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University Daily Kansan, September 17, 1980
Opinion
A big 'W' for wasteful
The University of Kansas once again is suffering from withdrawal symptoms.
The source of the University's lils is the withdrawal system, which is not much more than a confusing conglomeration of phases, petitions and schedules.
Starting next semester, students will have an extra week to drop a class without receiving a "W" on their transcripts.
The Academic Council, comprised of the University's deans, has recommended that "W's" and "F's" still be used in the withdrawal process. Yet each school will be able to formulate a separate policy if it chooses to do so.
Under the present withdrawal system, students who drop a course during the first four weeks of class do not receive a mark on their transcripts. During the next three weeks, students simply receive "Ws." After the seventh week, students must petition for the right to receive a "W" instead of an "F."
The Council recommended that students be given a five-week period to drop a class without a mark. During the next five
weeks, they would receive "W.'s." After the 10th week, students would be forced to petition.
The proposal would give students an extra three weeks in a class before having to decide whether to drop it or face the consequences.
But the University needs to place less emphasis on its "W's." Better yet, it should scrap them during the first 10 weeks of the semester. After all, the "W" seems to be only an attempt to stigmatize students or scar their academic records, all without good reason.
The intent of the Council's recommendations is to give students more time to progress in a class. But those pesky "W's," which under the new proposal would take effect five weeks into the semester, would rush students to the drop office instead of keeping them in class.
The extra three weeks provided by the proposal would be for naught. During the first 10 weeks of the semester, schools should rid themselves of the stigmatic "W"-while they still have a chance.
John Anderson a gentleman even when he has full deck
John B. Anderson is a politician. When asked to comment on President Carter's bumbling foreign policy, the independent candidate quoted West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's impolite question in the question: "That is a very impolite question and I do not go to be so impolite as to answer it."
It's not that Anderson the Candidate had nothing to say on the subject. Not at all. In fact, Anderson the Orator is itching to meet the president in verbal combat.
But the president is not as eager to enter the arena. With his retusal to meet both Anderson
AMY HOLLOWELL
and Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in the
legislature of Women Voters' debate this weekend,
the 1976 Carter the Courteous has proven him
most definitive to be Carter the Coward.
Carter is a shrew man, particularly when it comes to politicking, and his Georgian cohorts are equally as adept at the game. It was most likely this Carter the Shrew who foresaw the outcome of the war and who realized the battering he would attack at the words of the independent candidate.
What the Carter forces did not realize, however, was that the league was going to conduct its debate with or without the president. The Georgians didn't reckon that the league should shuad a good of boy. So Carter the Politician would to his wintertime self, to Carter the Carrierer.
It seems the Georgians don't reckon that Reagan would shun a good 'oil' boy, either. But Reagan the Realist reads the polls and knows that his own campaign is being hurt less by Anderson than is Carter's. And the Republican will be more assertive if he refusal to debate will be to the Carter campaign.
Neither Reagan nor Carter seem to fully comprehend, however, what a boost the debate will be for the Anderson campaign. At the very end of it, Mr. Anderson a much-needed invitation to legitimacy.
Just as Anderson's opponents' propheies of the Anderson whimsey seemed near-real, a poll found that the Illinois congressman had the necessary 15 percent of the population behind him, qualifying him for the Sept. 21 League-sponsored debate. Even if the skilled Anderson oratory should fail to destroy Reagan, the fact is that Anderson will be appearing on national television and may questioningly legitimate campaign situation. Meanwhile, Carter the Absentee will watch from the Rose Garden as Anderson, with satisfaction, shows up Carter again.
In this age of media politics, the absence of the president in the televised debate will not soon be forgotten. Exposure, courtesy of the media, is a crucial element in modern presidential politics. Analysts say, for example, that the 1960 debate had the power to unleash a wave of head, head,heading him heir to the soon-to-be Camelot "dynasty." These same debates, they say, cost Richard Nixon the throne.
Carter shadders at the thought of both giving Anderson a credibility boost and of confronting him in debate. He senses the failure should either occur. But abstaining from Sunday's confrontation in Baltimore brings more failure upon the president than he perhaps fathoms.
His absence is an issue now, one that Anderson and Reaan can banter into oblivion.
Even if the president realized this and wanted to join the debate, the public wouldn't go for it. Such a change of heart would be yet another reason why indieversis we have come to know so well.
But the significance of Monday's contest is more the Anderson appearance than the Carter absence. Anderson reached the mountainous 15 percent simply because, as in the access-to-the-ball battle, Anderson and company plugged on for support against steep odds.
There is no disputing that Anderson's forte is his oratorical gift, his ability to move audiences. He logically disseminates even the most complex issue with finesse and fervent tongue.
But Anderson is a civil man. Frustrated, perhaps, by the president's failure to meet the Anderson challenge, and elated, perhaps, with his newly won opportunity, Anderson will maintain his demaner; he will be a gentleman B. Anderson will be, as always, a polite man.
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Hostage 'breakthrough' no big deal
Like the reappearance of Abbie Hoffman, a breakthrough in the Iranian hostage standpoint has been a hallmark.
Like Abbie, this "breakthrough" underwent a nose job before showing its face again. The most recent list of demands, unlike other Iranian demands issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, is the mildest one of the three nations to offer the "great Satan America" or to the spy trials for the hostages, or even to the apologies for all the nautities the U.S. did for the late shah.
All Khomini wants is the cancellation of all claims the U.S. has against Iran, the unfreezing of Iranian assets in this country, the return of the former shah's wealth to Iran and a pledge of non-intervention in Iranian affairs. If Khomini gets these, he may consider them the basis for negotiation of the hostages' release.
The key words here are "may consider" and "basis for negotiation." While the old boy has softened his position considerably, the release of the hostages is as far away as it was 319 days ago. Even if the conditions laid down by Khomeini were given as definite terms for the release of the hostages, the process could take months.
The lightning-fast U.S. court system would first have to make a decision about the millions of dollars in claims outstanding on this country. We could all be dead by then.
Then there is the matter of the late shah's fortune, which he took with him when he fled Iran in 1978. The Pahlavi Foundation, which includes millions of dollars worth of U.S.
assets, also would be subject to a court judgment against the iranians might have on it. Arain, delaws.
There are no real problems with Khomeini's other demands, such as they are. Presumably the Iranian assets frozen in this case have been transferred with the same speed as they were frozen. And
BILL
MENEZES
as for non-intervention in Iranian affairs, perhaps it would be better for the Iranians to face the oncoming Soviets on their own. Their hands would be so full they wouldn't have time to execute anybody, thus eliminating their current national pastime.
The real problems lie, as they have since last November, in the idea of negotiations themselves. The approach taken by the Carter administration, one of being nice to the Iranians and hoping they would get tired of the whole matter and give up the hostages, has worked about as well as everything else the Carter administration has done. It is clear that such defensive negotiating does not get the job done in this case.
What is clear is that the Iranians are getting more eager to resolve their financial wees. The restriction of the demands to basically financial ones illustrates the
Iranians' cash problems. While it is ridiculous to believe that Khomeini has changed his views of the U.S. to the point where he does not want an apology to his country, it is not so hard to believe that he temper his demands for a settlement which still be greatly to his country's advantage.
For its part, the U.S. should take advantage of this sign of weakening and refuse to negotiate until all 52 hostages are returned home safely.
To continue to grovel before Khomeini would accomplish as much as it has in the past nine months. At the same time, the safety and well-being of the hostages has hardly entered into the question of negotiations. The reports that have filtered out about the state and the violation of their rights and the state of their mental health are grossly insufficient. Indeed, it is impossible to even ascertain whether all of them are still alive.
Before any negotiations begin, the U.S. should be allowed to view the hostages, all of them together, not only as a token of Iranian goodwill towards the negotiations, but also as a means of seeing their condition. This would give the U.S. a better perspective with which to negotiate.
Until then, all demands should be met with a firm, simple "no." If the Carter administration chooses to continue to let Iran dictate the course of the hostage crisis then it will in all likelihood continue at least until Election Day. How fitting that a new administration should be elected on the one-year anniversary of the hostages' captivity.
Quotas on Japanese car sales necessary
To the Editor:
As world trader, the United States is falling into a multi-billion dollar pool of red ink. Last year's balance-of-trade deficit was way more than $24 billion—caused, in part, by the United States' tedium and lonely effort to negotiate free and fair trade. Kanan editorial writer Ted Lickeig, however, took a major step in distorting this fact in his Sent. 8 editorial.
Lictigle is an obvious advocate of free trade and in a very real sense so is the U.S. government. In the international marketplace, however, free trade could only happen if it were coupled with fair trade. This is the point Lictigle fails to see. In actuality, the UNITED STATES has the lowest barriers to trade in the world. The tariff on imported cars here is only 2.9 percent—one quarter the level of Japan's. Coupling Japan's high tariffs and government subsidies with other non-tariff barriers make it nearly impossible to export to Japan.
Why should present free trade policies continue to exist when it isn't fair to domestic producers? I won't disagree that Chrysler is a major loup-rou, nor will I excuse the company's ignorance. However, the American producer faces ridiculous difficulties in competing with foreign producers. In fact, it may be impossible for us to commute.
Union wages are a great deal lower in Japan than here, and though it is no one's fault, it adds to our problem. Japanese auto makers persist self-subsidization is another factor facing American firms. Because the demand for cars in Japan is higher, high prices there are many times higher than here.
Generally, this means a Datsun, for example, going for $6,000 here may go as high as $20,000 in Japan. Economically, Datsun makes enough profit domestically to sell cars in the United States below our production costs, which leaves Detroit little chance to compete. Logically this would translate into an increased market share for the foreign auto makers, which is why Japan's share has grown from 2 percent in 1969 to 17 percent in 1979.
Many experts speculate that the Japanese merchants are plotting to eventually take the majority market share through this form of subsidization, to run domestic producers out of business and to drastically increase prices once the market is thirsty. From the American perspective, a major sector of the United States' general work force would be in danger of losing their jobs.
Economic waters have boiled long enough. Unemployment has already soared, particularly in the auto industry. Lichtkeil wrote that widening auto import channels would only cost "some" jobs. He failed, or wished not, to point out the problem of $500,000 American jobs already gone and adding nearly a full percentage point to the overall unemployment rate.
I think it would be advisable for Lickle to find more facts before he again tries to define the difference between right and wrong. Establishing quotas is not as easy he would believe. The federal government is rarely in the right. We shouldn't criticize when they are.
Mark Sump
Hutchinson freshman
R
We also attended the Summer Honors Institute in the summer of 1978. However, we both think that we received "the benefits promised." The summer proved to be challenging and stimulating one, socially as well as academically, for students fresh out of high school. We could not have asked for a better preparation for our later college work. Our instructors were neither "medicore" nor "incompetent"; rather, they were knowledgeable in
In response to Brett Conley's editorial on Sept. 9, we would like to say that we have found the KU Honors Program invaluable to our educational experiences.
Honors Program
To the editor:
their fields and proved to be first-rate instructor. Classes that Conley "suffered through" and "survived," we enjoyed as well as appreciated.
The small number of students in the Summer Honors Institute classes, and in most honors classes in general, cannot help but "enhance intellectual stimulation" and provide a "greater development of ... academic abilities." If Conkey thought his science instructor "less expert than a text matter" in a small class, he should experience the intellectual 'communication' in a large lecture class.
Yes, we have had a few negative experiences in the Honors Program, but the positive experiences outweigh the negative experiences by far
The new honors program director does indeed have a difficult job ahead of him if he hopes to transform the Honors Program to satisfy Conley. The task cannot be done in six months or even a year, and we are not even sure it is worth the time.
We are honored to be in the Honors Program.
Roberta Winnem
Lansing junior
Lisa Fendorf
Lansing junior
Letters Policy
1
Letters must be signed and must include the writer's address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position.
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