OPINION
October 9,1984
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
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Replacing Senate
It isn't uncommon for students to criticize Student Senate and even call for its abolition. It is rare that such calls emanate from the president and vice president of that organization.
That, however, is what happened last week when Carla Vogel, student body president, and Dennis "Boog" Highberger, student body vice president, announced that they were planning to run for offices in next year's Senate. They will run with a group, "& Toto Too," which advocates abolishing the Senate and replacing it with a 400-member student assembly.
"As long as student government remains a training ground for future politicians, something to put on a resume, or a steppingstone to higher political office, it will remain ineffective as student government," Highbergar said.
In the assembly, the students would be elected by living group rather than by school, the idea being that students would be more interested in representatives who live next to them than those who go to school with them.
That's possible. But it could also risk polarizing students by living group and setting Greek against residence hall resident against off-campus resident.
The success of a student assembly turns on the assumption that those who are elected to a student assembly will work better together than those who are now elected to the Senate. It assumes that assembly members will not play politics, that they will not seek to exercise whatever power they have for its own sake. It assumes that they will try harder to be fair and impartial in their decisions.
What guarantees that members of the assembly committees will be any better than their Senate counterparts? And what will make assembly debates and discussion, with 400 members, so more smoothly than Senate meetings do now?
Although Highberger and Vogel may be correct in venting frustration with politicians, would a student assembly really be any different? Where politicians exist — and as long as there are elections, there will be politicians — contention will exist. At times, the system will work smoothly, and at times it won't.
But participation in government is often tedious work, and making government work well is difficult as well as tedious. No system will be able to get around that.
Learning from trivia
WASHINGTON — At a time when proposals to upgrade public schools are falling like autumn leaves, I would like to suggest a plan of my own. Why not tie our educational system more closely to the trivia crazie that is sweeping the country?
Moreover, the format has been broadened to include computers
Not only is the game "Trivial Pursuit" expected to produce about $175 million in profits this year, it has inspired such competition as "Celebrity Trivia," which requires knowledge of "little-known facts about well-known people."
Moreover, the format has been broadened to include computers. I am told that "Summer Games," based on the 1984 Olympics, even was played on computers at the Soviet Embassy, although the Soviet Union boycotted the real thing.
Meanwhile, an official of the company that makes "Trivial Compute" described that game as a combination of "everything that is rather trendy today: trivia and computers."
CORPORATE (Speaking of trendiness, a new television game show is called "Trivia Trap.")
Is there any doubt that computers programmed with trivia games would more readily sell to public schools? Students, after all, are top players of arcade games. So why clutter up their heads with a lot of knowledge while they are in class?
Here are some questions I recommend be posed to young players in classroom computer games:
I mean, why stress the "three Rs" (reading, 'riting and 'rithmic) when school children could be learning the " four Ps" (pidling, patry, picauye and operating computers to boot)?
Art — "Who was the Dutch artist, identified with a French school of painting, who reputedly cut off an ear for the love of a lady?"
Science — "What piece of fruit falling from a tree inspired Sir Isaac Newton to codify the law of gravity?"
Literature — "What author of novels with a Mississippi River setting was portrayed by actor Hal
DICK WEST
Holbrook in a highly acclaimed one-man show?"
Math — "What word did the Greek mathematician Archimedes shout when it occurred to him in the bathtub that a solid mass displaced its own volume of water?"
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Music — "What was the name of the English village that hired a piper, rather than an externeter, to rid the town of rats?"
History — “What American Revolutionary War hero became known as 'The Father of His Country'.”
Geography — "What European country did Hannibal and his elephants invade when they crossed the Alps?"
Once they have mastered this game, smart students could move to on "A-Plus" trivia, which would answer answers to such questions as:
"Why was Vincent Van Gogh hard of hearing?"
"In his farewell address, idd George Washington warn against 'foreign entangements' or 'entangling alliances?' "
"What famous Greek mathematician should have been arrested for indecent exposure?"
"What type of music do English rats prefer?"
"What is the meaning of the word 'eureka?' "
The first time I visited Las Vegas was in 1970, when I went to see Elvis Presley's stage show at the International Hotel].
"What is the name of the actor who portrayed Mark Twain in a highly acclaimed one-man show?"
Warm-up man aims to be best No.2
The room was packed with people who were almost rabid with anticipation over seeing Presley, who was just beginning his first series of personal appearances in many years. You could feel the energy in the audience. There was a tantalizing delay in beginning the show; finally the lights went down, and the orchestra started to play, and the curtain went up . . . and the man who walked out was not Elvis.
The man was a comedian whose job it was to warm up the audience. The people in the audience, however, didn't need warming up; they had been waiting for Elvis, they were paying to see Elvis, they had come to the house of Elvis and this poor guy had to stand out and tell his jokes.
Everyone in the room was thinking, "Come on, let's get to Elvis." I remember feeling sorry for him and thinking what a rash job he had.
Recently I was in a bookstore, and I saw a new book called "The Warm-Up." The subtitle was "The Autobiography of a No. 2 Man," and the author's name was Sammy Shore. I realized that he was the same guy who had opened the show at the International Hotel for Presley. The book jacket copy said that Shore had been a warm-up comic all his life, and it struck me that his years as an actor were far younger years acting as a prelude to other, more famous performers must have affected him in many ways.
So I got in touch with him. I told him that I had seen him that night in Las Vegas; asked him to tell me a little about himself.
"In addition to Elvis," Share said, "I've been the warm-up act for some of the biggest names in show business: Ann-Margaret, Kenny Rogers, Tony Orlando, Sammy Davis Jr., Tom Jones. ... it's what I've done for 30 years."
"Being a warm up is an art. It's like the infantrymen, the guys who hit the beaches and make way for whoever's coming in after them. You know that no one in the audience has come to see you, but you still have to give it your best effort anyway."
before you say a word. When you're a guy like me, however, I walk out on stage and I know people are thinking, 'Who's this bimbo?' At first it's hard to accept that, but then you tell yourself: There are very few No. *
BOB
GREENE
Syndicated
Columnist
people in the world. Most of the world is made up of No. 2 people, who aren't quite making it to the top. And that's me."
I would be introduced to Milton Berle, and I would be so intimidated by him — I'd be like a little kid.
Shore said he had experienced difficulty living with that idea at first. "I blamed everyone but myself. I said I just hadn't had the right breaks. I'd see someone like Milton Berle, and I'd try to tell myself, 'I'm funnier than he is.' I'd do a whole number like that on myself, and then
"I'd admit to myself: If I feel like this when I'm with him, how can I kid myself that I could be him?"
Shore said that sometimes, early in his career, he would sense that he had done a good job as a warm-up for some big star. "But then I'd start having these self-doubts. I thought I was great, but was I really? They seemed to like me a lot, but did they? So I'd go to the lobby of the hotel outside the showroom, and I'd hang around, and when people would come out maybe they would recognize me and say, 'You were really good.'
"I'd say to myself, 'Gee, maybe I was good.' On the nights when I was really good, however, I wouldn't have to go to the lobby. I'd know it enough inside myself that I didn't have to hear it from strangers."
Shore made another point. Even though he knows that the crowd never comes to see him, when he is walking out onto that stage he is
telling himself in his head, 'Ladies and gentlemen, it's the Sammy Shore Show!' He looks out at the people in the audience, and he imagines that they have planned their evenings around being allowed to watch him tell his jokes. When he is able to maintain that illusion throughout the performance, the evenings generally go well.
I asked him whether he thought that any permanent damage had been done to his ego by living with this set of circumstances, of always being the warm-up, never being the star.
"Look, I was born with a wonderful gift," he said. "I have the gift to make people laugh. And I've been doing that all my life. How many people can do something they love all their lives?"
"I decided a long time ago that it might be destined that I'll never be the No. 1 guy. So I don't despair over that, I just try to be the best No. 2 guy I can be; I try to be the best warm-up there ever was."
Hint for Geraldine
Money alone no remedy to Coors' comment
A rich man went into a restaurant one day and saw a woman so beautiful that he kept staring at her. He went to her table and said, "Madam, if you marry me, I'll give you $10 million."
The woman was startled for a moment, then said, "I accept."
The man smiled, leaned down and asked, "Well, then, would you spend the money?"
Again the woman was startled, and she replied indignantly, "What do you think I am?"
"Madam," he said, "we have already properly populated a price."
I thought of that story when I read about the latest in the Adolph Coors Co. controversy.
The company announced that it would improve opportunities for minorities and invest more money in banks and businesses owned by blacks. The brewery was virtually dragged kicking and screaming into the affirmative action arena when its chairman and chief executive officer, William Coors, made some disturbing remarks about blacks.
Speaking to a group of black businessmen in Denver in the spring, he said that African blacks "lack the intellectual capacity to succeed" and that slave traders had don blacks as they by bringing them here in chairs.
Coors officials first said that their boss had been misquoted, then
MICHAEL ROBINSON Staff Columnist
alternated between saying that he had been quoted out of context and apologizing for his "unfortunate choice of words."
Protests and boycotts sprang up across the nation. At the University, the association of University Residence Halls, five individual halls, the KU Panhellenic Association and the Student Senate Minority Affairs
Committee joined the boycott bandwagon, but they decided to hold off when Coors offered to fly a couple of them. "Coca-Cola," to see the situation themselves.
Earlier this semester, the two presented their report to the Student Senate, and it pretty much parroted the company line that Bill Coors hadn't meant it the way it sounded. The report also gave a general breakdown of the percentages of minority employees and addressed the company's position in its disputes with the AFL-CIO.
The report neglects to mention that only one of Coors 500 nationwide distributorships is black owned. It also doesn't explain why, if the Coors record is so glowing, the company was vulnerable to attacks by the group who wanted to change the changes which were mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.
Of course, numbers are only tools, and if this were just a numbers game, it wouldn't matter. The problem is that Coors doesn't seem to understand what he did wrong.
How could someone stand in front of an audience of black businessmen and tell them they should be glad that their grandparents and great-grandparents were slaves? How could he have a tape of the speech played for members of the Minority Affairs Committee and think they would change their minds?
And how does the NAACP deal with such a man?
Money is the answer. Bill Coors has decided, probably wisely, to let his pocketbook do the rest of the talking. The alternative is to lose possibly more money in a boycott.
Should blacks be satisfied with that answer? Are 15 more districtdirships and more money the only things we're after?
Maybe that's all this time. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing; it is a beginning. However, the slopes of the moral high ground are steep, and blacks should take care that they don't slip off and end up, as did the woman in the restaurant, just negotiating a price.
Latin America shows trend to democracy
WASHINGTON — Elected civilian presidents have, over the past five years, replaced military rulers in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Peru.
As Brazil, Uruguay, Guatemala and Grenada also move toward greater democracy, more than 90 percent of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean live in countries that have governments that are democratic or heading toward democracy.
As recently as 1979, two-thirds of our neighbors level under military or military dominated governments of both left and right. Any shift so striking invites skepticism. Yet measured in voter participation and in competition among candidates, the democratic resurgence is astonishingly deep. Since November 1980, our southern neighbors have cast about 150 million votes in 33 elections in 24 countries.
For example, in 1982, almost 50 million Brazilians voted in direct legislative elections. This was three times the vote in similar elections in 1962. In 1982, 81 percent of all adults voted; the 1962 figure was 45 percent.
In May, an absolute majority of all adult Salvadoran, about 1.5 million, defied guerrilla violence in the election in which Jose Napoleon
Duarte defeated Roberto D'Aubaisson. In contrast, the 1962 Salvadoran presidential voting drew only 400,000 people, roughly one-third of the country; an official military candidate dominated the election.
A similar evolution appears in two Constituent Assembly elections in
LANGHORNE
MOTLEY
New York Times Syndicate
Gemalaula 20 years apart. In May
1964, 337,000 voters were cast, re-
presenting 40 percent of the registered
voters; in July 1984, the voters
numbered 1.96 million — 73 percent
of those registered.
Why has an upsurge in democratic politics occurred? One reason is that development has taken hold enough to make everyone want part of the government. It is a desire to repudiate dictators as well as guerrillas.
The force of the democratic tide and the rejection of extremism can also be seen in what has not happened. Not a single country that was democratic four years ago has lost its freedom.
Military coups predicted for El
Salvador and Honduras have not occurred. Bolivian democracy has not fallen. Not one guerrilla movement has taken power since 1979, when the Sandinistas replaced Anastasio Somoza Debayle and abandoned their promises to conduct free elections.
Moreover, to Fidel Castro's frustration and surprise, Greenada the Marxist-Leninist dictators did not prove immune to their own abuses of power and were replaced by constituencies committed to free elections.
Therefore, U.S. policy is to support
free elections without reservation, seeing in them assurances that human rights will be protected, that reconciliation will be the work of pellet guns, and that our land cooperation will have firm local foundations.
Our neighbors deserve credit for their progress. We can be proud that we are cooperating with them. Freedom is not a zero-sum game. Everyone wins when democracy is strengthened.
Langhorne Motley is U.S. assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs.
EDITORIAL BOARD
The University Daily Kansan editorial board meets at 6 p.m. Sundays and 7 p.m. Wednesdays to discuss editorial policy of the paper.
Members of the board are Jennifer Fine,
columnist; Vince Hess, editorial editor;
Charles Himmelberg, assistant editorial
editor; Don Knox, editor; Michael Robinson,
columnist; Matt Mattson, Senior Editor;
and Paul Sevart, managing editor.
The board invites students and members of University or local groups who want to discuss editorial concerns to attend a board meeting.
Call the editorial editor to make arrangements.