighter bound for Nicaragua was carrying high-performance MiG-21 fighter jets, a kind of shoddy gamesmanship has pervaded the rhetoric of the Sandinistas and the United States.
Through their bluster they continue to obscure the greatest problem, that the skirmishes between the U.S.-backed contras and the Sandinistas could easily erupt into U.S. troop involvement and full-scale war.
Search for 'easy A' wastes opportunities
With less than a month and a half left in this semester, the enrollment chaos that brings nightmares of endless lines has begun once more.
The replacement of class cards and Allen Field House with computers and the Enrollment Center in 111 Strong has greatly improved the registration process. However, the forces of student ignorance and administrative confusion refuse to allow the procedure to run smoothly.
These two inevitable features of enrollment have infuriated me when the time arrives every semester to complete the two-week process; as a senior, I find that they bother me even more.
As for administrative confusion, I have given up trying to understand the technical problems that pop up every time I forget my way toward Strong Hall. I read the four pages of text on the course book and can still count on finding out at the Enrollment Center that I need blue permission card No. BDJ614 com-
plate with adviser's signature and stamp, before I can sit down in front of the computer and get my schedule
My qualm is not with enrollment itself, but the failure to explain
ROBIN
PALMER
Staff Columns
adequately all the rules and necessary forms. If rules are explained at all in the Timetable, they are buried on Page 189 in 6-point type under Appendix II, abbreviations, and codes
I have become used to the technical knives and count them as among the less pleasant things in life we all have, because nothing in college life is easy.
After four years of watching students plan their schedules, however the classes in which many students actually enroll aggravate me more.
You know what I'm talking about the universal underwater basketballwearing syndrome that hits a college team about half way in a college career.
After long, tiring hours of work and studying for C's in economics and calculus, students turn to classes for the well-known 'easy A' - the special class that gives a big boost to the grade point average.
These classes serve little educational purpose from two viewpoints. First, they offer little if any challenge to students. Second, students take them for all the wrong reasons, and therefore do not put what they can into the classes to achieve some benefit.
The main problem lies in the attitude of the students. The attitude has shifted from a desire to obtain
knowledge — a mental drive — to a desire to get through college with relatively no effort and still come out with a high grade point average.
Students might leave this university with high grade point averages, but future employers are looking at performance and motivation to succeed.
If nothing else, students should think of the money they are wasting by pouring hundreds and thousands of dollars into a college education that leaves them with nothing to show for it.
With the hundreds of valuable classes available at the University of Kansas, students cheat themselves with limited sources of information
Students should take advantage of the possibilities for learning and not use easy classes as a crutch. Perhaps students, through the adoption of an aggressive attitude toward gaining more practice, will figure out their enrollment cards.
Youthful revolution starts at post office
An interesting event took place at the post office a while back, something that quite possibly could change life as we know it. This is a lot to swallow, especially for an opening paragraph of a column out of Lawrence. And it's a guest column, no less.
Of course, you don't know whether I've written the truth. Belief is your prerogative. Never forget that. For those not willing to believe, I respect them more than those who are willing to believe, well. That's half the reason I'm writing.
I was standing in line at the post office, 1519 W. 23rd St., waiting to mail a package to a friend. It was a book by Leo Busecalla called "Livin' with Learning," but that beside the point — very much beside the point.
There were three or four adults waiting behind me, and just as many in front. One of them was a woman in her late 20s, carrying a baby girl in one arm, her letters and a purse in the other. She had another little girl with her, this one standing on two, and using them to move about. Her friend was discovering her discovered in time, and she was the one who prompted this column.
Anyone who has been inside the
23rd Street post office knows that a rope divides the waiting area. It is intended to keep things orderly, and seems to be a practical idea Michelle, however, wasn't concerned with practicality. She was swinging
that rope, the one keeping the rest of us in line.
Michelle's mother was irritated with her daughter's behavior and told her more than once to stop.
"Look at my face," she threatened. "I'm getting angry."
Michelle stopped swinging the rope, but only for a moment. The she started again. There was no rhythm to the swinging, it obviously broke. She looked back, trouble figuring out Michelle's motive, so I christened her "Curiosity."
However, I had even more trouble figuring out her mother's motive.
especially after she said. "You're making me look like a tool. Now get back here." I dubbed her "Re straint."
Just before they left the post office, Michelle did another wonderful thing. She stepped over the rone.
A space opened up at one of the postal windows. Restraint smacked Curiosity on the arm and pulled her forward. The rest of us waiting in line were very quiet about the whole affair.
The rest seemed to happen all at once. Restrained call out, "Bye, Michelle," and seeing that this alone wouldn't work, dragged her out the door, but not before Michelle had the rope one more swing. Victory.
During this whole episode, the baby in the arms of Restraint was watching everything with wide, unblinking eyes — beautiful eyes of a child that are not intimidated by the stare of a stranger. If I had a say in the matter, she would grow up to be like her big sister.
The woman at the window looked tired. She had a right to, I suppose. It was late in the afternoon. I said hello.
It was my turn at the window. Just before I reached it, I gave that rope a little tug.
to her and she looked at the
apprehensively, as if she was not
used to greetings.
"Hello," she answered back. There was still hope
"Are you enjoying your job?"
"So why do you stay with it?"
Are you telling your job.
"To tell you the truth," she said,
blushing. "I despise it."
"For the money." It is an answer all too familiar; ugly sand on an unpleasant beach that nobody visits. One day she will have saved up enough money to visit a beautiful beach, someplace where money is the staple crop, not wheat or barleycorn or a dangerous concept called love.
"It's time for your vacation," said.
"It's time for a permanent vacation," she replied. I told her to have巾 As I walked out the door, 11 women gathered around her in an adult—had tapped the rope.
Looking back on it now, I think that more than one of us in the post office was trying to rebel against Mbchele's mother
We just might have started movement.
Hal Klopper is a Prairie Village senior.