OPINION
September 4,1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
the University Daly Kannan, UNESK 650 640 is published at the University of Kansas, 181 staffer Flint Hall Law, Kanwer. 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 postage paid at Lawrence. Kanwer Kannan 60443 submissions by mail are accepted. $7 a week in Douglas County and $10 for six months or $19 for twelve months. The county Student POSTMASTER Send address changes to the University Daly Kannan, 181 staffer Flint Hall Law, Kanwer. Kannan 60443
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
SUSANNE SHAW General Manager and News Adviser
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA
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Manager Manager
JILL GOLDBLATT Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Image of ASK
The campus director of the Associated Students of Kansas bowed out of office last week to prevent a public dispute with the Student Senate, but regrettably his resignation most likely will prolong the poor image on campus of the lobbying group for state students.
group for state students. The events of last week are even more regrettable because Chris Edmonds' resignation did not stem from his actions as ASK director, but from his actions as a director of a national student group not associated with ASK.
Edmonds was accused by Senate leaders of submitting a $776 travel voucher, though Senate rules forbid payment for travel to meetings, forums or conventions. The accusations were serious, the leaders said, because Edmonds also served as the Senate's authority on rules and regulations.
So Edmonds, citing personal reasons, quit.
So Edmonds, using personal experience. It is easy to blame Edmonds of being unethical, just as it is easy to blame the student leaders who approved his request of being ignorant of their own rules.
of being ignorant of their own rules.
But in this dispute, ASK is guilty only of unfortunate name association.
association. That's not to say ASK always acts in a proper and professional manner. For much of its 10-year history, the has been true.
But ASK has been striving for a more active role. Its Topeka directors are better informed and more adept at successful lobbying of state legislators.
In past years, student opponents of ASK have cited its not-so-glorified past in proposing that the group receive less student money. This year, when ASK goes before the Senate's Finance and Auditing Committee, the group should be judged on its own performance — and not on that of Chris Edmonds or the KU Student Senate.
Respect for labor
In this region of right-to-work laws and sparse union membership, Labor Day again has passed as just another holiday for most workers.
Labor unions began the holiday in the late 19th century to honor the worker, and unions still lead celebrations in some large Eastern cities.
Such festivities would be lost on most Kansans; many of them wouldn't even be able to think about parades or speeches, because their employers would need them for the brisk business expected from holiday shoppers.
Regina Morantz, an associate professor of history at KU says she isn't surprised by the decline of Labor Day as a day to celebrate American labor. Americans look up to entrepreneurs more than to common workers,she says.
Perhaps the public is not reacting against the idea of labor.
The current status of Labor Day may reflect the nationwide decline in the strength and popularity of large labor unions. People hear management blame unions for low productivity and high prices; they read of violence at union picket sites and of ties to organized crime. The unions fight to hang on to what power and memberships they have.
Having a day to honor the U.S. worker is a noble idea. If Kansans and most of the country choose to skip the union parades and go shopping or go to work instead, their respect for workers is not necessarily diminished.
Beatles maniacs
The fans love Beatles' memorabilia, yeah,yeah,yeah
At an auction last week in London, fans of the Fab Four paid more than $250,000 for items — ranging from a John Lennon guitar to a membership card for a Liverpool club where the group played — from the good old days.
where the group played - from the good ones only.
The top price, more than $20,000, was for an unpublished manuscript by Lennon.
manuscript by Lennon.
What some people see as trivia, at best, or junk, at worst, is gold to others. One must wonder, however, whether anyone say, 100 years from now, will care about what Lennon wrote in the manuscript, which contains poetry and prose from the early days in Liverpool.
The Beatles' music is certainly worth preserving. The items that were auctioned, however, seem mere conversation pieces — and expensive ones at that.
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 position. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flind Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
The other day I was given one of the greatest opportunities an American can ever be offered. I turned it down.
Sorry, Clara, hold the commercial
It started with a phone call. The man who was calling was representing the Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers chain.
"We're shooting two more 'Where's the beef commercials,'" the man said.
Figure 18. "And we'd like to know whether you would consider being in one of them," he said.
"You what?"
"I figured." I said.
You whate.
"You'd have to fly to California," he said, "but if you want the part, it's yours."
The man explained that the "Where's the beef" commercials had been such an astonishing success for Wendy's — sales for the first six months of 1984 were up by 32 percent, according to the company — that more such commercials will be filmed Starring once again will be Clara Peller, the foghorn-voiced, 80-plus-year-old grandmother who somehow became a genuine U.S. superstar on the basis of her one line.
"The commercial we want you to be in will receive saturation television exposure during the fall presidential campaign," the man
The commercial will feature two
political candidates debating the merits of big, fluffy hamburger buns, he said.
BOB GREENE
he said.
Out in the audience, Clara Peller will be seated, watching. As the candidates argue about the buns, she will stand and yell . . . oh, you know what she'll yell.
Syndicated Columnist
"Where do I fit in?" "I asked.
"We want you to play the role of a reporter," the man said.
(No cracks, please.)
"You'll be sitting in the audience, 'covering' the debate," the man said. After Clara first yells, Where's the beer? You'll stand up and start yelling
"On national television?"
"I'll yell 'Where's the beef'?" asked.
Vae !
"Yes."
"Yes," the man said.
"Yes, the man said."
"I wish you hadn't called," I said.
"So every time the country sees Clara Peller yelling 'Where's the beef' this fall, they'll see me yelling 'Where's the beef,' 'ooo'"
It's true; I wish he hadn't. Who wouldn't welcome an opportunity like this — to co-star with one of the great thespians of our time, and to be guaranteed national exposure on a scale undreamed of by generations of Shakespearean actors?
I couldn't do it, of course; people in the news business are strictly forbidden from endorsements of commercial products, even implicit ones. The theory is that once you endorse a product, whatever credibility you have as an objective, unbiased reporter is gone. You have proven that someone can purchase your approval with money.
I thought about it for a moment. Could I find a way to do that so that it could perhaps not be construed as an endorsement?
Nah if shooting 'Where's the beef' in a Wendy's commercial, what is a commercial endorsement, what is?
Then I thought. What if I don't take any money for it? That way, no one can accuse me of being bought off.
That didn't work, either. It isn't just a matter of money. Somehow, once people see a person on television screaming your approval of a burglar, they never look at him quite the same way again.
So I thought some more. What if I said I was doing it for my readers? In other words, what if I said I was doing it as research for a story
designed to reveal the making of a big time commercial?
No deal. Sure, you're all saying right now that you'd like me to be in the commercial. Do it, you're saying; do it! But you wouldn't respect me in the morning.
I thought of the final alternative.
Make the commercial and get out of journalism. Do the honest thing Savor the fame and fortune of being in the Wendy's commercial, and then turn in my typewriter forever.
Tempting, tempting — but what happens when the commercial stops airing? I still have the rest of my life to live. I can't go around remind people. I was the guy who stood up for Feller and yelled Where's the year that Beagan and Mondale were running for president."
I called the man from Wendy's back.
"I'm waffling." I said.
You have to make the decision, be said. "We're running out of time." I named.
Do actors in TV commercials ever get to date their leading ladies"
"Come on," he said. "We've got to cast this commercial."
I told him no. I won't be watching television in the fall. All I see would be the world stardom. I had given away
Summer abroad aids perspective on words
The words drifting into my bed room were unfamiliar.
Lingering thoughts of the previous night's dreams in English vanished as I lay in my bed in Colombia, South America.
Several Spanish floated into my room and the mutterings under my breath did not help translate the phrases
It was another day of life in a foreign country, and to think that I had been my choice to spend the summer studying in South America.
Words came at me through more mediums than I cared to anticipate, all trying to get across a point that I would struggle to comprehend.
would struggle Billboards shouted their messages with phrases that I did not understand.
Deciphering the directions on a pay telephone proved only a momentary victory. I could not ask the recording on the other end of the phone to repeat her message or to speak to me in English.
Newspaper headlines had me wondering just what in the world was going on; stores could have been offering great bargains, but their
catchy slogans were only foreign words written in flashy colors.
It's a story written in the books or many foreign students, whether they are French students studying in Germany, Poles studying in France
MARGARET
SAFRANEK
Staff Columnist
or North Americans studying in Colombia.
The problem is words, those unfamiliar, garbled sounds that somehow allow the world to communicate.
They come from many foreign countries, some having studied English in schools back home, others struggling with their first introduction to the language.
About 300 students are at KU this semester taking on the challenge of learning the English language
In a world of familiar language a person need not spend the day mentally rehearsing simple phrases before asking aloud where to find a certain building, what the codes on a class schedule mean or how to use the washing machine that simply reads "quarters only."
However, for those who hear a word and are forced first to translate it into their own language and then to assimilate it into the new English vocabulary they are building, a day is one word challenge after another.
easy to make it through the day with this language, which has been acquired over a lifetime.
Nor must phrases such as "beats me," "get lost or go for it" be dissected and emphasized in a person speech, even if it vague notion of what the speaker means.
Moreover, a properly pronounced word such as "going to" when slurred into a garbled "gonna" conveys the same message to those who have heard the words many times.
But foreign students learning English struggle to understand the
lyrics to songs on the radio, compre-
pend computer printouts of bureau-
ratic language and decipher-
starred, hurried explanations.
stare at her face.
Anyone who has been forced to shout above the din of a speaker blaring away in a bar or strain to hear a neighbor's conversation in the midst of a crowd knows the frustration of hearing the sounds without understanding the message.
Such is the helplessness and frustration that often confronts students who are acquiring language skills in a foreign country.
of course, many groups on camps will help ease the problems facing these new students. The Applied English Center will also offer them intensive courses, speeding up the sometimes painful process of learning another language.
ing alike, what many of the students strung with the English language will appreciate are the average persons around KU who take the time to patiently explain and re-explain things, and pronouncing those words of English clearly and distinctly offer the most welcome kind of hello.
Presidential debates may be limited to two
WASHINGTON - The White House is not interested in Walter Mondale's suggestion for six debates with the president.
Because pre-election days are dwindling, the stalling has White House aides betting that only two debates, at the most, will take place.
Meanwhile, Vice President George Bush says he wants to debate with Geraldine Ferraro, but Reagan and his strategists will have to work it out.
Nevertheless, the debates will be viewed as the high point of the campaign.
When the ground rules are finally worked out and sponsors have been chosen, the campaign will be well into September.
WHITE HOUSE AIDES never mis
a chance to take a swipe at former President Jimmy Carter. In fact, half of Reagan's campaign seems geared to an attack on his predecessor.
Recently, while announcing that Reagan would personally award
HELEN THOMAS
He takes his computer on the road so that he can stay in touch |
United Press International
medals to two teen-agers for herism, deputy press secretary Larry Speakes noted that Carter did not award any similar medals during his presidency.
The candidates are awarded under a Justice Department program and Congress requires that the presentation be made by the president
The medals awarded during the Carter years were presented by Reagan, he said.
SPEAKES WAS ASKED how the president had decided to select a teacher to be the first civilian to take a ride in a space shuttle.
He said Reagan had received several recommendations. When a reporter told Speakes that he understood that journalists had also been considered for selection from non-astronaut candidates to the shuttle, Speake said ABCTV's Sam Donnion would have been selected "if we could keep him up there."
TYPEWRITERS ARE becoming a thing of the past in the White House as computers are moved onto the desks of top aides and secretaries
desks or top mobs
Speakers has access to a storehouse
of instant information by punching a few keys on his computer.
THE PRESIDENT'S NEWS conferences are expected to be few and far between during the fall campaign.
News conferences can hold pitfalls for any president, particularly when all appears to be going well. Why rock the boat?
Furthermore, a Beagan news conference might require the television networks to provide equal time, 30 minutes to Monday. ]
White House spokesman Speaker said that Carter had conducted only five news conferences in 1980 when was running for re-election and that Reagan had held six so far.