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University Daily Kansan, September 24, 1982
Opinion
Few moochers get aid
If recent studies prove accurate, there are a lot of misconceptions floating around about recipients of federal aid.
A U.S. Labor Department survey made public yesterday said that less than half of the nation's 10.8 million unemployed are receiving unemployment benefits.
One reason given by the department for this is that many of those out of work are going back to school. Some might conclude, then, that these workers simply traded in one form of benefit for another, student financial aid.
But another study, this one sponsored by three college associations, indicates that that conclusion — along with many other notions about student aid — is out of line.
The study, published by the New York Times, showed "that students who received aid worked to meet some of their educational expenses and came from families who could provide them with little or no financial help."
The study also concluded that of the 23 percent of all students in public universities or colleges who receive federal aid, one-third are self-supporting. More than half of the funds awarded go to students whose families earn less than $9,200 a year.
Most of the students, figures showed, could not go to school without the aid they receive.
Stories of abuse of federal aid of any kind get plenty of publicity. These studies, however, give evidence that such abuse occurs far less frequently than some Washington legislators, searching for places to cut the federal budget, would like to think.
Studies such as these should be brought to the attention of legislators who will be considering federal aid packages in the coming weeks.
When cuts have to be made, it is nice to think that the recipients did not deserve the benefits anyway. Sometimes, as here, the facts show otherwise.
WWI film offers backdrop for considering nuclear war
The Australian film "Gallipoli" was very painful to watch for who saw it last Friday and Saturday at the Kansas Union. Certainly, the film leads one to question traditional attitudes toward war that such movies typically promote.
This is not a movie review, but the film can be used as a point of departure for discussion of current peace issues.
"Gallopil" lacked the good guys and bad guys and unquestioned black and white assumptions that are the stuff of many war movies. And its cast is full of people who don't know the movie would have a happy ending, that
MIKE RUNDLE
Guest Columnist
senseless deaths could be avoided. Throughout the film, I found myself drawing parallels to the story's ending.
In 1915 an Allied expedition of British, Australian, French and New Zealand forces attacked the strategic peninsula of Gallipoli in April 1916. Germanardelles from the Turks, allies of Germany.
"Gallipoll" traces the story of two promising young Australian athletes who have differing views of Australian military involvement at Gallipoli.
One man abandons his family in the Australian outback and enlists, although underage, in the Australian cavalry. He does so from a sense of duty to his country. And he best resists patriotic urges that he enlist.
The movie provides a sample picture of life going on with the soldiers in camp seemingly oblivious to the war around them. Until a bungled battle plan abruptly brings the soldiers to the attention of the death, response to the military gain, the men respond to the war as if it were a camping trip.
Contrary to the hopeless feeling one might have at the end of "Gallipoli," I am hopeful that nuclear war scenarios, limited or otherwise, can be avoided. They may not be, especially if people continue to keep the issue of nuclear disarmament at a safe distance, as the characters in "Gallipoli" were able to do with the realities of World War 1.
Thinking about war in the nuclear age is perhaps no more or less difficult than it was in 1915 for the Australians in the movie. For many, the issues today seem as simple as for one hero in the film. This hero argued, for example, that his acquaintance should be shot by a hundred yard dash in less than 10 seconds. Other men who couldn't run nearly as fast had suped, he said.
It can be just as hard to find clear thinking or rational arguments offered by anyone addressing the subject of nuclear arms. Those speaking for disarmament have talked of mobilizing
people's fear and terror of nuclear war. Let us organize a panic stricken molt, they seem to want to attack us, we are ready.
From those arguing for nuclear arms, one hears convoluted language that keeps the gruesome human reality of nuclear war at a safe and sanitary distance. Such phrases as window of vulnerability, a strong military defense, deterrence, a definite margin of superiority and limited nuclear war are often used to the exclusion of specific, simple English.
As in "Gallipoli," the further one is from the human reality of war the easier it is to persist in a course of action that may be questionable at best. An officer who was not on the front lines was able to persist in saying, "I will die" the day of the law. The officer on the front lines asked himself how he could order men to do what he himself would not do. Yet he gave in and signaled the rallying cry. The men under his command voiced hope that the orders to charge into certain death would not come, but trust in him is deeply ingrained — prevailed, and the movie plunged to its ending.
When confronted with the arms race, many are simply confused. In the movie, a message runner did not want to die fighting men from a country that could pose little realistic threat to Australia, yet he enlisted and was carried closer and closer to a senseless death.
U. S. Department of Agriculture planners have researched senseless scenarios of nuclear devastation for the United States using computer simulations that project the extermination of 44 to 88 percent of the U.S. population. This research is being done to predict what and where nuclear supplies will be left in the United States, depending on the time of year, in use of a nuclear war.
I am indignant that important people in this country accept or resign themselves to such nonsense, and I will not assume the role of victim such as the one set up in "Gallioli."
Many people left the theater with teary eyes. One is often able to think more clearly after moving beyond the teary eyes and crying. It was easy for me to cry when I tried to read the music from the opera, but without any perspective, such music and much more is worth preserving from nuclear destruction.
We can grieve for being separated from the many who have died in wars in this century, for the people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and for the many who are dying in conflicts in
Our ability to grieve, our hope and indignation are part of our nature as powerfully functioning human beings. Our actions need not be futile. There is every reason for each of us to adopt the viewpoint that 'I am exactly the right person to turn the arms race around.'
Mike Rundle is a former KU journalism student, now a Lawrence resident. He is a member of the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice and is currently producing a play in a New York theatre company, based on the lives of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
THE DETECT FREE PRESS
COPIES BY THE TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY
NFL: one strike too many?
Anybody can strike these days.
"We have raised people — your sons, your sisters—me to think that when things aren't right they ought to attack. Schoolteachers do it. Everybody does it. Now, because a football player does it, that is considered demeaning." He expressed his concern on the pro football players' strike.
A couple of years ago, before the Philadelphia Eagles lost to the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl, the television network carrying the game ran a 10-minute piece by Dick Vermeil.
The piece sticks in my memory because of Vermill's work habits. Once the season started, Vermill more or less moved into his office in Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium. His day began with football films, ended with football films, and in between was a myriad of X-rays as a nurse. He was amazing at Bibbons days trying to decide which light plays against Green Bay.
I write this because I think it is the only way to explain the above quote. Vermell must have fried his brain on Dallas Cowboy films. Or had him drop a barrel on his head after practice.
Don't get me wrong. I think many groups have a right to strike: without unions and the right to strike, this country might be one big sweat shop. But with unions, there are people who have a right to out and set up a picket list.
If one follows Vermell's reasoning, then
someday the newspapers will start running stories like this:
students are demanding free hot lunches,
substituted crayon boxes, and an extra half-hour
St. Louis (UPI) — Fifth-graders in Charles Lindbergh Elementary School went on strike today, after negotiations with the school district broke off last night.
"We've been treated like little poons long enough," Kirby Dolan, strike organizer, said. "If
we can't get what we want then we'll hold our breath until we turn blue."
See what would happen if everybody followed Dick Vermell's reasoning?
Actually, the players situation is more like this.
Tuesday morning, on CBS News, the second headline after Lebanon was the NFL players' strike. After dealing with an international crisis full of death, destruction and potential world conflict, it must have been tough for Diane Sawyer to keep a straight face while telling us
about $100,000-a-year athletes strikes against millionaires by refusing to go out and try to kill each other. Sometimes the whole thing just looks like a bit Donebsurry stin.
When you stop and think about it, the situation really is ridiculous. Wealthy men, some of whom make as much money from endorsements as from football, out on strike?
It is tough to find sympathy for either the owners or the players. Both are making a good deal of money off of something that, while it is enjoyable to watch, is quite disposable. It really has no relation to anything going on in the outside world. It's not really that important.
As it is, I don't think I will miss pro football. Didn't the Chiefs just play the Packers for the Super Bowl Championship in July? Or was it the Royals versus the Bears? Or may the McBee played Leagua in the Arthur Laffer-Miller Life Center WGBT television and 10 million people watched.
See, it has all gotten out of control. A strike will at least give us a break and just might lengthen the lives of some players. Sure, some television executives may threaten to flog themselves out the window because of all the lost advertising revenue, but that would be no great loss.
Will anybody miss these guys? The football players, that is. A few Sunday afternoons will be different, but the world will go on.
Maybe Brent Musburger and Phyllis George will have to find new jobs, but that wouldn't be hard.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Kansan should drop use of 'independent'
I just pleased as punch to learn that the KU Spirit Squid isn't biased against members of certain fraternities ("S spirit squad troughs biased, student says," Sept. 21 Kanan). It's too bad that we can't say the same for the Kanan itself when it comes non-fraternity members.
Time and again I have seen the Kansan refer to people who are not members of a fraternity or sorority as independents. Just what are these people independent of, England?
I am not an independent, I am a person, I represent the tag of "independent." It says absolutely nothing about my status at all. Can you tell me how much of our 90 percent as real people in the future?
Roy Leban Lawrence senior
Roy Leban
Take bikes seriously
To the Editor:
or the latter sentence.
She is incorrect, however, to conclude that the source of the problem is bicyclists who do not care to obey the rules of the road.
Lisa Gutiérrez is right to be concerned about traffic safety on the KU campus. The number of accidents, especially those involving injury to bicyclists, has been alarming since the opening
To the Editor:
Rather, the problem is that many people, including some cyclists, do not regard the bicycle as a vehicle. It is, however, serious transportation to many people who have the right and the obligation to use the roadways just as any other vehicle.
This includes obeying all the rules of the road. On the part of motorists and pedestrians, it also
I believe that much eccentricity in the United States is harmless and is beyond reproach. Americans, however, have a tendency to ridicule or mock that which lies beyond their understanding, even to the point of overly suppressing its expression by violence or force.
Cars should yield the right of way to bikes when it is appropriate to do so and should not expect them to ride at the extreme right of the road. I also urge bicyclists — moped riders, too.
includes obeying all the rules of the road when dealing with bicycles. Pedestrians should look both ways before walking onto the street, especially when not at a crosswalk. You would not walk in front of an approaching car and would not be able to slam on his brakes. I can hurt you, too.
Vonn New
No need for ridicule
On campus, one has only to witness the crowd behavior at a Cindy Lasseter performance to see this. Who is she? She is a girl wearing a long dress and stair hat, carrying a worn Bible, who attracts a sizeable crowd when she gives a spontaneous outdoor sermon against drunkenness, smoking, extramarital sex, sin, the devil and hell.
But the fun took the form of verbal harassment. In brief, many remarks made to her by several brave souls in the audience were rude and inappropriate. I thought the values of society were the issue, not the self-proclaimed immaturity of its members.
Jurgen Scott Lawrence senior
Vonn New Lawrence senior
Clearly, she is granted the freedom to express her ideas in public, which is fine.
Part of the crowd agreed with her and was quietly moved. Part was impressed with her captivating performance, as one might be by a play. Many liked being part of the crowd and got engaged.
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