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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, January 14 1983
Defense funds miss aim
Appearing at a Wichita fund-raiser Wednesday, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig said he was not surprised by an $8 billion cut in the 1984 Defense Department spending request. He didn't say he was happy about it.
"Any reduction involves risk," he said. "If we fail to establish priorities for future reductions, we're going to be guilty of some very serious misjudgments."
Although the priorities Haig might like to see established could prove hard for some to swallow, his observation was on target. Americans cannot afford to pour money into projects that consistently go down the tubes or that are obsolete by the time anything's ready for production.
The aborted rescue of American hostages in Iran should have been enough to point out the weakest areas of U.S. defense. While "our boys at the front" cannot depend on helicopters and other conventional military
equipment that are used every day, the government continues the avalanche of funds falling to development of weapons that most of humanity hopes will never be used.
Although President Reagan claims test scores show that the quality of enlisted military personnel is at an all-time high, the ability and readiness of U.S. military forces is still in question. Despite regular pay increases, the salaries of enlisted soldiers are still barely enough to support a family, even with benefits. Financing for better pay and benefits must be a top priority if U.S. leaders hope to recruit and retain intelligent and dependable soldiers.
To some, it may be reassuring to believe that the latest in high-tech super-weapons are sufficient to protect U.S. borders. But unless our enemies are suicidal, American dollars would be better spent making sure that crucial missions are not botched because conventional equipment cannot be depended on.
King's birthday recalls lessons still unlearned
My first memory of Martin Luther King Jr. is,
of the day he was killed.
I was in elementary school, and I udot't understand what his death meant. I had not digested anything he had said, but I felt sad that he had died.
When I got into high school, we began to celebrate his birthday every Jan. 15. We would see slides and listen to a tape of his "I have a dream" speech. After the speech I would inevitably find myself pinned against a locker, beaten and relieved of my money.
The rationale behind the beating was that King had been for black people, and that white people
MATT SCHOFIELD
had hated and killed him for this. I was white and, therefore, deserved punishment for my membership in the race that killed him.
In high school the celebration remained the same, sana beating. We would be treated to the same slideshow and tape after which we would cry and bemoan the loss of a great man.
I respect Martin Luther King Jr. more than I respect any other person in this century. But now that I have read his philosophy and studied his life, I am confident I felt in elementary school was misplaced.
What is sad is that we now believe King was for black people. We view him in much the same manner we view George Washington; as a statesman who planned to pattern statuses on and name streets after.
His words are now important because he said them, and not the other way around. We have embraced the body, made a hero out of the man and discarded his soul.
The image of King has survived, but the importance of his message has not. We have strayed from the light, and we are as far from the promised land as we were before him.
Gross inequities exist in the United States. Color still gauges the measure of a man. The racial tensions so evident in the 1960s are once more becoming noticeable.
Somehow, we, the children of King's dream, have failed. We have not walked hand in hand; we have not even made an effort.
The banners of equality, justice and peace, which were waved so fervently a score years ago, lay soiled and deserted — trampled by the "Me Generation."
We have relegated the civil rights movement to the status of an interesting cultural fad. We let it grow.
It is a movement so important it should supersede all other problems, a movement which should be so basic to a just society that it has been forgotten. Yet, if it has been forgotten, and we have regressed
Replacing the passive resistance of King — his firm belief that just causes would overcome only if brought about in a just manner — are violent race riots. In the last few years cities as close as Denver and Wichita have seen battles between minorities and police. Over Christmas break, for the second time in two years, Miami was ripped by a race riot.
The unemployment rate of black youths is about 50 percent every summer, and the rate for other minorities isn't much lower.
The system of public school integration through busing, perhaps the most important cause and the greatest single achievement of the civil rights movement, is disintegrating before our eyes. We are heading back to a separate place when we return to school, even if been shown to be very separate, but not equal.
Affirmative action, the only sensible way to integrate minorities into an unwilling business community, was dealt what might have been a killing blow last week when the Justice Department contended that the New Orleans department's quota system was unconstitutional.
Our society is once more past the point of splitting up. We are now rebuilding the barricades and digging deeper into two separate camps.
By neglecting the truth, by refusing to remember, by burying Martin Luther King Jr.'s message with him, we have become a tense society, just as we were in the 1960s.
We have to change and reverse our downward slide, or something is going to bust, something is going to happen, something that could irreparably damage race relations.
But unlike the 1960s, we do not have the gentle rain of King's revelations to cool-us down, to
And, as James Baldwin said, "God gave Nose
the rain sign, no more water, the fire next
to me."
NCAA's new grade rule misdirected
College athletes will be forced to hit the books harder in the future, but the National Collegiate Athletic Association was taught a lesson in the process.
The NCAA Tuesday approved Proposal 48, a measure that will beef up standards of admission for incoming freshman student athletes. In the eyes of many, the move is long in coming, and it had the enthusiastic backing of contributions as the University of Missouri and UCLA.
But 48 also sharply divided the NCAA delegates along racial lines and, when the smoke from the voting cleared, brought harsh words and doomsday prophecies on both sides.
"Ihope this message goes out to black athletes at all institutions," Joseph Johnson, president of Grambling State, said. "They don't want you at white institutions."
Under proposal 48, incoming athletes would have to take in high school a "core curriculum" of 11 academic courses, including English, math, social sciences and natural or physical sciences. They also must have a 2.0 grade point average and a minimum 700 combined SAT score or 15 composite ACT score. The proposal will not be applied until August 1986.
The NCAA did, however, approve an additional measure that was seen by some as providing a loophole to 48. The measure says that athletes who don't meet requirements can receive scholarships, but cannot play or practice for one year and will have three years of eligibility only if they meet academic requirements of all freshman athletes.
Black educators charged that proposals requiring minimum ACT or SAT scores would be racially and regionally discriminatory. They also questioned why no blacks were included on either the NCAA or the American Council of Education committee that wrote the measures.
"I do not want anyone to get the idea that we are not concerned with stronger academic standards." Johnson said. "But we also know how biased the ACT and ICT tests can be, and many people are in many, many young people. You're looking at a living example. We have no input whatsoever in any of
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Other black officials were less tacit in their objections. "They're saying to basketball athletes, 'If you want to play basketball or football, stay out of white institutions,'" Jesse Stone, president of all-black Southern University, said. "I'm not surprised by anything white America does."
Conference and university officials will leave the San Diego convention convinced that the problems of collegiate athletics and academies have at least been ousted. But by 1986, when 48 men were ousted, the college added even further to the bulging rule book without once taking a look in its own back yard.
Why make the high school and the student himself try to wade through the NCAA rule book, which most administrators admit is confusing at best and incomprehensible at worst? Admitance to any university is still the responsibility of that university.
Athletic Director Monte Johnson said, soon after he was hired, that KU would look into finding a staff member whose full-time responsibility would be to ensure that KU was meeting NCAA obligations. To this date, no such action has been taken.
TRACEE HAMILTON
Then-Athletic Director Jim Lessig, pleaded ignorance on the part of Kansas after announcing that Bell would lose a year of eligibility. He said that, considering the maze of regulations with which a high school now has to comply, mistakes were understandable.
KU was recently penalized for giving running back Kervin Bell a scholarship when his grade point average was not high enough to quality. The transcript arrived after Bell completed summer work, which is not allowed. The problem was easily blamed on Edison High in Huntington Beach, Calif., which sent the transcript to KU.
It's unfortunate that the issue is becoming a racial one. While the ACT and SAT, as well as the IQ exam, have come under fire as being racially biased, the real issue at hand is not as simple as
It should be obvious to KU administrators that, if this University wants to maintain high academic standards and a credible reputation, it must also establish itself as the member devoted to just that would be a step in the right direction if, in fact, Johnson's statement was not athletic director's rhetoric.
But, as usual, the NCAA has taken the pressure off the institution and put it on the ground.
Bob
Further, the NCAA did nothing to help those athletes who qualify for admission but have trouble with collegiate-level class work. Preventing athletes who cannot make the grades from entering college on an athletic scholarship is one step, but the NCAA must go further. It should and must help the athlete who gained admittance without being able to read or write. They also don't have access to sports with the problem, but they don't. Only recently have schools penalized by the NCAA tightened their own guidelines, and then it has been at the insistence of the school's officials and faculty.
'Age of Disbelief' skepticism is tainting American speech
By ROSE NADER
By ROSE NADER New York Times Syndicate
WINSTED, Conn. — Manners of speaking, according to linguistic scholars, tell us something important about a society. Consistent use of honorific titles, polite expressions and profanity, for instance, reflect self-images as well as roles that position you in the world. I've been wondering about certain words and phrases that give out disturbing signals.
My friendly department store saleslady, before telling me she is out of cotton towels, begins her reply, "To be perfectly honest. More and more, the people I talk with on the telephone and frankly" regularly converge. Some use harder assurances like "Be frank about it . . .".
I am not aware of any national survey revealing a rising trend in such usage. But as far as I can observe these "credibility" phrases are not just increasing; they are being used in the most unlikely places. An old friend contested, "To tell you the truth, we were caught up in shopping today." Another explained, without the slightest provocation, "Believe me, believe me, I have to leave."
On television the examples abound. I once saw Sen. John Glenn lean on the "In all honesty . . ." crutch four times in a 15-minute interview and he is not known to have believability problems. Once I saw an employee being interviewed on the evening news about his company, which had just closed up, "I just don't believe it, to be honest with you," he said. Who would have
doubled his words, even without his added assurance of truthfulness?
While switching channels, I caught a football announcer exclaiming: "To be perfectly frank, the Falcons need a break." Far out!, as they
Has the Age of Disbelief come to such extremes? Must warranties of truthfulness be made verbally explicit because people have come to fear that their friends may not believe them if truth is simply implied in their conversation?
Granted, there is enough phoniness and fraud in the economic and political marketplaces to put all of us on our guard. But does this well-founded skepticism have to wash over into our neighborhood chats, into exchanges between friends or even relatives?
The last straw broke for me when I heard someone say: "Truthfully, I don't know what to believe anymore." I now ask people who use a preface of sincerity: "You mean that sometimes you are not 'truthful', are not 'frank', are not 'honest' is that we want to be honest?" This found this approach brings amuse and a knowing nod that such speech habits are unbecoming.
The root problem is not language but the pervasive feeling that distrust is so widespread that people need to use such language to be believed. This is what troubles me. Perhaps were each one of us to notice these instances, we could help restore confidence in our discourse.
Straightening out our talk is a way, after all, of talking straight.
Rose Nader gives her occupation as home-
maker.