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Friday, May 1, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinions
With the semester's classes coming to a close, the staff and students of the University of Kansas are finally in for a much-deserved rest.
One hectic semester
In the four months since the spring semester began, the University has been faced with increased enrollment, budget cuts and a legislative battle over a fee release. The city of Lawrence was divided on the issue of whether to build a downtown mall.
Still reeling from the unexpected high enrollment of the fall semester, the University was hit by a 3.8 percent across-the-board budget introduced by the state's new governor, Mike Hayden. The combination of these problems forced University administrators to search for ways to make the cuts as painless as possible, or at least to spread the pain evenly.
Some of the measures adopted were immediately noticeable, such as cuts in office and classroom supplies. Others, such as drastic cuts in summer course offerings and stricter enrollment requirements, will be felt in the near future.
Administrators hoped money from a requested fee release would help ease the crunch, but the issue was put through the wringer by the legislature. After a session of bickering, the legislature finally approved a measure Wednesday to return $953,000 of the $3.2 million in revenue the university generated with its increased enrollment.
In other news, faculty members debated the merits of joining a union. Emotions ran deep in arguments about whether the faculty could better voice its opinions with or without a union and about
Other major news events from campus included the fight of the Black Student Union and the KU Forensics team for revenue code status, the resignation of athletic director Monte Johnson and the athletic department's refusal to renew the contract of baseball coach Marty Pattin.
which union might be more effective if joined.
On a sad note, KU mourned the loss of four students who died in a car-train collision. The accident served as a tragic reminder of the fragility of life and the need for traffic safety. It also showed the closeness of the University community during the rough times.
But there were bright spots during the semester, too. KU sports fans were treated to excellent play by the women's and men's basketball teams and the men's tennis team. Long-awaited additional campus lighting was installed. And last but not least, the state senate voted not to reinstate the death penalty in Kansas.
So now the time has come for everyone to take a deep breath and relax after such a hectic semester. But don't get too comfortable; the excitement will surely spill into the summer.
But the University didn't corner the market on controversy. The question of whether to build a downtown mall came to a head and became the main issue in the city commission election. Starting as a small petition drive, mall opponents got three referenda on the ballot and essentially killed the notion of a downtown mall by a 3-1 margin.
A sober occasion
Commencement at the University of Kansas is not just a walk down the hill along with a few thousand other people who mom, dad and sis sit in the stands of Memorial Stadium, developing eye strain trying to pick out Biff and Buffy from hundreds of other soon-to-be graduates.
reached disturbing proportions.
Many students spend time chugging beers and getting drunk before beginning their descent. By the time they stumble down the hill, they are so intoxicated that they vomit in the stands during the ceremony. Is that any way to celebrate graduation?
Instead, commencement has a much deeper and sincere meaning. It signifies the end of at least four years, in many cases much more than that, of hard work, patience and stamina. It also celebrates an important turning point in the lives of many young adults, who will be leaving school and beginning a new life.
But the significance and meaning of this special occasion has been forgotten in recent years because of the drunken revelry that many graduates engage in before, during and after the ceremony Stephen Grabow, professor of architecture and chairman of the University Commencement committee, said that the problem had
If that isn't bad enough, Grabow said that last year, many parents complained about commencement and insinulated that the administration had done nothing about the problem or ways to prevent the problem. Also, some faculty members said they would not participate in the ceremony again because of the behavior of many of the students. Who could blame them?
Graduation is a once-in-a lifetime event that should be celebrated. But keep that celebration away from the hill and the ceremony. After all, it is your graduation. You earned it.
News staff
Frank Hansel Editor
Jennifer Benjamin Managing editor
Jul Warren News editor
Brian Kaberline Editorial editor
Sandra Engelland Campus editor
Mark Siebert Sports editor
Diane Dullmeier Photo editor
Bill Skeet Graphics editor
Tom Eblen General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Lisa Weems Business manager
Bonnie Hardy Ad director
Denise Stephanis Retail sales manager
Billy Schaefer Campus sales manager
Duncan Calhoun Marketing manager
Lori Coppel Classified manager
Jennifer Lumianski Production manager
David Nixon National sales manager
Jeanne Hines Sales and marketing adviser
News staff
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One last view from the editor's office
Most days someone will come up and ask me, "What's happening?" After years of hearing the question, it is one taken for granted, and usually my answer is, "Not much."
and a half, I wouldn't be able to make the switch to news. But I quickly learned that we are all journalists, although some have sports beats and others have business or political beats. The switch was a smooth one thanks to a very dedicated and talented staff.
Frank Hansel
If you string all of those "not muchs" together, it may seem that it was a dull semester. Nothing could be further from the truth.
our staff attempted to report these to our readers. Often the complaints leveled against me were not for the news stories that ran but for editorials that were written by the Kansan editorial board. However, not everybody was able to distinguish between opinions in the editors and facts in the news stories.
This semester has provided many challenges both for the staff of the Kansan and for myself. When I decided to leave the sports desk for the first time in three semesters and apply for the editor's job, little did I know what lay ahead.
One of my biggest fears was that because I had in been in sports a year
But as editor, I was put in the hot seat. People who didn't know I existed during my first four and a half years at the University of Kansas began to voice their concerns to me. The job gave me a better sensitivity of the various types of people and issues at KU.
Depending on what we had printed that week, some people liked me, though others thought I was an ogre, even though they had no idea what kind of a person I was. They knew only that I was the editor of the Kansan, and they didn't like what the paper had said about them.
Many different and controversial issues were raised this semester, and
All of these experiences rounded out my college education, and made me a better journalist. You know, you just can't learn in the classroom.
Another switch for me was working with the advertising side, which was selected as the country's best this year. As sports editor last semester, I would ask the editor for more space, not understanding why sometimes I couldn't have it.
As editor, I quickly learned the power of the dollar, even to a college newspaper. I learned why every section couldn't always get the space it wanted. There were times when I cursed that award-winning advertising staff, but through mutual compromises, we ended up with a very good working relationship.
The news side also has an award-
I didn't think it was supposed to happen that way. As a know-it-all senior in high school, I figured all I had to do was to go to a junior college and I would have all the education I needed.
winning history, and our staff carried on the tradition.
Now that I look back, it's amazing how smart my parents really were. I will never be able to thank them enough for the support they've given me. Now, seven years later, they will be able to watch me walk down the hill and get a college degree.
With that degree, I will re-enter the sports world at the Chanute Tribune. But I will never forget the Kansan, its staff, or the education I got this semester as the editor of the University Daily Kansan.
Liberals overlook dangers of communism
On the other side of the globe, the military machine of the last world empire parades down the streets of the imperial capital. The soldiers who have served the glorious cause
Paul Campbell
Columnist
of socialism in its far-flung vassal states — Afghanistan, Hungary, Angola, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua, et al. — march briskly in formation. May Day in Moscow.
Harry Shaffer, professor of economics and and Soviet and East European studies, illustrated the sheer confusion held by liberals and their more extreme counterparts when he said that "the Soviet Union would like to see a communist world . . . they have become the second—most powerful nation on earth. We forget that the development of freedom and democracy takes a long time."
In not one communist nation has any sort of freedom or democracy appeared even remotely about to develop. Soviet leaders with developed tastes for good scotch and jazz
mysteriously indicate the liberalization of communist society.
Today, Russophiles currently speak in glowing terms of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, theoretically "openness." Shaffer chimes in to encourage us to support Gorbachev "with all our hearts." This will not in any way encourage a democratic leaning, but make the communist system, inimical to democratic civilization, increasingly deadly efficient.
When nation after nation went communist in the last decade, East German security operatives taught the new communist franchises the fine art of operating a police state: Bulgarian economists aided in the scientific socialite rape of the native economies; and Soviet military units advised or participated in the military enforcement of the new regimes' edicts. All that developed were travel opportunities for East—bloc subiuration specialists.
As warnings about the communism are ignored today, so too were the warnings about Nazism. The few who drew attention to their massive rearmament were ignored by the very same leaders who would later try to appease Hitler, either because they felt he was harmless or could be bought.
During the war, common cause was found with Stalin in fighting the Nazis. Uncle Joe was our friend and Franklin D. Roosevelt saw communism as an "extended New Deal."
To fight the totalitarian Nazi menace, the Allies joined a totalitarian communist menace that had killed between twenty and sixty million of its own citizens as a matter of state policy years before Hitler took power. But to make this alliance palatable, the U.S. people were lied to about the nature of Stalin's regime.
Once, to be liberal was to be against both fascism and communism, as both take away the rights and the very life of freedom. This is no longer true. While they are quick to jump on the briefest of autocratic excesses, liberals have developed a very distasteful neglect for communist abuses, which would amount to quarreling in the family.
While there is no strong socialist party in this country, as there are in Western Europe, the U.S. socialists and fellow travelers who are pragmatic enough about achieving their goals are to be found in the left-wing
- yes, there is such a word as an opposite to right-wing, although one would not know it from U.S. media coverage and analysis — of the Democratic Party. Moderate Democrats, take notice.
Contemporary liberalism then advances the cause of communism not by cognizant participation, but by active ignorance. By solely focusing on the past evils of Nazism, which should not be forgotten, the threat posed by communism is ignored, leaving the few who cite Soviet excesses as the victims of the left's reverse McCarthyism.
Liberal professors make the same excuses for the Soviets today their predecessors made for them earlier, forever nuturing the lie of communist liberalization. Liberal columnists think up new names to call those government officials who support people in other nations who are fighting against communism, forever failing to recognize that the tide of world revolution has turned towards democracy. May Day in Lawrence.
Mailbox
Simplistic thought
I must admit he was very persuasive, but then so is President Reagan. And if you believe Abrams, you must believe Reagan, in which case you are a very gullible person.
I would like to reply to Ann Bakkalapulo's letter concerning her thoughts on Elliott Abrams' speech. I would suggest that it is not the protester's thinking that is wrong but her thinking and that of Abrams" and those he represents.
Although the Nicaraguan people currently suffer as a result of the U.S.-sponsored war and economic sanctions, they do still have their pride in being citizens of an independent nation. All Reagan and his kind have is their ethnocentrically-based arrogance.
The simplistic reasoning in the contra aid debate lies in Reagan's one-track mind: There is a military answer to everything. Reagan is the one who is pushing Nicaragua toward the Soviet Union (another object of his simplistic thought). One of the first things he did as president was to strangle Nicaragua economically. And he has been doing it militarily as well.
Douglas Johnston Wichita sophomore
Serving humanity
Monday's letter in this section,
"Apalled by litter," by Joanne Stoehr, named KU's Greek system as the cause of littering on Wescoe beach. I ask how Stoehr can adequately justify such an extreme accusation? She is correct in stating that "serving humanity is a function for which greeks credit themselves."
Every year on this campus alone, tens of thousands of dollars are raised through various philanthropic events: blood and food drives, intramural tournaments, community supported fund-raisers and yes, even "clean up" projects. The list goes on.
These are mainly greek sponsored affairs, and the money goes directly toward serving humanity. The Greek system at KU is proud of this, and numerous charitable organizations reap the rewards of such events.
Wescos beach is frequented by a large percentage of the student body, probably more than any other campus area. If Stoehr thinks the overall attitudes and actions of the majority of the students are determined by the greeks, a mere 15 percent (at most) of KU's enrollment, she is sadly mistaken. Her narrow-mindedness and stereotyping of the Greek system is not only preposterous, it's unappreciated.
The next time she goes by Wescoe, Stoehr should notice what event may be taking place at a booth out front, what charity the money is being donated to, and mostly, who is sponsoring it. That is, if she's not too busy looking for trash.
Mike Shelton Wichita iunior
Arrogant opinion
Christian Colbert's arrogance is appalling. He stands on his liberal soapbox, attempting to sway me to his version of right and wrong.
He asserts that political ideology is not important to Central Americans and that it is absurd to talk of freedom and democracy until conditions improve. I believe that freedom and democracy are a better way of life. But Colbert does not want to talk
MR.BADGER
by AD. Long
4-25-87
about anything. He prefers name calling.
Instead of answering Elliott Abrams in a substantive way, Colbert calls him a sick man. Rather than discuss the very real problems of U.S. foreign policy, he blames them all on Abrams.
Not wanting to stop there, Colbert blames most of the world's problems on Abrams. (Last week, Ollie North was blamed). Of course, Colbert
supplies no evidence to support his rhetoric.
He concludes his essay by praising those courageous protesters who bravely shouted obscenities and hackneyed slogans at Elliott Abrams; thus attempting to stop him from exercising his right to free speech — the arrogance.
Michael O'Rourke Lawrence junior
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed