Page 4
Opinion
University Daily Kansan. September 2..1982
A sad state of accounts
After violating state inventory requirements for an undetermined number of years, the Student Senate has reinstated inventories of property bought with Senate funds for student organizations. But findings this summer by Dan Cunningham, interim executive secretary, indicate the renewed checks could be almost $12,000 too late.
Cunningham found that Senate-owned filing cabinets, desks, calculators, a telephone answering system, books, two-way radios and photographic equipment had disappeared. Cunningham says that many of the missing items may have been worn out or accidently destroyed. Depending on the length of time that has passed since the last inventory, that is a likely explanation.
Nevertheless, the Senate's credibility suffers when this kind of financial irresponsibility is uncovered. Unfortunately for the present administration, it matters little to the average
student, or state legislator, whether the mismanagement was committed by previous officers.
If the Senate wants to avoid future embarrassment, it must find a way to ensure that student organizations are held responsible for all equipment that student fees have paid for. Cunningham says every student organization is required to file an inventory statement every year.
But the requirement has not been enforced.
A Senate subcommittee has been appointed to investigate the missing property and to recommend changes in Senate inventory policy. Between state law and Senate regulations, the inventory requirements appear clear and sufficient. Perhaps the Senate ought to consider some sort of incentive to make sure the statements are submitted each year.
Refusing to consider funding for any student organization that fails to do so might do the trick.
Compatibility test suggests formulas for choosing mate
KU students who rummage through the book stacks in Watson Library may one day happen upon a tiny, black book that claims it will help them make a most important decision.
This book, "The Compatibility Test," written by two psychology professors at Central State University, Edmond, Okla., tells how to choose the right mate and ensure marital success.
I have seen books on how to fix automobiles and how to knit a baby afghan in five easy lessons. But never did I dream that one day I would need someone who would tell me the secrets of finding a husband.
Some of the ideas suggested by authors Charles M. Whipple and Dick Whittle ideas are legitimate. For example, they suggest that
LISA GUTIERREZ
people in similar occupations would make good partners. People in social occupations — businessmen, professors, managers, industrial engineers, reporters, social workers and so on — should marry people in similar occupations. People in non-social occupations — design engineers, editors, researchers, cartographers and the like — should stick to those fields.
The compatibility test consists of 208 questions about personal tastes and values. One asks whether the reader believes kissing spreads germs. Another asks whether the reader gives money to beggers, or likes to pet children, even if they are strangers.
After answering the questions, the reader turns to the back of the book to rate himself. He can choose from several descriptions that recommend his "ideal" mate.
After skimming through the absurdities of this book, I wondered whether a similar companion would be worth writing about.
Thus, the birth of the KU Compatibility Test, or how to find the right mate or date with 20
Answer each question with a yes or no.
2- second-answering does not count.
1. Do you like the feel of 100 percent cotton on your skin?
2. Do you drink excessive amounts of alcohol?
3. Describe the principal characters on General Hospital?
5. Do you like having career and social doors opened for you, i.e. negotism?
4. Can you name the vice chancellors for student and academic affairs?
opened for me, te. nephrosis?
6. Do you enjoy lounging on Wescoe Beach?
7. Do you own more (than one) car; 2) club
8. Do you talk more at Gammon's than you do in class discussions?
9. Do you like having people read over your shoulder?
10. Do you get irritable without two to three schoners a week?
schoolbabys a week?
11. Do you have incessant thoughts about D
12. Do you squeeze toothpaste from the middle or the end?
or the end:
10. Draw a rectangle with sides of equal length.
14. Do you care that kissing may spread germs?
15. Are you kind to 1) animals; 2) roommates;
3) campus preachers?
16. Do you know where Watson Library is?
17. Do you jump out of bed the second your入学 day?
18. Would you take a 7:30 m. class, class Monday,
Wednesday and Friday before a 7:10 m. class
19. Do you sometimes have uncontrollable fits of laughter or tears?
20. Do you take stock in silly compatibility tests?
If you answered yes to more than five of the even-numbered questions, you are a fair-minded person who can just as easily give orders as take orders, but who would rather give them. Your ideal marriage partner will be just that — a partner.
If you answered no to more than five of the odd-numbered questions, you are part voyeur, part intellectual. Your favorite reading material — back issues of Mad magazine. Your ideal
mate is only a classified advertisement away.
My apologies. Whipple and Whittle.
Adventures in Aggieville
"Mr. President?"
"Yes, Ed?"
"Mr. President, you are spending next night in Manhattan. I wanted you to be prepared."
"Oh, good. The skyline, the restaurants, Saks
— Nancy will be so pleased."
"No, Mr. President. I don't think you understand. Manhattan, Kansas. You're spending money on a new building."
"You're pulling my leg,right Ed?"
"No, sir. it's true. You're speaking at the
University Series on the Kansas State
University campus."
"I don't even know where Manhattan is. Is it close to Kansas City? Even Wichita would be."
"Well, it's near Junction — never mind, sir.
Besides, you've been there. Think back, sir. It's
1967. You were governor of California . . ."
"Yes, it's coming back to me now."
"I knew it would, air. And don't worry. We've
gone literary worked out for you so you won't be
taken."
"Great. Shoot, as they say in Kansas. Ha, ha, ha, ha
"Good one, sir. Well, when you get there Thursday morning they'll have a horse ready for you to ride. I've made a note to pack your western-style boots instead of the riding boots you wear in California. After all, you don't want to appear snobbish."
"Who will be riding with me?"
"Well, we didn't ask the governor — he's a Democrat, you know — and Bob Dole is busy with the Finance Committee, and university administration," he said. "But we have tentatively scheduled you to ride
with the head of the social welfare program. We thought you two would have a lot to talk about."
"But, what about tatara? Where will we listen?" she is this place called Eats on the outskirts of town.
"Never mind. What about after my speech?"
"Well, sir, a fellow named Jim Dickey has reason to believe that."
"Oh, who's he? A political science professor?
A military science major?"
"Actually, sir, he's the football coach. Seems he's been reading about your building up the
Department of Defense, and he was wondering if you'd take a look at the Wildcats for him."
"Well, I suppose it would be good publicity. Me with a football in my hand and an arm around you. It's like you're playing the game."
"Yes, sir. Dickey has even offered to give you some advice. Seems he redshirted a bunch of football players last year, you know, held them a year to build a better team. He thinks that if you had redshirted Dave Stockman, he'd be in peak shape," he said. "The answers to the economic mess the country's in."
"An interesting theory. Well, what do I do in the evening?"
"This could easily be the highlight of the trip."
We have you scheduled for a tour of Arganiaville."
know I don't want to meet with farmers. With wheat prices as low as they are, they'll ask all the these hard questions, like how do they support them and do I know what parity means and so on."
"No, no. sir, Agglievie is bunch of drinking establishments in Manhattan. It's a popular student hangout. The Young Republicans have worried that, at a bar called Mother's Worry for the event."
"Mother's Worry sounds nice, Ed. What kind of place is it?"
"You'll have to drink beer, Mr. President. And the songs on the jukie box aren't exactly to your taste."
"Nonsense, Ed. I'll listen to what's there. It can't be that bad."
"Actually, sir, it can. They added 'Take This Job and Shove It' and 'Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother' in honor of your visit. Oh, yes, did I mention the machine bull?"
"What is that, a farming commune? Ed, you
"Ed, where are we spending the night?"
"Well, it's a place outside of town called the ECO-crush. They say they've got waterbites."
"E, Ed, where is the nearest spot outside of Manhattan big enough for Air Force One to go?"
"That would be the Burvis Nordvine farm,
sir."
"Fine. Call Mr. Nordvide and make him an offer. And tell the pilot to be standing by to minutes after my speech. I think I'll need a little more time away at the Western White House."
"But sir, what will I tell the people of Manhattan?"
"I don't care. Tell them anything. Tell them I spent a week there one night."
Growing illiteracy threatens industrial stability
Bv WILLIAM McGOWAN
New York Times Syndicate
NEW YORK — According to a 1979 Ford Foundation report, 25 million Americans can't read at all and 35 million more could be considered functionally illiterate. The inability of 60 million native-born Americans to cope with the routine paperwork of life — a classified ad, an instruction manual — is a problem with far-reaching consequences.
The illiteracy crisis is particularly noticeable in business and industry, especially in banking, retailing, telecommunications, etc.
huge labor pools of people who have competent reading skills are most in demand.
Unless the private sector addresses the problem by promoting mass-literacy programs, corporate profits will slip and the vitality of American industry will eventually pale before more efficient supply. In West Germany and Japan, where higher rates of literacy and productivity march hand in hand.
The effect of literacy on the corporate bottom line is hard to calculate, but it's generally agreed that productivity and profits suffer significantly. Mutual of New York estimates that 70 percent of its dictated correspondence has to be redone at least once because of errors. In 1975 a herd of
Every day, sales orders are botched, bank transactions bungled, messages scrambled and items are misfiled by the millions — all to some extent, because of standard reading skills. Just how vital will the much-vaulted "information age" be if people simply can't read? A General Electric computer executive said, "We must remember that computers process error at the same bewildering speed at which they process truth."
prime beef cattle was killed accidentally when a Chicago feedlot labor misreceived a package label.
An estimated 800,000 adult literates live in New York. "Educational mismatching" — a situation in which jobs exist but qualified manpower does not — was cited by the Regional Planning Association of New York as the area's chief industrial problem for the next two decades. One corporate executive asks, "Where will the workers come from to operate complicated gear if they already make mistakes with a drill press?"
If left unarrested, rampant illiteracy will lengthen the gap between available jobs and qualified manpower, and will create an unlettered underclass that will be locked out of tomorrow's predominantly high-technology equi-
pilates world with deep experiences.
Black women, the only breadwinners in many inner-city households, are more illiterate as a group than any other in the nation. When the workplace grows more reliant on sophisticated technologies such as robots with artificial intelligence; they will grow more unemployable, especially in the service and clerical positions where they now cluster.
Several decades of federal efforts to eradicate illiteracy have lacked funding and commitment. The Reagan administration wants to cut the $100 million now pledged to illiteracy programs to 88
Kozol and others in his camp have given up on government programs in favor of remedies that the private sector may propose in the new spirit of "volunteerism." Their hopes are now pinned on corporations that have a stake — or as an International Paper Co. executive put it, a "commercial motivation" — in developing a labor force able to read at minimum standards
million, a figure far short of the $2 billion to $25 billion demanded by some literacy activists such as Jonathon Kozol, author of a penetrating study on illiteracy, "Prisoners of Silence."
Although the private sector hasn't yet mounted any coordinated assault on illiteracy, Dow Chemical, General Motors and Philip Morris are among two dozen large companies that are sponsoring reading improvement programs for employees. The state's literacy day will be on their payrolls. The National Coalition for Literacy and the National Advertising Council plan a joint publicity campaign in 1983 to draw energy and initiatives from a broad spectrum of affected businesses. But so far, not enough leading corporations have recognized that they have a strong influence within the country of a specter that is darkening future economic prospects.
William McGowan worked in the pub-
relations department of a large New York
When asked how he got along all his life without being able to read, Johnny Cash, playing an illiterate man in a film called "The Pride of Love," told me he was a lot of a lot, you get cheated some and voke it like.
Foreign competition is growing stronger, and when the economy vaults into the 21st century, American industry will no longer be able to fake it, and unchecked illiteracy will surely take its toll on social stability and industrial productivity.
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