4A
Wednesday, October 30,1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
High-priced tickets leave students outside stadium
Athletic Department officials say they have taken criticism for selling large numbers of tickets to the opponent's fans in Memorial Stadium during football games. But that's not nearly as much criticism as they should receive for the decision to charge $35 a ticket for the Kansas-Kansas State game. If the department was sincere in its desire to increase the amount of blue in the bleachers, a half-price discount on tickets purchased with a KUID may have been an effective strategy. Instead, it decided to gouge all ticket buyers in hopes that KU fans are more likely to empty their pockets than their K-State counterparts.
One place where there is sure to be an increase in blue, as well as purple, is the hillside below the Campanile. The area traditionally is the favored spot of budget-minded students, but it may be difficult to find a patch of green during this year's big game. Unfortunately, students who choose the grass seats will have to contend with two other Athletic Department follies: the south end-zone bleachers and the new loudspeaker system.
For many students, attending the game could cost the equivalent of a week of groceries or a weekend's entertainment budget. And don't show up at the game hungry: With $3 sodas and $2 hot dogs, students may as well take out a loan.
Since the Athletic Department is using the ticket prices of the Kansas City Chiefs as a benchmark, its greediness should not come as a surprise. With the advent of pro-football loudspeakers and pro-football prices this season, some of the fundamental joys of college football have been lost. The excitement of college football is generated by fans' pride in their school, and the games should be accessible even to the most financially strapped students.
BRENT SUTTER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Bringing unity on KU campus requires constant work of all
Although this country has made some strides in the issues of ethnic relations and understanding, many problems stemming from ignorance and intolerance continue to hinder our progress.
This campus is a mirror of the diversity and separation contained within this country. Many ethnic groups are represented on campus, yet they remain separated from each other. Individuals, society and the mass media are responsible for this separation.
However, they also can be the root that keeps the tree of knowledge and understanding in place.
One campus organization that is planting the seed of understanding is the Multicultural Resource Center, located in the Military Science Building. Program assistant Evan Heimlich and the KU Coalition coordinate a series of seminars called Diversity Dialogues.
These meetings are held once a month and discuss a range of topics. Many people attend these meetings, including professors, administrators and graduate and undergraduate students. The meetings include a speaker, and afterward the participants break off and discuss the topic in smaller groups.
The purpose of these dialogues is to create a neutral space for people to discuss problems and possibilities, and to approach the specified subject from a different angle with input from different people.
Students should attend these meetings. The next one will be at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 in the Multicultural Resource Center. It will be about social issues in electoral politics and who benefits from the way the system works.
GRAHAM JOHNSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L McLAIN
SARA ROSE
Public relations directors
Editors
Campus ... Susanna Lóði
        Jason Stratt
        Amy McVey
Editorial ... John Collar
        Nicola Hannery
Features ... Adam Ward
Sports ... Bill Petulla
Associate sports ... Caryn Foster
Online editor ... David L. Teakna
Photo ... Rich Devinell
Graphics ... Matt Mahn
        Andy Rohrbach
Special sections ... Amy McVey
Wire ... Debbie Staine
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Campus mgr...Mark Ostmek
Regional mgr...Dennis Haupt
Assistant Retail mgr...Dana Centeno
National mgr...Krista Nye
Special Sections mgr...Heather Cornell
Production mgr...Denke Kosep
Lisa Quebbman
Marketing director...Eric Johnson
Creative director...Deemond Lavelle
Affiliated mgr...Daniel Lloyd
Associate mgr...Dena Ploclette
Internet mgr...Steve Sanger
Jeff Victor/KANSAN
WASHINGTON — If you believe hopelessness and despair are a natural part of being black in America these days, the attitudes revealed in a recent poll may surprise you as much as they surprised me.
Trend shows Caucasians beginning to sing blues
When samples of registered voters were asked in a recent poll, "Do you expect your children's generation to enjoy a higher standard of living than your generation?" a majority of whites answered "no," while an even larger majority of blacks responded "yes."
The poll, which was conducted by Robert Teeter, a Republican, and Peter Hart, a democrat, for NBC and The Wall Street Journal, found that only 38 percent of whites said "yes," and 51 percent said "no." A resounding 66 percent of blacks said "yes," and 29 percent said "no."
At first blush, those responses appear to contradict other studies and conventional wisdom, including a 1994 poll by Michael C. Dawson, a University of Chicago political science researcher.
Dawson made headlines with his revelations that African Americans felt so despondent about the integration dream that half backed the formation of a separate black political party, and 55 percent supported participation in black-only institutions. Both figures had increased since the 1980s, when Jesse Jackson ran twice for president, Dawson said.
When I asked Dawson, who is writing a book on black political and philosophical attitudes, for a reaction to the more recent study, he did not dispute its findings. Instead, he offered further confirmation of it, particularly a 1995 Washington Post poll that showed whites were more
inclined than blacks, Hispanic Americans or Asian Americans to think the "American Dream" was drifting away, while blacks were far more pessimistic than whites about the outlook for racial equality.
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
"I think whites are pessimistic, and it is tied to economic outcomes," Dawson said. "America's white middle class feels vulnerable for the first time since World War II. Only in the last 10 years or so we see middle managers and even some upper-level managers laid off in corporate downsizing.
As an old black blues refrain goes,
"I've been down so long (that) bottom looks like up." Now whites appear to be singing a new refrain:
They've been up so long, the top looks like the bottom.
great irony. They are doing well but have a hard time imagining their children doing even better.
White Americans cannot recall a time in which they have not, on the whole, expected a brighter future for their children. For too many, that time appears to have arrived with a
"Those who used to think the American Dream would include a boat, a bigger house, a bigger car and more lavish vacations are not so sure they can pass that on to their children anymore."
Another part of the Hart-Teeter poll supports that view. Breaking survey respondents down by income, it found the poor to be far more hopeful than the wealthy that their children's generation will enjoy a higher standard of living. About 55 percent of those who were making less than $20,000 a year said "yes" to the question. Those who were in the $20,000 to $50,000 brackets were about even, while 54 percent of those who made $50,000 to $100,000 and 60 percent of those who were making more than $100,000 said "no."
In other words, recent trends probably have persuaded blacks that they can and will do better in the long haul despite continuing racism because, quite simply, we have nowhere to go but up.
Have white Americans peaked?
Probably not.
The latest Census Bureau report, released Sept. 26, shows that the benefits of the economic recovery finally trickled down from the wealthy to middle- and lower-income families last year. It slowed the widening gap between rich and poor, lifted overall household income for the first time in six years, and the percentage of blacks below poverty was the lowest on record, only 29.3 percent.
Still, as much as blacks have reasons to feel optimistic, it does not bode well for anxious whites to see the long-term future as a limited pie in which their slice is shrinking. Martin Luther King offered a message of hope to oppressed blacks. Today's leaders may need to offer the same to depressed whites.
Clarence Page is a columnist for The Chicago Tribune.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Stadium sound system helps fans enjoy game
Although there may be bugs to be worked out with the new sound system at Memorial Stadium. I think the idea merits more experimentation.
I have attended every KU football game at home since 1978, and the Texas Tech game was the first time I could actually hear from the stands the KU Marching Band while it played. My seats
amplification of the band is discontinued, I wish they would move to an end-zone so the entire stadium could hear them.
are only about 60 yards north of the band.
Although I know the band probably would not be in favor of relocating, it at least would allow all of the fans in attendance to hear our great marching band and get into the game-day spirit.
I even noticed the crowd reaction in my section to be mostly positive, actually singing or bouncing to the beat of the music from time to time. I did not hear the feedback that was described in your editorial on Oct. 18, so the problem may only be a matter of speaker and microphone placement.
Anything that gets the crowd a little more involved in the game should be encouraged. If the
Mike Reid manager. KU Bookstores
THE AVENGING VARMINT
Seeking things out of reach is often wasteful but necessary
My cat has developed a unique habit. She has taken to attacking the pull cord on the blinds, which hangs slightly out of her kittish grasp. She jumps and twists, trying with all her might to reach the cord, presumably to eat or at least maim it. She wears herself out with this sadistic form of recreation, and then goes to sleep.
The cat was named Vector by my
had to do to her litter box.
But you can't argue with science majors, so Vector it was.
Perhaps, one may well argue, if we stop striving for more, we stop growing. If we simply are content with what we have, then we stagnate as individuals and as a society. But at some point, we must grow to the point where we can stop reaching for happiness and just be happy, just as the cat someday will be large enough to chew off the plastic thing at the end of the pull cord.
roommate, who asserts that the mathematical term describes the cat, who has both magnitude and direction. My roommate's major, meteorology, won against mine. I suggested we call her Scoop, which was met with the pithy statement that we weren't naming the cat after what we
I'm no animal psychologist, but I pretty much understand this cat. When she meows woefully near her empty dish, she's saying, "I'm hungry." When she bites your fingers, she's saying, "Scratch my ears." (I mentioned sadism.) And when she tears up your favorite sweater which you left on the floor, she's saying, "Hey, I'm a kitten, what did you expect?"
And I hope, for the sake of my sweaters, that makes her happy.
Even when we get to the point in our lives when we get a bit of wealth, a taste of success or a moment of joy, we reach for more and more. We are never quite satisfied with what we have, never pausing to be thankful for the smaller things — a good book, a warm meal on a cold night — that make our lives better.
Vector's desire to destroy the pull cord is, however, not so different from things people do all the time.
We all reach for things out of our grasp. Even though most of us have what we need — shelter, food, recreation and a private place to go to the bathroom — we insist on devoting our energies to the pursuit of such ephemeral, pullcord-like notions as success, wealth, happiness and a Republican president.
But I cannot figure out why she insists on wasting her time jumping at something that is completely out of her grasp. She's trying to reach something she can't hang on to when she does get it, and which won't provide her with what she really needs to live.
Andy Obermeyer is a Liberal, Kan., Junior in Journalism.
This cat, of course, has it all. She has the complete run of a two-bedroom apartment. She has her own covered litter box — neither of us backward, unenlightened males believes she should worry about being watched by boys when she has to go potty — in addition to a slew of toys, food and water and the complete attention of two dumb guys who are so enamored by the fact that she's cute that they will do anything to appease her.
By Lili Barrientos