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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Friday, Nov. 22, 1985
A dubious glamour drug
Though not as easily accessible as beer, the costly glitter drug — cocaine — is leaving its trail in Lawrence.
An unidentified KU student who puts himself through college by dealing cocaine estimates the number of Lawrence users at between 3,000 and 4,000. Besides students, he said, local users include members of the Lawrence business community, KU administrators and staff members.
Dubbed as the drug that "in people" use, cocaine has become the status symbol of the '80s.
A heavy user's habit costs between $35,000 and $50,000 a year. Users too often barter with sex or resort to selling drugs or stealing to obtain money for their fix.
Some parents unknowingly finance their children's cocaine habits with money they send to cover college expenses. Users find themselves wallowing in debt as they borrow money to support their habit.
In addition to the financial corrosion that results from heavy cocaine use, one local drug dependency counselor says it also causes rapid physical and emotional deterioration.
Cocaine use is not a harmless game players can casually walk away from. Cocaine is against the law.
Despite the immediate thrill, cocaine use can create a strong psychological dependency that leaves heavy users to cope with symptoms of schizophrenia.
This week a former KU student was arrested and charged with cocaine distribution. In another case, more than 30 people across the state were indicted with cocaine possession or distribution.
Cocaine use may be a sign of status and wealth. But the dubious glamour is not worth any of the risks.
Pulling the right strings
What hours of pleading by Athletic Department officials in a Michigan courtroom and on the telephone couldn't do, a snap of a television network's fingers did last week.
The University of Kansas will play the University of Louisville in basketball this season.
And KU's game with the University of Detroit won't suffer because of it.
KU's date with Rider College is another story. But don't pity any of the 3,050 students at the small New Jersey school just because their basketball Broncs won't match prowess this winter with the Jayhawks, ranked in almost everybody's preseason top 10.
Soon after the game was canceled, Rider officials were
wiping their tears with a hefty check from NBC-TV.
How much the KU-Louisville game was worth to NBC, the world may never know. Network officials refused to say what they paid Rider to drop KU.
But students, faculty and alumni at three universities saw their basketball teams' schedules hang in limbo for weeks as NBC jockeyed to set up the dreamy KU-Louisville match.
Doubtless, for most KU, Louisville and Detroit fans, the wait was worth it. And indeed, no losers appear left in the wake of NBC's ploy.
But the episode clearly showed who's pulling the strings these days in major college athletics.
Community college glut
The problem with higher education in Kansas is not that it spends too little for its colleges and universities. The problem is that it pays for too many schools.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the southeast corner of the state.
One county — Montgomery
One county has boroughs — supports two community colleges, one in Independence and one in Coffeyville. Neighboring Labette County has a community college in Parsons, 30 miles from Independence.
The three schools have discussed merging since last year, but those discussions stalled last week mainly because of opposition from Independence and Coffeville.
The two Montgomery County schools are worried that merger talks might spark a battle over money, particularly during a year in which the state faces a painful shortfall of revenue. State budget makers are sharpening their axes, and officials don't wish to put their schools on the block.
Although these officials are worried about how the budget
pie is divided, the state needs to ask whether all the schools should be at the table.
Kansas can be found consistently near the bottom of the rankings for teacher pay. But it stays near the top of the list for the amount it spends, per person, for higher education.
The reason is too many schools and too many duplicated programs.
Community colleges are not themselves the problem. They play an important role in the state's system of higher education. The community colleges offer courses to many who can't attend one of the four-year state universities because of jobs or other commitments.
But the programs offered at Independence and Coffeyville Community Colleges are not so different that the state would not find savings in a merger. Bring in the Labette County school, and the savings could be substantial.
Officials at Labette have developed a merger plan. If legislators fail to consider the plan, the state will be forced to stretch an already thin budget to feed largely unnecessary mouths.
Rob Karwath
Editor
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
Editor
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMullen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General manager, news adviser
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sale
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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Three little words: 'I'll kill you'
I just glanced through a new book about the late Murray "the Camel" Humphrey, a prominent Chicago gangster with whom I once had a brief conversation as he was coming out of a courtroom.
I said, "Murray, can I ask you about the . . ."
And he said. "Bug off, punk."
When I got to the part of the book that described Humphrey as a financial and political wizard, and told how his genius had led to the successful expansion of the Crime Syndicate, I passed the book on to the literary scrutiny it deserved — the wastebasket.
The authors aren't content with appreciating these men for the rare quality that brought them great financial success: their willingness to maim, maul and kill.
That's the trouble with most of the writing and reporting that been done about people like Humphrey, Al Capone and the other names in organized crime.
Instead, they portray them as men who are really not much different from other successful businessmen. And they often give them titles like "chairman of the board," "operating director" and so on.
But all you have to do is follow the dying confessions of Roy Williams, the former president of the Teamsters union who is squealing to stay out of prison, and you'll see that it's never been executive skills that made the mugs successful.
But there's nothing to that. Any sharp CPA or lawyer can structure a deal if all the parties are willing.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
Oh, they were involved in payoffs, kickbacks, rigged union votes, huge loans from the Teamsters' pension funds and other deals that sounded sophisticated.
And that secret can be described in three little words: "I'll kill you."
It's persuading everybody to be willing that's the secret of the mugs' success.
When you think about it, the willingness to say those words and the sense of purpose to follow them up can give a person one heck of a business advantage.
If you're a salesman, you have to depend on your charm, glibness, knowledge of product, energy, powers of persuasion and sense of timing to close a deal. And you still might not make it.
How much simpler to say:
If you're a businessman, you probably have competition. To beat your competitors, you might have to improve the product, think of new and
"I don't think so.
"I'll kill you."
better-marketing strategies,
research and develop, innovate,
expand. And even then, they might outdo you.
But Cerones and Accardos and the others don't bother with all that. Somebody wants to compete and they say:
"Find another line of work."
"I'll kill you."
"Come to think of it, I'm due for a midlife career change."
If you're in business, you might have to deal with people who don't pay their bills or fulfill agreements. So you have to nag them, deal with collection agencies, or take them to court.
Not these guys. They just say:
"My check is in the mail."
"I'll kill you."
"Let's go to the bank."
When there's a corporate takeover attempt, we see proxy fights, lawsuits, buy-outs, buy-backs and all the other strategies.
But when Jimmy Hoffa decided that he was going to come out of retirement and try a takeover of the Teamsters, they just said the three little words. Then did it.
Disgruntled or unreliable employees are a chronic problem for corporations. To cope, the corporations hire personnel experts and
psychologists, and pipe in the sound of tropical rain.
When Allen Dorfman became an unreliable employee, his associates didn't bother with personnel directors or psychologists. They sent in the guys who wear ski masks in the summer.
And how else could they be expected to do business? That's the way they learned it.
Businessmen think in terms of hedges against inflation, hedges against shortages, hedges against inventory.
Most of them came out of the West Side of Chicago, and as mere lads developed an appreciation for the law of supply and demand. If you had a supply of something they wanted, they put a gun to your ribs and demanded it.
When these guys speak of hedges, they mean some foliage next to a driveway from which a shotgun can be fired.
So, don't be taken in when you read about the business acumen and financial wizardry of that crowd.
Just remember what the Chicago police captain said when he was approached by an economics student who intended to do a deep, scholarly study on how the mob achieved its wealth and power.
Student decries five-year program
He asked the police captain for sug gestions on where to start his research.
Then the teacher popped the question: "How do you like the five-year program?"
He told him: "A gun shop.
I recently had an interesting conversation with a cooperating teacher in my Curriculum and Instruction 320 class observation. I was sitting in the Lawrence High School lounge before I had to give that ob-sc terrifying first lecture to a class of juniors.
Gulp. Shall I speak the truth?
I said, "are you sure?" I said
She didn't look at me funny or ask me why. Another teacher in the lounge jumped right in and said,
Michael Mills
Guest columnist
--to further the quality of teacher's education. I am very sympathetic toward your feelings and I will assist you any way that I can."
"Really, how many times do they tell you how to make up a lesson plan?" I started taking off my shoes to count.
And so the conversation went between the three of us, all complaining and moaning about the program, each of us telling our particular horror story.
I was struck by the fact that I was the only one present who was in the five-year program. These two teachers went to KU, but before the School of Education switched to its five-year program.
"Oh, they have been having trouble ever since we've been there," one of them said.
Some of you might think that it's unprofessional for me to be spewing "louge gossip" all over the Kansan, but the truth is that the five-year education program at KU is a mess. Kaput, Silly. Everyone knows and admits it, including some of my teachers.
I transferred from Emporia State University last year, because I wanted a better professional school with more to offer, and that is what the KU program bills itself as.
What I received was a lemon the size of a basketball, and the darn thing was sour to boot. Can't make lemonade out of that stuff, but God knows I'm trying.
They tell the students things like,
"The program will see better days.
Not everyone is happy with it." Or
things like, "Now students, I hope
you are not bitter at the thought of
being used in a progressive experiment
To those of you unfamiliar with this circus, the five-year program was put into effect in 1983. The goal was to improve the quality of teachers by requiring them to have more professional experience and to begin working toward a master's degree.
Students are required to take 60 hours of general education classes—including 12 credits of science and math, two of which must be lab sciences. I believe in knowledge, but two lab sciences?
But those 30 hours include 10 credits of educational psychology — a full third of the entire education requirement. Not that I have anything against educational psychology, but if I'm going to take 10 credits — four classes — of it, they should be worth it. Or at least I expected as much at a school like KU.
There's more. Students must complete 30 hours of education courses, which I didn't mind much when I first heard of it. I wanted to learn, to work and graduate from a respectable institution.
the same material. There are 19 credits of Curriculum and Instruction, and many of these classes overlap with each other. For example, there are two classes called "Introduction to Curriculum." Two three-hour classes that meet twice a week for an hour and a half just to introduce you to curriculum.
During all this repetition and silliness, more than a few students want to stand up and say, "OK, we get it! Do we look stupid?"
Don't get me wrong, expanding the program to five years was a noble attempt to change things for the better. But there is a good amount of debate and infighting over the future of the program. The majority of the students feel alienated and disgusted by the repetition of material and quality of teaching.
And everyone hates the real zinger — the fifth year. Now, I don't know what philosophy is behind this, but students are supposed to take 15 hours of graduate-level education courses. These credits can be used toward a master's degree, if you want or can afford to get one.
This seems to be an attempt to railroad education majors to get master's degrees at KU.
Without these 15 hours, students already have bachelor's degrees in education. To be certified to teach in Kansas, the state requires only that education majors student-teach for one semester, and take one three-hour graduate-level class.
But with KU's five-year program, students must take 15 hours of graduate-level work. And the student-teaching is spread out over two semesters.
A noble idea, sure. But the five year program only has changed the quantity of time that education majors spend at school—not the quality of their education.
And what's the reaction from the field? Well, I received a little bit that morning in the Lawrence High teacher's lounge: "They don't listen to their students up there."
It's time to change before it's too late, and the only answer is to start with something new — like a four-year program and only a half-year of teaching.
The students are tired of being taught as if they just fell off the banana boat.
Michael Mills is a senior from Overland Park majoring in secondary education.
Mailbox
Spirtual technology
Our world has reached a very interesting and pivotal point in its history. Our achievements in medicine, space technology and computer science, to name a few, are staggering. Our understanding of physical reality has greatly advanced, especially in the past 25 years.
Why then do we see the threat of nuclear war causing people and governments to live and act in fear? Why does racial violence in South Africa consume the thoughts and activities of hundreds of thousands of people? Why is poverty and famine destroying the beauty and sustaining ability of our earth?
Because we have not grown up yet!
We have been so focused on our physical reality that we have all but completely ignored our spiritual reality, which exists in as much validity as our Lowenbrau, shoes and socks, and thermonuclear warheads.
It is time for us to advance our
spiritual technology, or our race as such will not endure.
Our spiritual technology is now severely limited by a number of belief system conflicts. Religious dogma is perhaps responsible for much of this. It has been said that "all wars are holy wars," and any in-depth study of wars, or of any significant political controversies, will reveal moral and religious roots feeding the conflict.
The first step toward world peace and harmony will involve extensive reflection and study of our existing religious beliefs and practices. All religions have similar intents and purposes, and they begin to look more and more alike the more advanced they become. We are all climbing the mountain, and as we reach the top we will understand that religions are only pathways, not ends in and of themselves.
As we truly begin to understand our relationships with each other, with ourselves, and with the con-
We all have sprung from the same consciousness, and we are all a part of that consciousness. Realizing that we are connected in that way helps us to seq that when we create problems or allow problems to exist for others, we are hurting ourselves.
For the future of our civilization, we have to bring our sense of spiritual responsibility and understanding up to the level of our science and technology, or our seemingly smart little politicians and religious leaders will help us to destroy this particular corner of the universe.
Rich Niebaum Lawrence senior
seiousness making us all one, we will no longer find it necessary or acceptable to fight and kill each other; to let each other go hungry, be cold, be alone; or to plunder our own back yard with chemical waste and pollution.
Three cheers for Rick Zaporowski and his column in the Nov. 11 Kansas, "In a hurry to read this? Just wait."
It is almost comical watching people hurry around like so many ants in a farm, knowing full and well that no matter how fast they go, there are still only 24 hours in a day.
Setting a (slow) pace
It is amazing what one can get done in 24 hours. I haven't gotten in a hurry in almost five years and have not had any trouble finding enough time to do all of the things I need and want to do.
I strongly recommend chewing each bite of food 30 times. Depending on one's foresight, it can be quite thrilling. So, too, can many things, if one is going slow enough to notice.
Richard Worden Leawood junior