Page 4 Opinion University Daily Kansan, September 29, 1982 Making an investment Monday's announcement of the fall semester's official enrolment was, on the face of it, some good news. However, just under the surface was a problem that can be linked to the state's action that has been a watershed of problems: Budget cuts. This semester's enrollment is up by 410 students from last fall. There are 24,400 students enrolled, compared with 23,990 enrolled last year, according to Gil Dyck, dean of educational services. But the bad news is that the average course load for degree-seeking undergraduates has dropped from 14.86 credit hours to 14.65 credit hours. Chancellor Gene A. Budig attributed the drop to the recent budget cuts, which prohibited the University from offering enough sections of certain classes. As a result, many students opted to take fewer classes. The impact of this drop in credit hours may not become evident until the 1984-1985 budget year, which the Legislature will plan at its next session. In Kansas, universities receive state money based largely on their full-time equivalent enrollment, the figure calculated by dividing the total number of credit hours by the average course load. With a decrease in the average load, KU could be in line for even more budget cuts. State lawmakers should realize that giving higher education enough money to function properly is really making an investment in the state's future. Effects of this year's cutting are showing up in many — if not all areas. All levels of government have money trouble. But the Legislature never should allow the time to come when it has to tell KU to lower its expectations, rather than to expect the needed assistance. If your goal is to be a writer you can bet dues ain't cheap One of the surest ways to get a laugh — a good bely laugh at that — is to tell somebody that you want to be a writer. First they will look at you in disbelief, then ask you whether you are kidding or just drunk, then they will laugh in your face for five minutes. And with good reason, in their minds at least, because there isn't much money in writing. Go into stocks or investment banking or computers, they say, anything but staring at a typewriter for hours, days and weeks trying to write something profound that will probably bring you $1.98. That's why my father always cried when he told him I was going to major in journalism. TOM GRESS never could understand why I didn't want to go into something like marketing where you didn't have to be very bright to make money. Despite all that, however, writing is the only thing I do halfway decently, so I was rather pleased last week when a brochure from the Mereidh Literary Agency came in the mail. You see, Scott Meredith is one of the biggies — an agent who handles the likes of Norman Mailer and Carl Sagan. And he is smart enough to get big, big advances, like $4 million for Mayer's next book, *The Lonely Man*. Alan Dam writes a novel about publishing, Scott Meredith will be one of those guys who owns the town. How, where and why Scott Meredith got my name I'll never know, because I've never tried to sell anything I've written. In fact the only thing that I've written, outside of newspapers and English classes, is a semi-bad country-western song, written one night after a few to many Got tissue paper on my shoe But legs are big, your eyes are bake; but All I've got is tissue paper on my shoe. I should have kept drinking, right? Actually I did and I wrote a chorus line, but it can't be Your legs are long, your eyes are blue. printed here because it's mostly sexist. If it got printed I would get letters from every women's group on campus, accusing me of every crime from the Teapot Dome Scandal to Watergate. And I don't need letters from women's groups accusing me of being a sexist. Because I'm not. It's just hard to write songs about missing people by referring to their intellectual capacity. But I if find it hard to believe that this big-time literary agent would be very interested in some At any time, I think the lyrics are about as good as every country and western song I've ever heard. Maybe I should just transfer to business school. Then I could go into investment banking, get a job in Johnson County and a country club game, and play golf and tennis on weekends. But I wouldn't be very good at that kind of life for very long. So I figured I should stick to writing, just as long as it isn't songwriting. And while I was reading about Scott and his big stance of writers, my mind boggled at the prospects. this guy wants me to send him material? I can hardly stand to think about it. Maybe I'd hit it big, too. Maybe I'd write some novel about CLA and be more serious than East or East, and of course there'd be lots of sex in it. Scott would go out and get me a big advance, my book would be in all the right stores and would get great reviews in all the right magazines. Next it would be the big time. Talk shows. Time magazine covers. Traveling around the country. For a story or article of 5,000 words or less, it's going to cost $100 to get somebody at the literary agency to read it. The prices go up the longer one writes. If that didn't deflate my dreams. I couldn't get $100 together if terrorists were holding my mother hostage. And I'm not too crazy about paying somebody to read something I wrote. Then I read the fine print. Scott wants more than my material. He wants my money. Then again it may be the only way to get somebody to read something I wrote. Coverage of local music scene falls short To the Editor: At least once a year, a Kansan reporter attempts to write an article dealing with the local music scene, and each time, the piece falls ridiculously short of reality. It is embarrassingly obvious that Vince Hess did not bother to research the subject matter before submitting his report on "true New Wave music" printed in the Sept. 21 Kansan. It appears that Hess received his information from a grand total of two sources, both of them credible ones, but he failed to listen to what they were telling him. Although Hess mentioned Wilson Stiles of Thumbs as saying that most of the groups that call themselves New Wave "are baring bands with flashy designer clothes and meaningless songs," he be repeatedly referred to both Thumbs and the LeRo Brothers as New Wave bands — a label, I'm sure, that neither Wilson nor Gary Rice of the LeRo Brothers would claim. If Hess were truly interested in taking a look at the local music scene, or "New Wave" scene as Hess would put it, he would have gone to see the Embrassment on Sept. 17 At Off the Wall Hall, or R.E.M. on Sept. 20 At Pardoy Hall in Kansas City, Mo. More importantly, staff member of the campus radio station KJHK FM 91, which maintains 18 hours of progressive rock programming every day. There are a number of area bands he could have interviewed in addition to Thumbs and the LaRoi Brothers: the Mortal Micromotz, Get Done, Scream, and Chuck. Doe and the Embarrassment, to name a few. If Hess were interested in researching the new music scene as a whole, he would have tuned in KJHK for any amount of time, or perhaps glanced through a copy of New York Rocker or New Musical Express, or even bothered to listen to her albums. He would have grown up R.E.M., Au Pairs, Scritti Politti, Psychedelic Furs, Dexy's Midnight Runners, the Beat, or Wall of Voodoo. To say the least, Hess gave an extremely shallow account of this area's progressive music Ray Velasquez Overland Park senior advance and new music in general. I'm afraid quoting a song from Blyljoa is worst LP just enough to have the whole movie. However, Hess has proven one thing. New Wave is not dead. New Wave is alive and well and living in the minds and pocketbooks of headbanded, miniskirted hoppers who'll borrow the Cadillac to see the Cars, Jean Jett, the Carlyle to see the Gelly Hunt and the Kinetics, and "punk out." Holocaust figures off I send this in response to a letter to the editor ran ran Sept. 22, headlined "Holocaust corruption." However, it must be clearly understood that Hitler and his regime did not "... kill Jews by the hundreds," as Zoughi stated, but rather by the millions. In fact, about six million Jews were killed in Nazi Germany. Berry Meyer Indeed, I must agree with Reza Zoughti that "this past week incident (in the Palestinian camps), history saw one of the most vicious human massacres (where) hundreds of women, children, infants and men were lined up and shot in cold blood." Brooklyn, N.Y., junior To the Editor: Squad selection biased To the Editor: I'm writing this letter in reference to the Sept. 21 story in the Kansan in which KU student Michael Dolan claimed that the selection process for the KU Spirit Squad is unfair. I would recommend that Lisa Gutierrez made in her Sept. 23 column concerning the spirit squirt judging. First of all, I hope that Kansan readers weren't misled by the obvious attempt of spirit squand advertise Cathy Queen to make Dolan sound like a poor loser. Dolan, in fact, should becommended for speaking up against such an injustice. I witnessed this injustice firsthand a few weeks ago when I, too, tried out for the spirit squirt. I’m not so disappointed that I didn’t make the squad as I am angry and concerned that I will be torn asam andprobably will continue to prevent talented students from making the squad. Gutierrez wrote that only one judge on the panel was a Greek. That, however, is not the case. Most, if not all, the judges were Greeks or affiliates, mostly from the larger houses. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the majority of those on the varsity and junior varsity squads are Greeks, also mostly from the larger houses. Last spring, Queen also appointed a sorority member to fill an open spot on the squab who did not even make it to the semifinals when she did try out. Queen, unfortunately, chose to overlook those who made it to the finals. And one yell leader who recently made the squad told me that he only made the squad because Queen interceded on his behalf. Fair, indeed. Obviously, the judges are not going to be impartial when they know the contestants personally and in some cases, live in the same fraternities and sororities as the contestants. Gutierrez also wrote that there was a gymnastics coach on the panel and that there were a total of five judges. If there was a gymnastics coach, I certainly didn't see him. And for most of the tryouts, there were only four judges. Queens insists that the dominance of Greeks on the spirit squirt is due to word of mouth. She's probably right. It seems that before the tryouts recently, she sent versity spirit squirt members, along with a football player, to several houses to attend. No such group, however, was sent to the dorms. It's equally distressing that Queen has been unfair in other ways in regard to selecting spirit squad members. I know of two instances in which Queen has filled empty spots on the squad by appointing fraternity members who had not even tried out. It would have been nice if she had selected someone who had tried out, but didn't make it originally. This is not meant to be an attack on the Greeks or the Greek system. It is not their fault that the spirit squad judging favors them; they might as well take advantage of it. But I do think that it is easier to have the process fair, a process is fair. I hope that in the future she will really have an impartial panel of judges. But as the selection process stands now, independents, minorities and even members of smaller Greek houses, should think twice before trying out for the spirit squad, even if they feel they have the talent to make it. They are likely to leave frustrated by an unfair process. Barbara Clark Salina sophomore The University Daily KANSAN The University Daily Kamanu (USFSD 60-644) is published at the University of Kamanu, 118 Fifth Hall, Kamanu, Fiji. 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