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Wednesday, March 9, 1977
University Dally Kansan
Opinions on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism
This time, do it right
Some of the most welcome news to drift down from Strong Hall in quite some time was the recent announcement that conference will begin slightly sooner than expected.
The state architectural selection committee agreed in late February to allow use of the original architectural plans for the building, thus opening access to the site and summer or early fall. The committee's decision negated the need to draw new plans for the satellite union.
The good news was tempered somewhat by an accompanying announcement that the basement of the satellite building won't be finished immediately because inflation has driven up costs and sapped available money. But it was a heartening turn of affairs nonetheless.
IT WAS ALSO ironic that the announcement was made in the midst of daily news reports about bumbling and delays on another campus project, the new School of Law building, which may or not be completed sometime this summer.
Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned here.
The construction of the law building has been a comedy of errors. Numerous concrete slabs in the building's shell have cracked; walls have collapsed; the subcontractor who provided the defective concrete slabs has gone broke; and, in general, things have gone less than smoothly. This has led to much finger-pointing on the part of all involved, so it is difficult to pin the blame anywhere.
At various times, the general contractor, and, at many times, the ill-fated subcontractor have been accused of incompetence. Regardless of the blame, the fact is that the completion date has been pushed back and no one really is sure that the law building will be ready for classes next fall.
Whatever the course, steps should be taken in Strong Hall and in Topeka to insure that a repeat performance of the law school massacre doesn't happen here. This is important for the satellite union, which is being built under a cost ceiling set by students.
IF THERE ARE any painful lessons that have been learned from this mess, they should be vividly remembered during the planning and construction of the satellite union. Perhaps subcontractors must be more carefully researched than others, and it must be more closely policed by University and state officials during the course of construction.
STUDENTS WILL pay a maximum of $7.50 a semester in fees for the satellite union. This puts a $2.5 million construction cost ceiling on the project. Inflation is already wring away at that amount and any delays would be especially harmful in this project, which students are helping fund from their collective pockets.
University officials should make sure that the satellite union, which will stand just a stone's throw from the new law building, is built in a way that sets it apart from its poor neighbor.
An honest politician
Honesty is the rarest virtue in a politician. It would seem, then, that a forlightholder legislator would be appreciated for being so intelligent to tell the truth with some regularity.
Such is not the case in the Kansas House of Representatives.
The result was a threat of censure action, leVELled by State Rep. Carlos Cooper, R-Bonner Springs. Cooper relented only when Glover agreed to apologize to the full House.
State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence, has been rudely awakened to that fact. Glover was called on the carpet before that august body this week for telling the truth about Specifically. Glover told a newspaper reporter that he regularly used marijuana.
GLOVER, IT MUST be remembered, is the author of a marijuana decriminalization that passed the House only a few days before the ruling, damaging the damning information, appeared.
Cooper noted that several legislators
"stretched their necks out 40 miles to support the bill," and he was incensed because Glover's remarks embarrassed some of the lawmakers.
If Cooper's neck and those of his friends were out 40 miles, Glover's must have been out 50 miles when he admitted that he uses an alpine. And Glover's neck was out there all day.
But Glover has never pulled any punches, either with his constituents or his fellow legislators. he proved in the newspaper "Boston Dispatch" that he wants to politicians' game of beat-around-the-truth.
GLOVER IS HONEST, honest to a fault perhaps. But that is a remarkably refreshing quality these days, and we should be glad we have learned from them that is foreign to too many of his colleagues.
Instead of censuring Glover, the House should consider commending him. He has done, and continues to do, things that his parents cannot耐拒 the courage nor the motivation to try.
SCRABBLE, Va.—For the professional journalist, working in Washington is among the top three beats it; not working in Washington. For the past two weeks this correspondent has worked in Washington. The experience restores the soul.
The South cures Potomac fever
In our household, vacation time ordinarily is go-to-Europe time. This year came the week before South Carolina had greater charm than Sicily and Louisiana more allure than London. If one's purpose is to travel to Europe, why not loaf here at home?
Two weeks cannot cure the wasting disease known as Potamus Fever, but two weeks can surely help. The alliment is characterized by distorted vision and a certain numbness
of the senses. To work in Washington is to succumb to the notion that Washington is the center of the universe; it is to suppose that if something is important in Washington, ipoe
facto, it is important everywhere else.
WELL, IT INN'T so. While we were away, the story broke of the CIA's payments to King Hussein. It was a sensation in Washington. Down in Dixie in tak-tak, ho-hum and what time is highide tomorow? Washington was all wrought up with an attack by Warnke to lead disarmament talks. The South Carolina press was scared wrought up at all. Along the South Carolina coast.
James J. Kilpatrick
(c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
other interests dominate conversation—and "dominate" is perhaps too strong a verb for a gentle glove. The talk is mostly of local affairs—of political parties, flowers, of the poor tourist season and what the state legislature is doing. On Hilton Head Island, dawn sees a few intrepid joggers on the beach; otherwise, the sea and sand belong to the gulls.
ONE TENDS TO forget the slumbrous softness of the Southern coast, the Spanish moss, the long reaches of marsh grass and the night the pine woods are as black as printer's ink; beyond the yellow cone of headlights the world disappears. The reason from Washington is not to be measured in miles, but in enoa.
If we hadn't driven up to Beaufort, for a day of loafing in that lazy little city, we would have missed two immortal ballads on the Parris Island radio station's song entitled, "Batten down the Hatches, Let the Tornat In, 'Cause Miss Lucy's on the Juice Again." The other entailing melody, lingering in memory, told of a traveling man who had an affair with another woman, when she Thing That I Could Find to Yew. "Nothing of the sort can be heard at Kennedy Center.
WE SPENT A leisurely day in Savannah. Just about everything is leisurely in Savannah. None of our jobs are a way of viable downtown restoration than Savannah. Ten or 15 years
THROUGH THE television,
the viewer will be able to
have access to myriad
communication units.
Television has new uses
Television periodically comes under fire from many corners for not producing. I'm not talking about any particular show or series, it's just that the boob tube is seen as a wasteland and not very creative in its programming.
ago, the charming little square of Ogletheorpe's design were drab islands in a sea of slums. Today the old high-celled houses serve as law offices, corporation headquarters, and private residences and present form a seamless web. Everybody walks in Savannah but nobody walks fast.
In Japan, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry has instituted a cable system that provides a system of two-way communication by television. Using the new technology in our offices, the fixed networks information is requested by the home dweller by tapping on the proper codes on a keyboard installed on his regular TV. Through a link with a central computer the owner can have important and timely information at his fingertips, and transact business without having to be obeyed or engaging in costly long-distance telephone calls.
Admittedly, it **rarely** enlightens or informs us, and even then it's only because of the crisis rather than normality.
But events taking place on the other side of the Pacific Ocean may revolutionize the present world of television in this country.
FOR EVEN AS the debate continues over the pervasive, good or bad, influence of TV on children's lives of impressionable children and adults, we're quickly being catapulted into an era when the television will serve man furthers' educational and financial endeavors.
All types of entertainment,
New Orleans in carnival time is a different story. The balla begin before Christmas; the parades—7 of them this year—are abruptly abruptly wound up deliriously on Feb. 22 with nine separate productions. And these are productions. The visitor marvels at two aspects of Mardi Gras—the prodigious celebration and the ephemeral fun, and the pervasive good humor of the city. The Inaugural parade for Carter was a pretty fair parade as parades go, but it was the occasion that is staged for the King of Bacchus in New Orleans.
video and audio, could be requested from the central computer, which switches the designated program into
theater, travel and restaurant reservations in the same manner. Payments are automatically deduced from
automatic, prerecorded transmission.
Still-picture readouts of specialized information, such as weather, stock market reports and news, are readily available from the system. If the viewer wishes, hard copies of video information can be printed out, or stored in personal, "home" newspaper.
Paul Jefferson
Editorial Writer
the subscriber's bank account, and monthly statements verify the transactions.
A type of education-by-copy system can be put to use in their own homes by students. Students work problems, and their answers are evaluated by the computer which regulates the program in order to ensure that students demonstrated in advance by each individual. Courses such as mathematics, foreign languages and some areas of vocational training could be adapted easily to this system. It should be noted that during the recent blizzards and subsequent school closings in Ohio, many students were forced to "schools through the airwaves" for the stay-at-home students
AS HAS BEEN demonstrated in some cities in the United States, cashless transactions can be made with the use of this network. Mobile computer apples the screen that the viewer can order through use of the keyboard unit. He can make
The computer-linked television is still in the experimental stage in Japan, although the system was developed by an American research organization. The research group, Arthur D. Little, Inc., says that the
Japanese field trial is experimental only in the sense of evaluating the performance of the system and determining modifications necessary to adapt a nation-led operation.
COUPLING TELEVISION technology with the newer technology of fiber optics may give the boob tube an even greater importance in the current life in the near future.
The current popularity of video games that use the television set—such as ping pong and hockey, in which people are active participants in a competitive viewpoint only a hint of things to come from the wide wonderful world of television.
IF YOU'RE thinking of doing your loafing in New Orleans, set aside five hours for a Mississippi cruise on the Mark Twain steamer. The river embraces a whole way of life, as alien to a Washington correspondent as the villages of Sicily or Spain. What do they think about the loafing at King Hussein, that's for sure.
Returning to Washington, one finds the capital still yapping and smiling about the CIA, the congressional pay raise, the budget revisions, the friction between Carter's people and the lords of Capitol Hill. There is a correspondent's bread and butter. They are indeed important, but I kid you not: A sunny afternoon in Savannah is very close to heaven.
Readers censure Sniffen, KU basketball, VD story
To the editor:
Studies necessary
Bill Sniffen's editorial of March 3 is a poorly written, poorly researched book that misses the importance of science and its purpose in the community. No person, scientist or non-scientist, will reject the notion that federal and private funding should be used to channel monies to appropriate research programs. We all realize that the system is not perfect, but Sniffen has blindly struck at an institution about what he is admittedly ignorant.
Snifteen has suggested that we study "the two-legged variety" rather than attempt to utilize the system, because apparently he is not familiar with the history of modern science. Biological systems are fairly constant and general principles may be applied to various forms of nature. Heredity were developed using garden peas, that enzymes were
first discovered in yeast and that the fruit fly is used to uncover the principles of genetics all point out the great advances to which comparative studies have so greatly contributed.
Sniffen prefers to ignore these. Science is valueless to him because of its complex terminology. However, if scientists repeatedly defined all their publications, Sniffen would criticize their length and redundancy.
I suggest, Mr. Sniften, that you take advantage of your association with this University and enroll in an elementary journalism course at a time, allow the information journalists to write the editorials. Perhaps a reexamination of the appropriation of funds at the university level (such as for students who are before taking cheap shots at the national science organizations.
Coby Schal Lawrence graduate student
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
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Editor
Jim Roper
Managing Editor Greg Hack
Editorial Editor Stewart Brann
Campus Editor
Alison Gwinn
Business Manager Janice Clements
Rhetoric reiterated
To the editor:
surely the Kansan could have come up with a finer piece of column filler than Bill Sniffen's March 3 editorial haranguing various research funding on his work. But he both even an old political cartoon would've been better. His biggest bellyache seems to reduce itself to the editor's head," Research over his head," as all Sniffen's snuffiness declares from an article's title and abstracts its contribution in the author's field.
I am not so naive as to suggest that research projects funded from public sources shouldn't be subject to critical public scrutiny, and those such scrutiny and review should be intelligently conducted, and shouldn't simply be a public reflection of a reviewer's observation of all Snuffen's editorial amounts to as he reiterates the trashy
Sniffen's snide snuffing might have been intelligently developed into a far better editorial had he snuffed around the University he's encapsulated within to query persons engaged in research. The sniffers don't comprehend vta print. From such discussion, he might have come away better informed about the value of research which frequently bears titling that is humorous or mansue out of context. After all, if taken out of context, it's "pituitary-gonadal amnesia" might be construed as a synonym of both ends of his body.
rhetoric of a few sanctimonious federal legislators.
George Pisani
George Pisml director of laboratories, department of biology
'Hawks' season 'off'
To the editor:
For the last two years I have followed the declining fortunes of the University of Kansas
Research defended
To the editor:
the "it's knock research" editorial by Bill Sniffen (March 3) was a cheap and naive shot. I assume Sniffen is a freshman, but his third year most students have gained at least a rudimentary
I am sure I speak for all my fellow researchers when I extend an invitation to Sniffen to visit our labs where all this "absurd and ridiculous research" we do is be delighted to let him know, in the most everyday of terms, precisely what we are doing, why we are doing it, and why this research just might
Readers Respond
However, our performance in the closing minutes of last Thursday night's game against the Cincinnati that broke the camel's back.
basketball program and although I have groomed and cursed at every foul and turn over (believe me, that'a lot of groans and curses), I have never offered any outright criticism of the players or coaching staff.
I think it is inexcusable that we should lose to our arch-rival for the third time in one season. Once again, we were outshot, outplayed and outcoached. We were compared to clumsy when compared to an excellent manner in which they moved the ball.
This wasn't just an off game for the Jayhawks. It was typical of our play the entire season. KU has too much tradition to be doomed to this sort of mediocrity. I suggest that Clyde Walker make whatever changes are necessary to rectify the problem. Students may decide to put our $15 to better use than supporting a stagnant basketball program.
Tom Cadden
Glenview, Ill., senior
understanding of why biomedical research on pigs, roaches and even lowly bacteria to advantage to the human organism.
The phrase "big bucks for big research" is certainly catchy, but in the biomedical arena the return on this investment has been unsuccessful and unusually well documented in a recent segment of the NBC evening news (literally billions of dollars saved in medical expenses, as well as imputations) relief from human suffering).
All living cells, whether they are crayfish, pig or man, are extraordinarily similar and even identical in thousands of ways, and to understand one cell type is to understand them better. For example, alcoholism on pigs, since their physiology in some ways more closely resembles that of man than any other convenient experiment animal, including the monkey? Knowledge of the life cycle of coaches and other insects has provided us with knowledge of how animals compete with their populations, so why not study the effects of roach hormones on their behavior and reproduction?
someday benefit him or his children.
Paul Burton professor of physiology and cell biology
VD story is unfair To the editor:
It is certainly important that information regarding "rape, attempted rape, discrimination and other problems faced by women" be reported, but venereal disease is a problem that is quite obviously shared by both sexes. Were the situation as easily file against a woman as charges similar to the ones brought against the KU basketball player.
It should be pointed out that had the accused been an unknown KU student, his or her name wouldn't have been printed (and certainly not headlined) until after the hearing. Johnson's reputation has been bemismerched by the newspaper reporting regardless of his or innocence. As it is, this matter has received more attention than it merits and I must apologize to both of the involved parties for contributing to it.
Judy Wendland
Sandy Widman
Alamogordo, N.M., junior
I would hope that in the future this type of discrimination will be by both the University Doul Kadar and the Lawrence Journal-World.
ISA coverage just To the editor:
The ISA has been making a patriotic attempt to inform Americans of the Iranian situation, especially regarding American involvement (activities closely resembling U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the late '50s and early '60s).
I am reasonably sure that if similar malicious actions were directed at black students, a loud cry would be voiced that racism wouldn't be tolerated here at KU.
In response the majority of the KU community have ignored, laughed at, and even harassed visitors. In addition, Iranians, largely because of their reputations as activist and pamphleteer, rudely and humorously have been refunded housing.
Lawrence graduate student
Bo Smith
As a student disgusted by the prevailing racial attitudes and treatment directed against the Muslim community, I wish to commend the Kansan for its coverage of the recent unprovoked attack of an Iranian student by a US pastor. A Norman Fore's visit to Iran
The Kanas decision to give these stories their just space may help legitimize the iranians' cause as well as help curb the current epidemic of racism on campus.
Greek speaks out
To the editor:
Please don't let this issue cause riffs in your friendships. It is a very positive and grand thing that has happened. You can well afford to be proud of yourself.
Our hearttight congratulations and best wishes to you who had the courage, good sense and decency to bring to light a long overlooked discrepancy in the religious discriminations of the sororities. We agree with you that a person must be valued as an individual and not as a member of a minority or a majority. Our only regret is that we didn't have the fortitude and grace to do the many years ago when we were in school.
Billie Parenteau
Pi Beta Phi
Wichita
600 ignorant words
To the editor:
When Bill Sniffen criticized basic science research in last Thursday's Kansas, he stated in the title that it was "over his head." Then why did he proceed with ignorant words on the topic?
I was outraged that the editorial was written in such a critical way when Snifen admittedly didn't know what he meant, and if he flunked Biology 104 and was trying to strike back.
Is it really so heard to fill the space allocated to each issue of a catalog? And why not other reason for your printing such an irresponsible editorial.
Lawrence grandate student