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Tuesday, November 17. 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Over the airwaves the newscaster updates the Election Day results, giving projections that the candidate the voter supports will win easily.
Beat the clock
After work, the California voter flips on the radio in the car on the way to the polls. Traffic is snarled. Time is tight.
Hearing this, the voter is confident that his candidate's victory is secure and changes his route to head toward the grocery store.
Members of Congress and others have worried that scenarios in the air are all too common, changing the outcome of presidential debates.
The contest for president, after all, is a strong drawing point every four years. Once that race is decided, motivation to vote wanes. This, in turn, affects the outcome of local races because voters who would drive to vote for president would not drive to vote to merely fill a school board chair.
The House recognized this dilemma and voted last week to set simultaneous poll-closing times across the country. According to the bill, polls would close at 9 p.m. EST in presidential general elections, except for those in Hawaii and Alaska.
The representatives voted wisely among their choices. They rejected a bill forbidding local election officials from announcing presidential results until 10 p.m. EST.
Snubbing such censorship and yet dealing with the problem was the right choice.
Middle ground
Out of compromise comes success
Near the close of the Arab League's recent summit, the nations reached a compromise that led to both an ending and a beginning.
The summit marked the end of Egypt's isolation from many Arab nations. At the same time, the summit marked the revival of diplomatic relations by some Arab nations with Egypt.
The Arab League voted to allow its members to restore relations with Egypt. Six Arab countries plan to begin that process.
But the Arab League would not expand the compromise to readmit Egypt as a member. The League revoked Egypt's membership in 1979 when Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty.
The six Arab nations — Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait — have exercised their independence by deciding to begin relations with Egypt. The partial reconciliation could lead to a new degree of unity in the Middle East. In addition, the end of a feud between Syria and Iraq adds to the success of the summit.
The summit's outcome was a pleasant surprise and a leap in the right direction.
The next pleasant surprise would for the Arab nations to allow Egypt a voice in the League.
Divided we fall
A faculty union is not the answer.
A faculty union is not the answer.
It is not the answer to increasing faculty salaries.
It is not the answer to increasing faculty salaries.
It is not the answer to increasing faculty benefits.
It is not the answer to increasing the faculty's voice in decision making.
A union, whether it's AAUP or KU-NEA, would not strengthen faculty. Instead, a union would divide faculty, further hindering faculty members' chances to achieve their ends.
If KU faculty elected to have a union, all faculty members would not join. The union naturally would represent only the interests of its dues-paying members. State law requires that employers, in this case the Board of Regents, meet with union representatives for contract negotiation, even though the union wouldn't represent the entire faculty.
Faculty at KU can make a difference. They can organize and lobby the Regents and the Legislature for increased benefits and salaries. A union will not make sweeping changes that would benefit all faculty.
At the same time, a union would change the position of faculty at the University of Kansas. Individual voices would be smothered under the strength of a few union representatives.
Unions commonly bargain by threatening to strike. A strike, or even the threat of one, would damage the University. Education, learning and the University's goals would suffer amid the bickering and bargaining that could develop.
Meetings of intelligent minds — faculty members' and the administrators' — can lead the way to better days for faculty. A faculty union is not the answer.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Jennifer Benjamin ... Editor
Juli Warren ... Managing editor
John Benner ... News editor
Beth Copeland ... Editorial editor
Sally Streff ... Campus editor
Brian Kaberline ... Sports editor
Dan Ruettimann ... Photo editor
Bill Sket ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Bonnie J. Hardy ...Business manager
Robert Hughes ...Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer ...Retail sales manager
Kurt Messersmith ...Campus sales manager
Greg Knipp ...Production manager
David Defonti ...National sales manager
Angela Clark ...Classified manager
Ron Weems ...Director of marketing
Jeanne Hines ...Sales and marketing adviser
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Tornado wrought lasting damage
Sometimes I wish the tornado that sucked up Dorothy and her stuind dum had left them in Oz.
And I wish that when the house returned from Oz, it had landed on all the East and West Coast snobs who perpetuate inane stereotypes of the Sunflower State.
Of all the movies about Kansas, it is unfortunate that the "Wizard of Oz" is the one remembered the most. It offers simple, wholesome people living in farm shacks in desolate northeast country.
This Kansas bashing has been happening for years and will continue to happen. It's just too easy to work new twists and tricks on the tite image of us hicks and our wheat.
Then, a few years ago, the state tourism board came out with this brilliant slogan to promote travel and tourism in Kansas — "Kansas, the Land of Ahs."
Who wants to visit a place like Auntie Em's farm? It's insulting to trade on the inaccurate
Even here in Lawrence, home of the four-star University of Kansas, we talk about our school in terms relative to the Coasts: "Kansas University ... Harvard on the Kaw."
Kansas State University doesn't help fight our negative image by having "Silo Tech" for a nickname. At least KU, with "Snob Hill," does its part to escape the stereotype.
Sports Illustrated called KU football a joke. A national columnist weekly dubs the state of Kansas the worst in college football. This includes KU, K-State and Wichita State, which doesn't have a program anymore.
The high visibility of sports in today's world doesn't help either. The emasculation of football in this state is one of the better, and fumier, gags running.
I can shrug off all this humiliation. What really got me was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times about the filming of "Kansas" in and around Lawrence.
The headline was oh so cute and on so predictable: "Toto, I don't think we're in Hollywood and
The tone and language of the story epitomized the condescending "aren't they cute" attitude toward Kansas.
In the first paragraph, the reporter talked about the long drive from Kansas City to Lawrence on a "monotonous turnip" marked by "flattened prairie dogs." What is a prairie dog? I don't think I've ever seen one splattered on I-70
The reporter told his swank L.A. readers that radio talk show conversation centers around poultry and cattle. Said one Kansan on a show,
"The chickens we eat today are descendants of the chickens brought to America by Christopher
I don't know what station he was listening to, the radio stations I listen to about politics, music.
A more accurate description would be stumbling around drunk, carousing and pickup girls. I have nothing against this description, but at least tell it as it is.
The two stars of the movie "owved the locals" as they "cast around for something to fend off the boredom," hanging out in "dingy bars" and "coving up to milk-fed teenyboppers."
One star was "reduced" to ordering pizzas, reading and drinking Budweiser. What's wrong with that? I do it all the time. And sometimes I like it.
The reporter was too nice.
Of course, the characters in the movie are described as "cornpone." How else could people
be in a movie about Kansas? And, of course, the lead actor said the portrayal was accurate and "affectionate."
In quoting the "locals," the reporter, 'cause he wanted to give readers the bumpkin flavor, was droppin' letters at the end and omittin' em at the beginning so the West Coast readers could tell that we Kansans wasn't high-falutin'.
The attitude is summed up by a word the producer and the director surely chuckled about in describing Kansans, "ingenuous." After finally findin' one of them word books and stumblin' through it, I found out the word means "without sophistication; artless."
I am not without sophistication. I don't like being condescended to. And don't refer to me as "one of the locals." I drink beer. I spit tobacco juice on the ground, and I belch occasionally, but I'm not provincial, nor are most of the people I know.
I've never been on a farm longer than one day. I was 22 years old when, amazed, I watched a cat swim in the water.
Kansas certainly has more than its fair share of them, but don't bump us all together like that. The equivalent would be characterizing all L.A. people as driving BMWs and snotting coke. And the Los Angeles Times readers probably would take umbrage at that.
Not everyone in Kansas is a backward, overall- wearing hick.
The state is flat, and it is relatively boring. There is some basis in fact for the stereotype, but the state certainly is not as one-dimensional as outsiders portray it to be.
All those poor, disgruntled Hollywood folks had to do to get out of here was click their designer shoes together three times and mutter condescendingly. "There's no place like home."
then they would be whisked away and leave us country bumpkins and our rollin' wheat fields alone to enjoy our boring and provincial lives
Russell Gray is a Topeka senior majoring in journalism.
Split decision
Whereas its pages have been used to express the views of the administration on the current bargaining campaign, those of the faculty organizations to date have not. Therefore, one logically concludes that the "Oread" is for the employee, but certainly not of the employee or by the employee.
An example of an apparent split between the faculty and the administration that would more likely be narrowed, not widened, if the faculty were legally and formally organized by the NEA would have been much better. A weekly "Oread" self-described as "an employee publication of the University of Kansas."
Thanks to the Kansan for including a small item reminding faculty of the forum on bargaining in the issue Nov. 5. About 7 percent of the faculty came, and it was a rewarding and enlivened meeting. I wonder, however, whether
the attendance might have been better had the "Oread" included more than the following in the calendar section of its Oct. 30 issue: "Faculty Senate. 4 p.m. Kansan Room, Union."
J. Bunker Clark, professor of music history
Inspiring choir
The KU Inspirational Gospel Choir, along with the presence of the Lord, touched my life in a special way Oct 7. I appreciate the dedicated individuals involved who truly inspired me with their beautiful message of love, joy and hope in Jesus. I praise the Lord for their sharing their magnificent talent. I pray that God will continue to use their ministry in a mighty way.
Right to choose
Carl Kittrell, Fairbanks, Alaska, junior
Since both union-hopeless have been engaging in considerable speculation regarding what they will "do for us," perhaps it is acceptable for me to offer a reasoned speculation regarding what I believe would be one of the first goals of any
Should the KU faculty become unionized, under the law as it is presently written, those of us who do not wish to join the union cannot be forced to do so. When asked how they will handle the matter of no dues from non-joiners, the representatives of both unions reply that we will naturally flock to join.
successful union.
It surpasses all credibility to think that the NEA or any other union will sit passively by hoping that our consciences will cause us to support them voluntarily. It is in the union's interest to extract dues out of all 1,010 members of the bargaining unit; they cannot afford to operate locally, much less proselyte nationally, while collecting dues from only 150 members. Their resident lobbyist will immediately begin to work for a change in the Public Employee-Employer Relations law, which will enable it to levy "administrative fees" equal to union dues against those members of the bargaining unit who do not join the union.
It also seems reasonable that the unionizers would reinvigorate their efforts to revoke the right-to-work amendment of the Kansas Constitution, which, if accomplished, would mean the end of the open shop, the end of a worker's right to choose whether to belong to a union or not.
William Mitchell, Spencer Research Libraries
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed