UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan only the writers. Signed columns represent the views of all
October 23.1979
Fair budgeting vital
The activity fees of 25,000 KU students brought in more than $428,000 this year. That's a big pile.
Each fall and spring the Student Senate sits down and decides who gets how much of that pie.
In theory, all students get a return on their activity fees, either through recreational services, legal services or dozens of other activities. But the truth of the matter is that some students get more return on their money than others. And the Student Senate helps decide which students those will be.
THE FUNDING process has two parts—the regular funding in the spring and the supplementary budgeting in the fall.
The process is bound to have arbitrary elements in it—as any legislative process should be. The legislative process is personal preferences of the legislative body's members.
However, the budgeting process in the Student Senate leaves itself open to more arbitrariness than seems likely in the best interests of the student body.
Although the full Senate has the final say on the allocation of funds to campus groups, it is the 25-member Budget Committee that first reviews the requests and makes the recommendations for funding to the full Senate.
UNFORTUNATELY, the 25-member
committee rarely draws more than 10 members to its meetings to discuss the funding requests. The groups go before the committee, the review of their requests are made and the recommendations are forwarded to the Senate.
The groups have the opportunity to make changes in the requested funding before the Senate with the backing of a senator. But the committee's recommendations often go through as submitted.
The Senate bylaws restrict to some degree the discretion of the committee members in making their recommendations. But the bylaws have to be interim, and the committee members see fit. That, by definition, is an arbitrary decision.
THE ALLOCATION of funds is perhaps the Senate's primary responsibility, yet the attention paid to it is weak at best. The Senate committee, or the Senate, has been unfathiable to its responsibilities in the funding process.
But we do suggest that if the Senate is to cut the student funding pie—as we feel they should—then they ought to take special care to see that responsibility is fulfilled honestly, with as little arbitrariness as possible.
To do otherwise only serves to shed further doubt on the Senate's handling of students' money.
Castro's aid plea a hypocritical ploy
Fidel Castro made a deep impression upon the countries of the world recently with his driving speech before the United Nations General Assembly.
It was in that speech that he denounced U.S. "aggressive" foreign policies and called for a $300 billion fund for Third World countries.
Sadly enough, he received strong support from many representatives for his unrealistic ideals and erroneous statements.
IF WE LOOK past Castro's attempt to
do a good-sight image, we can see him as
Fidel Castro
his ever-cunning self. And we can see that his words were as hypocritical as ever.
INDEED, WHILE he was calling for
inadeed to Third World nations and labeling
them 'aggressive' and 'imperialistic', both
Cuba and the Soviet Union were
continuing to exploit the governments,
and America, the Middle East and Africa.
Uga is involved in more than 20 of these countries, and it is not in the form of financial aid to help them pulloves out of the quamigre of poverty.
On the contrary, Cuba is offering military aid to pro-Communist factions in these nations and is telling government officials how to run their countries.
John COLUMNIST fischer
IN MOST of these cases, Cuba is doing the dirty work for its friend, the Soviet Union, in exploiting these countries because they often under officers' commands.
So, while thousands of people suffer innocently in these countries, as Castro pointed out, both the Soviet Union and Cuba continue to take advantage of their plight for the sake of their own nationalistic tactic that Castro accuses the United States of using.
So what exactly were Castro's intentions in his speech? And why is he suddenly demanding that the US make concessions his country and the Soviet Union are exploiting? Has Castro received a divine revolution and conceived it as a way of characterizing beauside is usually known for?
A bomb is going to be dropped on the Third World today.
DON'T BE fooled, it is just a ploy by Castro to pull the wool over the eyes of those countries and add further tension in the game. This happens when those countries also not be fooled.
whether it explodes depends not only on the leaders of those nations, but also, to a large extent, on the indignation of the American public.
Castro is calling for $30 billion a year of the world to help resolve 'nations' of the world to help resolve the Third World Nations. But to raise these issues nearly politically imposes these days.
The bomb is the November issue of the magazine Mother Jones, and its articles highlight the common threats that American businesses, and even the United States government, has of dumping nuclear waste.
CASTRO'S CALLING for such a huge sum in aid is another play to hinder relations between the Western nations—especially the United States—and the Third World. Those underestimated nation, and any failure to provide it will only blacken the U.S.'s already farnished image abroad.
Pesticides that have caused sterility in Americans, contraceptives that have failed for American women, drugs that have been banned in American schools, people—all kinds of products rejected by the United States—are being shipped en maze to foreign countries, especially to the Third World.
Plagued by high inflation rates and plagiarized by economic problems, very few Western nations understand the amounts of aid without feeling political repercussions at home and economic repercussions abroad.
By standing silently to Castro's criticism, the United States is only making his charismatic appeal in Third World countries will play a dominant role in international affairs in the years ahead of us, and the United States cannot- and should not idle by.
KANSAN
TODAY, THE issue of Mother Jones is being hand delivered to every embassy in Washington, D.C. Copies are being sent weekly and you may be the key major newspaper in the world now has a copy. And foreign correspondents are scheduled to meet today with the authors of the exposé.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Presentation: New needs address to the University Daily Kansan, Flint Hall. The University of Kansas Institute 5K6405
The Mother Jones article is shocking and frightening. For that reason, and because public opinion can change the situation, it is important to summarize the low points of the investigation.
U. S. 105-6489-41 Published at the University of Kansas Daily August through May and Monday and Thursday and September through November 30, 2014. Publication date is November 27, 2014. Subscription price is $25 per month or $120 for a year. If a year is desired, contact Department of Psychology at U.Kansas.edu/psychology.
Editor Mary Hoenb
Managing Editor Nancy Dressler
Editorial Editor Mary Ernst
Export of banned products immoral
Business Manager Cynthia Ray
General Manager Rick Musser
Advertising Adviser Chuck Chowins
- In 1971, A.H. Robins Co. began distributing a contraceptive intrauterine device (IUD) designed to kill the complaints we were pouring in pelvic inflammations, punctured uterines, blood poisoning, even death. By 1974, when about 20,000 women in the United States, 17 women had died as a direct result of its use and more than 200,000 cases of adverse uterine infections had been treated.
But it is in this area that the practice of dumping comes full circle, to harm those who created the harm.
BUT THE Dalken Shield was sold overseas even after the U.S. government, which had purchased thousands of the IUDs from A.H. Robins Co., at a 48 percent price.
- Pamela, an antihisthetic by upiader Co. was killed in sales in the United States in 1929 because she was ineffective and dangerous, even lethal, to many people. But today, Pamela is known by another name.
It is no coincidence, then, that 500,000 people are poisoned annually by pesticides, according to a World Health Organization estimate.
lynn COLUMNIST byczynski
Those pesticides are sprayed on crops that are later harvested and exported to the United States. What was deemed too toxic for our corn is coming back in our coffee.
In 1977, 240 million pairs of children's saplains, all treated with the flame-vented Tris, were banned in this country. A found to be extremely carmineous.
BUT IT wasn't until the next year that they had learned that they were banned for export. In that year, their surplus paajamas were bought up at a fraction of their former retail worth and went on sale.
- The pesticide DBCP was banned in
California after it was found to cause damage to the soil and had handled it. The Environmental Protection Agency has since imposed severe limitations on its use and is considering legislation for the site.
But again, what is unacceptable for the people of the United States is not necessarily the policies and actions of other nations. A provision of the law governing pesticides explicitly states that pesticides
AND THOSE pesticides are sent abroad without instructions for their use printed in the book. In all cases, the result, safety precautions are often recommended and recommended applications exceeded.
And if U.S. businesses cannot be convinced to stop the practice of dumping because it is so immoral, then U.S. companies must find alternative solutions for reasons of this nation's self-interest.
Python film critics overly sensitive
To the Editor:
After seeing Monty Python's "Life of Brian," I am confused as to why certain church leaders felt it necessary to condemn the film. As I understand it, the church leaders are upset because the film makes derogatory remarks about the life of Jesus
I don't see how "Brian" could be considered an attack on Jesus or Christianity. It is an attack on the willingness of some people to help Jesus for their sake for the hope of salvation.
I CAN ONLY conclude that the church leaders who criticized this film are criticizing it for no apparent reason.
When I saw the film I saw none of this and even began to think these church leaders had been paid by Monty Python's agents to make these complaints for the publicity. That's how puzzled they be their compulsory if maybe they meant mother film.
If the church leaders were upset because the film handled the followers rather roughly, I would suggest they not take themselves so seriously. They should put things of the spirit before matters of the flesh, and Monty Python's film just says that.
IN THE FIRST place, Brian and Jesus are two separate and distinct characters in the film. The character of Jesus is even shown as a blind man who is listening to his sermon who are depicted in a derogatory way. That's the way it is throughout the whole film. The way he is depicted in the film is that of Monty Python's attack. In the second place, Brian is mistaken for "the messiah," not for Jesus Christ. "The messiah" for Jesus Christ. "The messiah" for free Jews from Roman domination.
Kevin Courtney 1108 Ohio
Arbitrary language is only 'trivial truth'
To the Editor:
The letter from Steve Pritchard bemoaning the "arbitrary" nature of language is worth looking at, not because it solves any problems or explains anything, but because it very clearly shows some of the real problems, usually using their confusion only behind the scenes.
We can easily imagine what it would be like if language were genuinely "arbitrary" as Pritchard suggests. Most of our everyday conversations are well ordered; we might well order pizza when we really want hamburgers, and the waitress would be likely to serve up fried chicken or chop some pasta. But when we would but we would shrub out our vexation with a sigh, recalling that language is, alas, arbitrary, and hence there is no reason to understand anything said anyone else.
One "nays" that the animal in the field is to be called a cow, as though that peculiar animal is a domestic animal, what a cow is. Linguistic standards are not arrived at by any procedure as complicated as universal consensus, nor by any circumstance, but a relationship between words and things.
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
THESE OF us who talk to ourselves might misunderstand our own words so thoroughly that we would walk away from a conversation with fans would be in a perpetual tiring. For how could they rely on reports of their favorite teams when those reports are not reliable? "binary" language? One wonders where there is any evidence to suggest that our conversations have confusions about how language operates.
Of course everybody is "free to interpret anything or everything" as he or she sees fit. That is a trivial truth, and it is neither here nor there. If one pretends to contribute something to the education of confusion, then one abides by the common standards, traditions, and conventions which combine to make language meaningful and understandable. And that is also a tool for making the objects of knowledge; it makes those objects what they are.
LANGUAGE IS one form of experience and behavior. A word is one kind of thing among others. To separate words from things is not to simplify or explain; it is to postulate the existence of two orders of events, necessarily both inaccessible and useless.
G. L. Smith Mayetta graduate student
Because of its losses, Chrysler corporation is seeking loans from the U.S. government. But one of its largest investors would be to sell its $4 million South African operation.
Chrysler should sell S. African interests
The presence of Chrysler, and other U.S. corporations, in South Africa does not have the same impact on the undemocratic and racist minority government. According to the UN report, "The net effect of
To the Editor:
American investment has been to strengthen the economic and military self-sufficiency of South Africa's apartheid regime."
a reasonable condition on loans being granted to Chrysler would be that Chrysler sell its South African holdings.
Mark Cline Medicine Lodge senior
October 7-13 was officially designated as Alcohol Awareness Week. It is ironic that a few daft comments have been written in a letter of complaint about University affiliated functions at which 'free beer' but no 'free' alternations are permitted. The course, paid for from the general funds of the sponsoring group and so is not free—it is, in fact, paid for by those who don't drink alcohol.
Many companies and institutions of higher learning have a stated policy that any function at which alcoholic beverages are served. The reasoning is that there are many people who may, on any given occasion, drink or smoke alcoholic toxicating and that there are others for whom "intoxicating" is exactly the right word, implying that alcohol is for them, and lethal poison.
Other beverages could 'spike' parties to the Fooler:
I deeply hope that the previous letter and these additional words may lead SUA, Residential Programs, the Senior Class, and the Student Class to alumni groups—to consider adopting a policy which requires the serving of alternative beverages at their functions on campus. Students should choose those places where such a policy is in effect, it has caused no drop in attendance or pleasure and has enhanced the gathering for success from necessity not choose to drink alcohol.
George F. Wedge
Assocate Professor, English and Linguistics, and Certified Alcoholic Counselor Committee on Alcoholism Committee on Alcoholism
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kanan welcomes letters to the eduinl letters should be in English, but any other language should include 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is african descent, they should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position. They should also include the right to edit letters for publication.