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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, October 12, 1982
Students getting a say
At the University of Kansas, the standard method of dealing with a problem — no matter how pressing — is to form a committee.
The University is following its traditional course in response to the announcement that more budget cuts may be necessary. But this time, the committees that have been formed may be the most effective method.
15 These student advisory committees, which student body president David Adkins proposed in August, are designed to give students some say on where KU should make additional cuts to compensate for the state's continuing budget troubles.
The committees were approved last month, but they may be implemented earlier than planned, in light of recent comments from some state legislators that the state may be broke by March. Each committee will advise a particular dean on how that particular school should make any needed cuts.
The committees will be made up of Student Senate members and students from that school.
The committees will only be as effective as the deans allow them to be, but the idea seems to be generally supported.
Patricia Ewalt, dean of the school of social welfare, said, "I'm not sure the students were aware of what was happening when budget cuts were made over the summer. But whatever students would tell us about what they desire, that's great."
Horward Mossberg, dean of pharmacy, said the administration would be glad to hear the students' opinions, but, "we're not talking about an area with great flexibility."
There might not be much room for maneuvering, but these committees still provide the average student a vehicle by which he or she can communicate their ideas and concerns to the people responsible for making decisions.
Nothing ages one quite like trip to the local video parlor
Sometimes during a long, hot Dallas summer, I became a "ma'am."
I don't know how it happened, or why. I don't look all that much different. I don't talk differently. I don't think I act differently. But for some reason strangers have started addressing me.
I first noticed it at the grocery store, where the nubile young carry-out boys used to toss a 10-pound bag of groceries and a case of canned pop into my arms, then saunter off, leaving me to stagger to my car, where the whole bag would go flying as I reached for my keys.
now, they practically kill themselves getting to the bags. recently I bought one small sack of groceries — who can afford more — and the fellow at the store practically pinned me to the ground to get the bag away from me. "No, I INSIST,'ma am," he said with a sweet little high
TRACEE HAMILTON
school smile. How could I refuse?
the sides of the game, straining on tipte to see what I'm doing.
I turn and the guy who works the counter has brought me a stool to sit on. "Thought you might like it."
These little darlings, who should be at home learning the new math, giggle and point and generally make a nuisance of themselves until you give up in disgust and turn the machine over to them. Then they immediately post a new high order of 100, making you wish you were dead. Or young.
Do I look like a walking corpse or what?
I'm beginning to have a new respect for my parents' "When I was young" sermons. I even spot a few myself, when I get really up, or when I've been called "mm am" for the 10th time.
'Do I took me like that?' she asks. The girls are just trying to be polite, and I suppose the feminist in my should be pleased that they don't address me as "girl" or "chicky," but I'm too young to be old.
Things got progressively worse I decided to take a detour to my favorite video parlor, which was featuring two games of Asteroids for a quarter. Not that I can play Asteroids; I'm teaching myself as I go. Anyway, I'm playing along, and doing poorly I might add (I always hit "thrust" and suicide myself into boulders), when I feel someone behind me.
Video parliers are places that most emphasize the differences between "youth" and "ma'am." Let's face it, video is kids' stuff. Literally, the controls are designed for nimble little fingers; the brightly colored figures are meant to attract the younger audience. You can see the faces of Major Astro and his "All systems go" have a difficult time adjusting to SpACE invaders.
Not only are the children of this new generation experts at video games, they know it and will not let you forget it. I always get a sinking feeling when, right in the middle of an intense Ms. Pac-Man session, I see grubby little fingers, attached to grubby little children, clutch
How did we amuse ourselves, we who were born too late for Hula Hoops and too early for Gaigaia? I think, in my advanced years my memory sometimes fails me, that we played a lot of tackle football, rode our bikes for hours at a time and spent our quarters on baseball cards, which were a nickel a pack in those long-ago days.
Or we hung out in a place we called The Root Beer Store, drinking real carbonated beverages and reading Archie Rich and Arche comics off the rack. a good way to avoid paying the 15 cents.
I must also confess that a good deal of our play time was mounted mocking our favorite TV shows. My cousins and I played "Bonanza" (I was Little Joe), and we were meticulously act out the previous Sunday's episode, with added embellishments, of course.
But in my favorite video hangout the other day, I listened in horror and amazement as two kids banged, beat and kicked the Donkey Kong machine and used words I couldn't have spelled at their age — and I was a champion speller. They then directed their physical abuse at each other, probably the most exercise or adventure they'd experienced all day.
Worse yet, some of these little angels probably headed home from the video palace, plugged in the Atari and played the same games on the TV screen until bedtime. Then they probably lay in the dark, playing hand-held electronic games until the chirping noises gave them away.
I don't resent today's kids and their fun. Our parents didn't grow up with television, yet few of them withheld it from our generation when we were getting started. I also think these video games can have a useful and productive place in our lives. I just wish I could figure out what place is, so I could justify the beaucoup bucks I pour into the electronic escapes every week.
But I don't envy them either. They are missing the fun of growing up in yards, alleys, playgrounds; the inventing of imaginary friends; the choosing of one old house in town to be designated as haunted; the adventures in school; the visiting of all those places kids seem to gravitate toward.
I also feel sorry for them. Because one of these days, some little sucker somewhere is going to get an early set of dentures after he calls me "ma'sm."
KANSAN
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"On the Sunny Side of the Street"
Iacocca auto run for president
Somebody said that Lee Iacoca wanted to run for president
More precisely, the Wall Street Journal said that Lee Iacoca, chairman of the Chrysler Corp., was considering leaving his car company for a venture into politics.
"Running would be fun," mused Jacocca, "but what would I do if I won?"
Well, for starters, he could cut inflation, unemployment and defense spending. Once all that is taken care of, he could bring about nuclear disarmament, peace with the Soviets and a solution to world hunger. And from there, we could move on to crisis, the Middle East crisis and midlife crisis.
It sounds far-fetched for one man to do this, but Lee Iacocca occasionally makes amazing things happen. In 1979, Chrysler was near bankruptcy, so Iacocca went to Washington; D.C., talked Congress into $1.2 billion in loan guarantees and saved the corporation from financial ruin. Chrysler reported a 1982 second-quarter profit of $107 million.
In order to help Chrysler's straining payroll, Iacoca volunteered to take a cut in his own pay. A big he. He went from $360,000 a year to $1 a year.
Any man who can talk to Congress about a billion dollars, save the prestige of a national manufacturer and make only a buck a year from it would be a dandy president in my book.
Jerry Rudolph Ford, Jimmy Earl Carter and
Ronnie Wilson Reagan.
The "Iaccao Administration" has a certain ring to it, somewhere between a regine band and a new pasta dish. And his full name, Lido Anthony Iaccao, fits right in with the ranks of
Believe it or not, it is time once again to begin choosing our next President of the United States. Of course, the actual election is still more than two years away, but serious contenders for the Oval Office are already forming their campaign strategies.
If Lee Iacocca does not appeal to you to lead this country, there are many other aspiring
HAL KLOPPER
candidates for the 1984 presidency. Here are a few to consider:
— John Glenn. As an astronaut, Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth in a spacecraft. Now he is a U.S. sensor and has a presidential plan that is simply out of this world.
—Jerry Falwell. If elected, Falwell, the head of the Moral Majority, would certainly lead us in national prayer before our Wheaties every morning. He still supports the three R's in public school — Reading, Righting and Repenting. I don't know, but I hear that he has a ball of a campaign going.
—Edward Kennedy. A fine politician, but would you let him drive your car?
-Jerry Lewis. If this comedian can raise $30
million in 22 hours, just think what he can do for the economy in four years.
—Ronald Reagan. He's our president now. (At least, that his what aides tell him). President Reagan is the man who said that government was the problem. "The president has has the problem of proving the truth."
"Steve Siliberger. Never heard of him? Well, he ran for president in 1980. That's when he was a senior in high school. The law says that the chief justice should never have anything about how old the candidates have to be.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger. The body-builder's foreign citizenship prevents him from taking office, but he has an awesome idea for an arms build-up.
Of course, it is much too early in the race to pick out a winner. But if I had to make a decision right now, Lido Anthony facoce would get my vote. The other candidates don't hold a spark plug to him. If Chrysler can make such a remarkable recovery, then so can America.
These candidates realize that being president means instant fame, glory, money and Secret Service protection. But they also know that the presidency involves constant pressure and danger. One man's decisions affect people the world over.
Taking all these factors into consideration, I respectfully decline my nomination for President of the United States of America by my party. If elected, I would have to neglect this country's power for most of my term, because city operations only on Friday and Saturday nights.
Lee Iacocca would take good car of us.
Elizabeth Dole out to change biased laws
United Press International
By HELEN THOMAS
The president has given Elizabeth Dole, his dynamic assistant for Public Liaison, the green light to organize an attack on sex bias and legal inequity.
WASHINGTON — Following the demise of the Equal Rights Amendment, which he opposed, President Reagan is now making a serious effort to reintroduce the amendment's sex discrimination on the government books:
Dole, who was an ERA supporter, is enthusiastic about the battle plan and thinks that she will have the support of feminists in ridding government regulations of obvious discrimination. She said a "quiet revolution" taking place with a "tidal wave of women coming into the work force."
"We have to move them to corrective legislation," she said.
Dole has her work cut out for her in pursuing Reagan's pledge to work with 50 state governors
She asks knowledge giving her husband, Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., a nudge when he introduced a bill at the president's behest before being appointed to sanitize 100 laws containing sex bins.
In addition, she said, the Justice Department has organized a team of 15 to 20 lawyers to look into discrimination in each government agency and department.
In a letter to Sen. Dole on Sept. 27, Reagan said the bill Dole and introduced would revise a number of statutes identified as "sex biased" in a Justice Department report last June.
"As important as this is, all of us realize that it is only one step that must be followed by many
others," he said. "But in the end, I hope we will be able to say that full equality before the law is achieved."
Dole, who holds a Harvard law degree, said she had been to two meetings with the president to discuss plans that she was certain would show the department "in the drive for equality in the workplace.
Her questioning of the president is credited with forcing the White House to accelerate the rate at which he plans to change his policy.
At a news conference July 28, reporter Sarah McClendon, long an active member of the National Woman's Party, challenged Reagan to make public the Justice Department interim report on government-wide discriminatory regulations.
Helen Thomas is a White House correspondent for United Press International.
Letters to the Editor
Tragedies of WWII. Middle East not akin
To the Editor:
In reply to the Oct. 7 letter to the editor headlined "Figures don't matter," although I agree that numbers of slain do not legitimate any massacre, there are marked differences between the tragedies of World War II and of the Middle East.
First of all, one must look at the recent history of war-torn Lebanon. Massacres such as this have been going on in Lebanon and Israel for more than eight years. Another example that did not receive much coverage happened in January 1976, when the PLG went into the city of Damour and massacred a large number of people. Such massacres are part of the terrible cycle of violence that plagues the Middle East.
Secondly, Antonia Smith, the writer of the letter, has ignored many facts that have been on the front pages of most major newspapers: 1) The Israelia did not go into Lebanon to kill every man, woman and child; 2) The Israeli army forcefully stopped the massacre in Gaza; 3) The Israelia army has since then taken measures to ensure prevention of any further slayings.
As to her claim that Israel is following in Hitler's footsteps, let us contrast Hitler's Europe to modern Israel. Hitler's rule was a brutal partnership. Israel is a representative democracy.
tinually shelled northern Israeli towns and occasionally raided them, killing innocent men.
The official policy of the Nazi regime was territorial expansion and extermination of the Jewish people. Israel entered Lebanon only to destroy the PLO military presence that can
P Palestinian Arabs who chose to remain in Israel after 1948 have full citizenship and complete civil and voting rights. There are also members of Knesset (the Israeli parliament).
When news of the massacre broke in Israel, major protests pressured the government to issue a full-scale investigation. In Hitler's Europe, Jews had no rights. They had no citizenship, their property was confiscated and they were systematically exterminated. Pew researchers dared to protest against the government while millions were slaughtered
Our own government is not lily white. Does Smith feel any remorse over the My Lai massacre or the one million dead Cambodians, due partially to U.S. policy in the Far East?
This event does not, as Smith implied, undercut the moral decency of every Israel. Their value system is based upon the same great work as ours — the Bible. They, too, read Isaiah 2:4 and hope for the day when "they shall beat their swords in plowshares and their spears
The way to peace in the Middle East is to break the cycle of violence and revenge by negotiation, not by distorting facts and calling names. The recent massacre was a horrible event, and if they will pay for their mistakes they will pay for their mistakes by the hand of the democratic processes of their government.
into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor ever again be trained for war.
Jordan Fedder Manhattan junior
Acquisitions not cut
To the Editor:
Your lead editorial on Oct. 7 contained the statement that "the library is cutting acquisitions." Since many people have worked very hard to insistently that, I would like to state the actual case.
In 1891-32, the library had $1,621,736 for acquisitions. For the current year, that fund is $1,08,794 — an increase of 16 percent, some of which, of course, will be offered to oefet
This increase has been made possible by an 11 percent increase in the base allocation, supplemented by special one-time grants from the University of Wisconsin Association and the University administration.
In the budget cuts that have had to be made in recent weeks, the acquisitions allocation has been spared, with the library opting to cut operating expenses and allocations for other operating expenses.
This correction on the library does not, of course, alter the basic thrust of your well-written and thoughtful editorial.
Dean of Libraries
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