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Monday, February 1, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Watson's policy on hiring keeps books off the shelf
So you've put off that research paper as long as you can, and now it's time to get serious. You aren't worried. The University of Kansas has an excellent library system. They have all the resources you could possibly want.
But good luck getting your hands on them.
Chances are good that the book you want is in a back room somewhere in Watson Library, buried in a stack of books nine or 10 feet high. Somebody else checked it out in December, and it's still waiting to get back on the shelf.
The returns department at the library is swamped. A normal month at the library entails returning about 9,000 to 14,000 books to the shelves, a job that occupies 17 student workers. In December, returns soared close to 30,000 — with a grand total of two employees to handle the mess.
The system ground almost to a halt. And the books started piling up.
Since returning from Christmas vacation, the staff has been working frantically to catch up. Employees from other departments in the library system have been pitching in. But returns haven't slacked as expected, and the backlog is tremendous.
University policy is to blame. The problem is not the amount of money allocated per se but the restrictions on the pool of students from which the library may hire.
So good luck on that term paper. The library should be caught up by by, the middle of February.
Almost 40 percent of library positions must be filled by work-study students. But the pool of students qualified for the program is steadily shrinking — a situation that is backing the library into a corner. To meet the quota, the library ends up hiring people who can't work over Christmas, when book returns are the highest. Also, when a work-study student decides to quit — a frequent occurrence, according to library administrators — he must be replaced by another work-study student to keep the percentages accurate.
The result? Christmas vacation rolls around, the library's employees disappear, and the books start piling up.
And for the grand finale, there's the case of students formerly in the work-study program who want to work for the library a second year. They might be outstanding employees, and the library might be happy to hire them again, but now they are "regular" students from a different pool. So there's one more hole to be filled by hiring another student from the limited work-study pool.
The only real solution to the problem is for the University to cut down on the number of hours to be filled by work-study students and increase the number of hours available for other students to work. The library must have the freedom to hire students who are willing and able to stick with the job, no matter what student group they fall into.
The research capability of every student and faculty member on this campus depends on the ability of the library to keep its books available. As of right now, the system is paralyzed.
Come on, KU. The work-study program is shrinking. It's time to change the policy. The benefit to a specific, small group of people is exacting too great a price from the rest of the students.
If the books aren't on the shelves, KU doesn't have a library.
Hashinger's request valid
The residents of Hashinger Hall made the right move when the hall's government allocated about $200 to purchase a condom vending machine and two cases of condoms.
Following Ramaley's lead, Fred McElhenie, director of residential programs, denied Hashinger's request.
It's too bad the request arrived after Executive Vice Chancellor Judith Ramaley issued the University's prudish response to recommendations of the KU AIDS Task Force. Ramaley advocated increased AIDS education and rejected campus condom vending machines.
The University is overly concerned with projecting an aura of campus wholesomeness and less concerned with addressing the reality of campus sexual activity and the threat of disease. Times are changing
KU administrators need to shed their Victorian attitudes. Until they do this, their actions and policies will not affect or apply to the student body they serve.
Alison Young for the editorial board
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
Todd Cohen...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...News editor
Atlan Player...Editorial editor
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Richard Stewart...Graphics editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
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"I GOTTA GIVE THE DREAM LONG ODDS AT 100:1 .."
'The Greek' repents to wrong man
Once spent an evening playing poker with Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder. He lost and I won, so I can't help being a little fond of him.
One of the things I remember about that card game was that he seldom stopped talking. He didn't always make sense, but his ramblings were almost nonstop. Anecdotes about athletes and other gamblers, mini-lectures on how poker should be played, and frequent grabs for the phone to place bets with his bookie.
For a while, I thought it was a play to distract the rest of us. But as his stack of chips shrunk, I realized he was simply a compulsive talker. And being something of a celebrity, he felt obliged to dazzle us with what he thought was wit and worldliness, when we yawned.
When the game ended and we split up, one of the other players expressed surprise that a professional gambler could lose to the likes of me.
I told him it proved one thing. Although it appears to be a simple game, poker requires some thought. And it was clear that Jimmy couldn't think and talk at the same time.
And this lack of brain-mouth coordination finally did him in. Somebody shoved a microphone in his face, and he talked but didn't think.
By now, just about everybody knows what he said: that blacks are superior athletes because of selective breeding by slave owners and that if blacks become coaches, whites won't have any jobs in pro football.
Historians promptly said his breeding theory was nonsense, blacks said his coaching statement was racist, and CBS said he didn't work there anymore.
Mike
Royko
Syndicated Columnist
And this provided most of the nation's commentators, editorialists, cartoonists and some politicians with the opportunity to express shock, horror and disapproval of what they saw as evidence that ignorance and racism exist even in such lofty citadels of intellectualism as the football broadcast booth.
In other words, everybody had a great time. As they should. It was a wonderful farce.
Consider some of the comic elements:
Not knowing what hit him, Jimmy the Greek made a public apology, and to dramatize the depths of his remorse, he rushed to Jesse Jackson to seek forgiveness.
Naturally, Jackson was gracious and compassionate, which was to be expected of a presidential candidate grabbing some free network TV time.
So there we saw the humbled and grateful Jimmy being granted limited forgiveness by a statesman like Jesse Jackson.
This, of course, was the same Jackson who once referred to New York, which has a sizable Jewish population, as Hymietown.
And if that's not farce, I wasted many a Saturday afternoon watching the Three Stooges.
I'm not defending Jimmy the Greek. I'm sure he'll survive, if he stays out of poker games.
But in his bumbling way, Jimmy the Greek had been trying to be complimentary to black athletes by talking about their athletic skills and how hard they work to excel.
That he was wrong in his explanation, even though he thought he was right, shouldn't be a surprise. He's a professional gambler and babble, not a historian, anthropologist, sociologist or geneticist. And people in those racks aren't sure why Walter Prayon was so good, either.
In contrast, there wasn't anything remotely complimentary about Jackson's Hymettown remark. It wasn't as if he goofily told "I wonder why Albert Einstein and those other Jewish scientists got so smart. Do you think they eat lots of brain foods like fish?"
What Snyder said about blacks was dumb What Jackson said about Jews was nasty. To even come close to matching Jackson, Snyder would have had to be referred to Detroit or Oakland as
Yet Snyder, who is nothing but an overblown bookie, has been kicked around by the same pro-Jackson commentators who had no problem explaining that Jackson's Hymitown remark was the result of an unfortunate cultural experience and social deprivation. Do they think that Jimmy the Greek went to Amherst?
I'm not sure what any of this means except that we apparently hold Greek bookies and black presidential candidates to different intellectual standards. We expect more of the bookie.
Commissioners made a bad call
City officials committed a foul by ignoring the rights of homosexuals
It happened, as the saying goes, right there in front of God and everybody. That's what amazed me.
The event in question was a high school basketball game, a freshman tournament. Just about as wholesome and American as you can get. At the time, the fall of 77, I was an idealistic young punk with hair down to my shoulder blades, three or four whiskers and a pretty fair jump shot. And naive as all get out. It scares me sometimes, how innocent it was. It makes me wonder how much I still don't know.
The gym was packed. The crowd was roaring as we went out from the tip-off. The adrenaline was flowing. I'd been swishing warm-up shots from all over the court. I was ready to go win a ballgame. We got in the circle, and the refs came out. They looked like Mutt and Jeff, one about 6-foot-5, the other at about 5-4 was almost as short as I was, with a boot camp hair style. The ball went up and we took off and boom. I was gone. I couldn't have fouled out any faster if I'd come on court with a billy club and a Bowie knife. I couldn't believe it.
I got the fifth foul, about three minutes into the game, at center court, and I couldn't have touched the guy with a tennis racquet. I was stunned. I figured out what was going on at about foul three, but this last one was BLATANT. I turned and stared at the short ref, who had called all five fouls, and he just stared back a moment. He didn't even have the courtesy to sneer a little. I regret to this day that I didn't walk over and share a few of my thoughts with him. But I just sat on the bench, and the game went on
without me
Not, I realize, one of the great tragedies of human history, but an illuminating moment in my life. And one that came to mind when the Lawrence City Commission voted to take no action on a proposal to prohibit discrimination against homosexuals. It was in fact a vote in favor of discriminating against homosexuals. And they did it at center court, which didn't surprise me in the did it.
You see, what had surprised me was not that the ref didn't like me and my hipie-style hair. What amazed me was that he would screw me over so publicly. I was naive, not stupid. I knew that the lip service paid in class and assemblies to ideals like fairness and equal opportunity was exactly that, lip service. It meant that when you shafted people, or indulged in a little favoritarian, you were supposed to do it with a wink and a nod, nudge dugge, in some dark place, because you knew in your heart you were wrong.
But I was wrong. Darkness is not necessary.
When Bob Schumm talks about documented evidence, that is a wink and a nod. We all know that such discrimination exists. We also know that a certain amount of discretion is practiced.
There are no neatly filed memos saying, "Fire so and so, he's a fruit."
When Sandra Praeger talks about the "tyranny of the minority," that's nudge judge. When she says her vote should not be considered an endorsement of discrimination, she's trying to have it both ways. But it was. It was a yes or nay vote. The message is clear.
The very name of the Alliance of Citizens for Traditional Values is a wink and a nod. What "Traditional Values?" I have to ask. Racism? Sexism? Religious Intolerance? These are certainly traditional, if not honorable.
The front page of the Jan. 20 Kansan featured a picture of two people celebrating because some human beings in Lawrence will not get the apartments they want, not get the jobs they deserve, simply because of something they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. And because some homosexuals in Lawrence, whether financially affected or not, will feel the deep, perhaps irrational, but very real pain that comes when you are rejected by your own.
it is to our country and city's credit that the issue was brought into the light, that the public vote was taken. But when the chance to do the decent thing, the right thing, dies in public acceptance of winks and nods and politician's weaselting, then the darkness is there as well, and it will not go away.
jay A. Cohen is an Alta Vista senior majoring in journalism.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed