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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Friday, Sept. 20, 1985
Rock'n'roll record rating
Rock music is back on trial for the nth time.
In the case of "porn rock," a guilty verdict may be justified, but enforcing a sentence presents difficulties.
Various parents' groups that object to current "porn rock" lyrics are attempting to institute mandatory record ratings that would be displayed on all album covers.
Record ratings and labels are hardly new or unique concepts. Neither, of course, is the notion of free speech.
Concerned parents have demanded diverse forms of musical censorship since the dawn of rock'n roll. This will probably always be true. As long as rock music is orientated primarily toward youth culture — rebelling against authorities — it will continue to offend parents.
Parents have more justifiable cause for alarm now than at any other time in the three decades of rock. Few mature adults would dispute the fact that today's blatant "porn rock" lyrics plumb new depths in offensiveness.
However, freedom of expression is still valid. And while trite, the fact that morality cannot be legislated is still true.
More importantly, what effect would such ratings have?
Lofty ideals aside, implementing and enforcing ratings is not very practical.
Labels designating the level of offensiveness of a record presumably would be a source of information for record buyers. Of course, these labels aren't really designed for the 12 to 17-year olds who buy these records. The labels are for parents and therein lies the crux.
Today another nation struggles with its own form of slavery, one called apartheid.
Who should be granted the authority to determine which lyrics are offensive and to what degree?
Slavery and true equality
The popular music industry can never fulfill the role of parental discretion.
Parents who care will take the time to listen to the noise coming from their kids' stereos, and if the words offend them they can say, "Forget the First Amendment, you can't listen to that rot in my house."
Abbraham Lincoln spoke the following words more than 120 years ago. He talked of the Civil War and of slavery.
"Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so it must be said 'the judgements of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'"
And the violence continues, in and near such places as Johannesburg, Soweto and Cape Town. Here, a young girl dies when police fire at a group of children throwing stones at them. There, youths go on a rampage because of a false rumor.
Those actions — or the threat of more serious ones — seem to have had some affect.
Meanwhile, in the United States, calls for divestment come from campuses across the nation. Some congressmen are calling for tougher measures than the sanctions recently announced by President Reagan.
More calls for action — for the beginning of the end of the repugnant aparthied system — are being heard from groups and persons close to the white government.
Sunday, the South African ambassador-designate to the United States said on NBC's "Face the Nation" that South Africa had made a decision to dismantle apartheid, to give the black majority voting rights.
On Sept. 12, an advisory committee to President Pieter Botha recommended that pass laws, a pillar of apartheid, be scrapped because, among other things, they contributed to the unrest in South Africa.
The talk is encouraging, but it is only talk. The government has yet to formally act on the pass-law recommendation, and it has yet to announce any important reforms of apartheid. Threats of sanctions may have sparked the government to talk; following through on those threats may force them to act.
And now is the time to act, to push for the abolition of apartheid, a system that not only oppresses an entire people but saps a nation of its potential. Just as in the United States, true racial equality will take years, but ending apartheid is the first step.
Bumper sticker romance
Hip, hip, hoorah for romance!
Two enterprising students have devised a way to find love on the run.
Lookers, a bumper sticker dating service, gives members 3-by-5 inch placards to place on bumpers, rearview mirrors or backpacks.
People who see the bumper sticker and want to meet the owner attached call the service and leave a message.
This eliminates the usual awkward, sticky ways of trying to meet people in bars and other hangouts.
More students should take advantage of this fun, cheap and easy way to meet others.
Non-members can even participate when they see someone who's bumper they appreciate.
A campus full of people scouting for love and fun by way of bumper stickers could make for all kinds of provocative encounters.
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
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Bad karma grounds fledgling gurus
I've always enjoyed the language used by lawyers in lawsuits to describe the agonies of their clients.
Even in a minor mishap, nobody suffers moderate discomfort, a mild upset, queasy stomach or a slight headache.
It's always excruciating emotional or physical distress, permanent and debilitating suffering, painful aches, pains and other cruel miseries.
And you don't even have to have a skinned knee to feel that way. An insensitive husband, as described in a divorce suit, can cause pains that would have made a Spanish inquisitor envious.
So I was fascinated by a lawsuits filed in Washington by seven people who have accused a famous guru of failing to teach them how to fly.
The seven filed their suit against the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who is one of the bigger-named gurus around because he used to teach transendental meditation to the Beatles, Mia Farrow, and other stars. He has even appeared on the Merv Griffin show a few times to chant a mantra and smile benignly, which all successful gurus must do.
From what the suit said, the guru was supposed to teach them how to
used the phony names of John and fly. Not on airplanes, of course, because you don't need a guru to do that. Only a credit card.
Apparently the guru was supposed to teach them how to just rise up from the floor and float around. The suit didn't say if they expected to do loops and dives, spins, or any other tricky maneuvers.
Nor did the suit say why they wanted to fly. To soar above rush hour traffic? Amaze their friends at parties? Get a better view at sporting events?
It seems that the guru's flying lessons consisted of having them assume the now-famous lotus position, which is favored by many gurus and is a useful position to know if you don't want to spend a lot of money on furniture.
Once in the lotus position, they were supposed to concentrate and meditate and bounce. The bouncing was supposed to eventually get them airborne.
But, as they discovered, all that happened was that all the bouncing hurt their legs and they never got more than an inch or so off the ground.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
I suppose that is a form of flying, but I doubt if a few one- or two-inch bounces from the lotus position would get anybody an invitation to perform at a county fair.
So now they want $9 million in damages from the guru to compensate them for the disappointment and suffering they experienced in not learning to fly.
Their suffering included "negative emotional, psychological and physical effects."
All that bouncing — trying to get into a decent flight pattern — caused "severe and continuing pain" in their bones.
And the shock and despair of discovering that they couldn't fly "arrested and reterded the normal process of maturation and development."
That sounds like a lot of misery just from assuming a lotus position and doing a little bouncing. But then, I've always had a morbid fear of flying.
I was unable to talk to the seven suffering non-fliers, because they
jane Doe in their lawsuit. I don't blame them. Besides all the other physical and emotional trauma they suffered, they'd probably take a certain amount of needing at the office.
But I called the office of the lawyer who filed the suit and found that three of the seven would-be Johnny Seagulls had registered at a school run by the guru, where people are taught to squat, chant, and get all groovy and cuddly with the universe.
"And the contract they had wasn't fulfilled," a spokesman for the lawyer said "Physically flying is what they guaranteed, and that they'd reach this through hours and hours of meditation. We even have videotapes of it. It is really weird."
He won't give us the names of the seven, because they fear that making their names public could subject them to revenge by the guru's followers. I suppose that a wise precaution. They might slip them a bad mantra.
Anyway, I for one am glad that they didn't learn to fly. If they could do it, who knows how many others might develop the skill.
And who would want flocks of people soaring above. We've already got enough disgusting problems with pigeons.
Airlines grounded by alternate travel
At the beginning of this summer I took a 22-hour train trip from the Midwest to the East Coast.
I've traveled via airplane on most of my long distance excursions because it's quick, I can usually find a cheap flight and I feel like one of the jet-set crowd.
The train trip was my first and I took it out of curiosity. I wasn't in a big hurry to get where I was going.
I met and really got to know fascinating people and actually saw trees, glimpses of urban jungles, and darkness sprinkled with quickly passing lights.
A train trip gave me a chance to slow down the pace and gain some spatial perspective on a land I usually see on maps.
Flying has never been a fear that has really gripped me. The odds of crashing or being on a hijacked plane don't nuzzle me as much as my own driving does.
However, judging from the headlines that have bannered the past few months' papers, the odds of dropping out of the sky are increasing.
These headlines included the terrorist hijacking of a Trans World Airline flight, the Japan Air Lines accident that killed 520 passengers, the India Air crash that killed 329, the Delta Airlines crash that killed 135 and the most recent, a Midwest Express Airlines crash that killed almost 40 passengers.
The comforting thought that flying is safer than driving doesn't sit well in the mind when experts deem this the deadliest year in aviation history with about 1,550 people killed — a 33 percent increase over last year.
Seeking rational causes for this string of unrelated catastrophes, airline and government officials have proposed a few theories.
One of the major causes can be traced back to deregulation of the airplane industry in 1978. Competition among the airlines has increased the amount of traffic on the runways and in the skies.
However, the number of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors who examine the airplanes for safety hasn't increased significantly.
Michelle Johnson
Staff columnist
Overworked air controllers and aged planes that need more frequent inspection are causes that some say have contributed to increased fatalities
Suspected terrorist bombings account for some of the accidents.
Room for error must be allowed for all human endeavors.
But the small errors that can occur in plane construction or air traffic controlling can make for big death tolls.
One suggestion discussed has been a reduction of flights to relieve pressure on the air controllers and decrease air congestion.
That's a good idea for the airlines to explore, but an even better one for potential passengers to think about.
Give the government a chance to hire some more air controllers. Make the airlines take the time to double and triple check plane safety. Let them look into tightening securities so that bombs and weapons don't slip through.
Until some of the kinks in the system can be ironed on, Americans should explore other alternatives to flight.
Thousands of people each day put blind faith into the industry by stepping aboard a hunk of metal that's expected to overcome gravity.
Federal officials say the total number of post-deregulation airline accidents had dropped significantly before this year, but that's cold comfort and not reassuring in the face of nearly 1,350 deaths this year.
Maybe we should shake the airline industry's confidence in the business we give them by taking more trains, buses and cars for business trips and vacations.
Shaking the industry enough to make them think and ask themselves hard questions might bring answers more quickly.
in the meantime, tasting Americana on a train or a bus might turn a mundane trip into an eye-opening experience.
GTAs pacts canceled
Mailbox
Being a longtime student at the University of Kansas, I have come to appreciate the practical and aesthetic benefits of a college education. I care very much about the quality of instruction at KU and sincerely hope that it remains strong in the years to come.
However, a problem is developing that threatens to undermine the credibility of KU's undergraduate teaching. It involves the University's generally inadequate treatment of GTAs, who are receiving more and more responsibility in the teaching of undergraduates. There is an increasingly disturbing attitude at KU that says it is better to save a few bucks on GTA stipends than to retain experienced GTAs for basic required courses. Due to the complexity of the problem, I will elaborate further.
For two years, I have worked as a GTA at KU teaching a required undergraduate course. However, in May I was advised that my teaching contract would probably not be renewed this fall. The department in which I was teaching gave two reasons for this action: an unusual number of new graduate students were entering the department in August; also the department would hire fewer GTAs than it did last fall. A closer look at the situation suggests other motivating factors were actually involved.
In the latest alumni newsletter,
"The State of the University."
Chancellor Gene A. Budig points out that KU's enrollment continues to increase every year. Elsewhere in the same letter, he reaffirms the University's commitment to quality instruction.
An important inconsistency appears; namely, that improved classroom instruction, larger class sizes and reduced teaching staffs can all exist simultaneously. It should be noted that new G'AEs are paid significantly less than seasoned ones, therefore I have reached the logical conclusion that KU is willing to hire persons with no teaching experience in order to reduce its payroll. It is unreasonable to expect these "greenstocks"
All of this boils down to a situation where undergrads are being shortchanged in the classroom due to priorities implying that quality education is secondary to the almighty dollar.
will do their jobs as well as GTAs who have taught previously.
In conclusion, I should point out that my feelings on this subject are shared by other graduate students who have taught previously but have not been offered new contracts either. Like myself, these persons are outraged, insulted and hurt by the University's failure to appreciate their contributions and talents.
The situation is further aggravated by the lack of a competitive GTA fee waiver, the requirement that GTAs buy their own health insurance and a policy which denies unemployment benefits to laid-off GTAs. (Indeed, many of these GTAs face "double jeopardy" because taxes are taken out of their paychecks.)
If KU is sincerely dedicated to keeping Chancellor Budig's promises to Kansas taxpayers, it will re-evaluate these policies. The saddest thing is that undergraduates will be the ultimate victim sooner or later. That is what happens when a university starts making decisions like a corporation rather than a learning institution.
Eric Bynum Kansas City, Kan graduate student
Cartoon merits award
I have never seen a more startling editorial cartoon than the one presented in the Sept. 17 issue. The bear (the Soviet Union) was sniffing with great anticipation the honey (South Africa).
Anyone who has observed world events, even in an absent-minded fashion, knows the prophetic implications of this piece. Frankly, the thought of another Soviet takeover is frightening.
May I suggest that you submit the cartoon for an award. The artist has captured the very essence of the South Africa issue.
Neil Brown
Lawrence graduate student