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Thursday, April 8, 1976
University Dally Kansan
KANSAN Comment Opinions on this page reflect only the view of the writer.
Amtrak cut untimely
Lawrence's passenger train system could become only a memory by the end of this year. Decisions affecting the railway are now being considered in Washington.
PRESIDENT FORD has proposed a $60-million budget cut in Amtrak funds for the fiscal year 1977. If it is approved, 19 Amtrak lines, including the Chicago-Houston route through Lawrence, will be discontinued.
The cut would bring an end to the Lone Star route which passes through Lawrence at 1:15 a.m. In 1974, the monthly average of passengers getting on and off at Lawrence was 521.3. A slight increase to 522.9 was shown in 1975. Many of these passengers are University of Kansas students who find the route particularly valuable at vacation times.
THE ROUTE, though, is operating at an annual loss of $5 million to $7 million. This loss, along with the bankruptcy of the Penn Central and the financial deficits of other Amtrak routes, has caused some to speculate that no passenger train system can be profitable. But what must not be forgotten is that Amtrak is not a dying transportation system.
In January 1975, 16,376 people used Amtrak's nationwide service. By January 1976, this figure was up 9 per cent to 17,868 passengers. This may not be surprising, but it does prove that it is a start and there is no reason to believe that the trend won't continue.
DURING THE PAST few years, Amtrak has been improving the system by replacing outdated equipment, bad wiring and other problems. Whether these changes will increase the
railroad's popularity probably can't be determined for a few years. By that time, though, it is hard to say how many breakwalls will have been forced to continue.
Whatever happened to the effort to improve and expand mass transportation systems? As long as the gas shortage scare continued, the railroad system was seen as a valuable means of drawing people away from private cars. But suddenly the gas reappeared and everyone was happy.
IF THINGS continue, someday there will be a fuel shortage that won't disappear once pressure is exerted upon oil companies. At that time, alternatives to privately-owned vehicles will be available; an onshore portation system is discontinued now, a new system may need to be built later at an enormous cost.
The Amtrak route through Lawrence has offered a valuable service to both the community and the University. And if the proposed experimental route from Washington, D.C. to Denver through the wawawaw system would have been the system could become even more popular. Who knows, maybe someday it would even be profitable.
What the system needs is time to prove itself. It needs a chance to show that a passenger train system can become a feasible alternative to cars explained by Mark Rindom. Penetrances can be very influential factors in reaching a decision. When deciding to discontinue the Amtrak route, if care isn't taken, the monetary figure could cloud all other contributing factors.
By Marne Rindom
By Marne Rindom Contributing Writer
Letters Policy
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the
editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and hometown; faculty must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
Economic swell apropos
Bicentennial: Of two minds
In an effort to remind television viewers just how hackeyed the topic of America's birthday is, a guest on the Johnny Carson show displayed an image of a woman in golden eagles, Liberty Bells, presidential portraits and banality.
WHAT HAD BEEN mildly ridiculous became absolutely absurd when he reached the finale of the collection and described the ultimate in the market of American art. He seemed with a picture of George Washington on it. A cattle breeding company had evidently thought it necessary to contribute to the deluge of the exhibition, but no one of "the father of our country," appropriately enough, on its product.
EVERY AMERICAN should know that capitalism is implicit in the democracy that we are so fervently celebrating. The summer when we begin the end of school painfully long birthday party, capitalism and democracy will be congratulating each other and hoping to cohabitate. 200 years of peaceful cohabitation.
Nevertheless, as we draw near to the Fourth of July and manufacturers respond accordingly by further inflating the bicentennial market, this commercialism should be seen from yet another perspective, the defensive.
Because capitalism is so inextricable from the American way of life, what better way is there to celebrate than by giving the system a boost with a large
There is no escape! It seems the buycentennial is everywhere.
A MARKET GLUTTED with bicentennial memorabilia is the result of an economy whose natural inclination is to increase consumerism. We're simply exhibiting a talent for feeding capitalism what it thrives on. You might say we're feeding ourselves our own birthday cake.
dose of that elixir of the economy commercialism.
It's quite a logical thing to do, sort of like Jack LaLanne celebrating his birthday by doing calcisthenics or Fred Aitaire dancing on his birthday.
We're simply doing what comes naturally in a capitalistic society.
In a manner that only our affluent society is capable of, Americans are exploiting their country's own humble nature to build an economy based on capitalism. A plethora of Madison Avenue ideas has materialized into every conceivable type of bienticament item to satisfy the needs of nation addicted to commercialism.
CRITICS OF THE bicentennial market should keep in mind that commercialism and its cohort, the economic instincts of this nation.
The bicentenial celebration will soon begin to fade, and manufacturers will phase out golden eagle decals and plastic Liberty Bells. Some people will have the unusual collections of birthday souvenirs. Others will have only one or two items.
Either way, millions of Americans will have helped feed an economy that is ever hungry for more birthday cake.
Celebration lacks unity
By Becel Breining Staff Writer
It seems ludicrous that minority groups should be criticized for not participating in the bicentennial celebration as it now stands.
LOCAL AND national bicentennial organizers have proclaimed ignorance of why minority groups shouldn't rush into the party and cheer all of our common experience over these glorious 200 years.
Clence Hills, chief of the county bicentennial organization, said recently, "I don't feel we're supposed to make separate activities for blacks and whites." We might just something to celebrate the things we have in common, not our differences."
And W. Sitt Robinson, chairman of the KU bicentennial group said of Indians, "Their heritage has been key and they should take time to look at it."
Whoopee! With this kind of foregish, it's not hard to see why there is an almost total lack of participation in the bicentennial by blacks and Indians in Lawrence. Bicentennial seat toes and dinners with great and wonderful experiences will be the liberty of the United States do not appeal to people who have met with little but injustice and oppression in the nation's formative years.
GEORGE GRIFFT, curator of the Kansas Collection, pointed out that the bicentennial ought to highlight, not mention, the different cultures and peoples.
"I'm not interested in parades, bells and picnics," he said. "I see a lot of celebration but not much reflection. I don't see any bienticual activities that get at the crux of being an American on one hand and being a
member of a minority group on the other."
A NATIONAL celebration of “bienvenious” proportions cannot afford to overlook such basic questions. Students must learn the opportunity to learn more about each other's cultures through examining the differences that were present 200 years ago.
Black and Indian history has been sorely maligned. Precisely because we attempted to adhere to the melt pot theory to the point of collision, most of the work of minority history other than George Carver and the Tuskegee Institute.
PERHAPS THROUGH a little reflection and attempts at communication, the bicentennial could mark a period in which we truly learned some of the heritage and experiences that have culturally shaped our lives. Our understanding could learn more about the source of the mind-set of white Middle America.
Hills says that "the bicentennial here is open for everyone, but we're not going to shove it down anyone's throat." But in its present form, that means that we can get minorities or, for that matter, most thinking Americans involved.
So far, the bicentennial groups have shown a singular lack of imagination and proper direction. But both sides really should be trying to increase the scope of the celebration through information and understanding. Such would make the rest of the bicentennial salebale almost worth it.
By Betty Haegell
Associate Editor
Bv Betty Haegeli
Hughes secrecy satisfying
I never really believed Howard Hughes would die.
Somehow, I thought he would always be around, giving birth to rumor and material to stand-up comics. of course if I ever would have sat down and thought the thing out, I would have realized the man was mortal. But then that isn't one
of those things you sit down and think about very often.
HOWARD HUGHES was an American institution. He had become, over the past decade or two, a legendary and mythical writer whose sort of like reading Santa Claus had been assassinated or
a unicorn had escaped from the zoo.
He is going to go down in American folklore with such past greats as Amela Earlart and William Barker, certain feynesses about him.
enough times in enough newspapers and magazines for the entire literate population of America. Howard Hughes is dead. But
WASHINGTON--By next fall almost every one of us will have been frightened into taking the flu vaccination. No matter what the outcome, next winter we'll be happy we took the shots and
Flu shot mania just a symptom of sick dependence on doctors
the activities of the wealthy;
Hughes was a billionaire and
the richest or second richest
of his time; his family are
usually curious and love to
pediatricians and older people have gerontologists, for the stages of life have become a sequence of medical conditions.
By Jim Bates Contributing Writer
We are never supposed to be out of a doctor's care. The radio
THESE ARE bothersome thoughts because we do live in what Ilich calls a medicalized society. Medicine isn't the affair of the sick alone. Sick or well, you go to the doctor. You are not alone. Some are born and, if you're unhappy, your health problems begin with the doctor X-raying your little fetal body. There is a doctor-specialist for every age group. Babies have
TUESDAY'S KANSAS City Times, for example, described the late billionaire as a "slender, good-looking 6-footer with a neat mustache in his most recent photos. This is one of my favorites misleading—the most recent images were taken in 1951.
One way or another, all roads lead to the hospital, a place where many are called to enter and few are permitted to leave. "The average frequency of hospitals was higher than in all industries but mines and highrise construction," Ilch tells us, but who doesn't know? Hospitals are so feared that their reputations alone must contribute to killing their patients. In a stroke victim, sitting in a hospital bed—you can't talk—but you know the chances are one out of 10 or one out of 15, you
"The combined death rate for scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles from 1800 to 1965 for children up to the age of five was about one percent of the total decline in the death rate over this period had occurred before the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines against diphtheria," or so writes Ivan Illich, one of our most perceptive and original social critics. The same can be said with tuberculosis. Improved nutrition, bringing with it a higher resistance, seems to offer a better explanation for some of these diseases than the work of our modern medicine.
IF A MILLION die from fire, we'll tell ourselves it would have been two million without the vaccinations. If next winter comes, we won't be able to say we'll the shots saved us entirely, and maybe they will have, but there's reason to think we give medicine more credit for the control of each infectious disease than the evidence warrants.
Howard Hughes' mystique will outlive us all, and may never be as strong as my stigue traditionally in my life because Hughes was involved in so many things that traditionally fascinate and obsess themselves.
By Nicholas von Hoffman (C) King Features
CONSIDERABLE DOURT exists that inviting people who feel good to get check-ups helps them. “A review of two dozen studies shows that these diagnostic procedures—even when followed by high level medical therapy—have no impact on survival, writes Ilyin in an excellent little book called “Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health.” “Ironically, the serious asymptomatic disorders which this kind of screening alone can discover allow illnesses in which early treatment aggravates the patient’s physical condition.”
and the television tell us to get our lungs X-rayed, to get our lumps palpitated, our blood pressure down, to put off medical examination just because we feel good. Patients aren't just sick people; they are all people. The healthy person is not an anomaly, he's routine.
grateful to the doctors for giving them to us.
will be given the wrong medicine.
AT THE SAME time national medical health insurance, the high cost of hospital rooms, equiv. access to medical care are difficult in high moment. Although there is every reason to suspect that making more care available will shorten life expectancy, people are demanding it, because it's an American birthright.
AMERICANS HAVE been moviegoers almost since before there were movies; Hughes was a moviemaker and married a movie star as well. Americans are traditionally fascinated by
THERE ARE A few signs of change, however. The interest in exercise and diet for health, not for looks, is growing and you want to look your doctor, are primarily responsible for yourself. A recent article on health in the Wall Street Journal suggested
that healthy ways of living can be expected to do more than any medical breakthroughs or gadgets that are likely to be invented. That's a shift for an institution prone to equate progress with larger marketing opportunities.
We've developed what Illilu calls a medical dependency. Even when we're well, we're passive patients, persons who are done to, who harbor impossible expectations from our physicians, who pay our inquiries, and who may die, intensely care for by alerting sensors and telemetry. We are dependent.
Later Associated Press reports, which quoted U.S. Customs officials as saying the Hughes they saw was wanted, were matched with bair and a beard, probably more accurate.
These are only the earliest signs. In Washington they still debate national health insurance, when everyone who's thought about it knows a massive, and continuous challenge to educate especially young people, about tobacco and food would be cheaper and better for health. How that's supposed to come about as long as schools' free-lunch programs habituate kids of cancer can men cancer of the colon in 30 years will need some working out.
KICKING MEDICAL dependency also involved empathies of medical inpatient if necessary too late in the day for people to be sick at home or to die at home. never mind that it is usually dards, happier and more humane. In less than a century
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THE TIMES' description, however, more accurately describes the mental picture most Americans get when they watch a movie. The photograph of the man in the "neat mustache" has run
Assistant Business Manager Advertising Manager Assistant Director Promotion Manager Claudia Staff Manager Debbie Service Manager Promotions Director Scott Bush Assistant Manager Claudia Staff Manager Jim Marquardt Assistant Manager Jolene
a proper middle-class death has changed from a picture of a figure in bed expiring with relatives all around to the life on the lily pad on the electronic oscillator flicking to a monotone line.
'GEE FELLAS, IT SEEMS TO BE QUITTING!'
solve mysteries and be in secrets;
hughes was on a man-
graph figure who went to
mystical lengths to avoid
publicity.
If Hughes was just the second richest man in the world, or just in movies, or just married to an actress, he would still be entitled to at least one article at a month in the National Enquirer.
WHEN THOSE attributes were combined with Hughes' elusiveness and secrecy, Hughes became a mass media figure rivaling Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
It will be interesting to see what eventually happens to the Hughes legend. In a more primitive society it wouldn't be at all surprising for the legend to be handed down from one generation to another but be muted and enlarged as the years passed and eventually grow to Robin Hood proportions, if not larger.
IN A SOCIETY without television and the faddishness the technology seems to bring, Mr. Greenberg said. Arthur Stories would be told about him that had nothing at all to do with the real man. In fact, the real man would tell them he was buried under the ledge.
eventually Hughes would have a religion built around him.
But this isn't as a primitive society—at least as far as communications are concerned. Hughes was an author and neerer the Amelia Earhart level than at the cornerstone of a new religion.
NEVERTHELLESS, THE Hughes legend will still be healthy for many years to come. I suspect that a sizeable minority of Americans will refuse to believe Hughes died; Already the gossip and rumors (Hughes faked it) because of a federal investigation, it's all a clever tax dodge, etc.)
If the longevity of all the Kennedy assassination rumors are any indication, these will also be around a long time.
I'm going to miss Howard Hughes and I'm glad his legend will stay around a while. In an age of Watergate revelations it was clear that it was rather nice to be in relative ignorance about somebody.