4
Monday, April 29, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Grads on the hill
Thanks to hard work and cooperation of many Commencement exercises to be held if it rains
Rain or shine, graduates will march on.
On Tuesday, Chancellor Gene Budig approved moving commencement ceremonies indoors in the case of rain.
However, in the words of Jim Scally, vice chairperson of a commencement committee,
"It's going to have to be raining pretty damn hard for us not to walk down the hill."
A very heart-felt thanks goes out to members of the commencement committee who were willing to compromise and make alternative commencement sites possible. The committee had ruled earlier that the ceremony would be canceled if it started to rain. Graduation exercises would not be moved to Allen
Field House as they had in the past because of safety concerns.
Students who gave up time and energy to fight for an alternative solution should be commended. It gives one faith to realize that the administration is capable of hearing and understanding student concerns.
Graduation is a time of nostalgia of the past and excitement for the future. It gives friends and relatives an opportunity to recognize students for their accomplishments.
It is gratifying to see the University recognize the importance of a rite of passage: the graduation ceremony.
Jennifer Schultz for the editorial board
Sanctions end early
Lifting ban removes incentive to stop apartheid
As a tan of soccer and cricket, British Prime Minister John Major was convinced easily last week to lift the remaining trade and international sports sanctions against South Africa.
And earlier this month, the European Community lifted a 1986 ban on imports of South African iron. steel and gold coins.
Yet apartheid still continues.
During a recent trip to Britain, South African President F.W. de Klerk invited Major to visit South Africa and promised that the government would release all political prisoners by April 30. De Klerk said fewer than 200 were still in jail.
That number is much higher according to Max Coleman, a representative for the independent Human Rights Commission. He said only 535 of the 1,800 political prisoners had been released.
And Blacks in South Africa still do not have the right to vote.
By lifting all sanctions prematurely, Britain has given the South African government the green light to stall further actions to abolish apartheid. The incentive to change discriminatory practices no longer exists.
The issue was at the forefront of news five years ago, but now it appears to have fallen by the wayside. Blacks in South Africa, however, continue to live with oppression and discrimination every day.
The only way to abolish apartheid is to press the government harder with economic sanctions, not lift them to appease de Klerk.
If change is to happen, the world must not forget the plight of Blacks in South Africa or ease restrictions for the sake of a soccer game.
Stacy Smith for the editorial board
Success of education reform requires a local commitment
President Bush recently announced a national education strategy, setting forth an aggressive agenda for fundamental improvement in U.S. schools. Noting that the time for reports and studies is over, the President is using the "bully pulpit" of the presidency to call upon all Americans to work in their respective capacities toward educational reform.
The President is right. We don't need more reports and studies. Unfortunately, we already have an ample supply of data demonstrating that our school system is not living up to the standards that we need and expect. Moreover, we are being challenged in ways we have not had to address before. The world has changed dramatically, and we are having to compete in areas where the United States once stood alone.
It would be a mistake, however, to view the President's proposal—ambitious as it is —as a "silver bullet" that will single-handedly raise educational achievement. Rather, it is a set of tools, the effectiveness of which will rely on the skill and motivation of those who set out to use them.
In terms of the specifics put forward by the President, those likely to receive most attention include voluntary national testing, choice and the development of "new American
Sen. Nancy Kassebaum
schools."
Guest columnist
Volunteer national testing would involve the assessment of fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders on their mastery of five core subject areas: English, math, science, history and geography.
School choice also is highlighted in the President's strategy, the idea that allowing parents and students to choose a school will introduce market-like competition within the system and force poor schools to improve.
Testing may do no more than reaffirm what, intuitively, we already know about individual schools. Regardless of whether a national test ever materializes, we must raise our standards and expectations for student performance.
As a nation, we have made a commitment to education by providing free public schools and requiring that children attend. To honor this commitment fully, all schools must be good ones.
Barring a massive commitment of public money, choice between public
and private schools in a large urban area is not a realistic option for those who cannot meet tuition and transportation costs.
It seems to me that it would be a mistake to divert substantial amounts of education resources toward choice plans without first having made every possible effort to improve existing public schools.
Another Bush initiative calls for the development of "new American schools," with at least one such school in each congressional district by 1996. The idea would be that a community start from scratch in terms of developing new approaches to schooling.
President Bush has made it clear that he will provide vigorous and energetic leadership to focus attention on the importance of education and to support innovative thinking and experimentation. He has also made it clear that fundamental reform will be accomplished only by strengthening the connection between communities and their schools and in renewing the absolutely vital partnerships among parents, teachers and students. Our vision for education must be national in scope, but its delivery rests squarely in hands at the local level.
Nancy Kassebaum is a U.S. senator from Kansas.
'People With No Names' are regular feature in newspapers
Thumbling through the New York Times, I noticed that the stories contained the usual number of "People With No Names."
You have seen the People With No Names in newspapers. I have even known some They are identified as a "government official," an "administration official," a "Western official," a "Pentagon official" or a "White House official."
Maybe you have wondered, "Why don't these people have names?"
Mike Royko Syndicated columnist
The answer is that they do, but do not want their names used in the story. Maybe they are leaking a choice of news, but they do not want their boss to know that they talk to reporters, or maybe they are saying something mean about someone else. It can be any number of reasons, most of them are for self-protection.
Whenever you see people with No Names being quoted, they are usually talking about something significant: world affairs, international affairs, war, peace, treaties, taxes. So it seems odd that respected newspapers such as the New York Times routinely give me significant information that comes from the mouths of People with No Names. Yet, the New York Times has seen fit to provide me with a name that did not do anything to make me a well-informed citizen.
A few days ago, the Times decided to publish the name of the woman who says she was raped by a member of the Kennedy clan at the family's Palm Beach estate. Not merely her name, but intimate details of her personal life.
nalistic idiocy
Newspapers just do not do that. Because of the nature of the crime, they respect the law of most rapa victims not to be publicly identified.
The Times published the woman's name because there is a Kennedy family angle, which always makes editors drool, and because NBC had already used her name on its network news show first.
NBC said it used her name because a supermarket tabloid in Palm Beach had already published it. So NBC decided that as long as every gossip in the Palm Beach area knew who the woman was, it was all right for NBC to print the name.
But in this case, the Times was part of an outbreak of galloping jour-
Naturally, the editors at the Times, the president of NBC and other papers that have suddenly revised their rape story policies, are now giving us lofty motives.
They want to remove the "stigma" from the rape. They want to help end the idea that a woman who is raped has anything to be ashamed of and is "damaged goods."
That's fine. The only problem is that there are about 250 million people in this country, and many of them are not as enlightened about rape as editors and network presidents. And publishing or broadcasting her name is not going to make them any more enlightened. Nor will public attitudes be changed by running a story as the Times did about the woman's private life. She got a lot of traffic tickets. My, isn't that significant? She is a single parent. Isn't that shocking? She goes to bars. I feel faint.
I have news about enlightenment for these editors and network biggies. In countless barrooms across
this nation, the first questions asked about the woman will be: "Hey, you saw her picture on TV. Is she good-looking?"
Now other papers are jumping on the garbage wagon. And most of them are peddling the same phony self-justification: the public's right to know, remove the stigma, treat it like any other crime, blah, blah, blah. This is the stuff journalism school deans ponder in their spare time, which is considerable.
Who says the public has a right to know this woman's name? The New York Times or NBC did not think the public had the right to know the name of the woman in the Central Park "wilding" rape case. They could have used the same justification that someone else has already made her name public.
I will tell you why they did not use the Central Park victim's name. She is from an influential segment of New York's financial community, and the editors of the Times would have had big shots screaming in their faces.
If we have the right to know the name of this woman, why don't we have the right to know the names of the "White House official," "the Pentagon official," "the reliable source" and all these other People with No Names who are always in the Times, and frequently quoted by NBC's Washington reporters.
Is it their protound editorial judgment that it is in the public's best interest to know the names of obscure women who have been hurt and humiliated, even though we really don't know the names of the prominent government officials who are talking about the great issues of the day?
■ Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
Pesticides, our friends
I do not wish to present a case in favor of pesticides use on campus. However, I am compelled to respond to the letter in Monday's Kansan, "Toxins plague campus," to inform and answer some questions raised by Julie Waters.
I would first like to point out that, of course, most chemical pesticides are toxins. That is how they work. Most of the chemicals used on campus are extremely specific
Waters seems to think that somehow, toxins were responsible for the damage and removal of four beautiful crabapple trees in front of Watson Library. The truth is that in the high winds the day after the hailstorm two of those trees were blown over and the other two were so badly damaged that they were not worth saving. We do not spray crabapple trees for borers because they generally are not a problem. Actually the only chemical we routinely spray on crabapple trees is a dormant oil, which does not work
I think Earth Day is a great idea. We set aside days of the year to celebrate and honor a number of less noble things. As far as what the University community as a whole should do to celebrate, I am not sure. The traditional planting of trees is a wonderful idea but perhaps not significant enough, as we already plant hundreds of trees and shrubs yearly on campus.
David Leach
Grounds Maintenance Supervisor and Certified Pesticide Applicator for Facilities Opera-
KANSAN STAFF
CHRIS SIRON
RICH CORNELL Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
When we do spray chemicals we take great care not to harm desired species, including humans.
in this nature. This means the chemicals we spray on trees for insects and disease do not have a toxic effect on the trees. The chemicals we use to control weeds are formulated even more specifically.
as a toxin. Rather, it coats and suffocate the eggs and larvae of a number of insect species.
Business staff
AUDRA LANGFORD
Business manager
MINDI LUND
Retail sales manager
JEANNÉ HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Editors Business staff
News. Melanie Matthes Campus sales mgr. Sophie Wehbe
Editorial Tiffany Harness Regional sales mgr. Carmen Dresch
Planning Holly M. Neuman National sales mgr. Jennifer Claxton
Campus Jennifer Reynolds Co-op sales mgr. Christine Musser
Pam Soliller Production mgrs. Rich Harbarger
Sports Ann Semmerlath Kale Stader
Photography Keith Thorpe Marketing director Gail Eibnerbald
Graphics Meissaa Unierberg Creative director Crieth Hahsa
Features Jill Hartington Classified manager Kim Crowder
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and homework, or faculty or staff position.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kansas reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansas newsroom, 111 Staffer Flint Hall.
Loco Locals
WHERE THERE'S A WILL,
THERE'S A WAY TO GET
THEN NEXT HIGHER LETTER
GRADE... CHAPTER 3:
HAVE AN ARTIST FRIEND
DRAW A CARICATURE
OF A PROFESSOR...
IT'S RARELY DONE, AND
SOMETimes IT'S WISE
TO GIVE A FLATTERING
REPRESENTATION...
by Tom Michaud
BUY THE BOOK FOR MORE TACTICS!