Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, November 17, 1982
Voters set Senate path
The story is the same every year. Only 10 percent of the students on campus turns out to vote in Student Senate elections, and the other 90 percent spends the next 12 months complaining about the worthlessness of the Senate.
It seems unlikely that student government elections will ever draw a majority of the campus population to the polls when a 40 percent to 50 percent turnout is considered good for state and national elections.
But it is only reasonable to expect that if 10 percent of the students elect the representatives of the entire University, it will be to that 10 percent that those representatives cater; after all, those students are their constituents, the ones who put them in office. Why should they be expected not to work for them, rather than the
students who did not care enough to cast a bullet?
Of course, whatever the faults of Student Senate, few elected officers have actually taken this logic to heart. Many do their best to represent the interests of all KU students, even those students who could care less about the Senate's efforts.
The point is, when senators can expect to be held accountable to only a fraction of students, they are less likely to worry about voting for actions that do benefit a small minority. Obviously, only when more students participate in voting will Senate be made more accountable for its shortcomings, which includes the mismanagement of student dollars.
However obvious the problem is, though, the ballot box statistics remain discouragingly similar year after year after year.
Smokeout a time of stress for nicotine-hooked smokers
Tomorrow is the day when all good men and women will put down their cigarettes for 24 hours and all obnoxious non-smokers will come out of the woodwork
The publicity for the American Cancer Society's annual 'Great American Smokeout' has been staggering. Sports and entertainment personalities will lead the smokeout fight, which is intended to get thousands of smokers to kick the habit for good.
Actor Larry Hagman is giving people a "Larry Hagman Special Stop Smokin' Wrist Snappin' Red Rubber Band" for those who light up automatically.
With these handy gadgets, smokers can snap
CATHERINE BEHAN
the rubber band around their wrist and get a slight sting, rather than indulge in a cigarette
Yeah, right, that will work well. I thought it was pretty funny when I saw one of the things. What a waste of money. The American Cancer Society could have used money for cancer research a lot more than it needed the Hagman Specials.
The ACS expects that 16 million to 28 million of the 58 million smokers in the country will try to quit.
If that many do succeed, which I doubt, it will be because of harassment rather than a great loss.
This is the sixth annual smokeout, and for the all the years that I have smoked, I have received so much abuse on this one day each year that, by comparison, no one seems to notice my habit the
I am happy that so many are concerned with my health, but, come on, I am entitled to my vices as long as I am not really bothering anybody else.
Last year, the ACS reported, 16 million tried not to smoke that day, but because of jangled nerves and basic withdrawal symptoms, only 4.5 million made it through the entire 24 hours.
I bet that many of those who did not make it
got jangled nerves because people kept asking
them whether they were going to participate in
Cigarette smoking is bad for the smoker and bad for those in direct contact with his smoke, but some smokers just may not want to quit.
But to those who can handle the harassment and who really want to quit smoking, at least for a few days.
The ACS has some tips for quitting smoking, at least for tomorrow:
1) Drink one of liquids. However, avoid caffeine-laden drinks such as tea, coffee and cola because they only increase the urge to drink alcohol, herbal tea, fruit juice and caffeine-free sodas.
2) Eat low-calorie, high-nutrition food. The urge to nibble will be strong. Stick to fresh fruit, crunchy vegetables or unbuttered popcorn and the urge to nibble won't result in 5 extra pounds. Also, avoid spicy food. It increases the desire to smoke just as caffeine does.
3) Brush your teeth often. Clean teeth and breath will be an incentive to keep them
4) Do anything that keeps your hands busy. A friend of mine once hand-washed all of her sweaters, which kept her hands not only busy, but too wet to light a cigarette. You could also try the Hagman technique and snap your wrist every time you want to smoke.
5) This one is my own: Get up and do something immediately after finishing a meal. This is, for many, a favorite time to light a candle so avoiding the temptation might be the cure.
The ACS purposefully tries to keep the smokeout a light affair. Woody Woodpecker and Pac-Man are even joining the rivolition in Washington, D.C., and Texas, respectively.
That lighthearted approach is probably a very good idea. Being with a person or — horrors — a group of people trying to quit smoking can be a tense experience.
Giving a smoker who is trying to quit a lot of trouble about his habit might be inviting danger. Nicotine is a drug, and withdrawal is a reality — usually a stressful one.
Putting more stress on a smoker who is trying to outit is obonous and not very nice.
So be nice to a smoker to quit tomorrow.
Maybe he'll return the favor next time you're
ready.
It was 8 a.m. when my friend Alex dropped his canvas bag on my living room floor and told me that the duck shoe hunting was the best he had seen in four years of college.
Open season on duck shoes
"Uup, bagged my limit today," he said as he smoothed out his khaki hunting fatigues and sat down on my sofa. "Got myself six pairs of 'em just during the 7:30 classes alone. G got a couple pairs of red, three green pairs and one really pair. You got some coffee made or anything?"
I poured him a cup and asked him just what the hell duck shoe hunting was.
'Why, shoot, it's the finest way I know of to have some sport and beautify the campus at the same time. You never been duck shoe hunting?'
"No."
"Don't I need a hunter's permit or anything? I've never even been hunting before."
"I'll be here at 4:30 a.m. to pick you up. We gotta set up the duck shoe blind and practice some duck shoe calls. Get a good night's sleep, and remember to wear some long underwear. It gets a mite cold out there early in the morning."
"Well hell-fire!!" Alex shouted, slapping me hard across the back, causing coffee to spill down my pant log. "We'll just have to take you out there tomorrow morning and let you try to do it."
"Naw, they used to require that stuff — you know, hunter safety and all that jazz — but the duck shoe population has been growing so much in the last few years that the administration's real worried about a nature imbalance on campus. Those duck shoes, well, they're sort of predators. They'll eat up anything that's unimportant."
"Yes, but aren't duck shoes functional?"
"Yea, sure, if you're a longshoreman. Look,
I've got to go. Remember, be ready tomorrow
morning, and we'll get, you a few trophies for
walls."
The next morning was crisp and cold with a chance of snow flurries — perfect weather, Alex said, for duck shoes.
"I might just bag my limit two days in a row," Alex said as he drove his battered 74. "I think I was trying to get it over."
He grabbed a thermos of coffee and picked up two Remington 870s from the gun rack in the
TOM GRESS
window, handing one to me. We trudged around to the front of Strong. The campus was still quiet.
We set up our blind, then Alex told me about the duck shoes calls to use.
'One of the best ones I use is 'awesome.''
'awesome2'?
"That's right, awesome. Those duck shoe wearers, it's just their word for everything: 'How's the pizza, Chip?' 'Awesome, Jack, simply awesome.' 'How's your girlfriend, Skip?' 'Awesome, Chuck, just absolutely awesome.' 'How's your poor mother dying of heart disease, Bif?' 'Why she is just awesome, Pete, absolutely, positively awesome.' See what I mean? All you have to do is scream awesome once and you'll have a flock of duck shoes on their way to psychology over here. Try one for practice."
"AWWEESSSOOMMMEE!!!!" I screamed.
and listened to it echo off Wescoe Hall's outer walls.
"Not too bad." Alex said, "although try it, make it sound a little more important. Pretend you just found out your house got into Encore or something like that."
We practiced for another half-hour with Alex using some of his other favorite duck shoe calls
— "super," "excellent," and the all-purpose phrase, "Like, it isn't really just too much?"
The sun was now up, and Alex gave me the signal to start with the duck shoe calls. I shouted out a few awesomes, supers and excellentes, and soon we were firing away.
"Hey, over there!" Alex shouted above the gun fire. "A couple of green duck shoes trying to set up a voting booth to select the most personable professor on campus."
Blam! Blam! We dropped the green duck shoes with ease.
"Over there." I shouted to Alex, "two pairs of red duck shoes trying to sell tickets to a
Blam! Blam! We dropped the blue duck shoes.
Blam! Blam! Down went the red duck shoes. We both spotted a pair of blue duck shoes on our head.
Quickly our bags filled up. We reached the duck shoe limit by the time for 8:30 classes. We hauled our backy to the pickup truck, and Alex started up the truck. We drove out onto Jayhawk Boulevard and headed home for Miller Time and the brotherhood of beer.
'Ah, it's too bad,' Alex said. "Only a few more weeks of duck shoe season left."
more weeks of dark snow than I had ever seen.” I said, “I even had fun out there.”
Letters to the Editor
Test. I said, "I've never had an art room." "Well, if you think today is fun just wait for early spring. That's when we trap for moocasins."
Senators selected at random would be more representative
To the Editor
Instead of choosing student senators by majority vote, why not choose them by randomly selecting students from the entire student body? Those who didn't win would decline and those who would could be chosen.
Not only would this save us all the rigamore of choosing between clone <clown>' coilations that may or may not have the best interests of the rest of us at heart, but it would also get students on the Senate who were more representative of the student body.
I think the duties of the Student Senate could be better performed by a randomly chosen group of students than by a group of young politicians chosen by a small fraction of the student body.
Lenexa senior
Ed Stamm
Combat party tasteless
To the Editor:
Nov. It was Veteran's Day. This is a day that has been set aside to observe the contributions and sacrifices of servicemen and servicewomen. Locally, a private club, Gammon's, and radio station KLZR promoted something called a "Clash Combat Party" to celebrate Veteran's Day. The radio ads made it sound like a whole lot of fun. Everyone was supposed to come in clothes that clashed or in combat costumes. There were to be cash prizes for the best outfits. Hand grenades were to be given at the door as favors.
I can only speak for myself. As a veteran, it is my judgment that this party and its promotion on this day was in very bad taste. It is my judgment that the commercial exploitation of a day better suited by quiet and dignified observance is a poor reflection on the sensitivity of the owners and management of both Gammon's and station KLZR. I am offended, angered and deeply saddened by yet another example of the callous public response to the service of my fellow brothers and sisters at arms.
This seems to be another manifestation of a combat chic that I do not comprehend. Camouflage fatigues, web belts, jungle boots and other military paraphernalia are quite the rage among young people who have had the luxury of power having a war zone experience.
William C. Daniels Jr.
Lawrence senior
I served as a non-combatant in Vietnam. I assisted in the performance of autopsies.
Combat quickly loses its allure when one sees the human wreckage that comes from it day after day. Each body bag contained its own horrible surprise. Each torn body represented the torn hopes and dreams of a young man. Indeed, it was all downright heartbreaking.
ASK rebuts charges
Kevin Walker, Momentum candidate for student body president, is quoted as saying, "ASK has not gotten a bill to the Kansas Senate floor concerning higher education in the past several years." Walker is indirectly supported by voters who are one-third of her criticism of Student Senate to an attack on the effectiveness or visibility of ASK — I'm not sure which.
While I am aware that it does little good to get into a shouting match on the pages of a newspaper, a statement concerning the Association of Independent Journalists in last Friday's Kanan demanded correction.
To the Editor
I certainly have no desire to intrude into KU student politics. ASK will work with whoever wins the election. Walker has every right to do so, but it is the responsibility of the student governments, even to reduce its
funding. But to say no bills supported by ASK have been passed is a gross misstatement. I don't know where his information came from — certainly not from the state staff.
I had been asked, I could have explained that a number of bills supported by ASK last year alone were passed into law and signed by the governor. They included amendments to the Higher Education Loan Program of Kansas (another bill supported by ASK several years earlier). The bills are parents as well as students. Another bill, supported exclusively by ASK, makes it illegal to use student fees to construct academic buildings without first holding a student referendum. A third changed Kansas tax laws to deny tax-exempt status to donations made to racially discriminatory schools and colleges. The bills did the Regents' appropriations bill, which provided funds for KU, on which we spend the biggest portion of our time.
I could have informed Walker that ASK testified a number of times before the House and Senate Ways and Means committees, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I team have told him we worked with other student groups from around the nation to defeat President Reagan's proposed reductions in student aid.
I could have pointed out that over the past several months, ASK has been working to develop a new, expanded program of student aid and employment, which has already drawn the support of other higher education groups and legislators.
I could have shown letters of gratitude from the Secretary of State's office on our voter registration drive, which registered several thousand student votes for this fall's election.
I could have discussed the success we have had in getting private colleges and community
colleges interested in working with the public university students in forming the Kansas Student Alliance, which would, for the first time, represent concerns of all 130,600 college students.
I could have explained all these things, had I only been asked. But Walker didn't ask. Neither did Trace Hamilton, before she boldly stated that ASK had done nothing terribly important for her lately. I can only ask of those critical critics that would you have us do that, we are not doing now?
Some have said that if students are unaware of our work, it is our own fault. But if we have to spend more time "blowing our own horn," we will have less time to do the job we are paid to do: represent and advance student interest. It may be that the getting student fee money to do the reporting.
ASK executive director
If Kevin Walker is elected, we will certainly work with him, and I think he will work with us, because if elected, he would that student serve at test server, build a house, not by tearing down. *Mark Tallman*
Homecoming thanks
Lawrence resident
To the Editor:
To these unsung homes of Homecoming '82 — and I think they know who they are — thanks!
*homecoming' 12* is now history. We've heard all about the people who worked to make the weekend a success, and I'm sure we'll continue bearing about some people.
There were others -- all of whom went completely unrecognized. They worked around busy personal schedules to share their time and talent with others of less talent. Their efforts made it possible for many of us to enjoy ourselves.
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