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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Thursday, Oct. 17, 1985
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Global civilization
The recent flare-up of terrorism in the Middle East has focused our attention on the region once again. But the conflicts are often poorly understood, as are the cultures they grow out of.
The University, through its Western Civilization requirement, guarantees that students leave with a rudimentary knowledge of our culture's philosophical foundations. But many leave knowing little about Africa and Asia except that they are distant and exotic places.
Many of today's explosive political struggles involve cultures most of us know nothing about except their labels. 'Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Sikhs and Hindus. Langi and Acholi.
To understand these events, we have to place them in a historical and cultural context. Last week's hijacking again drove home that we no longer can comfort ourselves with the thought that the problems are a world away.
About 70 percent of all people live in societies that aren't based on the writings of John Stuart Mill and Jean Rousseau. And our ignorance about those cultures is a chasm separating East and West.
Our knowledge of Japan and China has grown recently. But we've shown more interest in selling Coke than in understanding the people who drink it. With typical Western self-centeredness, many still think Japanese and Chinese cultures began with the first sale of a McDonald's hamburger.
The addition of a nonWestern Civilization requirement will complement the college's improved Western Civ program. Students who have glimpsed another culture will see our own Western tradition more clearly.
But the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is taking steps to widen our tunnel vision. Beginning in the fall of 1987, all students entering the college must take at least one course about a non-Western culture.
It's like our grasp of English: Not until we've learned the grammar and vocabulary of a foreign language can we really recognize the richness — and the irrational irregularities — of our own.
Also in the fall, the college plans to strengthen its Western Civilization program with new faculty members and an expanded emphasis on art and music.
Tenants' rights
Through no fault of their own, residents of a 36-unit Lawrence apartment complex — including some KU students — almost had to hunt for new homes last week.
Owners at Pinecrest Apartments, 2625 Redbud Lane, put their tenants' health and safety in danger by letting city building code violations at the complex go unfixed.
The city's chief building inspector described the violations — which included stairs without railings and faulty gas lines, furnaces and water heaters — as 'life threatening.'
Because of the dangers, the building inspector almost boarded up Pinecrest and tossed its residents out.
The Pinecrest mess emphasizes the need for tenants to know their rights. Student renters — many of whom are new to Lawrence and inexperienced with contracts, liability and such — especially need to know what Kansas law says about their rights.
But at the last minute, the owner of the apartments, REALCO, of Kansas City, Mo., made minimal repairs. They were enough to satisfy the building inspector and forestall evictions.
When they face inconvenience and physical harm because their landlords can't or don't want to shell out money for necessary repairs, they can sue to receive all services promised them in their contracts.
But it's appalling that tenants would have to sink so much time, money and effort into seeing that they get their money's worth out of their living quarters.
And it's disgusting that carelessness by any apartment owner would throw the lives of dozens into confusion over something as basic as a roof overhead.
Lynette scores again
Lynette Woodard already was one of a kind before she became the first woman member of the Harlem Globetrotters last week. Now the whole world knows it.
One of a kind.
In a basketball career at KU ending in 1981, Woodard set an NCAA career scoring record and won All-America honors four times. Since then, she has been assistant women's basketball coach. Along the way, she and KU developed a love affair that still is going strong.
KU gave up Woodard a year
ago, long enough for her to be captain of the Olympic goldmed队. Now she's gone again — all except her heart, she says. It's staying in Lawrence.
But the opportunity is a great one for her, and she deserves the attention she'll get. It doesn't come easily in womens basketball. At the same time, KU can be proud to have such a representative.
Rob Karwath Editor
Woodard says she'll come home someday. But for now, she has a unique position to bring cheer to people around the globe. Congratulations, Lynette.
Rob Karwath
Editor
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMillen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General manager, news adviser
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sales
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Simple examples illustrate deficit
President Reagan thinks his little comparisons explain the federal deficit, but I doubt it. He once said the deficit was like a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high. Nobody understands 67 miles high except astronauts and speed freaks.
We need everyday comparisons. Good illustrations connect difficult data to our experience. If they seem ridiculous, just remember how the politicians talk.
The anticipated deficit by next fall is $2 trillion. So how much is $2 trillion?
Suppose 1,000 20-year-old women live in a residence hall. Each is talking 200 words per minute on the telephone — a little fast for most people, but not for veterans of residence hall.
And these people are veterans. They've been on the phone since their births 20 years ago. Together, they have spoken two trillion words.
Or suppose 12 million students attend college in the United States; the
Dan Howell
Staff columnist
actual figure is in that range. Each writes a term paper with the standard 250 words per page. To write two trillion words collectively, they must all write 666-page term papers.
Kind of makes you believe in numerology, doesn't it?
Two trillion saltines, laid flat and side by side; would cover Douglas County almost $4\frac{1}{2}$ times. Two trillion straight pins, laid flat wall to wall, would fill Allen Field House about 11 feet high.
How fast is the deficit growing? Think of the federal debt as a family. Each child costs the parents $100 billion. In 1965, the family had three children (about a $300 billion deficit). The parents were happy with three kids, a nice dog, two cars and a house in the suburbs.
But in 1971 another child came along. Then others in early 1975, 1976, late 1977, 1979, 1980 and late 1981. That's 10 kids, but adding them slowly got boring. So starting in 1982, they had twins every year, and another pair is expected in 1986. When they're born, there will be 20.
And I thought I wanted to get married.
Nowadays, we know what causes pregnancy. But what is causing the federal deficit to grow?
Suppose that in 1970 Dee Fense stood on the north goal line of Memorial Stadium and Hugh Man on the south goal line. For each new $20 billion in debt created by defense, Dee steps a yard toward Hugh. For non-defense debt, Hugh walks a yard toward Dee.
By 1980, Dee has proceeded to the 8-yard line. Hugh is out past the 18-yard line at the south end. The big increases in debt are coming from social and entitlement programs and government maintenance.
By 1895, however, Dee is pick uping the pace a little. In five years, he's walked 13 more yards to the 21. In the same short time, Hugh has marched 39 more yards across midfield to the 42 on Dee's side.
These illustrations almost match the real situation in another way. A lot of Washington politicians spend their time talking 200 words a minute, churning out 666-page reports, licking their chops, sticking it to the taxpayers, screwing the public and marching up and down the field.
But my real point is that simple illusions can help teach the basic features of a subject. In the recent fuss about the debt ceiling, neither of factors nor journalists furnished much of that help. They ignored the basic facts.
Revelations expose schol hall hazing
Isn't this approach more down-to-earth than a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high? I'd swear it on a stack of 10 million Bibles.
Will the horrors never cease?
One of the worst forms of bazing that has come to my attention is found in another highly honored part of our college life — one even less likely to be associated with these crimes than sororities:
Since my column on sorority living appeared, students have begun to hesitate approach me about other things. I was witnessed but were afraid to raysu.
The horror of schol hall hazing.
Life among some of our best students is truly an unacknowledged mire of indignities and scandal.
This problem is kept even more secret than the closely guarded atrocity of sorority hazing. But since the evils that lurk behind the designer clothes and Halston permeate the light, others have timidly begun to develop a serious involvement in the hazing of some of University's most admired students.
These students encounter the horrors the very first day of classes, when the upperclassmen descend upon the freshmen with a deafening clatter and clanging of pots and pans. They scream and roar, thoroughly enjoying the fear and hysteria that
Although so different in many respects, some of the same scenes of cruelty described in sorority hazing are evident in schol hall hazing.
For instance, when a visitor enters a school hall, the first scene she sees is the student on phone duty. He sits on a cold, barren, metal chair. Or worse, his chair may resemble what was once the expensive, hard, early American chairs that accompany sorority phone duty, now splintered and rotting with slats missing or broken.
they induce in these naive and trusting freshman students.
The phones — cold, black and generic — are forced just as tragically to the ears of school hall residents. They are the phones of prisons, mental hospitals and other state institutions.
The treatment of these students is often no better than they would have received in the early days of such institutions.
These hard-working and scholastically upper-class students are forced to respond, like laboratory animals, to a certain sequence of buzzes in order to receive messages and telephone calls.
Gina Kellogg Staff Columnist
Each student has to attune her ears to her individual code. "bee-buzz-beep-bee-phe," "buzz-bee-buzz-buzz," the noises echo down the hallways to each student, attentive as Pavlov's dogs to her assigned buzz.
The schol hall rooms resemble the cages where the insane were placed to keep them from injuring themselves — the rooms barely large enough to hold a bed and dresser, much less a beanbag chair.
The poor school hall students, so limited in their finances, are forced to sweat over a hot stove, peel hundreds of potatoes and mix gallons of Kool-Aid. They then spend hours more, their elbows deep in Ivory burgers, and they move the greasy, ugly remains of the meals they so ardently prepared.
A recent Kansan story described the inmates as cheery students.
happy to accept their assigned tasks.
One woman was quoted as saying,
"You work with other people so you grow close to them." Her's was a brave attempt at acceptance for her sorry plight.
But other students were more honest. "If you eat lunch at the hall, you're expected to clean up and put your dishes in the dishwasher," one young man said.
Yet brave men and women continue to endure these conditions; while the rest of us eat lunch in the Union or Wescoe cafeterias, leaving our plates and scraps on the tables for others to dirty their hands on.
No, the hazing in scholarship halls is not obvious. It takes place surreptitiously in the form of innocent duties that most of us would view with horror and trepidation. If we wanted to spend our lives cleaning the messes of others and scrubbing floors, why would we be at the University in the first place?
But then, I'm a journalism major and don't expect to make a lot of money. Perhaps I should consider moving into a schol hall; it might prepare me for the real world.
Official seeks leadership outside militarv
Stand by! Attention on deck!
A sea of white rises as the assistant secretary of defense walks into the room. It is a natural reaction in military discipline.
Webb spoke to the KU Navy ROTC last Friday in the Inkerson Auditorium. He spoke on leadership and the need for leadership, not only in the military, but in our personal lives as well.
Discipline in this case is a sign of respect for a superior. But the assistant secretary, James H. Webb, put a new twist on discipline and military leadership.
Webb, a Vietnam veteran who twice received the Purple Heart, is the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs. I'm not a fan of the Pentagon or the military in general, but Webb made some good points on the need for leadership.
Leadership, Webb said, is the act of bringing people together to support a mission.
Whether the mission is raising a family, defending one's principles, choosing a career, or, God forbid.
Dwight Hunter
Staff columnist
leading a unit into combat, it requires a plan and a direction. A person needs to develop the qualities of leadership to successfully carry through this plan.
Webb said leadership requires four traits — knowledge, character, style and vision. Knowledge and character are the two tangible traits — knowing how to get the job done and being human in doing it.
But the last two traits are more puzzling, Style, according to Webb, is the way leaders blend their personality in their leadership roles. Vision is handling the "why questions"; that is, do you know where the mission is taking you?
The Vietnam War became an example of poor leadership. The vision wasn't there nor was character. A T
shirt slogan put it succinctly — good soldiers, poor politicians.
Webb emphasized the importance of character. Of the four traits, character is the key. Character requires the need for integrity, compassion and humility.
Webb, a nominee for a Pulitzer Prize for his first novel, said both writing a novel and leadership required the same development of character. Both require getting inside another person's head, he said.
Getting inside requires an understanding of how and why someone reacts to leadership challenges. Getting inside demands knowing what someone values and how to tap those values to accomplish some task.
Webb made an important distinction between management and
All this is more than management. Too often, management is confused with leadership. People may mashage their lives well, but they go nowhere with them.
leadership. Management and leadership can't be turned around, he said. Management can be learned in a textbook; leadership needs to be built.
Leadership also needs to be developed. Most people would rather follow someone else than invest the time to become a leader. When leadership is needed, a sigh of relief can be heard if someone else takes the reins. Leadership means a lot of hard work and determination, not simply reading a textbook and taking a test on it.
But the need for leadership qualities extends beyond the individual. Government reflects society and society is made up of the people who live in it. People criticized the Vietnam War for the discrepancies in the vision and character of the government's involvement. Their vision and character made the difference in government leadership.
As you lead yourself, so shall you also be led.