Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, August 25, 1982
Cheers for Jim Lessig
Reserve student tickets for the KU football season went up for grabs yesterday in Allen Field House. Seniors led the pack, and juniors, sophomores and freshmen can pick up theirs at scheduled times throughout the rest of this week.
And just in case some of the campus population had any reservations about spending $25 to see six home games at a time when money seems particularly hard to come by, Athletic Director Jim Lessig has included a few choice "extras" to draw students to Memorial Stadium. The first of these is a tailgate party at Potter Pavilion before the season opener against Wichita State University. Although the free beer to be passed out at the party may not be the wisest idea, it will certainly guarantee a large turnout. Other plans include a free shuttle bus to run from the Satellite Union to the stadium for people with KUID cards, a banner contest for the Wichita State game, open seating in the student section for the Parents' Day game against Tulsa, and an appearance by Bob Hope after the Tulsa game.
In the final analysis, though, the details of Lessig's drawing cards do not really matter. What is important is that, finally, KU seems to have brought in an athletic director who cares about students' participation in and opinion of the University's athletic program.
athletic program. "If a person were to come in here and tell me we could fill the stadium every game by just selling to alumni, I wouldn't want that," Lessig has said. "My belief is that the student body is the backbone of any athletic program. Student support is infectious."
Lessig also has discussed plans to move KU's cheerleaders away from acrobatic flip-flops and back to the job they were originally intended to perform—leading student cheers.
student choice.
All of this seems to bode well for student fans. It's also a step in the right direction for the athletic department. The more support generated among students, the less the athletic department must depend on alumni, some of whose zeal tends to be carried overboard in the desire for influencing athletic programs.
Congressional battle brewing over monopoly beer markets
Rv IAV ANGOFF
New York Times Syndicate
WASHINGTON—Beer drinkers of America, drink all the beer you can in the six weeks. Congress is now working quietly but efficiently to pass legislation that would substantially raise the price of beer.
that count substantially raise the price of beer. Supported by brewing companies and beer distributors, the bill would legalize monopolies in the beer industry. Brewing companies should prohibit all beer distributors from selling in a specific territory except the single distributor the company designates. Thus, if the owner of a bar, grocery or liquor store wants to buy, say, Budweiser, he would have to pay the price the lone Budweiser distributor in his territory asked; otherwise, he couldn't buy Bud.
Beer drinkers could easily wind up paying 20 percent more for their favorite brand. That is the amount by which beer prices fell in Indiana when the governor signed a law similar to the one Congress is trying to pass.
The beer industry says that prices would not rise in the absence of competition among distributors of the same brand because there still would be competition among different brands. But brewers successfully spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to persuade people to insist on their brand. After hearing for years about Budweiser's exclusive beechwood aging process, many people think that "when it's time to relax, Miller stands clear." Still others have been convinced that "when you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."
Thus, the most important competition is not among different brands, but among distributors of the same brand, particularly because so few brewing companies compete against one another: Only six companies account for more than 83 percent of all sales nationwide, with Miller and Anheuser-Busch together accounting for more than half.
Brewing companies and beer distributors also argue that distribution monopolies are necessary to guard against stale beer. However, many far more perishable products—for example, milk and bread—have long been distributed successfully without the aid of territorial monopolies. Moreover, regardless of how beer is distributed, it is in the best interest of everyone in distribution to sell only fresh beer if they want to remain in business.
The beer industry says that beer monopolies should be legal because in 1980 Congress legalized soft-drink monopolies. The soft-drink bill, however, was terrible legislation. Since its passage, according to the National Licensed Beverage Association, soft-drink prices have risen so fast that bars now often pay more for soft drinks than for beer. Opponents of the soft-drink bill argued that if it passed, Congress would unable to resist other industries that spearheaded from monopoly laws; the beer industry seems intent on proving those opponents right.
It took the soft-drink industry seven years to get its bill passed. But the beer-monopoly bill is on a much faster track. Since the bill's introduction in mid-1881, the National Brewery Wholesalers Association has sold every environmental district, has orchestrated an intensive grassroots lobbying effort.
The whitenessals' association also has formed a political-action committee to contribute to congressional candidates' campaigns. The goal of the committee, known as Sipxac, is to raise $250,000 this year. The association has conferred other benefits on members of Congress. For example, it has given Jack Brooks, D-Texas, who first introduced the beer-monetary bill in the theatre, the opportunity, a trip to his Venue (for him and his wife, and a $1,000 fee for a speech). He also has received more than $6,000 in campaign contributions from individual beer distributors.
The beer industry's lobbying and largesse has gotten results. In little more than a year, 278 of the 435 congressmen and 65 of 100 senators have co-sponsored the bill. The House Monopolies Subcommittee, on which Brooks sits, is likely to vote on the bill soon after the Labor Day recess. Although the attempt to raise the price of beer seems unlikely it seems to be the House Democrats—traditionally the party of the working man—who are trying hardest to raise the price of the working man's beverage.
Many members of Congress don't want to vote against the bill because they don't want to lose the beer industry's support. But although there are 4,500 beer wholesalers and a handful of large brewing companies in this country, there are 72 million beer drinkers. They may not be able to contribute to campaigns or pay for free trips to Las Vegas, but they do vote.
Jay Angoff is a lawyer for Public Citizens' Congress Watch, a public-interest group founded by Ralph Nader.
Wanted: student leaders
Each year as Student Senate begins gearing up for its elections—coming up in November—it's apparent that many University of Kansas students have tired of the campus game called "Let's Become Active in Student Government."
We appear to have lost the wide-eyed interest of our freshman years, when everything had to be tried at least once. Call it apathy, call it apprehension, but whatever you call it, the fact remains that there are numerous student government positions on campus that need to be filled to ensure that students have a voice in policy-making. But as with any college game, or "too busy" to participate, it's time to recruit some new and still-enthusiastic faces.
Thus, the following letter is directed not only to my freshman brother, but to his peers as well.
Dear Andy.
Anyy.
You are but one of several thousand enrolled this fall at KU, and many of them share your status as freshmen. You are but a body among the crush of humanity that soon will become a familiar sight on the sidewalk in front of Strong Hall or in Wesco Cafeteria at noon.
As dishearingting as it may sound, you will no longer know the name of every person in your classes, as you did in high school—and they will not know yours.
They will not know your name unless you do something to make yourself stand out in the crowd. And there is a way to do that here at KU.
Get involved.
Getting involved means avoiding the shroud of apathy that has lulled many KU upperclassmen into a state of passivity. Becoming involved means taking part in such things as an online tutoring session or mentorship it means integrating any of the myriad of social and academic organizations on campus.
consider the following: 15 percent of the approximately 24,000 students at KU cast ballots in the last student election. Why, you won’t be able to vote? Who else takes the necessary one minute to vote?
First of all, some just did not give a darn about who was elected what. For all they cared, an orangutan could have been elect
student body president and they would not have known the difference.
Secondly, there were those who just did not have the time to vote. They did not have the time during that hour break between classes they spent on Wescoe beach watching people
Then there were the ones, and I am ashamed to count myself among them, who wrongly thought that I was a girl.
That's why only 15 percent of the student population voted. And I'll bet that the reasons 1
LISA GUTIERREZ
have just listed are similar to the ones you would bear from people all over the country.
What is to be learned from all this is that KU is just a microcosm of a passiveness that seems to be seeping into the lifeline of this country—its citizenship. Here, the prevalent concern appears to be a get a degree, get a job, get a nice home, a nice family . . . storybook ending.
But it is not a good idea to set your goals to the exclusion of anything outside academic work. In the words of your student body president, David Adkins, "I know a lot of students what to concentrate on the books, that's understandable. But they are missing the boat.
"I know of committees that are screaming to have student members."
Some of those committees, which Adkins calls student service and student support agencies, are the student transportation board, the athletic corporation board, recreational services advisory board, residential program advisory board and the legal services board
These committees offer choice opportunities to work with administrators on a one-on-one basis and to have your voice heard above the loud silence of more than 24,000 students. On these committees you will meet people, gain organizational skills and learn that yes, you can make a difference in how things are run at the University of Kansas.
Many faculty have said, according to Adkins, that students have failed in their obligations to the committees "simply by not showing up."
But there is hope for the future. And that hope lies in the 388 students who, during summer orientation sessions this year, expressed an interest in student government at KU.
I'm not sure whether you are among those 388. But even if you weren't, let me pass along some advice from Adkins on student government at KU.
"We have to show freshmen that we want their ideas and their thoughts," Adkins insists. "If we're not training freshmen in how things are changed at the University, then we open ourselves up to having SUA or student body members who really don't know how things function."
"I think the average student out there, Joe Student, doesn't see what Student Senate does for them. It's not that they don't care; they're not just given anything to care about."
But there are a lot of things to care about here at KU, everything from how your student fees are asked to whether to raise the price of next year's season football tickets. The administrators, faculty and staff can 'do it all for the students' and *Adkins says*. The students must do for students.
And, as I mentioned before, this year could be the year to turn student interest to things other than pitcher pickers at the Hawk and the team whether this whole polar coordinates with these khukis.
Check out the Student Senate office in Room 815. Level 3, in the Kansas Union. That's the building where you plunked down $90 for textbooks. Adkins or any of the other senators should be glad to help you find your niche—a step above disinterest.
I only wish that I could tell your fellow freshmen that there are many segments of the University that are starved for student leadership. Adkins says he hopes that many new students this year will "Go for it," and become involved in bookyear production, macrere club or anything else that interests them outside of school work.
I only wish I could tell them. But maybe you can pass along the word.
The University Daily KANSAN
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