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Wednesday, August 28, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
OPINION
8
Communist hard-liners had reason to attempt coup: security of no work
Before you condemn the hard-line Commies who squeezed out Gorbachev, put yourself in their state-produced shoes. Ask yourself how you would feel if threatened, possibly for the first time in your life, with the terrible prospect of having to do something useful. In other words, do some work. Even worse, to think.
Imagine for a moment that about 75 years ago we had changed our system of government and become the United States of Bureaucracy.
Let's say we made the postal workers the ruling elite. Maybe sharing power with the Internal Revenue Service nit-pickers and later the Social Security desk jockeys.
Imagine that they have run the country for so long that we are now in our fifth or sixth generation of bureaucratic mule rule. A deputy postal supervisor is running the nation's factories.
Running even the corner store. You go into a White Hen to get a carton of milk, a magazine and a frozen pizza, but there is no milk, no magazine and no frozen pizza. And it isn't'vellalled a White Hen. It is a Gray Hen. Or a Dead Hen. Laced behind the counter is a relative of the Fourth Deputy ZIP Code Developer, who is in charge of food outlets, and he tells
Mike
Royko
Syndicated
columnist
you; "Get in line." So you get in line, and when you finally reach the counter, you are told: "We have nothing." You ask: "Why did you tell me to go in line?" You are told: "It is the rules; I can't tell you we have nothing until you get in line and it is your turn to be told we have nothing."
You go home to your little apartment that is in a building designed by an architect who was trained to be a Widow Death Benefits Review Agent at Social Security. The elevator doesn't work. So you try to telephone someone about the elevator. But the phone doesn't work because the local company is under the directorship of the bureaucrat who was behind the counter at the Dead Hen and has just been promoted.
You move to a large apartment and are given your own car and a spacious office. Just when you have settled comfortably into this position of authority and have memorized the entire Bureaucatic Handbook, someone comes along and becomes head of the government and betrays you. He says that things are going to change. From now on, you will be expected to do something useful. You must produce. Produce? You look in your Bureaucradic Handbook, but there is no Produce. There is Procrastinate, which you understand, followed by Prolog, which you are familiar with. But no Produce.
So you make some discreet inquiries. What does it mean to Produce? Someone says: "I think he means we want to get off our buits."
What would you do? In that position, you would probably react the way the ruling bureaucrats did in Moscow. They waited until Gorbachev went on vacation. Then they announced that he was no longer in charge because he had, in effect, gone nuts from overwork.
With a deal like that, only a crazy, man would try to ruin it for everyone else. Now Gorbachev will be allowed to do nothing. And if he had been satisfied to do that in the first place, he'd
**Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.**
Money for education
And in their eyes, he probably did appear to have lost his mind. After all, like them he had a big apartment, a car and could shop in the Bureaucratic Boutique.
Gov. Joan Finney has shown us that she is adept at arguing about how many dimes and nickels to mete out to educate the college students of Kansas. This administration, like others before it, will usually produce budgets no one is happy with and no one is overly angry about.
Governors should rethink funding policy
To base how much money is allocated to education on the basis of how much it costs and what our peer institutions are doing is wrong-headed thinking.
Finney is conducting herself as the state treasurer should, not a governor.
Finney touts fiscal responsibility for cutting funds to higher education. The University of Kansas recently learned it would receive $1
million less than expected as a result of a $4 million cut to the Board of Regents.
Within the Big Eight institutions, Missouri has one of the highest tuition rates, yet a poor reputation for the quality of education it provides. To mimic the financing of other states and schools not only eases our state's financial situation
Conservative fiscal policy is a convincing argument, especially when one compares the educational bargain at KU to that of its peer institutions. Our tuition is substantially lower.
Comparisons should be made between the college education the state wants to provide and what it actually is giving students.
but also threatens to bring lower- quality education.
There is a reason the University of Kansas enjoys an excellent reputation financial commitment by the state. The loss of the third year of the Margin of Excellence and the long term decline in the percentage of the University's budget the state provides are steps in the wrong direction.
Let's keep the educational reputation of the University and all schools in Kansas high by setting our own standards rather than dropping to those of others. Let's decide what education we want, then decide how it can be financed rather than counting beans as a good treasurer should.
Benjamin Allen for the editorial board
Court nominee
Thomas notbestman for Supreme Court
George Bush has told us that race is not an issue in his nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Thomas, according to Bush, is simply the best qualified person.
The pool of potential judges must be frightfully shallow.
The Reagan-Bush regime decided long ago to appoint an African-American to replace Marshall to save the African-American vote.
Back in 1990, Bush, contemplating a Marshall retirement, thought there were no conservative African-Americans who could be counted on to finally tip the Court to the right.
That is when he plucked Thomas from heading the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and set him in the U.S. court system, priming him to replace Marshall.
The question is whether Thomas is qualified. He has been a judge for less than two years. That should not be enough to get his portfolio across Bush's desk.
There is a feeling in the African-American community that "perhaps this is the best we're going to get, so let's support him, less Bush nominate a non-Black next time."
When we begin to set precedents
by replacing an African-American judge with another African-American judge, are we forever to have justone? justone woman? This is not to say that a Black should not replace Thurgood Marshall — she should, if she's qualified.
The nomination of Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States is an insult to the heritage of Thurgood Marshall, to the intelligence of African-Americans and to the integrity of the iudicial system itself.
We do not approve.
Michael Dick for the editorial board
Adult daughter admires Mom's fight with cancer
Disease changes relationship between two offers chance to better feelings of the past
A year and a half ago, my mom found out she had breast cancer. Cancer is one of the few words I know that can turn your world upside down. What is the same after you hear it? It seems to affect every corner of your life.
As a child, my world revolved around Mom. She was my security, my teacher, my provider and my entertainer. Making even meatloaf taste good, smoothing conflicts between my brother and me and fixing a scraped knees with a Band-Aid and a kiss were second nature to her. To me it seemed there was nothing she couldn't do.
But as the years went by, I slowly grew farther and farther away from Mom. We didn't even notice it until it was too late. Mom and I never really fought much, we just seemed to live on different planes of life. She always supported me - went to my basketball games and sat patiently through choir musicals and cheerleading practices - but to me it seemed she was just trying to interfere. We didn't share the same tastes in clothes, boys, food or shows. Mom was not a very good Dad, and at times it even seemed we competed for his attention and approval. Mom was just too different from me to understand anything I was going through during my teen-age years. I thought I couldn't talk to her about everyday life and the problems that always accompany it.
When I left for college, I carried with me the same old attitudes about Mom. I thought that since I was now an adult, I needed her even less. Her constant mothering annoyed me, and I thought she was just trying to interfere.
But a year and a half ago I saw Mom in a different light. I saw her suffer and cry. I watched her cope with the horrible side effects of a mastectomy and chemotherapy. I saw her look death in the face, and she was scared. But she also was brave, determined and focused. And as I watched, I began to see someone I admired and respected. I guess I never realized that Mom is
Jennifer Reynolds Managing Editor
She has qualities and characteristics that go beyond just caretaker and homemaker. Qualities I never realized existed until I was forced to.
more than just Mom.
Now all my family can do is wait. Doctors say that if no relapses occur in five years then the cancer is gone for good. We are all hopeful and confident but still wait anxiously every three months for the latest blood test and X-ray results. The doctors are hopeful, and Mom looks and feels better every day.
And now I have had the opportunity to build a relationship with Mom that I have never had in the past. She has qualities and characteristics that go beyond just caretaker and homemaker. Qualities I never realized existed until I was forced to. She loves life, she's unsure, yet enthusiastic about the future, she's frustrated by events beyond her control. She laughs, cries, plays, hurts, dreams and sings. And above everything else, she does the best she can day after day for those she loves. I guess I just realized that Mom is a lot like me. Or perhaps more accurately, I am a lot like Mom. It too bad it took something a little bigger than a scraped knee for me to realize the truth. I only wish I could kiss it and make it all better.
Jennifer Reynolds is a Tulsa, OKla., senior majoring in journalism.
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HOLLY LAWTON
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JENNIFER REYNOLDS
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
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