4A
Wednesday, February 22,1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: RESIDENCY PROGRAMS
Doctors should know procedure
Beginning Jan.1, 1996 medical residents training in obstetrics will be required to learn the procedures and skills involved in performing an abortion. The group that accreits programs in graduate medical education nationwide decided this in a recent vote. The decision is as logical as it is fair.
There are provisions granted in the decision, by which institutions with moral or religious objections may arrange the abortion training of their students at other hospitals. Individuals who have ideological objections also will be exempt from the requirement.
This decision comes at a time when the abortion dispute has resurfaced in our political and public arenas. Since 1985, the number of residency programs that require future obstetricians to learn the abortion procedure has fallen from 24 to 12 percent.
Family planning is an integral part of an ob-gyn practice. Due to the dramatic drop in the number of physicians trained in abor-
Despite the controversy surrounding abortion, medical residents training in obstetrics should be required to learn the skill.
treatment procedures, the accrediting body fears a decline in competency in the treatment of women who have spontaneous abortions or require lifesaving, emergency abortions.
The few doctors who are willing to practice family planning and abortion face daily harassment and terrorism. This fact is underscored by recent violence in Wichita and even murders in Florida and New England.
Opponents of the decision call it a flagrant attempt to increase the number of abortion providers despite a public abhorrence of abortion. The decision, nonetheless, is legitimate. The stance that the accrediting body has taken is essential to ensuring that American women will have access to safe abortions which remain legal in this country.
JOHN BENNETT FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE ISSUE: SOCIAL SECURITY
Social Security must have cuts
The message was clean. No program is immune.And none should be.
Republicans voted down a Democratic proposal to exempt Social Security receipts from cuts that would be needed under a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. While the fate of the balanced-budget amendment is still uncertain, the vote by the Senate was a necessary step in moving toward deficit reduction and a balanced budget.
Over the years, Social Security has become a proverbial black hole that lobbying groups, such as the American Association of Retired Persons, have kept from being trimmed. The result has been immense costs to the American people.
The Senate sent a strong message that big government programs are not safe from cuts. Social Security is a massive program long in need of reform.
Many Democrats worry that without exemption,
Despite the intense efforts to save Social Security, the budgetary ax will eventually catch up to the program.
Social Security will meet its death under a balancedbudget amendment. But huge yearly deficits and the mounting national debt are the real dangers to Social Security and other federal programs.
The greatest impact will be felt by those who plan on receiving Social Security in the future. Most people 35 and under believe they will never see a dime of Social Security. Whether this is true, Americans are going to have to take a much closer look at their financial future and their retirement years. While saving for the future is always important, with less Social Security, it seems more important than ever.
There is little doubt Social Security reform is on its way. And it's about time.
SPENCER DUNCAN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
No program should be exempt.
Robert Tapley / KANSAN
In the world of baseball, a sucker is born every minute
When I was a kid, I saw my grandparents every few months.
KANSAN STAFF
Mom and Dad would load up the family truckster with us kids and enough shut-us-up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to last for the four-hour drive. Mom blew through jars of Skippy like they were surgeon general candidates. The drive took three and a half hours, but Dad always liked to stretch it out to four with two fifteen-minute breaks to loosen up his back by beating the crap out of us kids with an old radio antenna. (Just kidding; I wanted to see if you were gullible enough to wander down that road with me.)
The truckster would finally pull up to the aluminum palace, and we'd be greeted by those grandparent smiles. Grandma and Grandpa wore their smiles dopey and full of love.
Grandpa smoked his pipe, and I cracked my sunflower seeds while Fred and Denny jabbered away through double plays and line drives.
I especially loved the summer visits because Grandma never ran out of fresh-baked something good, and Grandpa tuned in the Royals game nightly on the transistor radio. Grandpa and I would sit under the awning like a couple of dazed and distracted Steinbeck characters waiting for the plot to develop so we could figure out a way to get the protagonist in trouble.
Nothing. Sit back and enjoy the show for which you spent good money. Don't hold a grudge against the ballplayers and owners just because they're haggling over our money. Wouldn't you fight over that kind of money if you thought you deserved it? Yeah, it's greed. Yeah, it's outrageous greed. You get it don't you? It is just another lesson to be learned from baseball:
So... where is life without baseball? All the rich kids have taken their bats and balls and gone home. The strike stretches on painfully like a dramatic movie scene with a speaking Brad Pitt. The country's leaders wring their hands, kvetching over the tragedy that has befallen out national pastime. What do we do about the state of affairs in baseball?
Throw at my guy, I'll throw at your guy. The guys with the rule books always have the last word. Winning is great; losing sucks. Basically, a handful of ball games under your belt and kindergarten is a breeze. What the hell else would you have to learn in a year's worth of half a day of school? O.K., maybe how to do crap with clay. I'll give you that one.
There's a sucker born every minute...
Hey, nice Royals cap. How much did you pay for it?
Supercool Prepboy
John Martin is a Lawrence first-year law student.
Comparing Holocaust and abortion is wrong
Editors
I am writing in response to a letter written by David J. Barry in the Feb. 3 issue of the Kansan. Barry compared the anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision to the killings of millions of Jewish people in Nazi death camps.
A fetus is not a human being that can live on its own. It is a potential person that is part of a woman's body and should in no way be compared to the brutal killings of living, breathing, human beings. No one is out to kill all fetuses like Hitler was out to kill all of the Jews. Abortion is not an easy decision for anyone, but it is necessary for it to remain legal for those women who do choose to have one for whatever private reason it may be.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Little Freddie Patek played shortstop and big John Mayberry played first base in those days, and the Royals had a young guy who swung a good stick at third named Brett. Those Royals pitched well, played good defense and lost to the Yankees in the playoffs, every
year. I cared for them almost as much as I loved the old guy sitting next to me. To this day, I can conjure up the smell of the pipe, the flicker of fireflies in the yard and the fuzzy rasp of that old radio.
News...Canton Tojada
Planning...Mark Martin
Editorial...Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial...Heather Lawrence
Campus...David Wilson
...Colleen McCain
Sports...Gerry Fey
Associate Sports...Ashley Miller
Photo...Jarrett Lane
Features...Nathan Olson
Design...Brian James
Freelance...Susan White
Fast forward a generation and someone else will remember ESPN games they watched with Uncle Justin — the tangy smell of Zima embedded forever in the subconscious. That's the universal appeal of baseball. The good old days reinvent themselves over and over again. The game changes very little. It ebbs and flows with different styles and trends, but it always comes down to your guy trying to blow it by my guy with two on and two out.
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news advise
Everyone learns the same game and the same lessons from the game. Touch every base. No swing, no hit.
Business Staff
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Does Barry want women to lose their reproductive rights and be
Campus mgr ... Beth Pole
Regional mgr ... Chris Branaman
National mgr ... Shelly Falevits
Coop mgr ... Kelly Connexes
Special Sections mgr ... Brigg Bloomquist
Production mgr ... JJ Cook
Kim Hyman
Marketing director ... Mindy Blum
Promotions director .. Justin Frosolone
Creative director .. Dan Gier
Classified mgr ... Jessa Kulesh
STAFF
COLUMNIST
Maybe if all of us drunk college students were as bright as our esteemed quasi-socialist leader, we would be out smoking dope, but not inhaling, and burning the American flag. Apparently these actions would empower us with enough semblance of brain activity to feed all the poor and house all the homeless. Then, since we would actually accomplish nothing, we could talk serious politics with Big Bird and Chris's niece — in a sandbox.
Comparing Congress to kids is childlike
Mellissa Citarelli Woodstock, Ill., freshman
Gary Staves
Lawrence sophomore
"third-grade bully" that gave the Republicans control of Congress was the American people. The American people are not concerned with who called who what. What they are concerned with is who will do what. The American people have elected a political party that will accomplish all the things the Democrats have been promising to do for 40 years.
forced once again to the back alleys and coat hangers? He says this is not a women's issue. But it is, and I am willing to fight to keep my rights as an American, in a country where I still have choices.
I am writing in response to the Feb.13 column, "Republicans could take some niceness lessons from Sesame Street" written by columnist Chris Hampton. Writing with all the intellectual prowess of a third-grader, she has attempted to make an analogy between the politics of the playground and the politics of running an effective government.
I have some news for you and your liberal-minded friends Chris: Recess is over. Like it or not the
Dancers, battle conformity in our society; get out of line
Recently I ventured to the nearest Dillons Superstore to cash a check. Once I reached where they perform such tasks, I encountered a line that snaked its way past the plastic balloon display to the deli department.
After cashing my check, I headed to my favorite local tavern. There I waited.
was ready to go home. Once I arrived in my room, I flicked on the television for some late night debauchery. I had hoped to see something worth watching like "USA Up All Nite" or a rerun of "Good Times."
Then I drove to the fast-food eatery somewhere south of the border. I waited in line for a 39 cent taco.
ed in line to get a cold beverage.
STAFF
COLUMNIST
My anger began to escalate, and I
As I was greeted by the host who looked like Doug Llewleyn with a Stetson, I found it terribly amazing that this form of entertainment even exists. I also found it wonderfully interesting.
Instead, I saw the most heinous crime in recent years. A travesty so brazen and audacious that I could hardly watch. It was line dancing.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or out-right reject all submissions. For any questions, call Matt Gowen, editorial page editor, or Heather Lawrenz, associate editorial page editor, at 864-4810.
There are bread lines, lines to vote, lines to travel on the highway, lines to buy gum, lines to enroll for classes and lines to rent movies. Our very existence as humans could not be fulfilled without a line. And now this bane of a nation has traversed into popular American culture.
COURBEAVER:
Disgruntled, I sifted my way to the restroom and, again, waited in line to perform the most basic of functions.
Guest columns: Should be double-spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
Line dancing should be outlawed. Those who do it should have their pictures stapled to the post office wall with other social deviants. It is nothing more than an unimaginative form of self-expression fueled by a bad wardrobe.
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the authors signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
What is the logic of doing something you hate for leisure? I can just imagine being stuck in traffic, and instead of hearing horns and shouts, I would hear Conway Twitty and see people jump out of their cars, link up and begin to do the "Electric Slide."
I attribute this cultural phenomenon to America's penchant for conformity. Americans run the risk of becoming mechanized, conforming drones, like those who get all "gussied up" to line dance on the weekend. So, please, America, throw away your pearl-snap shirts, pink pants and suede chaps and realize what you are doing to yourselves.
Carter Voekel is a Dallas sophomore in English.
How to submit letters and guest columns
MIXED MEDIA
By Jack Ohman