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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Thursday, Feb. 27, 1986
The Kansas Board of Regents decided last week that sometimes the best stand to take is no stand at all.
Don't give preference
The Regents took the easy way out by refusing to take a stand on whether contributors to state universities should get preferential treatment in season-ticket sales to athletic events.
The Legislative Educational Planning Committee had asked the Regents to take a stand.
In simpler terms, the system means those who pay the biggest bucks get the best seats.
er the Regents to take a stance. In ducking the issue, the Regents declared that each school should continue to set its own policy on the matter. But the Regents should have taken a stand, and that stand should have been against preferential treatment.
It is not fair to those who are willing to pay full price for a season ticket to have to sit farther back than those who have more money to spend. One
board member said he had purchased KU season tickets since 1955 and had seen his seat moved farther back each year.
Seats at a ballgame are not items that a university should auction off to the highest contributor. They should be available on a first-come, first-served basis, with everyone paying the same price for the same seats.
Good seats at Jayhawks' games also should not be a carrot held in front of the nose of potential donors to get them to give more. The Williams Fund sent letters last spring telling some Williams Fund ticket holders that in order to keep their seats, they would have to increase their donations.
While enrollment at other schools around Kansas is dropping, KU enrollment keeps going up. In fact, a 1976 prediction that enrollment would stabilize at about 16,000 by this time has proven to be far understated.
Contributors to the University are a valuable, needed resource. But their contributions should not give them privileges at the expense of other members of the University community.
People are always looking for the best deal for their money, and the University of Kansas is just that.
Even though the numbers of high school students have been declining, the numbers at the University rose to a record high this year.
University is a great buy
The enrollment increases should be a sign that the University is doing something right. In the midst of complaints of too little money and too little emphasis on
academics, more than 25,900 students chose to spend their education dollars here.
And these students' dollars ought to bring more from the state. The more money KU brings in through its students, the more likely the Kansas Legislature is to open its pocketbook. High enrollment this spring should be reflected in the amount of money allocated to the University years down the road.
The University deserves a pat on the back. Its faculty and students have helped make KU one of the best places to go for a good education at a reasonable price.
Those in the market for a good buy should take a second look.
Exploitative shuffle
Call it the university athletic shuffle.
Recruit them, shuffle them through the system and hope they make it to the pros when they leave. If not, well too bad.
Recently, Jan Kemp, a teacher at the University of Georgia, won a $2.58 million suit against the university for speaking out against that university's shuffle.
She eventually was fired for speaking out against the preferential treatment of Georgia's athletes.
Her victory over the university should catch the attention of universities throughout the country that recruit athletes simply on the basis of whether they can play ball yet overlook their academic abilities.
At many universities, it doesn't matter whether athletes are able to compete in the classrooms as long as they can compete on the field.
She was demoted from her position as coordinator of the English section of Georgia's Developmental Studies Program to a position as a remedial English teacher.
Many athletes in revenue- producing sports - basketball
and football are used by universities as a means of producing profit.
They're shuffled in to play and to play their best. When their playing eligibility is up, they're shuffled out. If they don't make it to the pros, they're out of luck. Some leave those universities barely able to read or spell.
The Georgia case reveals the massive exploitation of athletes who are often used as raw material in the shuffle board and spat out at the other end. Many get nothing in return.
When athletes, sometimes called students, leave their universities, they should be able to use what they've learned and find jobs.
One athlete dropped out of Georgia after three years in its remedial academic program and took a job working on a garbage truck.
"Did you notice that the verdict came down on Lincoln's birthday?" Kemp said. "I don't know if it's symbolic or not, but he freed the slaves and that's what I'm trying to do, too."
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Pulling off a media snow job
Soviets manipulate U.S. journalists
No news is good news, and distorted news is even better.
Or so says the Soviet government. Their actions prove it; their doctrine demands it.
Their totalitarian society has all but turned Western correspondents into political propaganda echo machines.
Two former Moscow correspondents explain why this situation exists.
While some may say it's all the Soviet's fault, the final blame rests squarely upon the shoulders of the Western media.
Former Moscow correspondent for Newsweek, Andrew Nagorski, has written a book, "Reluctant Farewell," which analyzes the role of Moscow correspondents. He says that most of what we read, see and hear about the Soviet Union is exactly what the Soviet regime wants us to believe.
He says, "During my tenure in Moscow, an Associated Press correspondent estimated that 90 percent of his bureau's copy amounted to a rewriting of dispatches and articles from Tass and the Soviet press. And few news organizations could claim substantially lower percentages."
Almost all of what Nagorski said
Victor Goodpasture Staff columnist
was confirmed by David Satter in the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 22, Satter, a Moscow correspondent for the Financial News from 1796 to 1982, is now a special correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Paris.
Both men, in separate columns,
gave the same reasons for the blatant
lack of journalistic integrity of
Moscow correspondents.
One reason is fear. Correspondents fear KGB retaliation. Journalists also fear that if they meet with Russians who try to establish contact, and thus learn the truth of what's going on, they'll be cut off from official Soviet contacts. Most of their stories come from these officials.
According to Satter, hundreds of Soviet citizens are willing to become contacts, but "Western journalists are often neither willing nor able to take advantage of the opportunities that exist."
Nagorski says, "Contrary to popular perceptions, a genuinely open reporter does not lack access to
russians. Indeed, he lacks the time to see contacts as often as they would like."
Journalists who cooperate with the Soviets are treated well and given so-called exclusive interviews with top Soviet officials. Those that don't cooperate are roughed up by the KGB and eventually expelled from the country. Such was the case with Nagorski.
Nick Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, said in an interview with Washington Journalism Review, "I don't consort with dissidents. The magazine considers them a passing phenomenon of little interest."
Nagorski points out that most Western news organizations neither prepare Moscow-bound correspondents properly nor encourage original reporting once they are there.
So much for fair, unbiased and accurate reporting.
Both Satter and Nagorski agree that ignorance on the part of correspondents is also part of the problem.
He says, "Along with a lack of language skills, these reporters usually arrive with minimal knowledge of Soviet affairs. Wiper services, in particular, tend to send young correspondents with no prior foreign experience."
Satter says that at one point during his tenure, 90 percent of the American correspondents could not speak Russian.
he says that the translators were supplied by the KGB when interviews with Soviet citizens actually took place.
Soviet authorities do not expect Western journalists to believe Soviet propaganda, Satter says, but only to repeat it uncritically. They hope that, enhanced by the credibility of important American publications, the Soviet Union's officially sanctioned misuse of language will begin to have as numbing an effect on Westerners as on Soviet citizens.
When it comes to Soviet affairs, the American media are turning all of us into marshmallows.
The Soviet system is organized to create illusions. For the last seven decades they have pulled the snow job of the century.
The solution is for foreign correspondents to be as aggressive in Moscow as they are on Capitol Hill and in the White House. They have to stop snuggling up to the Soviets. They have to face reality.
Customized products cause confusion
My problem is, I don't know what kind of scalp and skin I have.
One is supposed to buy modern shampoos and other hair preparations, along with the assorted epidermal oils and lotions now on the market, according to whether one has dry, oily or normal scalp and skin.
I considered going in for medical tests, but, frankly, I would feel pretty silly asking an internist or a gynecologist, or even a dermatologist, to determine whether my scale and skin are dry or oily.
That they aren't normal I have already figured out for myself. But maybe I should try "normal" anyway. I suppose I will as soon the next bottle is empty.
My guess is that I have an oily scalp and dry skin. or vice versa.
I am pretty sure they are opposites, but I can't really tell from the shampoos, conditioners, oils and lotions I have purchased. They all leave me looking and feeling basically the same.
Looks aside, the feeling is rotten. I noticed during my last trip to the drugstore that I now have a couple of other things to worry about.
Two questions sprang to mind as I browsed through the paperback and periodical shelves: What body type am I, and what color should I wear?
On the non-fiction shelf were several copies of "Dr. Abravanel's Body Type Program for Health, Fitness and Nutrition," now available in a drugstore edition.
Goodness knows I want to be healthy, fit and nutritious. But I'm afraid I could never choose among the four body types the good doctor writes about.
Dick West
United Press International
That a choice is essential may be seen in his statement that a body type is an "expression of how our metabolism is controlled."
Programs are customized for each body type. Although the book supposedly contains everything the layman needs to know about vitamins, minerals and exercise, to say nothing of "stress-reduction and preventive medicine," a sneak peek inside its covers convinced me my metabolism is doomed to run wild.
So I didn't buy a copy for $4.50. The same goes for a $9.95 copy of "Color Wonderful."
The authors of the latter work might well provide a "comprehene
sive, personalized color service." They say "each person must determine what shades and combinations are most complimentary," and certainly no one would quarrel with that — not for less than $10.
But I knew right off I could never decide what color type I was, any more than I could decide whether my skin and scalp were oily, dry or normal. Hence, the section devoted to helping readers choose "what shades are best for you" would be lost on me.
I personally think I look good in red, which seems to match my eyes, although the 32-page chart I hastily glanced at suggested I might find something in blue more flattering.
But which color goes best with a scalp and skin that are either dry, oily or normal? Try shopping around for some flaky outfits and you'll see what I mean.
Mailbox
Pagan's views warped
Since feminism was placed on a pedestal, not quite a generation ago, its first line of defense against potential critics has been its ambiguity.
This impenetrable feminist armor was on display when Rosemary Ruether presented a lecture on feminist spirituality at Woodruff Auditorium recently.
For nearly two hours, she ridiculed everything associated with Christianity.
Ruether suggested that all of religion was a male creation, designed to imitate the language of reproduction.
Ruether has long advocated the worship of pagan goddesses as more appropriate than Christianity for women.
women.
She has previously urged women to develop feminist liturgies, which would include "Wiccan and Shamanistic traditions." She suggested forming base communities, or covens, of thirteen believers and has even written liturgies for a Halloween celebration in remembrance of the burning of witches.
Were it not that Ruether is reputed to be a Catholic, nothing she says would be worth repeating.
She writes for the National Catholic Reporter and a local Catholic priest advertised her lecture and endorses her views. However, the NCR is a notoriously anti-Catholic publication and is continually at odds with Catholic Church teaching.
No one should be deceived about Ruether's religious orientation. She advocates a radical feminism, with an occult twist, that is extremely hostile to Christianity.
Timothy J. Williams Lawrence graduate student
That such anti-intellectual ravings are sponsored by university schools of religion is a sad commentary on the moribund state of education.
Advertisers ruin TV
I applaud Tim Erickson's views in
regard to television (Kansan, Feb.
25) . TV is indeed a wasteland.
If this is the extent of the unifying force of TV, then count me out. Although the TV industry has never pretended to be a source of culture, what we are presented leaves much to be desired.
As Erickson says, TV is the great unifier. My question is, "For what end are we unifying?" Are we unifying to compare peanut butters? Or maybe we are unified in our hate of a particular villain on one of the popular nighttime soaps.
Granted that our capitalistic society would prohibit non-commercial TV, there is much room for improvement in the quality of what we have to choose from.
It's time we began to see TV in its true light, as one of the many mediums being exploited by the money-hungry advertising industry simply to move their clients' particular brand of merchandise.
Advertising should take heed, for they could reach a much larger audience by directing improvement and the addition of higher-quality
programming
Until advertisers reform their methods of catering the public with their support of "least objectionable programming," they will remain the real culprits responsible for the mindless drivel that continues to pour forth from our TV sets.
Stephen Wooten
Lawrence sophomore
'Pro-abortion' offends
I was offended by a recent letter to the editor which referred to "proabortionists." Those who the writer were referring to are not advocates of abortion, but advocates of the right of women to make their own decisions.
"Pro-choice" means just that, it does not specify one choice more than another.
Nobody wants an abortion to take place if it can be helped, but the legal right to choose one must be an option if we are to continue calling our country free.
Mary E. Kelly
Overland Park sophomore