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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Thursday, Oct. 24, 1985
Between now and next fall,
KU officials will be on the road
to Lorman, Miss.; Madison,
Wis.; and Las Vegas, N.M.
Recruiting minorities
A diverse student body is the goal of their missions. They'll be looking to recruit black, Hispanic and other minority students.
The numbers bear out what for years campus officials have professed as a goal: Bringing more minorities to Mount Oread.
But a check of University records shows KU has bucked the trend. Last year, minority students made up 6.2 percent of KU students. A dozen years earlier, minorities made up 5.1 percent.
Last week, the American Council on Education released a report saying minority student enrollment on campuses nationwide had suffered a decade of decline.
Much of the credit for meeting that goal goes to Chancellor Gene A. Budig who, in his four years here, has
overseen much of the growth in minority enrollment.
KU doesn't have the luxury of ethnically diverse surroundings — at least not immediate ones. So officials must recruit and offer incentives to bring more minorities here.
This year, the University received $126,000 to help pay expenses for 17 students.
The ethnic diversity of the University can stand further improvement. Campus officials must continue setting minority recruitment goals high.
KU officials want minority enrollment to continue its upward trend. A clear clue: the office of minority affairs has requested $228,300 from the federal government to help finance educations of 28 minority graduate students next school year.
But for now, students and faculty can show at least a little pride. Their university is succeeding where others aren't.
On the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1880s, Chrysler and the United Auto Workers realized they'd sink or swim together. When your ship's deck is underwater, you don't quibble about conditions aboard the lifeboat.
So it's hard to understand why they squared off across the bargaining table again in the latest contract talks. Although Chrysler no longer faces financial collapse, management and labor are up against another common threat — the increased competition from Japanese automakers.
A shared commitment
Workers gave up $1 billion in days off, raises and pension boosts. Management agreed to share the payoff through employee profit-sharing and stock ownership plans.
Japanese car makers don't want to provoke protectionism by increasing exports, so they're setting up shop here. Honda and Nissan already have U.S. plants. Toyota, Mazda and Mitsubishi have plans on the drawing board.
U. S. car companies have seen the Japanese characters on the wall. The labor contract at GM's new Saturn plant includes many Japanese features, such as management-labor committees to make business decisions.
And Japanese managers bring Japanese management — methods that contribute to the $2,000-a-car cost advantage the Japanese enjoy over their U.S. competitors.
Japanese labor relations stress consensus, not confrontation. Managers and assembly-line workers are partners, and everyone's pay is tied to profits and productivity.
A company divided against itself can't compete these days. A victory at the bargaining table for either side doesn't mean much if the company can't make it in the marketplace.
Union goes to the mat
An announcement of the beginning of the next match brought a loud shout of approval from the crowd of more than 1,000 people in the Kansas Union on Friday night. Shouts would soon mix with the crack of bodies thrown to the mat.
The event was part of the Union's open house, "Late Night at the Kansas Union."
Some obviously came to wonder at and to enjoy the spectacle of professional wrestling. Others, the ones thumbing patiently through their programs, took the sport more seriously.
The spectators, some students, some children, some parents and some grand-parents, yelled and stomped, pointed and grown for the likes of Marty Janetty, Bart Batten, Mr. Pogo, "Bulldog" Bob Brown and Rufus R. Jones.
Other events included music, a book sale and a movie, all designed to bring attention to the Union.
Judging by the size and the enthusiasm of the crowd, the wrestling matches worked.
Some may bemoan the fact that the Union had to use a wrestling match to draw this large a crowd. Some may say that professional wrestling — because of its supposed appeal to the rabble in all of us or because of its sham violence — is not worthy of a university
Yes, it is a shame that some students don't seem to get as enthusiastic about the variety of plays, exhibits and classical music programs offered on campus and in Lawrence.
But a lot of people — at least 1,000 of them — had a good time in the Kansas Union Friday night.
Rob Karwath
Editor
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
John Hanna Michael Totty Managing editor Editorial edito
Lauretta McMillen Campus editor
Susanne Shaw General manager, news adviser
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sales
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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As the medical students returned to the United States and kissed the
U.S. Grenada mission saved island
Dried blood stained the floor and the walls were dotted with bullet holes and large cracks. This was October 1983 at the headquarters for the First Corps Support Command in Grenada.
"You could smell the dead bodies," said Taylor Mack, who was an Army specialist five during the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. "It was sickening. Bodies lying around out in the tropical sun for six days."
Mack, a KU sophomore in geography, was sitting back in his sofa, arms stretched out. He recalled his month in Grenada after the U.S. Marines' rescue mission two years ago.
The Marines invaded the small Caribbean island, which had fallen to a military coup, and rescued American medical students at the True Blue campus of St. George's Medical College.
Evan Walter Staff columnist
ground, Mack was ordered to the island for explosive ordnance disposal. This meant he had to find and get rid of discarded weapons and unexploded shells.
"The first thing I did there was look around to see if there was any place to hide in case something started." he said.
The island was in ruins. Many buildings were shot up. And plenty of weapons needed to be disposed of. Children would find live shells before the disposal unit found the shells and start playing with them. One child would run around the down and part of one side of his body because of such a game.
sion wasn't in the best interest of the United States and was only intended to compensate for the terror bombing that had killed 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, earlier that week.
Critics have also complained that the Marines had no business invading a sovereign nation.
Critics have argued that the inva-
But, this "sovereign nation" was a land of oppression. A week before the rescue, a group of Marxist extremists had overthrown the island's government and assassinated the former leader, Maurice Bishop.
The chaos that followed the coup threatened the lives of the 1,000 U.S. citizens on the island and justified the U.S. rescue mission.
In the early part of the century, the United States saw that its duty was to help the rest of the world. The Grenada rescue showed the same degree of success in saving people of Grenada praised the U.S. soldiers for their rescue.
George, had fewer than 20,000 residents, making it smaller than Lawrence. Mack described the roads in Grenada as similar to Memorial Drive at KU with 30 times more potholes, zigzagging over steep inclines through mountains and jungles.
The largest city on the island, St.
"You really used your horn or those roads," Mack said.
Part of Mack's job was playing chauffeur to an Army captain. The captain, who had started his career as a naval officer, program "couldn't read a map."
The garbage hadn't been collected for weeks while Mack was there, and dogs often sifted through giant piles of it in quest of their meals.
Grenada was anything but sovereign. And the United States helped rebuild it. Taylor spent 35 days on the island.
"My job was to help the people, not destruction."
Mailbox
Exposing SDI myths
Victor Goodpasture has once again exposed his ignorance and narrow-minded conservatism in his Oct. 15 column titled "Misinformation by media spreads 'Star Wars' myths." He mentioned three so-called myths:
Myth I: SDI is too expensive.
Myth II: SDI will expand the arms race and increase the danger of nuclear war.
Myth III: SDI is technologically impossible.
As to Myth II, of course SDI will expand the arms race. Since when have one side's technological advancements ever slowed it down? We are now at the bomb. We are got MIRVed weapons, they get MIRVed weapons, etc.
Goodpasture says that experts put the cost at around $60 billion: First of all, how can experts set a cost to something that will take years to research? Secondly, $60 billion is a lot of money in a hungry world.
And SDI will increase the danger of nuclear war because it makes a first strike more feasible. If we could knock out a percentage of their bases, we could accurate MX system, we could map them, and ones with our amazing laser arm.
And that, Victor Goodpasture, is the answer to your dumb question as to why the Soviets are worried abut it.
Anyone who knows anything about physics can appreciate what an incredibly big energy source would be required to produce enough energy to knock out roughly 1,500 ICBMs in a matter of minutes.
Then there are the other 7,900 warheads in the form of cruise missiles and bombers coming at us. Goodpasture was wrong in assuming that the same technology that will supposedly render nuclear missiles obsolete can also be used to knock out bombs and ruin cruise missiles. X-ray lasers, those proposed by ICBM guns, would be ineffective in our atmosphere because X-rays are absorbed very quickly, within about two feet.
The other laser types would still have to get through clouds somehow. Or maybe we should just assume that
the end of our civilization will occur on a clear day.
One more thing, Victor. Instead of narrow-minded rhetoric filled with cute metaphors, try facts and objective explanations.
Scott Jackson
Scott Jackson Salina senior
Coach savs thanks
I appreciated the tremendous support that we received from the student body for our late night scrimmage. We were very happy and night gave us a very warm feeling.
I also wanted to thank the cheerleaders, pep band, our six honorary coaches and all those who competed for those positions.
Thanks again, and we'll see you on Oct. 26, when we have an intra-squad scrimmage, or Nov. 3, when we play the Czech national team.
Larry Brown head basketball coach
Palestinians won't go
The letter by Sandy Jordan in the Oct. 18 Kansan is nothing but Zionist propaganda. Its only goal is to achieve legitimacy for unlawful acts.
Jordan is either ignorant of reality or trying to hide it by repeating a lie long enough for people to believe it. According to her, the victim is Israel and it is protecting itself against Arab terrorism.
The fact is that Jews escaped from Hitler to find peace and sanctuary in Palestine. Arabs were sympathetic with the Jews and helped them. What have the Jews done to return this favor?
They occupied Palestine, claiming it to be theirs, drove out some of its original inhabitants and massacred the rest.
Palestinians want peace, and have offered to recognize Israel in return for territories occupied after 1967 — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
But the Israelis want peace without Arab Palestinians. They invaded Lebanon and air raided Tunisia for that reason.
Still, the Palestinians are ready to talk peace. But in order to do so, they demand political recognition and the recognition of their human rights.
How can Sandy make the prophecy that "Pasienian Arabs will assimilate in their new countries within a generation or two?"
The Israelis wish to deny this and to force them to fight for their survival in ways labeled in the West as terrorism.
Can she realistically anticipate the keeping of their land and the diffusions of their identity, or is she just another victim of Zionist propaganda?
H. Chami
H. Chaim Tripoli, Lebanon, senior
Nineteen eighty-five is the fortieth anniversary of the United Nations.
Model United Nations
Perhaps this is part of the reason that several students have stopped by my office asking whether there is an active Model United Nations group on campus. Although there has been often in the past, there is none at present. Believing that there are other students who will like to participate in U.N. support, I model U.N., I write this letter inviting them to stop by my office, 504 Blake Hall, and indicate their interest.
If we can gather even a small but dedicated group, a delegation could be organized to attend one of the many regional or national Model U.N.s next spring.
Clifford P. Ketzel professor of political science
A Burge gripe
Someday I would like to know whose dumb idea it was to serve food in the Burge Union study hall. Every noon it gets crowded with people who come in for no other reason than to eat.
This creates quite a number of problems. There really isn't enough room for them to sit down, particularly if they come in groups of three or more. They are noisy and distracting and frequently leave greasy spots on the table that get all over your books and papers.
Occasionally they will even have the gall to request that you move some of your carefully arranged study materials so that they can sit down to eat.
The problem is made even more serious by the fact that there are no libraries, lounges, empty classrooms or other suitable study areas anywhere within easy walking distance of Murphy, Learned or Green halls.
I really think the Union should provide food service in a separate area specifically designated as a cafeteria.
Harry W. Kroeger Jr.
1703 Learned Ave
Sports page falls short
Once again, I was very disappointed when I opened the newspaper on Monday and looked at the sports page. It was again a section that was not given much thought at all.
Didn't the Jayhawks battle Kansas State on Saturday? If you look hard enough under the Oklahoma State headline, you can find a story about it, buried at the bottom of the page along with the story about KU volleyball's three-year loss streak. The pictures were big, but gave no score and didn't really tell me anything about the game.
I think an event that draws more than 40,000 people to our campus should draw more publicity than that. I couldn't care less if your sports editor went to the World Series and watched ticket scalpers. Why not just put it in my school's good job of local coverage before he tries to write a boorish column about people students couldn't care less about.
Also, you have enough room to run a ridiculous prediction box filled with nobodies on Fridays, but can't type in a ridiculous prediction box filled with nobodies out now that baseball is over.
It doesn't seem to me that there is very much thought put into the Kartan sports page. After all, when players are ineligible, that makes headlines. But when they beat a bitter intratease rival, that merits a story on the bottom of the page under a tennis article.
Maybe Lazzarino should invest his time in planning his page and competently covering KU sports instead of aimlessly wandering around Royals Stadium.
Kenny George Caney senior
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