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Monday, November 21, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Students deserve a break earlier than Thanksgiving
Opinion
It's not likely that it will ever happen. In fact, it's practically impossible.
Still. it would be nice. Really nice.
It would be a "Fall Break." A stress-free week during the beginning of November would be a welcome addition to the calendar.
for eight weeks before Spring Break.
Spring Break is a needed chance to be relieved of responsibility and pressure caused by classes, tests, job hunting, etc., for just a week.
for just a week.
This fall, KU students leave Wednesday for a brief and very welcome Thanksgiving vacation after completing 11 consecutive weeks of class.
It has been a long stretch of classes. And it is followed by a brief, family-oriented holiday. For some, it is a relaxing holiday. For others it is mainly a chance to catch up on homework.
Thanksgiving vacation is a welcome break from school. But wouldn't it be nice if it had come about three weeks earlier?
Considering all the pressures on students today, a break from class would give students more time to recharge the brain and use a break.
But this probably will remain a pipe dream because the fall academic calendar is scheduled tightly. Classes already start before Labor Day and end only two days before Christmas. Adding a week for vacation would mean starting classes around Aug. 15.
An easier solution — except that it would require national legislation — would be to move Thanksgiving to October. After all, that would be close to the end of harvest. And it would be farther away from the Christmas holiday. And it would be about eight weeks after the semester starts.
Many students would be more than happy to give thanks for such a break.
Todd Cohen for the editorial board
NASA can't allow cover-up
The good feelings still remain from the last successful space shuttle launch. Americans' spirits got a much-needed boost from the Discovery launch in October after the Challenger disaster in 1986. On the surface, it appears that NASA successfully has restructured its management system and is on its way back.
But there are insinuations that NASA hasn't come forward with all the details of the Challenger disaster and that the administration is covering up flaws in the system that some think will lead to another shuttle tragedy in the next two to three missions.
Robert Hotz, a member of the presidential commission that issued a report on the disaster, said recently that NASA was so smug about never having had an accident that it had no plans or organization capable of handling one.
Because NASA was not prepared, many say, it decided to cover up most of the facts about the tragedy.
up most of the ocean. For example, NASA told the media that the Challenger crew cabin was vaporized at the time of the explosion. But recent reports have mentioned evidence that the astronauts were alive for up to $2_{1/2}$ minutes after the explosion and didn't die until the cabin struck the ocean.
But NASA managed to convince the nation that the astronauts were killed instantly.
As one newspaper report said, the image of the shuttle crew, conscious, aware of their fate, plunging for $2_{1/2}$ minutes toward the ocean at 200 mph was the last thing NASA needed.
Some people believe that not only did NASA hang tough in not revealing all the information from the Challenger disaster to the presidential commission,but that any future mistakes will be covered up, too, until another disaster forces another investigation.
"We have the feeling that nothing much has changed," Hotz said. "The problem is not that they'll get one (shuttle) off. They'll get one off and maybe two or three, but they're heading for trouble down the road."
for trouble down the road. That trouble could take the form of anything from launch delays to another disaster involving loss of life, something that surely would ground the shuttle for an indefinite amount of time, maybe permanently. And that is the last thing NASA or the United States needs.
Mark Tilford for the editorial board
News staff
Todd Cohen ...Editor
Michael Horak ...Managing editor
Julie Adam ...Associate editor
Stephen Wade ...News editor
Michael Merschel ..Editorial editor
Noel Gerdes ..Campus editor
Craig Anderson ..Sports editor
Scott Carpenter ..Photo editor
Dave Eames ..Graphics editor
Jill Press ..Arts/Features editor
Tom Ehlen ..General manager, news advisor
Business staff
Greg Knipp ...Business manager
Debra Cole ...Retail sales manager
Chris Cooper ...Campus sales manager
Linda Prokop ...National sales manager
Missarasuthith ...Promotions manager
Sarah Higdon ...Marketing manager
Brad Lenhart ...Production manager
Michelle Garland ...Astill production manager
Michael Lehman ...Classified manager
Jane Hines ...Sales and marketing adviser
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Shaffer
Modern warriors' battle cry: Charge it!
Remember "The Day After"?
Filmed in Lawrence, the movie employed a realism unequalled until "Roger Rabbit" to show the effects of a nuclear attack on the United States. Remember "America!"
In this 1967 movie, Kris Kristofferson fought almost single-handedly against oppression by stormtrooper-like United Nations forces that, under Soviet control, occupied the United States.
Remember "Red Dawn"?
After Soviet and Cuban paratroopers invaded North America, a band of teenage guerrillas calling themselves "the Wolverines" attacked the enemy from a stronghold in the Rockies. In the end, the United States repelled the invasion and erected a monument to the young heroes.
Hollywood is particularly good at holding up an object — they say it's a mirror, but it's really a surrealistic sketch — and showing how we are doomed to destroy ourselves.
We're still alive and intact as a nation. And the cinema prophets of cataclysm have slipped from favor with Siskel & Ebert. Themes of invasion and destruction, real or not, are hackeyed and dull.
Derek Schmidt
But more salient warnings brought by these doomday productions still linger. The three movies shared another common element: destruction of automobiles.
Concern is high about the risk war poses to cars. Just ask select holders of Citibank Preferred Visa cards.
A pamphlet recently sent to some cardholders told them that they had earned auto rental insurance as a bonus for their membership. But the policy was somewhat limited.
Staff columnist
"This plan does not cover losses caused or contributed to by; operation of the vehicle contrary to terms of the rental agreement; wear and tear; gradual deterioration; insects or vermin; inherent vice or damage; hostile or warlike action in time of peace or war; any weapon of war employing atomic fission or a radioactive force; insurrection, rebellion; revolution, civil war; usurped power or action taken by government or public authority in hindering, combatting or defending against such an occurrence; seizure or destruction under quarantine or custom regulations; confiscation by order of any government or public authority; transportation of contraband or illegal trade; nuclear reaction, nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination."
So the Defense Department should not rent a fleet of Ryders and drive them into battle.
And if you rent a Pinto from Hertz and take it on vacation in Beirut, you do so at your own risk. Don't park it near Cheronobyl. And don't expect to be charged for smuggling drugs from Mexico in the hatchback.
I suppose that such a contract should be reassuring. At least the company is concerned about having claims to settle in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange. But insurance that explicitly-
refuses to pay in case of military disaster must be at least uncommon, perhaps unprecedented.
Romans' charit insurance probably would not have invalidated itself in case of barbarian attack. And few historians believe that William the Conqueror had to study the fine print of his insurance policy before launching his invasion north from Normandy.
When President Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex, the insurance industry probably was not the cause of his concern. And few opponents of increased defense spending have argued that it would have a negative impact on automobile rentals.
Paul Kennedy's recent bestseller "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" documented the historical relationship between military spending and the civilian economy. But even his research did not predict that the historical trend would manifest itself in the form of rental insurance.
Perhaps, then, this is true: Where academics fail, comedians succeed.
It it took the Citibank Preferred Visa pamphlet to suggest the military-auto insurance link.
This newest form of the evolving relationship between strategy and peacetime finances was forecast in 1985 by Jan Barrett in the comedy trade paper "Just for Laughs." What Ceasar would have said in attacking 20th century America:
"Veni, vidi, Visa." (I came, I saw, I went shopping.)
Derek Schmidt is an Independence junior majoring in journalism.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Bugged by article
We, two concerned Miller Hall residents, would like to respond to the article," "Students share space with cockroaches," which appeared in the Nov. 10 Kansan.
When she first glanced at the headline, one of our fellow Millerites said, "Egad! Who has to share space with cockroaches? That's terrible!" Upon reading the article, she, as well as many other Miller residents, were surprised and appalled to discover that the article was referring to Miller Hall.
We were all a bit confounded as to where the figures concerning our "cockroach problem" came from. According to the article, it is common to see three cockroaches an hour in the cafeteria at Miller. First of all, we have no cafeteria. Instead, Miller has seven small, individual kitchens. This is actually an advantage to controlling the cockroach population. We don't have the quantities of food that cafeterias have to attract cockroaches.
Second, unless the observer of cockroaches in our "cafeteria" tagged each one, how can she claim that she saw three different cockroaches an hour? Third, we'd like to know who had the
time or desire to sit down and count cockroaches as a nightly extra-curricular activity. Even if there were three different cockroaches, unless she was there observing them every night, such observations cannot possibly be consistent.
we admit that we spotted cockroaches at the beginning of the year. However, the problem was greatly minimized because of daily cleaning and weekly spraying of the kitchens. Ken Stoner, director of student housing, said in the article that some cockroaches always survive extermination attempts. The goal, he is said to control and minimize the pests. And we feel that this has been accomplished. We resent the negative implications about Miller Hall, which probably have had a significant impact on students who are considering applying for residence here, especially since the "problem" is virtually non-existent.
Yvonne Guzman Augusta sophomore
Megan Crawford Wichita sophomore
"Pud"? Hardly
I would like to respond to several comments made in the recent article on "pud" classes.
First, having taught several undergraduate human development and family life classes and having some knowledge of a number of others, I can safely say that I don't know of any that
quancy to "pud" status. This includes the self-paced courses which, semester after semester, continue to be an unwelcome surprise to students who enroll in them thinking that little work will be required for a good grade.
Second, having bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and Brown University, respectively, and now being a doctoral candidate in HDFL, I also can safely say that psychology has as much substance as any other discipline, and that psychology classes can take as much time as engineering classes.
Yes, the average engineering class is "harder" than the average psychology class, on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. But I have used my calculus from engineering in my studies as a basic researcher in animal learning, and using it to develop knowledge of biology and philosophy of science as challenging in their own way as the theories of strength of materials and fluid mechanics.
Let me end this letter with a plea to those of you who have steered away from psychology because of its image as one of the weaker sisters of science. If qualified and dedicated individuals do not work to advance the understanding of human behavior, what good will all our knowledge in other areas do? We will have poisoned the natural environment beyond the capability for a technological fix and/or blown ourselves up in the meantime.
Susan Schneider Lawrence graduate student
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed