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Tuesday, February 13, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
No fee increase
Remodeling Kansas Union won't alleviate existing problems for University stuents
The increase was approved by the University of Kansas Memorial Corporation last week and will be discussed at Student Senate budget meetings later this month.
The Student Senate should not approve the proposed increase in student fees to pay for renovations at the Kansas Union.
Students should not be forced to pay an $8 increase in fees for unnecessary renovations at the same time that classrooms are overcrowded and that the University cannot afford to pay for necessary repairs and improvements to existing structures.
Students living in residence halls or studying at Wescoe Hall should not have to dodge water when it rains. Students should not have to worry about pieces of concrete plummeting from a parking garage roof onto their cars or
heads. They should not have to fight for a seat in classrooms or stay in school for extra semesters to get the classes they need or want.
Will more remodeling at the Union help remedy those problems? Of course it won't. So why should students pay $4.5 million through increased student fees for the renovation?
Student Senate, the Board of Regents and the Legislature should act responsibly and reject the University of Kansas Memorial Corporation's request for the unnecessary increase in student fees. An increase in fees may be necessary but not for new entrances and changes in floor plans at the Union. Any extra revenue should be applied to something all students need: a better, safer educational environment.
Richard Brack for the editorial board
increase unjustified
Postal patrons could pay more for same service
You may care enough to send the very best, but it could cost you a nickel more next year to mail that special greeting.
next year to train that special gong. On March 6, the Postal Service Board of Governors will vote on the increase, which would raise the current 25 cent stamp to between 28 and 32 cents, although a 30 cent stamp is expected to be chosen.
If the proposal is passed, the five cent increase would take effect in early 1991 and would be the largest increase in postal prices ever.
It seems like yesterday that you could mail a letter to your grandmother for a mere 15 cents. An increase in 1981 raised the price of a stamp to 18 cents.
College students would be hit hard by the
increase when they sent out resume packages to multiple companies and when seniors mailed their graduation announcements.
Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank projected a 14 percent increase in consumer prices from 1988-1991, but the nickel increase for stamps would be a 20 percent raise. Frank has promised to keep postal service increases below the inflation rate in the future.
You would think a private industry would see the trend in postal service increases and create some healthy competition for the postal service monopoly — mail service that is fast, friendly and cheap.
If the postal service continues to increase the price for its services, it should continue to upgrade the quality of its service.
Jennifer Metz for the editorial board
Poindexter case
Reagan should give live courtroom testimony
The step Ronald Reagan took Friday wasn't big enough. Reagan finally said he would give
Reagan finally said he would give videoated testimony in the Iran-contra case of former national security adviser John M. Poindexter, but even this action isn't significant enough to ensure that Poindexter will receive a fair trial.
Reagan's testimony as a witness in the courtroom is long overdue. When Oliver North was tried in the same case, Reagan's written answers to questions about the case were submitted to a grand jury but never were provided to North's attorneys.
Perhaps Reagan realized last week that he couldn't keep ignoring the issue when U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman questioned why North wasn't allowed to see these answers. The U.S. justice system is based on giving someone accused of a crime
Silberman's observation also should be applied to Poindexter's trial.
Reagan, citing executive privilege, still refuses to disclose more than 33 diary entries that U.S. District Judge Harold H. Green has ordered him to turn over.
The former president has abused his power of executive privilege. Obviously these diary entries remain a vital element in the Poindexter trial, and the former national security adviser should be allowed to see them. His future depends on it.
The ideal of liberty and justice for all has taken a sharp blow. It seems a high price to pay simply to keep one man's legacy unfarnished.
Don't worry about memorizing easily accessed information
Camille Krehbiel for the editorial board
Last week I read yet another article that said, in effect, that U.S. citizens are really dumb and U.S. college students are the dumbest of the lot. It really depressed me. I threw down my books and decided to numb my brain with a couple of six-packs.
Dave Wakefield
Life is over, I thought to myself. No employer will hire me now that the news is out. The first time I apply for a job, some dark-suited executive with a red tie will think to himself, "Hmmm. Another one of those dumb college kids."
"I read just last week that one out of four college seniors didn't even know when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock." he will say, brushing some lint off his sha:ply-creased pants. "The first time Jones, of Jones, Brumby and Smith, asks this kid when the Mayflower dropped anchor off the coast of America, this kid will stutter, and guess 1678 and we'll lose the account."
Staff columnist
I sighed to myself and tried to imagine what life would be like as a street vendor in downtown Lawrence selling Peruvian earrings to tourists.
Fourteen Diet Pepis later, I began to get really angry, I am labeled a failure just because a sizable percentage of college students don't know Prometheus from Pythias. I always thought that was the reason for reference books. If you want to know about something obscure that never comes up in years of normal conversations, look it up.
"Can you name a famous book
When I was seven, my sister and I used to ask my brother Phillip, age 5, similar questions.
written by Lewis Carroll?" we would ask. When he didn't know the answer, we would feign amazement and shock and exclaim loudly, "You don't know?!"
"Phillip doesn't even know who wrote 'Alice in Wonderland!'" we would scornfully shout. Then we'd laugh. This was a really fun game because it always made Phillip cry.
W'e'd ask. "What is the distance in angstroms between London and Zinantecah, Mexico?" And Philip would say, "s64 times 10 to the 10."
Of course everyone knows that is wrong. Phillip was bluffing. There are really about 8.6 times to the 14 angstroms between London and Zinantecali (give or take a few trillion). But my sister and I really didn't know ourselves. Sure, we suspected Phillip was bluffing and still made fun of his answer. But we worried that he might really know something we didn't and it took all the fun out of the game. Eventually
we gave it up.
Today, Philip is an intern in dermatology and every time someone in our family gets a strange rash, we ask Phillip what to do.
Groups like the National Endowment for the Humanities, the group that sponsored last fall's poll, are getting on my nerves. Who knows how much trauma these polls are creating for today's students? How long will the damage last? It took me two days and a bunch of aspirin just to recover from my caffeine hangover. I wish someone would get on with fixing the system and stop telling me every year how little I know.
Some students have been trying to fight the deep sense of inferiority caused by these constant polls. They
bravely maintain the conclusions of the polsters are wrong. "It is not the date Columbus discovered America, it is the concept that is important," these students say as they struggle to maintain their confidence. Others simply try to discredit the polsters. "These polsters come from a generation that knows nothing about computers and created the blueprint for the destruction of our environment," they say.
But later I have found an even better approach. Don't fight it, I say. Just stay stupid. We live in an era when textbooks are out-of-date almost as soon as they are printed. Even history keeps getting rewritten every few years. One should be wary of memorizing too much, I say. If you aren't careful, you will wind up with a storehouse of completely useless information. If you stay stupid, you can always look it up in the new, revised version of the encyclopedia and get it right the first time. I once
read a book on memory that said you
should never remember anything
you can look up. (It is probably out-
of-date by now.)
meanwhile, we will be hearing more from concerned groups. Most experts seem to agree that something needs to be done. Something big. Something soon. Even college students know the answer to this one. We may not know the name of the Secretary of Education, but we know the concepts necessary to solve problems in the 1990s. More money. The solution to almost any problem in the United States is more money. More money will make the educators happy. It will make the students happy. Heck, maybe we should give the National Endowment for the Humanities some money. Maybe then they'll be happy too and shut up.
Dave Wakefield is a Lawrence senior majoring in journalism and biology.
Other Voices
It is such a joy to see that the 1991 proposed federal budget does not resemble one put out by Ronald Reagan. It is tempting to say the first all-George Bush budget is good enough. It isn't, not nearly.
In a government budget, when the economic assumptions are too optimistic, the deficit leaps wildly ahead.
If the Office of Management and Budget is off by only 1 percent in its projection for the increase in the
Gross National Product, the projected $63 billion deficit jumps $18 billion.
The national debt will cross the $3 trillion mark this year. Interest payments on that debt now eat up 14 percent of all tax dollars. The Bush budget has not done enough to slow this catastrophic misuse of our money.
From the Westerly (R.I.) Sun, Feb.
1.
News staff
News start
Richard Brack ... Editor
Daniel Nieml ... Managing editor
Christopher R. Ralston ... News editor
Lisa Norcross ... Planning editor
John Milburn ... Editorial editor
Candy Niemann ... Campus editor
Mike Consalde ... Sports editor
E. Joseph Zurga ... Photo editor
Stephan Kline ... Graphics editor
Ria Bergstad ... Art/Features editor
Tom Elis ... General manager, news adviser
Margerite Townsend ... Business manager
Tami Rank ... Retail sales manager
Miesey Miller ... Company manager
Kathy Kroll ... Regional sales manager
Mike Lehman .. National sales manager
Mindy Morris .. Co-op sales manager
Nate Stamos .. Production manager
Nina Lauer .. Assistant production manager
Carrie Blanlake .. Marketing director
James Glassapp .. Administrator
Jenny Norholm .. Clearfix manager
Wendy Smith .. Teearahca manager
Jeanne Hines .. Sales and marketing edilier
Put your cans in the bright yellow bins
Business staff
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Jay Diffendorfer Guest columnist
Anyone who watches the nightly news is well aware of the myriad serious environmental crises facing the Earth today. Problems like the greenhouse effect, air and water contamination and habitat destruction threaten the quality of life on our planet. Awareness of these problems never has been higher, but although people want to help, many are unaware of how they can do so. One easy way is recycling.
Recycling something instead of throwing it away significantly reduces the impact on our environment. A can made from recycled aluminum produces 95 percent less air pollution and 97 percent less water pollution than one made from virgin ore. Yet, though the benefits
Eventually, the Recycling Task Force would like recycling to cover the entire campus and include all recyclable materials. Many universities across the country successfully recycle, including Kansas State University and the University of Colorado. There is no reason a similar system cannot be set up at KU. An
are indisputable, relatively few people recycle because they don't know where or how.
Remember, tomorrow starts today. So look for the yellow bins and recycle your aluminum cans.
from now on, instead of putting your empty pop cans in the trash, take them to the nearest bin. The bins, which will be emptied daily by River City Recycling, look like violently yellow trash cans. All the bins have lids with aluminum can-sized holes to help remind you not to throw in other types of trash. Cooperation from the KU student body is crucial to the success of this project.
Lackily, recycling aluminum cans at KU is now as easy as throwing them away. Starting this semester, recycling bins have been set up on campus by Student Senate and the Environs Recycling Task Force. This pilot program has placed 32 bright yellow recycling bins in 12 campus buildings.
extensive recycling program would require a commitment from the administration at some level. Confidence that the student body would participate is essential before the University would make such a commitment. If the aluminium can project goes well, it would prove to the administration that recycling is feasible at KU and could be expanded.
> Jay Diffenderfer is a Lawrence graduate student in systematics and ecology and member of the KU recycling task force.
CAMP UHNEELY
BY SCOTT PATTY