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Monday, September 8, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Tightening the standards
In January, the National Collegeiate Athletic Association approved Proposition 48. Beginning this fall, a freshman who wants to participate in the athletic programs of chief colleges and universities must have earned a 2.0 grade-point average in 11 standard college preparatory courses while in high school and attained a minimum score of 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
This rule is a deadly weapon against schools that give scholarships to play ball, but do not require adequate academic effort. On the other hand, many black leaders think that this rule adversely affects black athletes.
In the past, the recipients of athletic scholarships were not getting a college education. Studies indicate that the majority of athletes, who are predominantly black, never graduate from college. Those who did, graduated with a physical education degree.
At Memphis State University,
no basketball player entering
the university since 1973
has earned a degree. At the
University of Georgia, only 17 percent of black football players and four percent of black basketball players earned degrees in the past decade.
Proposition 48 will make schools recruit only the athletes who are qualified academically.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of People United to Serve Humanity, said the median SAT score for black athletes was below 700. "Proposition 48 discriminates on the basis of race," he said.
Proposition 48 simply will require that athletes be literate before entering college. By voting for this rule, schools will select the prospective student-athlete who is capable of handling college work. At first, the rule will cut down the number of black high school students who are eligible to play in college. But in the long run, Proposition 48 may encourage high schools to tighten their academic standards.
Proposition 48 will bring a higher standard to athletic competition and reduce violations by NCAA members.
Cracking the silence
Recent events have indicated that the Soviet Union may be beginning to crack its policy of silence.
For instance, officials around the world were surprised last week by the Soviet's announcement that one of its passenger liners had collided with one of its cargo ships off the coast of the Black Sea.
This unheard-of release of information by the Soviets was preceded by another noteworthy event. Intricate facts surround the Chernobyl
Not only did they say the passenger ship had sunk, they even admitted that passengers had died. In fact, a whole list of details, including the name of the ship, the weather at the time of the collision and the port the ship sailed from, were released by the Soviets.
Should we be encouraged by the Soviet's willingness to talk? Or could it be possible that the Soviet Union merely is trying to shed its "bad guy" image by talking more about its mistakes?
nuclear disaster also were made public recently.
Take Afghanistan or Nicaragua, for example. The Soviets don't seem too willing to talk about what's happening in those countries.
These two instances are isolated. No matter what Soviet officials would like us to think, information still remains locked behind the steel doors of their country's border.
Sure, it's great to finally get information from the Soviet Union. But they still have a long way to go.
Death of a station
As a training ground for aspiring broadcasters, the now-defunct TV-30 wasn't half bad. But it had its problems. Enough, in fact, to cause the station to shut down in May.
What will the students do now? This loss really will hurt
The big problem with TV-30 was that it failed to capture viewers' and advertisers' attention. TV-30 had no real individual identity. It followed a music video format, peppered with hourly newscasts.
Jeff Nightbyrd, president of the company that owned the station, said TV-30 closed because it was losing money. The company was based in Austin, Texas.
Although those newscasts were valuable training for the students, they just weren't enough to attract attention. This lack of support eventually resulted in the demise of the station.
the broadcast program. Because broadcast students won't be able to get the important deadline and on-air experience, many may go elsewhere for this type of education.
TV-30 either needs to make a sufficiently financed comeback or be dropped altogether. An under-financed station with outdated equipment will not attract aspiring Walter Cronkites. The University soon may see that it is losing its already-scant talent to comparable universities with more complete programs.
The station was a good idea, one that was at least an attempt to update the broadcast program here.
So let's bring it back.
But if we do, we need to approach the task with enthusiasm, complete financing and an original format. Otherwise, we need to drop it.
News staff
News staff
Lauretta McMillen ... Editor
Kady McMaster ... Managing editor
Tad Chirake ... News editor
David Silverman ... Editorial editor
John Hanna ... Campus editor
Frank Hansel ... Sports editor
Jacki Kelly ... Photo editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
David Nixon ... Business manager
Gregory Kaul ... Retail sales manager
Denise Stephens ... Campus sales manager
Sally Drew ... Classified manager
Lisa Weems ... Production manager
Duncan Cahoun ... National sales manager
Beverly Kastens ... Traffic manager
John Oberzan ... Sales and marketing adviser
Opinions
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The page you are reading now is, without a doubt, the most controversial part of this, or any, newspaper.
Everyone can express opinions
By design, this page is a very separate part of this publication. The stories that appear in the rest of the paper are supposed to be unbiased, balanced and fair. Works that appear on this page often are not any of those.
Acting as columnists, editorial writers, editorial cartoonists or just everyday folks with a gripe to air, people present viewpoints on this page. Hence the bold-faced word "Opinions" at the top.
*Opinions*
And people complain — vigorously at times — not only about the viewpoint presented here, but about the presenters. Some of the complaints stem from confusion about just who is saying what, and with what authority. This column is meant to clear up some of that.
The rather pretentious-looking pieces that appear in slightly larger type on the on the left hand side of this page are Kansan editors. They
are written by members of the Kansan editorial board, which is made up of students, some of whom work on the Kansan.
The editorial board meets once a week. In a little room in the corner of Stauffer-Flint Hall, we discuss and debate the previous week's happenings and attempt to come up with our opinion on campus, local and world events.
Lauretta McMillen
Editor
A member of the board is then assigned to write an editorial that puts forth the opinion formulated by the board.
The editors appear unsigned because they represent the opinion of the paper as a whole. In a sense, the University Daily Kansan nameplate
that appears at the top of the editorials serves as the only signature for these pieces.
But the words and pictures that appear on the other two-thirds of this page are a whole different animal. Works that appear in this space bear the names — and often the faces — of their creators.
So when Victor Goodpasture tells us that chemical weapons are our friends, he is expressing Victor Goodpasture's opinion, not ours.
The guest columnists' and editorial cartoonists' identifications appear with their works as well, and each column or cartoon is the opinion of that writer or artist.
Though it does not appear on today's page, there is another very vital element of the Opinions page — the Mailbox.
Letters to the editor give our readers the chance to express their opinions usually about stories, editors or columns that have appeared in the Kansas.
It is the Mailbox section of this
page that gives a professor the chance to clarify a story a reporter wrote about his class, or an angered student the chance to write about the actions of Student Senate.
While the Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters to the editor, rarely is one turned down. In fact, this semester has so far brought a surprising lack of letters. So let me take this chance to encourage you.
When you read a story in the Kansan and it makes you mad, write a letter. When our editorial stance on the employment status of a KU official sounds unfair, write a letter. When you're involved in an activity you thought was worthwhile and neither, a photographer nor a reporter showed up to cover it, write a letter.
in 200 words or less, let us know how you feel. You deserve the chance to sound off, and we enjoy the feedback.
After all, hasn't Victor insulted your sense of humanity lately?
Rehnquist's wonderful forgetterv
William H. Rehnquist, the associate justice of the United States who's up for chief, now has explained a troubling discrepancy in his record — kind of.
Rehnquist participated in a case concerning an Army surveillance program because, as he explained when challenged, "I had then and have no personal knowledge of the arrangement . . ."
Since that disavowal, a Justice Department memo has surfaced with his name on it — a memo that set out an arrangement for Army surveillance of civilians. His explanation: He can't remember drafting such a plan. It's the kind of explanation that doesn't fit well with his admirers' portrait of William Hubba Rehqunqt as a brilliant advocate with a steel-trap mind. In this case, his memory resembles something closer to a steel sieve.
Surely William Rehnquist understood the significance of beginning such a surveillance program in a republic long concerned with separating military from civil concerns. The original plan itself, the one bearing his signature, refers to "the salutary tradition of avoiding
Paul Greenberg
Columnist
military intelligence activities in predominantly civilian matters."
yet the Rehnquist memo blurred the distinction between Army and civilian intelligence agencies to a dangerous degree, treating the Army as a useful tool against civil dissent. Now Rehnquist can't seem to recall the part he played in drafting this precedent-shattering arrangement, and precedents are supposed to be a judge's forte.
But Rehquist is being consistent in his way. More than once in these hearings, he has had problems remembering certain things, mainly those that might embarrass his candidacy for chief justice. Earlier, it was a note from his lawyer warning about a restrictive covenant on a piece of real estate; now it's a precedent-setting memo issued over his signature.
The nominee for chief justice does have a talent, however, for attributing the embarrassing to others – underlings, superiors, peers. Remember how his memo defending racial segregation decades ago—the one he wrote when he was a law clerk
"wasn't really his but an attempt to sum up the thoughts of the late great Justice Robert Jackson? Now he says of the plan to set up a program that would have used the Army to monitor civilians. 'I have no recollection of my personal role in the preparation of this document. From the text of the memo I assume
that the plan was primarily drafted by staff members in my office and in the Office of the General Counsel of the Army, and reviewed by me.
Actually, the Army seemed leeway of this scheme. According to Robert Jordan, former general counsel of the Army, "In early 1969, the Department of Defense made a strong effort to disengage military intelligence organizations from the collection of information dealing with civil disturbance matters. This effort occurred in the context of preparing a document known as the 'Interdepartmental Action Plan for Civil Disturbances'" — the same document issued under the aegis of William F. Rehnquist. This leaves only his old aides in the Justice Department to take responsibility for the plan, since their boss is now disclaiming his.
As scrutiny of this nomination continues, and it certainly should, it becomes clear that Rehquist is blessed not only with a fine memory but, when suitable, a fine forgettery.
'Dead cat' just some urban folklore
I try to make it my policy to print the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Except when a harmless lie is more entertaining.
And that's why I told fish-and-cat story last week, although I suspected that it was not quite as true as it might be.
To refresh your memory, it's a story that a Lake Forest, Ill., business executive and socialite had been telling his friends lately. When I heard about it, I called him and confirmed it.
He said he caught a big salmon in Lake Michigan, had a chef prepare it and invited 18 friends to dinner. But, before they ate, his wife caught their cat nibbling on the fish in the kitchen. She tossed the cat out the door, flipped the鱼 over to conceal the nibble marks and went on with the dinner.
Later, the cat was found outside dead, so a doctor ordered everybody to the hospital to have their stomach pumped. But after they endured this, a neighbor came by and belatedly apologized for having run over the cat with his car.
A cute story, and the Lake Forest
socialite insisted it was true.
I wrote it and waited for the phone to ring, as I knew it would.
"That story is so old it has hair on it," said caller George Lilley of suburban Highland Park "I heard it when I was in prep school in Connecticut.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
"It's a variation of the story of a woman giving a large bridge party and wanting to serve creamed chicken with mushrooms. Her cook said she knew how to pick wild mushrooms. The hostess was skeptical and fed some of the meal to her dog. The dog liked it fine. But later, after everybody had eaten, the cook comes in and says, "Madam, the dog is dead." So the hostess calls the fire department, and they all go to get their stomachs pumped. Later, the
After reading the story. Bob Swanson of Chicago thumbed through some old magazines.
"I found it in a 1976 issue of Gray's Sporting Journal, a fishing magazine. Story's basically the same, except it takes place in Quebec."
woman tells the cook she'd like to see the dog. And the cook says, 'No, you don't want to see the dog. The truck made such an awful mess of him.'
These are the stories that people swear are true, but that are impossible to trace to their source.
What we obviously have here is an example of what the scholars might call "urban folklore." Or what a less scholarly Slats Grobnik might call "pretty good bull."
See. there was this woman who was told by her doctor to bring a stool sample to Michael Reese She carefully placed it in a Tupperware container and put it in a Saks Fifth
one to take over.
I've printed a few of them in the past, one of my favorites being the one that several nurses and doctors at Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital told me was the talk of the hospital.
Avenue shopping bag
But as she walked from the parking lot to the hospital entrance, a young sniffed the bag and ran away.
After getting all the calls about the variations of the cat and fish story, I phoned the socialite at the super-exclusive Onwentsia Country Club, where he was playing bridge, and asked him why he was telling the tale as fact.
He grumply said: "Well, most of it was true."
"I do catch salmon, and I have friends over for dinner."
And the rest of it — the dead cat, and the stomachs pumped?
"I heard it from a chap in Colorado."
Oh, well, look at it this way. In a year's time, newspapers will print thousands of stories about the golden promises, lofty promises, the great goals of presidents, senators, governors and mayors.
And we do that with a straight face