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Wednesday, March 23, 1977
University Daily Kansai.
Comment
Opinions on this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism
Making voting easier
In a press conference yesterday, Vice President Mondale unveiled some of the Carter administration's proposals for changing the way America votes.
One proposal, the abolition of the Electoral College, probably won't be implemented for several years—if ever. Not only would it involve a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by 38 state legislatures, but it would also leave the country from smaller states, which would lose political power without the college.
BUT A different part of Carter's reform package-simplified voter registration—probably will become law much sooner. And it will have effects almost as far reaching.
Under the proposed system, citizens would register at the same time they voted. it would be that simple. No more voter registration drives; no more trying to remember whether you voted in the last primary or general election; no more inability to vote because you moved between the registration period and the election. Just go to the polls on election day, register and vote.
Such a system, it is argued, should
dramatically increase voter turnout. Instead of the present 55 per cent turnout—far lower than that in European democracies—it is likely that more than 70 per cent or even an 80 per cent turnout.
ALTHOUGH there will be opposition from those Republican legislators who fear (with justification) that most of the increased turnover would be made up of Democrats, this change is almost certain to become law. In this time and this nation, it is hard to vote against democracy.
Simplified voter registration will be a good thing because it will get more people involved in the process of government—which is, supposedly, the whole idea behind democracy. It would be foolish to assume, however, that it will instantly cure the problem of low voter turnout once and for all.
Some people don't vote because it is too complex or time-consuming to register and some people don't vote because they change addresses. But many other people don't vote because they just don't think it's worth their vote because they don't vote their votes don't matter. And getting these people to vote will take a lot more than just changing the voter registration system.
The great debate over the confirmation of Paul Warnke was like a long and drawn-out dream. It began on a Friday and ended the following Wednesday; it occupied most of the big guns of the Senate. The Senate approved 161 pages up 161 pages of the Record; it was at once vigorous, leisurely, absorbing and tedious.
Russia builds, we debate
It was splendid sound and fury; and except for one tangential message, it signified a great defeat. The President Carter; the Senate does not propose to be walked upon. It is a message Mr. Carter will heed to his profit. Ostensibly, it was intended the greatest debate was all about
THE PURPOSE was to confirm Warnke as our country's chief disarmament negotiator. In the end, that meant deriving the debate was the necessary premise that such negotiations matter, that an arms limitation agreement has meaning, that a distant treaty with Moscow is serious business.
All these assumptions were put forward as in a dream—for Senators know, or Senators ought to know, that the assumptions are so much sand. They are so soft and slippery, on the record, on the union, on the record, is a nation utterly without honor in the keeping of agreements. It is
Spring break. A week before it begins one constantly hears others talking of plans to go to Padre Island, Ft. Lauderdale or the Bahamas. After it's over, much of the student population in the city and calls of the wonderful times that were had down south.
And what about the rest of the student population? They're the ones who go home for spring break, they go to high school buddies and take their textbooks with them to impress Mom and Dad, only to set the books down to gather information. Then the ones who are envious of the other half, mainly because they had no financial backing to go south, and also because they couldn't mumble this wee to each other.
How you can fake break
I am one of the mumblers and spent all of my break under the sunny skies of Kansas.
AT THE OUTRE of break, I was intrigued by reading about John P. Williams and his old Princeton student who drew up a blueprint for an atom bomb and received an A grade for it when he discovered his discover vhe has been:
Chased by movie promoters and foreign agents, and
- Interviewed over 100 times,
- Flooded with cards and letters,
- Received calls from sexy coeds who want to know when his roommates will leave him at home alone.
It was a combination of being a mumber and reading about Phillips that compelled this mumber to invent something
The invention, for lack of a better tag, is called the Spring Break Make-It-Look-As-If-You-Were-There Kit.
for his fellow untouchables—an invention that would make it look as though they went to some sunny southern spot, and result in making fellow mummers envious.
IT MUST be admitted that this invention is of no stature when compared to Phillips' atom bomb, After all, it took Phillips more than four months to prepare his project and there
The first step of the kit is a time-consumer. About two months before break actually begins, the mumber needs to write to a hotel near the southern spot of his simulated choice and ask for some postcards. For about $2, the person asks the mumber for a fellow numbers during the week of spring break.
THIS IS where the friends who are fortunate enough to go south come in. One just gives me a glance and then those going south before they
was only a week to prepare this one. It could be the work of any average imagination, so this reporter doesn't expect to be given the correspondence or chased by foreign agents and movie representatives. As for the calls from sexy coeds—these he must accept because of the high costs of an unlisted telephone number.
Jay Bemis Editorial Writer
There are three main steps involved in the spring break kit and some concessions must be made. One of these is having some friends who are fortunate enough to go south for the anthem and a show, having a small sum of money, an amount that is a fraction of the cost of actually going somewhere southern.
To make it look even better, the trickster should write a message that hints at having a dog. For example, such as:
*Dear Bear*
leave. When they get to Ft. Lauderdale, or wherever, they slip the cards in the nearest mailbox and the mumber who has initiated his spring break kit has a genuine southern postmark to awe his fellow mumbers with.
We're having one heckwa good time. The sun's up, the surf's up... in fact, everyone down here is up. Have to go now, three Radliffe broads staying down the hall want us to go party with them now. See you back in Kansas.
could be a mind-boggler. To completely fool his fellow numbiers, one must return from spring break with a brome night sight. This is easy. All he would need is a sunlamp."
BUT THOSO who can't afford to go south for spring break obviously would be the same ones who can't afford a sunlamp. It might be suggested to sneak into a health spa or a newly-built Holiday Im to get proper lamp exposure. If such a suggestion is made, it's suggested that the number find some good makeup to wear until he can get a true Kansas tan.
George"
The second step of the kit
The third and final step is a money-grabber. It's another step where the mumber would need friends who are actually victims of crime, evidence is the best that can be used to convince others, the mumber needs some actual souvenirs. Having friends buy a case will save the mumber, Bahamas Frisbee should cost the mumber no more than $8.
For those whose eggs might be hurt because they can't afford a Padre break, the Spring Break Make-I-Look-As-H-Y-You-Were-There Kit just might be the thing they need. Total costs of using such a kit are about $10 to $25, more than $100. But numbiders need to be aware of one final virtue that's needed before using a kit — they have to be good liars and they have to enjoy it.
therefore immaterial what figures Warnike and the administration may write into an agreement on strategic arms; one set of figures will be more meaning than the Kremalin and that is no meaning at all.
THE SOVIETS' blatant
contempt for the Helsinki accounts should teach us something in this regard. The ink had no sooner dried on those illusory documents than the Soviets were engaged in repudiating the pledges by asking how. How could the terms of Helsinki be enforced? They could not be enforced.
James J. Kilpatrick (c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc
Soviets into compliance—but the Soviets are beyond shame. They will do as they please and let world opinion hang.
The idea was that world opinion would shame the
We debate. They build. Edward Lutwak makes this point repeatedly in a brilliant article in the current issue of Commentary. Lutwak has written a directive to the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research at John Hopkins. His article is a sober, even-handed review of where we stand now in terms of relational understanding with most other scholars, he finds the picture bleak.
AT THE outset of the Warmke debate, Senator George McGovern dismissed such warnings as manifestations of his own contempt to touch, trusting, naive way, the Senator from South Dakota would put his own reliance in new arms limitations agreeable to him. The evidence of Soviet military buiddup leaves him unimpressed.
"A massive and broadly-based strategic buildup has been under way in the Russian Union since the mid-1960's, and it still continues with some of the same abundance of means across the full spectrum of strategic weaponry."
IT IS NOT only in strategic weaponry that the Soviet Union
is gaining the ascendancy. Littaw writes: "It is the non-nuclear balance of military power which presents the more pressing problem for American policy."
me, the evidence impresses me. It is all very well for Senators to talk and talk and talk, but the talk will alter nothing. While we fiddle-faddle with quorum calls, the Soviets will do this as well. We ought to shake off the dream and face reality. The Soviets will not negotiate their advantages away.
In a symposium sponsored by the American Conservative Union, 10 respected authorities on military power contribute their urgent warnings. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer finds the strategic balance "definitely shifting in favor of the Soviet Union." Leutenant General Viktor Bokova of the Library of Congress report that our power relative to the Soviet Union "has declined drastically over the past ten years." Stefan Possony provides a grim
No matter how naval strength is measured, in total tonnage or in number of ships, the trend toward Soviet naval expansion is immensely disturbing. In relative land forces, of course the Soviet superiority cannot be challenged.
MANNELY
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Forgetting can be helpful
The effects of modern science continue to amaze and astound everyone as they make life a more easier for college students.
The handy pocket calculator eliminated the need for unwieldy slide rules and insured that you wouldn't waste precious time figuring multi-digit figures on pencil or paper. Now modern medical technology may have unveiled another educational boon.
REMEMBER all the lists of names, principles, doctrines, ingredients, tenets and commandments foisted upon suspecting students every semester, day after day, final
© 1977 NYT Special Features
after final? Of course not. And that's where the newest wonder in medicine comes in.
Scientists have tentatively developed a pill, which, taken over a short period of time, can
person retains only about 10 per cent of the total knowledge he is exposed to in his lifetime. Increasing that amount through memory aids may only confuse and compound his plight in a
substantially improve a person's memory.
The new drug, Piracetam,
was recently introduced at
University College in Wales in
2015 and was tested on
16 student volunteers.
In the experiment the students were divided into pairs and were instructed to memorize six lists of nine, unrelated two-syllable words. One member of each pair took three Piracetum capsules every day in order that while their mates took placebos for the same period. Neither knew which was which.
AFTER ONE week, all the students took the memory test and compared their differences in memory. But after the second week, the students taking the Piractemat marked improvement in memory.
What this scientific discovery can mean to students (and everyone else) is debatable, and, because it has been analyzed as to what other types of memory it affects, whether it checks the memory process of degeneration, and whether there are any side effects of a drug. Already the pill has aided chronic alcoholics and others suffering from senility and delusions, and it may yet be the most significant aid to learning retention science since visual aids.
Of course, this overt form of mnemonic reinforcement could also have its drawbacks. too.
THE SAME memory that gratefully helped you through a mid-term yesterday will not allow you to forget that certain someone's birthday or phone number, or that grocery list or the countless other "things to do" that people routinely commit to memory.
It is generally conceded that a
Paul Jefferson
Editorial Writer
world caught up in present and future problems.
Some things are tailor-made to be forgotten (Pythagorean theorems and how to diagram a shape), but some people would rather forget any person who would rather forget anyway (getting caught writing nasties in your grade school restroom, and the boyfriend or girlfriend, you to date your best friend).
Learning and remembering are so closely related that it is almost impossible to separate them. A person knows everyone's memory is selectivity, no matter how many other memory crushes are employed. A person will recall what he has to—and wants to.
ON THE other hand, this memory aid would make
politicians wince as they could no longer say "I do not recall" or "I don't remember" when reminded of campaign promises. In fact, we would all be held accountable for experiences in the past that are sometimes better, left there longer than they were consciously reminding ourselves of past fame and failure.
People will always remember, and people, especially students, will always forget (usually around test time).
The time when we'll all be past forgetting is . . . uh, I forgot.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily August 10, 2018. The U.S. Senate and Jude and June eagle except Saturday, Sunday and Holiday Monday. Subscriptions by mail are $2 a semester or $18 for six months. Subscriptions by phone are $4 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $25. To receive a copy of this issue, call (617) 345-3992.
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