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Thursday, September 24, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Fence-sitting is often comfortable. Just sitting there, basically accepting any opinion that comes along.
A pontiff's stance
Allowing others the freedom to hold their own opinions is part of our heritage, but many interpret this freedom to mean that they are free from defining their own views.
Into this land of the opinionated and the blase came Pope John Paul II for a 10-day tour. The pope is a man who is revered by some and respected by most. Why?
It is not that he coerce others to adopt his views but that his views are clear and his opinions are not hedged according to the audience.
This type of conviction is rare, admirable.
The pope visited minority groups of Catholics that are virtually unrecognized, including blacks and American Indians. He said that the church could not keep silent in the face of injustice. He encouraged those suffering with AIDS.
The pope did not fall prey to the human tendency to be wishy-washy to avoid offending anyone. He offended many with his firm stance on the gay lifestyle, divorce, women in the priesthood and the celibacy of priests. There are those who agree and those who disagree, but all know where he stands.
How many of us are that bold — to state our views, despite their potential for unpopularity with one group or another? How many of us have really taken a stance on the major issues of our day? Could it be that freewheeling discussion is more comfortable than choosing?
The pope's conviction demands conviction in response.
Donor dilemma
On Oct. 1, some hospitals nationwide will face a tough choice. To remain eligible for Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly and the poor, hospitals must comply with a new federal law demanding that they identify patients who are potential organ donors.
The law is part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986, signed by President Reagan in October 1986.
Hospitals that do not identify donors must devise a system to find patients who would donate their kidneys, livers, hearts or lungs for transplants. To comply with the law, hospitals must inform families of potential donors of the donor option.
Potential donors are those who have suffered loss of all brain functions, but who are kept alive by a respirator. Families of such patients would be under severe stress. The last thing they should be confronted with is information about organ donations.
A more humane way to increase the number of organ donors would be by distributing information about donations. Perhaps hospitals could include a donor organ form in the registration materials for everyone who enters a hospital. That would encourage patients and their families to consider donating organs when they can think about it rationally.
Maybe the country would have enough donors if all drivers would take a minute to decide whether they would donate. If so, they should sign the back of their driver's license.
Small victory
The U.S.-Soviet arms agreement should be looked upon with a wary eve.
And a healthy dose of cynicism.
The United States and the Soviet Union announced an agreement in principle Friday that could eliminate land-based missiles with ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles.
This is a sign of hope for peace in the world, but it must be viewed with a sense of perspective. The elimination would be a drop in the arms-reduction bucket in two ways.
The weapons that would be eliminated represent nearly $9 billion of U.S. spending, a fraction of the country's defense budget.
The administration has reaffirmed its commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative, which has been a persistent sticking point in arms negotiations. Vice President Bush cast the deciding vote Tuesday against cuts in Reagan's proposed Star Wars budget.
The incidents in the Persian Gulf show the fragility of peace. U.S.-Soviet nuclear missile agreements must be applauded. But they represent only a small corner of the grim arms picture.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Jennifer Benjamin ... Editor
Julil Warren ... Managing editor
John Benner ... News editor
Beth Copeland ... Editorial editor
Sally Streff ... Campus editor
Brian Kabeline ... Sports editor
Dan Rufftmann ... Photo editor
Bill Skeet ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
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Bonnie J. Hardy...Business manager
Robert Hughes...Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer...Retail sales manager
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Angela Clintz...Classified manager
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Collegians value luxury of time
Most students at the University of Kansas have friends at home who chose not to attend college for one reason or another. They entered the working world; the "real world" as they liked to call it.
As time went by, however, a wedge was driven between that world and the one we know on Mt. Oread. These friendships became strained and eventually faded.
What is that wedge that comes between college students and those on the outside? Some assert that it is because of collegiate snobbishness; others point to differences in interests. I think it goes far beyond that, though.
College students are blessed with the luxury of time. We have time for observation, time for reflection and time for confusion. We are allowed to look around us, think about what we see, and try to reach conclusions, knowing all the while we will be fed, clothed and sheltered.
And however depressing or perhaps uplifting these conclusions may be, we can keep reflecting; they will change. As the writer Hugh Prather explains, we can live from one tentative conclusion to the next, thinking each one is final. The next we really know for sure is that we are infused.
Therein lies the difference between our world in college and the "real world." Confusion is our
luxury
At the University, the curriculum requires each student to confront the Platonic maxim, "The life which is unexamined is not worth living." Though this may be unfair to our working world counterparts, it serves as a challenge to those of us fortunate enough to attend college. We have the opportunity to examine our lives and, in doing so, affirm the value of our existence.
Viewed in this way, college serves not to cast away doubt and confusion but to capitalize on that intellectual turmoil. For only in this turmoil can a true liberal education take place.
Too many students view the University as a factory, producing doctors, lawyers, engineers and writers. But as students, we must learn not only the skills that will feed our mouths, but we must discover for ourselves the values and ideas that will nourish our souls.
If we as students work single-mindedly toward
a particular goal, we confine ourselves to a process. College is then merely an expensive substitute for on-the-job training, and we have no advantage over our "real world" counterparts.
The University was designed to produce great men like Alf Landon, Gale Sayers and William Inge. These people soared beyond their skills, their eloquence and their looks. They explored their minds and found more than an organic computer.
They found a soul in need of nourishment. And they found in the University an environment in which that soul could thrive.
As an academic community, the University of Kansas still has the proper atmosphere to support education beyond simple training. We would all benefit from a better atmosphere. If we failed to take full advantage of our time here,
And we would cheat not only ourselves but society as well by our failure. Where our nation can always use more business and professional resources we would afford to gain them at the expense of great men.
Obviously, not every KU student can be the best in the field he chooses for himself. But we all have the potential to excel in the greater field chosen for us by some unfathomable power.
Dan Houston is a Tulsa, Okla., junior majoring in advertising and political science.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Classified woes
I must be a slow learner. Wouldn't you think that after 20 years as a classified employee I'd be used to having my nose rubbed in cow cookies? Wouldn't you think that the state would have run out of ways to shaft its employees? Is it too much to expect an occasional expression of gratitude or appreciation?
On Sept. 16, John Brothers, president of Classified Senate, informed us through the September newsletter that financing for the "Margin of Excellence." (which, if approved, would result in annual salary increases for faculty and unclassified employees of more than amount classified have been receiving), might be at the expense of classified employees.
He further points out that recent increases in state contributions for unclassified retirement programs were accompanied by decreased state contributions for classified retirement programs. While I'm not 100 percent behind the Margin of Excellence proposal, it simply must not be classified employees who become the sacrificial lams — yet again.
But where is our voice? Brothers, who is probably our most active and productive president, suggests writing to the governor. Maybe. My own experience with that was an exercise in futility. Perhaps a petition would be effective and I would be glad to obtain signatures in Wescue Hall.
On the heels of that announcement followed an article in the Sept. 17 Kansan about further slashes of meager benefits by way of monthly payments, beginning Jan. 1, for health insurance, with rates based on income. The Kansan article didn't specify whether this additional
withholding was for all employees or just those who now have single membership in Blue Cross / Blue Shield, whose premiums are currently paid by the state. On top of that is a discriminatory "discount" of $10 per month for non-smokers. Why not for non-druggies, alcoholics, non-hypochondriacs or non-two-ton-Tessies? Who are these phantoms who keep speaking as our moral conscience? I'll speak for myself, thank you, and I say that if discrimination is legal everywhere except under affirmative action guidelines for employment, then let it be at least thoughtful discrimination. Why not base health insurance rates on medical history rather than salary? Documenting those records is better than verifying whatever "proof" is required for non-smokers. Why should I help pay for the attention-getting hypochondriacs, mental and physical, who drain the resources of the medical profession, and vacation in hospital beds?
It's ironic that as the country celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of the Constitution, we read on the same page of the newspaper or hear in the same segment of the news the Iran-contra hearings, the Bork investigation, Biden's "noncrediting" of sources for his speeches and the governor of Kansas calling a special meeting of the Legislature for approval of his highway improvement program. This president, Haydon, apparently, can come up with creative bookkeeping for his own pet projects, but not for state universities or state employees.
borrow a fitting excerpt from "America":
"Let mortal tongues awake,
Let all that breathe partake
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong."
It's time our tongues awake and our apathetic silence broke. It's time for our Bill of Rights, and that should be the formation of a strong union — amen.
Barbara Paris, administrative officer 1, department of English.
Dedicated advisers
We would like your readers to know that we consider Mr. Brad Taylor's column on Sept. 9 to be libelous of the Department of African and African-American Studies in particular and of the University in general. Needless to say, we cannot recognize any of our faculty in the picture which he presents.
Our experience has been no different from that of other advisers in the college, namely, offering and endeavoring to get each student to take advantage of the full range of advising services, and working patiently with each advisee.
The college carefully "trains" and orientates its advisers every year, with the result that we have a corps of faculty who know the system intimately, know what pertinent advice to give, how to involve puzzled students in charting their way forward, and where to refer them for additional information extraneous to the matter in hand but potentially useful to a given student in the longer run.
The Department of African and African-American Studies, gratuitously assailed by Mr. Taylor, is proud to be foremost among this trained band of teachers dedicated to the welfare of all students at KU. For several years we have advised in the college honors program and at large, and have co-advised with the School of Business. Scores of students and colleagues can testify to our efficiency. If Mr. Taylor has genuine and reliable evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to sit down with him and talk about it.
Arthur D. Drayton, professor of African Studies
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed