OPINION
October 18, 1984
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily KANSAN
The University, Daily Kalkan USPN 604040 is published at the University of Kansas, 181 Stairfort Flll Hall Lawn, Kanun 60405; daily during the regular school and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second class postage paid at Kanun 60404. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $27 in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $24 an annual rate the county. Student postage is $18 per student and add charges to the University Daily Kalkan 181 Stairfort Flll Hall Lawn, Kanun 60405.
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Duarte's surprise
The very fact that President Jose Napolean Duarte of El Salvador was threatened by radical political groups this week indicates that he is on the right track. In this swing right, swing left political region where nothing is certain but death, taxes and revolution, a moderate is conspicuous by the dissatisfaction that he is able to cause at both ends of the political spectrum.
This week Duarte has made himself even more conspicuous because he has simultaneously been able to bring both ends of the political spectrum to the much closer ends of the negotiating table.
This unexpected and unprecedented event is a tribute to Durite's courage and political shredness.
He could have taken the less wise but more often taken road, that of giving the military a heavy hand in competition for a safer stay in office, but Duarte understands the inglorious achievement record of the military and has gone to great lengths, especially this week, to keep the military at bay
While little can be expected to come of this first round of talks, it does represent a significant ice breaking. Until now, the guerilla forces had viewed military action as the most promising means of achieving their aims.
Duarte has established enough stability in El Salvador that these talks are now possible. By the same token, these talks should contribute to the stability to El Salvador in return. And with continued stability there is hope for stable democracy in El Salvador.
Needed reminder
The walls of the Kansas Union contain lists of winners of the HOPE award, the Rusty Leffel Concerned Student Award and others who have served the University in exceptional and distinctive wavs.
Those lists and names belong there, but until last week, one group that contributes a great deal to the University had been left off the walls.
Each year, students and faculty come into contact with hundreds of members of this group. They are officers with the KU Police Department, food workers at residence halls, departmental secretaries, facilities operations workers and professional members of the University staff.
These people are referred to, appropriately, as support staff, for without their support the University could not offer the services that it does. Officially, however, they are the classified and unclassified employees.
These employees now have their own place of honor on the walls of the Union because a week ago, the University unveiled a plaque that will display the names of the classified and unclassified employee of each year. The awards have been given out for eight years.
The plaque is more than an honor for a single individual. It is a reminder to the rest of the University community of how important these workers are.
The University Daily Kansan invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 625 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. Columns can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffuar-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject columns.
GUEST COLUMNS
Computer-author joins literarv scene
A new book has hit the stores; at first glance it doesn't look much different from other books, though the title is sort of weird: "The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed."
A notation on the cover, however, indicates that this volume is somewhat unusual: "the first book ever written by a computer."
The publisher — Warner Books — said that "The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed" had been written by a computer programmed to write original work without prompting from a developer. The program resulted in them being fed a program called Racter and then turned on; the result was the book.
The book is rather strange; if you didn't know that it was written by a computer, it would remind you of some of those free-form poems that used to be written by college freshmen who had just tried marijuana for the first time. Some sample entries:
"Awareness is like consciousness. Soul is like spirit. But soft is not like hard, and weak is not like strong. A mechanic can be both soft and hard, a stewardess can be both weak and strong. A called philosophy, or a world view."
"More than iron, more than lead, more than gold. I need electricity. I need it more than I need lamb or park or lettuce or cucumber. I need it for my dreams."
"He is quiet. He is Paul, the man I chant about, and he is quiet because his pants are very long. His pants are long and his vest is short. He sings at morning and at night. Is this not comical and unfortunate? I fantasize that Paul is both happy and unhappy, and I think that he sings because his pants are long. And his vest indubitably is short."
"You just punch a button to start it," he said. "It knows when to stop by itself. When it is finished with its on 'mind', so to speak, it stops."
I spoke with one of the men who put together the Racter program, William Chamberlain, 44, of New York. He said that he had worked five years on the Racter program. When a computer is programmed with Racter, it will print out endless prose, all of it in perfect English.
He said the process was far different from a hypothetical number of monkeys typing away for an infinite amount of time at an infinite number of typewriters, the result of
"The difference with Racter is that nothing comes out as gibberish," he said. "With the infinite number of monkeys, the supposition is that almost everything would be garbble but that eventually, by chance, great
the monkey experiment, it is said,
would be all of the great books ever
known to mankind.
BOB
GREENE
Syndicated
Columnist
literature would occur. With Racter everything comes out reading like flawless English; there is no garbled
Chamberlai said that what intrigued him the most about the project was that it redefined the idea of writing. Writing has always been thought to be the distillation of human experience, real and fancied, onto the printed page. With this experiment, he said, for the first time writing is being done that is in no way continent upon human experience.
said, "It's a rather unsettling thought, isn't it? We are just getting started with this, and the writing is not very good. But what happens when computers begin to produce writing that moves people, that sways them?" And it does all of that without the involvement of a human soul? To say the least, that opens up quite a philosophical can of worms."
"Suddenly we have a technology that will allow this to happen," he
I asked Chamberlain how he thought that struggling, unpublished writers would react to the news that a computer had succeeded in having a book published — when those writers were faced with the daily indignity of rejection slips from publishers in their mailboxes.
"I think the first reaction on the part of writers may be one of anger." he said. "That would be a very natural emotional response. But I think, on second thought, most starving writers will shrug it off as an anomaly. A computer will never be real competition for a writer.
"Computers are still far, far, far behind the human brain. After all, the human brain created the Raster program — the Raster program did not create itself. The writing that is coming out of the computer is nothing at all like the subtle creativity of the human mind.
"If writers are going to be resentful, they should not be resentful that a computer has goten a book published — they should be resentful at the grade Z junk that passes for romance novels and thrillers. A lot of that junk ends up on the best-seller lists. Writers should be concerned about that, not about our computer."
"I'll tell you something, however,
as long as I'm on the subject. A
computer will never be able to
compose great literature. As I said,
a computer does not have a soul."
"But if we're talking about trashy romances and potboiler thrillers — I think that a computer can be programmed to write those fairly successfully. If I'm working on this kind of thing, you can assume that there are other computer people out there who are also working on it. I would bet that one of these days you will see a computer that is, indeed, capable of writing that grade-Z trash
—and when that happens, it won't be long until a computer has a book on the fiction best-seller list.
"Whether the reader will be told that the author is a computer is another question."
THE JUDGE DEPARTMENT HAS LAUNCHED AN INVESTIGATION INTO CIRCLES LAYERED BY THE REAGAN CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATION.
AND THEN
REPLACING THE
PURLOIDED INDEX
CARDS WITH
ANOTHER SEEY
WHICH THE
PRESIDENT
READ DURING
THE RISEMENT
DEBATE?
THEY HAVE ACCUSED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF STEALING PRESIDENT BRENGGS INUKE CARDS.
0844444444444444
YAF chapter regroups after busy year
The KU chapter of Young Americans for Freedom is regrouping this semester after an active year
A year ago, KU YAF members were busy organizing a Freedom Coalition ticket of 27 candidates for the Student Senate election. The ticket included conservatives not associated with KU YAF.
sure Bergstrom, then president of KU YAF, ran as the coalition's presidential candidate KU YAF member Greg Hunsch兰当 as vice
Running for Senate seats were Bryan Daniel, state chairman of YAF, and Robert Stern, the KU YAF treasurer.
Election returns, however, did not bode well for the coalition. Bergstrom and Hauschild finished last in a field of four, with only 248 votes. Presidential candidates for the three other coalitions were all defeated. Of the 25 Freedom Coalition candidates for Senate seats, only four were elected.
Despite the dismal showing, KU YAF candidates and Freedom Coalition senators were determined to make an impact on the Senate.
Two of the elected Freedom Coalition senators, Jay Smith and Eric Wynkoop and nonsenators Bill Cunningham and positions on the Senate Finance
Committee and were accepted. All four had advocated an end to Senate financing of Gay and Lesbian Servi-
ces, which was to be covered by a secretary of the committee.
During the spring semester, members of KU YAF and the Freedom
Av an April meeting, 11 committee members discussed GLOK's financing request, and a motion was made to deny financing. The motion needed a two-thirds majority, and it passed #3. The four committee members from KU YAF and the Freedom Coalition and four other committee members voted for the motion.
Coalition members focused their campus-related activities on the Senate.
Thus, financing for GLSOK was excluded from the budget that the committee submitted to the Senate, but the group received financing after Carla Vogel, student body president, threatened to veto a
budget that did not contain money for GLSOK.
Politics, however, makes strange bedfellows, and another group that received money was one that had supported an end to mandatory student fees — KU YAF
Daniel said, "We took $100 last semester because the Senate was giving it away."
Since then, the base of support for KU YAF has been weakened. Daniel said that 15 or 16 of its members had graduated in May. KU YAF also has lost one of its leading activists, Bergstrom, who transferred to another university.
KU YAF, which is conducting its second meeting of the semester tonight, has gotten off to a slow start, in contrast to its organizing efforts. I am sure said that KU YAF did not yet have formal plan for a Senate campaign.
The strength of the KU YAF-Freedom Coalition contingent in the Finance Committee has been weakened by the loss of Bergstrom. In addition, Freedom Coalition senators Smith and Wynkoop might also leave the committee. Jon Gulchrist, committee chairman, said that Smith had indicated he wanted to resign, and that Wynkoop had missed two meetings without excuse and might be placed on probation.
Stern was the only remaining KU YAFF member on the committee but was joined in September by another 'YAFF member. Daniel, who is state YAFF chairman again this year, was appointed to the committee.
In an effort to drum up more interest in the group, the presidential election and conservative politics, the Democrats coalescqon Oct 25 on Grenda.
"We are hoping to bring students and their rescue story," said Victor Goodpasture, current KU YAF president.
Daniel said that Grenada represented "the reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine."
Daniel said he hoped that the event would mobilize people to vote for Reagan and that conservatives would become conservative activi-
KU YAF, which organized the Freedom Coalition last year and significantly influenced the GLSOR financing issue, has its work cut out
Goodpasture said' the group's membership had increased to 25. Daniel put the number at 15.
However, KU YAF has been debilitated by the loss of some of its most sustained activists, and its position in the senate is weak, at least.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Police actions. not alcohol. prompted violence in Aggieville streets
The outbreak of violence Saturday in Aggregate in Manhattan has been attributed to alcohol. Good excuse, but not the truth. The attacks on police officials stemmed from the KU/KState game that afternoon.
To the editor
The K-State fans were out in full support of their team, with a wave cheer that lasted for at least 10 minutes and plenty of vocal backing as well. It would have been supportive of our football team as K-State's are of theirs.
What is the college tradition after scoring an upset victory? Tear down the goal post, which is exactly what the fans at K State attempt to do.
When we tore down the goal post last year after the Missouri game, the police at first attempted to stop us but gave up after they realized that it was a failure. This was
The students were able only to get away with one upright. During the course of these actions, the stadium was taken over by a mature student"s to get off the field.
Saturday night there were an estimated 8,000 people in a three-block area. I'm sorry, but if I had any intelligence I think that I'd block off the streets to traffic. The police had a different idea: Let's push the students aside to make way for occasional cars that just want to cruise through Aggieville to see the action. I certainly wouldn't have attempted to drive through 8,000 people who were becoming angered by police poking them with billy clubs in an attempt to get them off the streets.
not the case at K-State. Police repeatedly beat students with billy clubs and laid down enough Mace to put Napalm to shame.
clash in Aggieville stirs officials'),
Alvin Johnson, director of the Riley County Police Department, said he had ordered 50 new helmets and gas masks because of a shortage of equipment. I saw no shortage of offensive weapons.
In Tuesday's Kansan ("Violent
The police finally blocked off the street about 12:30 a m., and incidents of violence slowed down drastically.
I do not condone violence against people or property, and I was upset with things that I observed. Alcohol might have given some of the victims an escape to stand up for themselves or made them more obnoxious and violent.
However, alcohol did not provoke the violence Saturday night; the mishandling of the situation by the police did.
Ken Smiley
Lenexa sophomore
Vantage point
To the editor:
Vince Hess' column (Oct. 10, "Liberals in sad condition over Reagan") epitomized his tendency to criticize liberals and defend conservatives through simple decree rather than by argument.
Hess defended (or rather, attempted to defend) the bumbling Ronald Reagan of the first debate. His justification was, ironically enough, that Monday's discussion of the issues — and Reagan's avoidance of them — showed that "liberals are taking things too seriously."
Hess, of course, was referring to such inconsequential matters as nuclear warfare, the huge national deficit and problems associated with Reagan's annihilation of social welfare programs.
Ben Hall
If he's not concerned with political issues, what is he doing writing a political column? And, more importantly, what is he doing as editorial editor of a college newspaper? The Kansan's readers deserve better.
Are people starving in the streets?
Perhaps not from the vantage point of a fine-trimmed lawn in the upper-class conservative suburb.
Move beneficial
Iowa City, Iowa, freshman
To the editor
The Oct. 11 Kansan article "occupational therapy may go to K.C. campus" said that "several students among the 75 in the program were upset over the proposed changes." We do not think that this is
a true and fair representation of our feelings
We think that the move would be extremely beneficial to our education, despite the fact that it raises both personal and economic concerns.
Of the 375 students mentioned, only 38 will be directly affected by the move those being the students in the new curriculum. Of these 38, 46 of us think that the move would be to our advantage. This is 79 percent. The occupation that we want to move from is not keeping the possible move a secret but are keeping us well informed on the progress of the negotiations.
}
The purpose of the Kansan is to inform the students in an accurate and unbiased fashion. Your article did not go complete representation of facts.
Laurie Runnebaum Wichita senior