Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, October 14, 1980
Don't say 'cheese' again
Acting Chancellor Del Shankel is in the business of administrating, not in the business of appearing in advertisements endorsing political candidates.
Yet Shankel, regardless of his intention not to endorse political candidates, appeared to do so when a photograph of the chancellor and State Sen. Arnold Berman, D-Lawrence, ran in last Monday's Kansan in a political advertisement.
Shankel and Berman were pictured at the construction site of the Malot Hall addition. It appears the Berman forces have taken advantage of Shankel, who said he did not realize that the photograph would be used for an advertisement.
Interestingly, Jane Eldredge, Berman's opponent in the 2nd state senatorial district, also posed with Shankel in a
photograph. She opted not to use it in an advertisement.
As someone who represents more than 25,000 members of the University community, Shankel holds an awkward position because he is not an elected official. He is not in the position to make a political endorsement or, for that matter, to do something that could be construed as such.
Some of Shankel's peers have been obvious in their political endeavors. George Russell, chancellor of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has appeared in television commercials in an attempt to sway voters on a nuclear power referendum.
Fortunately, Shankel is much too responsible to engage in such activities. Yet, the next time political candidates ask him to appear before a camera, he had better think twice.
Cats, though inconspicuous bring ugliness out in some
I nearly got in my first fast flight since junior
graduation. I was shaken by the cause
would have justified theugered arrest.
As I walked to Strong Hall to pick up a transcript I'd ordered, I noticed a bearded man holding a coal-black kitten next to the man just outside the east entrance to Strung.
I've always been a cat lover. Unlike the majority, it seems, I prefer cats to dogs. I have a part-Persian, part-calico at home in the city, that my dad takes care of while I'm in school.
Anyway, it was hard to tell at first what this man was doing. All that was clear was that he
BLAKE GUMPRECHT
had both hands on the kitten, which was about six months old.
He said nothing.
I stopped just short of the steps to the entrance and asked the man, in a pleasant manner, why he was there.
I stayed where I was, hoping for an answer. I was told that I was repeated my question. Again, he said nothing.
I thought that perhaps the kitten had been injured and that he was trying to help. It looked as though he was holding it near the door because the kitten had a hair ball, I said to myself.
Or maybe it had caught a Robin and this guy was trying to free the bird. I've done that quite a few times myself—with snakes, mice, lizards, or birds, that my cat Katie regularly drains home.
But the picture was becoming clearer. The man was not helping the cat. He was torturing it and snapping its ears.
As I realized this, he suddenly let go of the
asher. As the kitten scamped in the other
directly behind him.
"What business of yours is it what I'm doing?" he said, finally answering my question. "Do you want to make it your business?"
His mouth and face muscles were twitching. He threatened me several times, repeating the same phrases over and over. He wanted to fight.
I told him I was just concerned about the cat.
Yet he continued to badger me. Finally, I walked into the building. He followed at a distance. He confronted me again when I returned. Calling me a "do-gooder", he said, "I was afraid, his face on inches from mine. Again, I was lucky to escape with all my teeth."
I've never understood why people dislike cats. Cats are quiet (unlike many dogs), have obnoxious (unlike some dogs), and are very protective of their kill, I know plenty of people who despise cats.
That's never bothered me, though
What infuriates me are those people who feel compelled to hurt any cat that walks within ten yards of them. Personally, I dislike poodles. But I've never had any desire to hurt them. I laugh at them, but have never considered kicking them, let alone tormenting them just because of my general dislike for the breed.
I have good friends who will kick any cat within a leg's reach. They know better than to do it when I'm with them, but any other time, they won't face too much, so they will pick it up and he uplift it.
Some are even worse. One guy who lived a mile or so from where I grew up was rumored to sometimes bury live cats up to their heads and then run them over with a power lawn mower. I've heard of others who get some horse mane from putting lightened matches to cats' tails.
These types are no better than most burglaries or thieves. And they should be dealt with accordingly. Cats are harmless. What's more, they're defenseless.
It's a sad commentary, but I'm glad my cat ever gets within five feet of strangers.
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©1980
Scams could spread everywhere
By PHIL SHARKEY
New York Times Special Features
CARMEL, Calif.—We've had Abscam and the "gate" family of scandals-Water, Korea, Hollywood, Billy. What's next in the way of her hanky-panky? Here are some possibilities.
DAMSCAM: Because of the worldwide shortage of concrete, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has for years been clandestinely building high-rise buildings and sellining the contents on the black market.
TAILGATE: Various Washington, D.C., tailors were found to have offered free alterations to several members of Congress in the 1960s and 1970s, that would impose price cellings on pincessions.
SUBDUCK: A small group of U.S. Navy submarine officers were discovered to have misappropriated government funds to purchase live ammunition. The scheme of modified trapping-for-fun at sea
The felled fowl then were retrieved by trained
porpoises and prepared, usually Chinese-style,
with a mixture of meat.
PETROSLICK: Bigwigs of the U.S. oil industry colluded for the purpose of levying fines on hairy citizens by intentionally withholding supplies of hair dressing, thereby causing prices to skyrocket. Eventually, tremendous profits were realized when expensive petroleum jelly was accepted as a substitute by a public finally sick and tired of the "dry look."
CONGCON: For a six-month period, members of Congress hired doubles to sit in for them during legislative sessions so that their attendance records would look good. Both laws passed during that time have been declared null and void.
HOOKEYE: The wives of several congressmen, posing as undercover policemen posing as prostitutes, ensnared sexually promiscuous FBI agents and obtained incriminating film evidence with which they blackmailed the agents in order to get even for the dirty tricks the FBI had pulled on their husbands.
CRATSNAG: Government bureauacrats, working in the new Department of Efficiency, were caught by undercover agents posing as government bureauacrats.
They also were found to have been holding secret conferences to teach fellow officials how to properly shuffle papers and speak and write gobbledygook.
FOBLOB: Garment-industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill have been accused of bribing House members with manufacturers' seconds while passing the goods off as A-1 merchandise.
VODCINC: Authorities are investigating a report that the commander-in-chief of NATO forces made a secret deal with the Russians, agreeing to give them a five-minute head start in battle. If war if they, in turn, would keep him supplied with free vodka for the duration of his tour of duty.
POGATE: The postmaster general was indicted on a charge of conspiracy to force the administration to agree to a "Wednesday only" delivery schedule in return for an understanding that she would not be raised more than twice a year.
SPOOKSCAN: CIA agents for years have been pilfering from the special double-agent slush fund and using the money to pay for courses in creative writing.
MOBYULE: The government exported organized-crime operatives to Third World countries with orders to gouge from candy-store stores. They were made from jukeboxes and pinball machines.
These funds then were returned to this country via Mexico City. After a quick laundering, they were used to pay for stag films that were shown during annual White House Christmas parties.
ACROGIM: Under relentless questioning by Senate investigators, an editor of one of the country's largest daily newspapers admitted to a conspiracy among members of the Fourth Estate to use the gimmick of designating scandals by means of silly acronyms and metaphors. The librarians but also saving millions in newspaper column-inch costs. The money then was used to buy serial rights of the memoirs of recently paroled government ex-officials.
Phil Sharkey writes, and works part-time in
the Monkey Island daily newspaper,
Peninsula Hawaii.
Letters to the Editor
--history used by lesbians to describe ourselves, or used by heterosexuals, especially men, as a term of derision. The past decade, lesbians have reclaimed the word dykew and used it with pride.
Feminists silly to pick at English language
To the editor:
I am frankly amazed to see people still wasting their time in a futile effort to squeeze the English language into a political strait jacket. Just supposing that an acceptable substitute could be found for man in the sense "human being;" what good would it do?
May 1 comment on Susan Schoenmaker's editorial on sexist language in the Oct. 6 Kan-ler.
German, Swedish and many other languages have had such a word for centuries (in Swedish is it even a feminine noun!) but it cannot be said that German or Swish males have shown themselves to be any less sexist than their English-speaking counterparts.
W. Keith Percival Professor of linguistics
The fortunate fact is that the link between language and culture is, for the most part, rather tenuous and indirect. If all that the feminists in the United States do is tinker with the English language, then you can sigh back and rest assured that the Equal Rights Amendment never will be ratified.
Similarly, many languages around the world (Turkish is a good example) have only one (sexless) third-person singular pronoun, but has that fact ever benefited the social or economic status of women in those communities? (Think of the Turkish harms, for instance!)
Ad censors 'dvke'
I called the advertising office to find out why dyke was left out, especially because the Kansan runs ads that include the words "gay men." The individual who decided to leave out the word dyke told me she did so, after trying unsuccessfully to reach me, on the basis that dyke was "offensive" and that Kaye might sue for slander.
Last week I placed a classified ad in the Kansan to advertise a poetry reading by feminist poet Melanie Kane. In the ad, I quote Kaye's promotional material to describe the reading. The text ends in, in part, "Melanie Kaye is a Jewish wildfallow dykes . . . . The word dykes was left out of the ad."
To the editor:
Dyke is another word for leshian. It is an iə
word of uncertain origin, at various times in our
journals.
Kaye chooses "Jewish wildwoman dykey" to describe herself because these words say something important about her, and because they are meant to reach out to kinskiy to Jewish women, to lesbians, and especially to Jewish lesbians. For that reason, it was important to the author to use poetry reading to communicate to lesbians that this program was of special interest to us.
I appreciate the Kansan's squeamishness about slander suits, but you are walking a thin line between responsible journalism and censorship.
I do not appreciate that dykew was singled out as an offensive word and I am writing this letter to point out to the Kansan and to heterosexuals the basic homophobia that would assume, especially in light of the rest of the ad (which describes Kaye's feminism and "possessions of loving women"), that anyone would be upset by "rather than "wildwoman" or "Jewish."
The religious fundamentalists and right-wingers who rage about homosexuality may be doing lesbians and gay men less harm than thousands of humanists and liberals. Certainly they're less harmful than the straight press, which ignores our existence, denies us access to certain rights and provides us own names. How appropriate that the title of Kay's book of poems, "We Speak in Code."
Pamela C. Johnston KU N.C.
KU-Y Coordinator
Man not helpless
I did not and do not deny the saving power of Jesus. In order to arrive at that conclusion you either had to assume a premise (which zealots often do) that I neither stated nor implied, or you had to ignore the essential components of a valid argument.
Neither of which is surprising, because you admittedly give little credit to your mind.
To the editor:
Well, I seem to have shaken the rock upon my hand. Forgive me, boys. Let me clarify my position.
Nevertheless, the divinity of Jesus was beside the point of my earlier letter.
The point of my earlier letter was that I believe man to be potentially heroic and great. (My favorite prayer: God helps those who help themselves.) Yes, I do believe that man can pull himself up by his bootstraps. I have witnessed it, and have laughed and rejoiced and yelled, "See, I told you so!" I probably would witness it more often if Christians like you did not paint such an ugly and helpless picture of man, and then convince people that your painting is The Truth.
One thing I am sure of: if you continually remind a man that he is helpless, he will never try to pull himself up. He will sit back upon the cushion of his father and declare, "The Lord will pick me up." And in doing so, he will be nothing like Jesus at all.
Now. Am I guilty of pride? You bet am. I am, no doubt, will call it evil! But my pride is like that of the mighty horse who dances across the snow . . . and the Holy Spirit in me is like the Holy Spirit in him. The Holy Spirit in me bursts when the sun is just rising , and the Holy Spirit flings my heart up into my threat when I spot, or Jayhawk Boulevard, a smiling young girl.
—And is she fallen? . . . NO! . . . the Holy Spirit in heririppaces across her lips and floats laughingly up to the heavens and interrupts the Lord of the heavens at his work. . . And is he laughs to her, he laughs too, and it is not howls of shame and repentance that he wants to hear, but laughter . . .
But what, zealots? What is it I must do to gain this salvation of yours! Must I be like the mighty horse who has doubted itself and whose spirit is now broken? Must I walk with my eyes to the ground? I have seen the horse whose spirit is broken and whose pride is gone, and I have left it to die. I should he live that same for an eternity. I too should death to your shallow "salvation."
To quote from Walt Whitman: "I hear and behold God in every object/Yet understand God in not the least/Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
In short, Gentlemen, I love God and life-size hard work and heroic man, and I find your deep, dark threats upon humanity to be sadly amusing.
Kevin Henker Kansas City, Kan., senior
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