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Tuesday, October 13, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Split decision
Soon the U.S. Senate will vote on the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Fifty-three of 100 senators are now on record as opposing the nomination.
Because Bork's defeat is inevitable, Bork or Reagan should withdraw the nomination. It is understandable that Bork should want to fight for a principle. By standing firm, he is fighting the pressure of opposing lawmakers and public chastisement. However, by staying in contention, he is putting his interests over the welfare of the country.
As long as Congress and Bork battle over his nomination, a seat on the Supreme Court remains vacant. This leaves eight justices, four liberal and four conservative, to handle the pressing issues of the court.
in a ue were to occur in the high court's voting, the lower appellate court's ruling would stand. Having another member on the court is imperative to resolve complicated issues. Resolution because of a split decision is no way to handle pressing court matters.
The Reagan administration would like to see lengthy debate in the Senate over Bork, thereby delaying the vote, for political reasons. The longer the debate, the longer it will be until a new nominee can be appointed, bringing assurance that the new nominee will be approved.
But the political games of the administration must end in order to assure justice for the U.S. people. And while Bork's persistence is to be admired, the interests of the people he wants to serve as a member of the Supreme Court must override his personal interests.
No wavs or means
If the University were all buildings and no teaching equipment, would anybody learn?
would anybody tell you This is what the Legislature should ask itself when it considers last week's recommendation of the interim Ways and Means Committee.
The answer is no.
The committee recommended that the state increase its property tax by one-half mill to raise about $6.3 million for construction of new buildings at the Regents schools.
At the same time, it failed to recommend an alternative to the present system of paying for new classroom and laboratory equipment for the schools. Two choices brought up at the meeting
- raise student tuition and issuing revenue bonds - were
But an alternative is gravely needed. The present system of using general-use and restricted-use funds is inadequate.
For example, the chairman of the KU department of chemistry said recently that some chemistry laboratory equipment had been used for decades. He called the department's equipment needs at the undergraduate level "mammoth."
To maintain competitive programs, the schools must have modern, competitive equipment so that the students won't be surprised when they get to professional laboratories
New buildings are vital to help schools expand. But the contents of the buildings should be a higher priority for the Legislature.
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 Kablerine .Sports editor
Dan Riettlmann .Photo editor
Bill Skeet .Graphics editor
Tom Eblen .General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Bonnie J. Hardy ... Business manager
Robert J. Hughes ... Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer ... Retail sales manager
Kurt Messeramith ... Campus sales manager
Greg Knipp ... Production manager
David Dillott ... National sales
Angela Clark ... Classified manager
Ron Weems ... Director of marketing
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Greedy owners tackle players
When Butkus arrived, he was limping. He found a chair in the living room and lowered himself so slowly, an inch or two at a time, that it took almost a minute before he was seated.
A friend invited me to a small dinner party some years ago. One of the other guests was Dick Butkus.
I was across the room, sitting near his wife, and I asked her whether his knee was always that painful.
She said, "in the morning I spread his trousers on the floor so he can step into them. Then I pull them up. That way, he doesn't have to bend his knee."
The dinner was on a Friday evening. About 40 hours later, I was in Soldier Field in Chicago. The Bears were playing one of the best teams in football. At the time, the Bears were among the
And I watched one of the most awesome individual performances I've ever seen in sports. Butkus seemed to be everywhere, rampaging into the opponent's backfield, mauling quarterbacks, tossing running backs, running over anybody who got in his way.
He intercepted a pass. He forced fumbles. He ran with a faked punt. And when the game ended, the underdog Bears had won and the fans were on their feet cheering themselves hoarse for Butkus.
Yet, less than two days earlier, he had barely been able to get in and out of a chair.
We jump forward a few years. Butkus is no longer a player, and he's in an unfamiliar environment — a court of law.
Butkus discovered that a courtroom could be a nastier place than a football field. The Bears' ownership used every legal trick in the book to
He's trying to get the Bears' ownership to pay him what he's owed on the remainder of his contract. He says he played despite his bad knee because the team doctor had said it was safe for him to play. Now, because he had believed that assurance, his knee is hopelessly ruined.
avoid paying — and some tricks that they don't teach in schools of law.
Fortunately, the judge was fair, honest and not easily intimidated, and in the end Butus was
I bring this up to remind some fans just what football players really are. Disposable parts of a business. Work units. Profit centers. And when they can no longer contribute to the owner's bottom line, out they go.
Here was one of the greatest players in the history of football. As veteran Bears fans remember, there were some drab seasons when Butkus was the only reason to watch a game. And he played with the kind of pain that would have most of us moaning in bed.
But to get what he deserved, he had to hire a lawyer and fight for it in court.
That's something to keep in mind the next time you hear someone talk about how unseemly it is for these greedy, overpaid athletes to be out on strike.
I doubt whether anyone would pay for a ticket or turn on their TV to watch Bear owner Mike McCaskey do what he does. Or Bob Isray, the lying lout who owns the Indianapolis franchise. Or the blowy blonde who owns the Los Angeles Rams.
What they do is count money.
The players are why pro football has become a national obsession. And since the beginning, they've been low-bailed by the rich people who own the franchises.
In Chicago, we've been treated to the sight of
two family factions — the McCaskeys and the Halases — fighting over who gets how much out of the franchise they inherited, which is probably worth $100 million.
But not one of these privileged characters has ever been down on the field getting a knee torn up or their brains rattled by a 280-pound.
We have listened to these same millionaires try to blackmail the city and state into building them a new stadium under the threat of taking their profit-machine elsewhere.
And if the profit potential is there, they'll do it. Irsay didn't hesitate to yank the Colts out of Baltimore. Al Davis told Oakland it wasn't making him rich enough, so he moved his hired hands to Los Angeles.
Greed? There isn't one jock on strike who can match up with a football owner when it comes to dollar signs. If they could get away with it, the owners would be paying the national minimum wage.
I have difficulty sympathizing with a bunch of millionaires who say that they must be protected against the threat of the free enterprise system. And that's really what this strike is all about—the right of a worker to sell his skills to the highest bidder.
The owners say that if they accept so radical a concept, their financial world will come crashing down. If that's true, then this whole country must rethink how to invest in the case that's the system the rest of us work under.
What the owners now have is an economic system in which they share equally the bulk of the profits. It doesn't matter whether they put a luxurious house on sale or invest in a new company, much money as if they put a good team out there;
And the key to their economic success is that the workers can be hired to work. They can't shop around for a better deal.
Sounds to me like football is run by a bunch of commies.
Applaud Coach Val
Whether it was a standing ovation for retiring Kansas State University coach Jack Hartman or not stopping to the levels of Oklahoma's antics, "class" has always been a trademark of KU sports fans. Unfortunately, this trait seems to be missing in some of our current students.
on sept. 28, a banner appeared from a group of students saying, "So long, Coach Val" each time KU encountered any difficulty. This sentiment was put into graffiti around town later, in even harsher terms. This echoes a short-sighted vision that some people hold about how the coach is the cause of all problems and should possess magical solutions.
Coach Val has inherited players he did not recruit and is starting the necessarily long process of rebuilding. This process cannot be even begun without support from the fans.
More important, Coach Val knows the place and importance of academics at a university. With his emphasis on learning, our players will not only advance toward graduation, but their play will benefit as well. Coach Val holds to this belief stronger than most coaches and deserves respect for his determination and decisions.
I had to choose. I would much rather watch our team struggle on the field but graduate than to have year after year of uneducated national champions. As long as Coach Val keeps stressing academics and our football players hold up their end, I will continue to be in the stands applauding their hard work and effort, on and off the field.
Paul Monson, Lawrence graduate student
I am just writing to question Jim Flarquar's competence to pass judgment upon Allan Bloom's bestseller, "The Closing of the American Mind." Though I am far from giving the book an unqualified endorsement, I think Bloom is more right than he is. I cannot say the book is more right than it can be tendered by the same shallow and relativistic tendencies which Bloom in his book disdains.
Relatively wrong
As for his relativism, Farquar candidly acknowledges it, though I think it should be an embarrassment. For he can't think that his own position is right, Bloom's position wrong, and be a relativist all at the same time. For relativism entails that Bloom's position must be just as right as his own.
But more importantly, Farguhar fails to address adequately Bloom's criticism of higher education and American culture. Farguhar merely states that Bloom's "largest fallacy is his attitude." (a strange phrase), and concludes quite simply that America has a culture which Bloom just "doesn't like."
But this just states what is already obvious. Farquhar does not come to terms with Bloom's arguments at all. What is needed is to take a conscientious look at Bloom's reasons for his
But such criticism Farquhar does not provide, and he cannot provide it if all he brings to the task is his vacuous notion of "experience" bereft of the capacity of philosophical reflection.
Neither has Farqhar dealt with Bloom's conception of the purpose of higher education. Farqhar does not tell us why the search for truth should not be its fundamental task.
One central goal of a liberal education is to put people in a position where they are able to determine for themselves what their real interests are rather than leave them to accept, on a host of enticing pretenses, the role of being cog in a very compelling social machine.
Higher education, among other things, should enable a person to choose freely what he would do with his life. not prematurely to set him to it.
But, in fact, even Bloom is wrong in thinking that the fault lies primarily with higher education. The minds of most students are closed before they even get to the university. What Farquhar sees as a virtue in "self-importance" is often the very thing which leads students to feel affronted that the university curriculum includes mandatory courses of study. They see it as an imposition on their freedom. What they have not yet learned is that there are necessary conditions for human freedom and that knowledge is one of them.
Michael Hinz, Lawrence graduate student
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed