Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, September 22, 1982
Piling sticks on the fire
A new chapter in the continuing saga of University budget cuts has appeared: KU cannot afford to turn on the heat until November, as much as a month later than usual.
Actually, when the University is forced to choose between enduring cold classrooms and laying off professors and cutting library subscriptions, cold classrooms are preferable.
If October weather this year proves to be as mild as last year, the delayed heating might even be welcome. If, however, predictions of below-normal temperatures this winter and fall are accurate, students, faculty and KU employees should be ready to bundle up.
Now, there is nothing wrong with bundling up. Nor was there anything horrendous about shutting off the air conditioning early, a move that William Hogan, associate executive vice chancellor, estimates saved KU $50,000 in utility bills this summer.
But too-cold or too-warm classrooms can only add to the learning barriers already faced in departments where supplies have been cut short and where faculty are overburdened because of a hiring freeze.
The University's utility budget is about $1.2 billion more than its allotted funding, and it has had little choice about implementing cuts.
The personal and financial costs of a university education have never been cheap, nor are they ever likely to be. And when the entire nation is suffering under a floundering economy, college students should not whine about sharing the inconveniences and other burdens being placed on everyone.
Nevertheless, the Kansas Legislature, whose miscalculations of expected state revenues brought on the summer budgetary emergency, should be made to realize that it cannot continue to gut its state schools and expect them to continue offering a high quality of education.
Feel prepared?
Carter would make a good professor
Former President Jimmy Carter spoke to 60 students in his first class as a "distinguished professor" at Emory University in Atlanta. College officials said he would teach about two weeks.
—Kansas City Times, Sept. 17.
I wouldn't mind having Jimmy Carter for a professor. Sure, nobody cares about him anymore, but he represents four years of this history. So I guess I've got some questions I'd like him to answer.
But I won't get the chance to ask, because Jimmy decided to become a professor, KU didn't even bother to try to get him. If KU had wanted Jimmy, it probably could have gotten him anyway, because Emory is in Georgia and he doesn't always stay close enough to keep an eye on Bill.
Still, KU is a four-star university, according to the New York Times; we're ranked right up there with Harvard. Yale and all the other academic powers. Shouldn't KU at least try to get guys like Jimmy and Nixon and Ford? Shouldn't KU at least have sent out a feeler to Jimmy? Sent a task force to negotiate with Jimmy? Tried to get Billy, too?
Maybe Gene Budig really wanted to try to get Jimmy, but with the budget cuts and all, he could only afford Jimmy if he stopped watering the lawn. And we know how important the lawn is.
Or maybe it came down to getting either Jimmy or an All-America running back:
"You mean to tell me that we have only enough money for either Jimmy Carter or a candidate," she said.
gained 1,500 yards, stands 6 feet 3 inches and
weights 2222"
"That is correct, Chancellor."
That is correct, chancellor.
"Hmmm. What do the alumni want?"
"The running back.
"Sign him."
Actually, it is probably just as well that KU didn't go after Jimmy, because then somebody would have wanted the school to hire those other ex-presidents, too. Richard Nixon probably did not, but they did during the first snowfall Gerald Ford probably would break his leg sledding behind Snow Hall.
TOM GRESS
Another problem I can see is that Jimmy doesn't seem to quite have a handle on being a professor. If Jimmy were my professor, I would want him to talk about what guys like Leonid Brezhnev and Anwar Sadat were like, and why he thinks Wilson Illene is a great singer.
But sure enough, first day of class, some student, would rescue his hand and say:
"Uh, Mr. Carter, I just wanted to .
"Call me Jimmy."
"Right. Uh, Jimmy, I just wanted to ask you this. Why didn't we make those Iranians eat it?"
And Jimmy would get hot under the collar, red in the face, and he would start talking just like he did when he debated President Reagan — badly.
You see, somebody at Emory actually asked
him that type of question during his first class, but instead it was about Kentucky. Jimmy, still a freshman, said he'd be nervous.
"Even after Kennedy was mathematically defeated, when there was no possibility of his winning the nomination, he refused to support me and (Walter) Mondale," Jimmy said. "I invited him to the White House just before the convention and asked him if he would support us."
"It would be difficult for me at the present time to pledge my support for Ted Kennedy" in response.
That quote sums up Jimmy's presidency: too much bitterness. And the question don't help any. Everybody knows that Jimmy isn't going to invite Ted down to Plains, Ga., for an evening of peanuts and beer, so why even ask about what he thinks of Kennedy?
Nope, if Jimmy were lecturing here and he really had to talk about Kennedy, somebody would have to write it.
"Jimmy, did you really think that saying if you would you whoip his ass, and getting that spread all over the newspapers and television news, would help get you votes?"
or, to change the subject, a question like this:
"Jimmy, did you really discuss nuclear war policies?"
"Jimmy, didn't you just feel like strangling your brother Billy when they showed him urinating on an airfield in Libya? I mean you have tied up Billy until after the election?"
Granted, some of those probing inquiries might be a little obnoxious, but anything would be better than listening to Jimmy rant and rave about how Kennedy is a rotten human being.
Letters to the Editor
Column's plane wreck reference insensitive
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the article in the Sept. 10 Kansan written by Tom Gress, entitled "Football fans' life ain't easy." In paragraph four, Gress writes, "With a little luck, and a plane, I can be Oklahoma or Oklahoma. It might have a honest-goodness shot at the Big Eight title."
Of course, I don't believe Gress meant this seriously, but with Wichita State fans in town for the weekend, this must have been a grim reminder of October 1970, when their football team died in a plane crash in the Colorado mountains. I found the statement to be extremely distasteful and, to say, the least, untimely.
Kathleen Boyd Lawrence resident
Workshops endorsed
The Student Assistance Center should becommended for the series of workshops it has sponsored on foreign language study. As coordinator of the basic French courses, I have had the workshops publicized but — until now—withdrawn since, I had not been able admitted any of them.
On Sept. 14, I was able to listen to Sara Martin present her common-sense, practical and theoretically sound recommendations for study habits and class participation in any foreign language class, and I feel confident in urging students to attend the workshop the next time it
My only disclaimer is that I'm sorry it is necessary to provide the information and techniques through a special session; every beginning student should have heard most of those statements more than once in class. However, it's good to know someone who is professionally trained to look at the problem from the student's point of view makes very nearly the same recommendations that many of us give.
To the Editor:
One of my graduate teaching assistants who attended remarked about the number of points of agreement in approach with what I had given in our orientation. I particularly agree with Martin's recommendations on reading — and on class attendance — and organize to recognize that Martin will be more effective than a professor in convincing students that these techniques are good.
earn an A in his or her foreign Language course, but most of those who follow the recommendations will improve and may improve significantly.
Not everyone who goes to the workshop will
David A, Dinneen
Bachelor of Science
Professor of French, Italian and linguistics
Neologism irritating
To the Editor
The Voice of the Jayhawks, Tom "Quick-ax-Hicup" Hedrick, has added a new word to his repertoire. "Wastodonic," his newly found adjective, is derived from "mast" and "odont" referring to nipple-shaped projections on the molar teeth. Thus being distinguished from their mammoth cohorts, these players better keep their secrets concealed behind mouthpieces lest they become victims of a new kind of self-tackization.
Roger B. Williams
Holocaust repeated
To the Editor:
This past weekend, history saw one of the most vicious human massacres. Hundreds of women, children, infants and men were lined up and shot in cold blood. Mothers holding their infant babies were shot with their children in their arms. Then the savage killers brought their builders to the houses where they hid the innocent little children, women and men massacred to cover their iron bodies.
Assistant editor. Paleontological Institute
This horrible event reminded me of Hitler and his regime, which killed Jews by the hundreds and then bulldozed their bodies. Now I see that Israel and Phalangist Christians have done the very same. I was thinking of a word to describe Begin, and the only thing I could come up with was "the Hitter of the 1980s." Begin, who was wages a war of race and expansion on Palestinians, has done exactly what Hitler did to Jews. As we saw last weekend, he massacred women, children and men, using the same method that Hitler did
God is great and just, and he will answer this brutal injustice. People condemn the Soviet government for ordering the use of water cannons on Solidarity members. Shouldn't the same people condemn the U.S. government for financing the Israeli aggression and paving the road for Israel to do what she wishes, such as the massacre of last weekend?
What were their crimes for which they had to be massacred like this? Was it because they were Palestinians, whose homeland was unlawfully taken away by the Zionist government, or that Israelis were attacked by the Israeli and Christian Philagathists because they were Moslem Palestinians?
This event will never be forgotten and will be remembered by our sons and grandson, as the death camp of Hitler will never be forgotten. Israel as an international terrorist establishment should be condemned and should pay for this horrible tragedy.
Reza Zoughi
Teheran, Iran, graduate student
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters.
Television caters to demand for fairy tales, diversions
OK, I admit it. I stayed up to watch the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana the summer before last. But when ABC and CBS started the race to get the story on the air, I thought the networks' ambitions reflected a strange set of priorities in this country.
Watching the royal wedding was exciting, partly because it was history in the making and partly because it was also a glorified Miss Jolie contest with Lady Diana the hands-down winner
Pageants such as the Miss America contest have always pulled large shares of the viewing audience in this country, and the British wedding followed in that tradition.
But tradition, and its influence in a country growing more conservative every year, is what
CATHERINE BEHAN
makes the "love story" of Charles and Diana a sure hit.
More people are getting married than in recent years — statistics that almost rival the conservative '50s. And just how many young girls have heard their mothers, aunts or grandmothers say, "One day, your prince will come and sweep you on a white horse"?
Well, it happened to Diana. Maybe if can happen to anybody.
Actually, I don't think I would have married Prince Charles, especially when I was 19 years old. I wouldn't have married anybody when I was 19 years old.
And I doubt, in this age of technology, that a man riding a white horse is likely to happen by chance.
But fantasies persist, even when we realize that few people could stand to live Diana's life anyway. What is annoying is that many of us are so obsessed about the lives of the prince and princess.
The sensational and popular tabloids have runs stories about the pair since their engagement, and now the networks, not to be outdone, are making them part of the fascination Americans have for the couple.
Fairy tales are usually most popular during hard times, and both great Britain and the
and here, where we have no prince or princess of our own to dote on, we make idols of Charles and Diana and dramatize the fairy tale to watch on our favorite medium, television.
When ABC and CBS first considered creating a "media event" from this fairy tale, the war began.
United States are facing very difficult economic times. Britain itself has said that the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton will be postponed.
ABC was the first to announce that it would show the story, but BCS was close on the other's bejeweled heels. Soon after, CBS and ABC began to work the job of work the best Diana and Charles look alike.
Then CBS cut ABC to the quick by announcing that its version would air two weeks before the AP.
After being momentarily winded, ABC moved up its date, and broadcast its version of the Lady Beverly Hills show.
By the way, ABC's "Charles" did not look like the real prince. Their was fairly attractive. And they were so smart.
Well, good for ABC. I watched the show just to see what all the hoopla was about, and I was really disgusted — both with the network and with myself for watching the trash.
One of the most pervasive notions about the couple has been that Diana wasn't really in love with Charles, but with his and riches. That probably made the masses happier in their envy.
So the network went to extraordinary lengths to make sure we masses KNEW that Diana loved her.
Networks don't gamble. They think something will not sell, and sell big, they will not air it.
Take, for example, Lou Grant. Ed Asner's politics kept his show from being renewed. The networks cancelled a fine show because its advertisers did not like being boycotted by customers who did not like Asner's views on Latin America.
but the fascination with a figurehead and his bride guaranteed large shares of the audience. ABC swept the networks that Friday, taking about a 25 percent share of the audience. "Dallas" got only a 9.9 share that night, and I doubt that it will be taken off the air. Apparently, Americans still have a need for fairy tales so that the reality of rapid inflation, unemployment and the inability to afford necessities or luxuries will seem a little further away.
Americans' time would be better spent working toward improving our country and living conditions. Let's leave the fairy tales for telling children at bedtime.
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