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Monday, February 16, 1976
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN Comment
Opinions on this page reflect only the view of the writer.
Kill the death penalty
Once again, members of the Kansas Legislature are using the eye-for-aneye reasoning in attempting to restore capital punishment. Several House bills are being considered. Senate that would allow the death penalty to be used in certain instances.
It's amazing to see how revenge can distort the thinking of these state legislators. Taking the life of another human being is the most heinous of all crimes. It's only natural that man respond with horror when faced with murder. Yet, it seems totally illogical that after experiencing this shock of unnatural death and after measuring firsthand the incomparable value of human life, man is so quick to call for death in return.
If the issue of capital punishment is examined in a rational manner it seems to be a barbary regression of society. But instead of dealing with the subject in this manner, many state legislators unfortunately have made the death penalty an option for a number of the death penalty does not act as a significant deterrent to crime. Therefore, to justify taking another's life, emotion must come into play.
One of the chief proponents of the restoration of the death penalty in Kansas is State Sen. Edward Reilly, R-Leavenhower. Reilly loses all control of his sensibilities when dealing with the subject of capital punishment. Last year he acted like a madman in attempting to bring the issue before the Senate. When he finally received a bill demanding that pictures of inmates who had been murdered while in prison. He said these pictures were too gruesome for the young Senate pages to see so he handed them out personally. What possible bearing could these gross pictures have on reasoned discussion of this subject?
Beyond the ideal that no man has the right to take the life of another, there are several reasons why the death penalty is unworkable. The greatest of these is that it is highly discriminatory. This was the major reason it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1972 when money are rarely executed. It's generally the poor who sit on死 row and even then it's on a hit or miss basis.
Another inescapable fact about the death penalty is that it is irreversible. Once a man has been executed, unchanged new evidence does him very little good.
Morris Udall, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, is strongly opposed to the death penalty. Udall tells of how, as a second lieutenant in the Army, he pre-war training, he was assigned to defend a soldier on a murder charge.
Udall says that there was definitely a question of the man's guilt and that an experienced lawyer could have gotten away. But instead, the soldier was executed.
Curbing the ever increasing crime rate is a goal that we should constantly pursue, but revenge through the death penalty is not the answer. The penal system in the United States needs total revision. However, inmates don't have the power of the vote and legislators don't usually like to pour money into projects that won't reap them "rewards" on election day.
State Sen. Reilly is reported to be circulating his photographs in the state legislature once again this year. In the name of civilization, may those senators and representatives who place reason before overrule Reilly and his followers.
By John Johnston Contributing Writer
Tasheff examines issues
Education, polls discussed
The platform of the Vox Populare Coalition consists of issues that are feasible and productive. A positive approach to what can be done and what should be done has been realized through the selection of projects.
At the University of Kansas, students are allowed a 20 per cent representation on all policy-making bodies within the university. Participation in of participation by student represent-
tatives has been apparent. Having little knowledge of the structure of the department or school, and having little that could be of interest to the students these representatives haven't been as strong as they could be. Our coalition proposes the development of programs in which student representatives could help in acquiring the kind of knowledge needed to be good representatives.
Working closely with the City Commission of Lawrence is another of our priorities. Included in the platform is the creation of a summer job
clearinghouse for students who live in Lawrence during the summer months. Increased cooperation with the Commission is also needed for the securing of funds for a professional study of the transportation needs of Lawrence.
Steve (Owen) and I have also committed ourselves to achieving low ticket prices for the majority of KU students who support the football and basketball programs. This entails picking up the pieces from the actions taken by this team, in order to instill a commitment to re-establish a ticket subsidy from the activity fee.
The Vox Populares coalition also encourages students to vote "yes" on the referendum for the proposed Satellite Union. If the referendum passes, we will encourage the students on the planning committee for the referendum to secure a minimum-bond fee that students recently enrolled at KU.
Our plan for a pilot-recycling program for newspapers in the residence halls, with the hope of expansion to other University areas, has encouraged by many people. Eventually this will produce revenues for the students.
With graduate students composing one-fourth of the student body, it is essential that the Student Body President and Vice President take on leadership role. Our administration would propose a graduate student representative to the Student Rights, Privileges, and Responsibilities Committee who would be a direct link with the student administration. This position would require some interest in lobbying organizations as the fee waiver for TAS and AIs.
Finally, we have promised no increase in the general Union fee and will keep the costs low. We also keep residence hall increases to a minimum. In a time of rising cost, Vox realizes the importance of finding ways to cut costs of all operations funded by the General Union.
Candidate for President
Tedde Tasheff
Shapiro offers platform
The 1976-77 school year promises to be full of challenging and significant decisions. The possible funding of a Satellite Union, faculty accountability, the intramural program and the quality of teaching staff are some demands that demand immediate attention.
As a Student Senator, I have served as chairman of the student senate sports committee, a member of the commission of the quality of classroom instruction and a member of the Student Senate Executive Committee. I am a strong advocate of the knowledge of the workings of the University governance system.
This knowledge and experience, coupled with a desire to open all channels of communication through personal contact with as many students as possible, is the basis of our campaign.
We believe that the only effective way to run the student government is to present viable answers to the problems of our students in our research, meeting with university administrators as well as state legislators. Our planks and issues revolve around concrete and well-defined problems confronting the student body.
The students at the University of Kansas must have a voice in their government. Mark (Anderson) and I will give you programs to help student involvement.
Our pledges are not empty promises that arise out of yearly political campaigns, but are realistic attempts with the problems facing us as students.
We feel that a student polling committee should be organized to help the Student Senate get back to the conference floor, similar to a Gallup poll, to determine the feelings of the students on important issues. This would not usurp the power of the referendum, where the students stand on issues and
could proceed to place it on the ballot for referendum, or decide the issue within the Senate. It is important to remember that this is a tool for the Senate's information only, and would not affect polling system would not cost the students a cent, and the process could be completed in five hours.
We also feel that monthly forums
should be set up to discuss the issues the students feel are important. This would be a traveling form to be held in the organized living groups.
Five hundred thousand dollars of our money is allocated yearly by the Student Senate. It is up to the student body to take an active role in its governance system. We ask you to vote, and we urge you to establish the voice in student government that we so desperately need. You ask to "help us help you."
Dave Shapiro Candidate for President
Ron, I can't afford to fake a stand on abortion . . . I'm going to have to straddle the fence.
Sir, if you don't take a position either way, both pro and anti-abortionists will attack you.
I know, Ron, I know . . .
somedays (groan) I wish
had never been born.
Careful, sir, careful . . .
you're taking a position!
Ads start low tar warfare
NEW YORK-If you are a community leader, you should have already gotten a letter from William D. Hobbs' computer. Hobbs is the chairman of the board of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company of Winston-Salem and sending people his robot-written notes to tell them about his new cigarette called Now.
"We are proud of this technological achievement, and I thought you, as a leader in the field of writing, know about it," Hollz writes.
As with all wars, the tactics can be a mite difficult to follow, but it began several months ago when Philip Morris rocked its to foundations to learn that Philip Morris was going to bring out a cigarette called Merit. Merit is supposed to have a nicotine and 7-mg nicotine per coffin nail.
It might seem that Hobbs has rather low standards for hailing technological achievements and a peculiar idea of what community leaders are interested in knowing about. Actually, it can be said that Hobbs probably does not give a fig about commercials, and that his letter is part of an expensive, arcane and wasteful advertising and merchandising war.
Philip Morris had to make a move. The low and intermediate-low tar and nicotine field is already 10 per cent of the market and expanding at 14 per cent annually.
This was considered an invasion of the semi-low tar and low nicotine灯 dominated by Reynolds, the company that manufactures Winston Lights and 'Salem Lights. Formidable as that lineup may appear, cigarette marketing strategies felt that
Philip Morris had only one
Reynolds in the semi-low field, Reynolds is on the prowl for profits in the low-low tar field. In this millimetric battle, Carlton down in the subbase of the low tar league.
By Nicholas von Hoffman (C) King Features
cagarette, Marlboro Lights, in competition against Reynolds* all-star low tar lineup, but narcotics mg, tar and 8 mg nicotine.
Too much. For those who aren't yet hep to the metric system a milligram is .015 grain or .002288 once, but that .002288 lights and a cigarette like Merit can, with the right advertising, translate into millions of dollars worth of sales. Whether there is any difference in the smoker's stock of it, hasn't been established.
On the sidelines and not yet ready to engage in national advertising warfare, Brown & Cox went on to test-marketing a brand called Fact and another called Vanguard, which you ought not to confuse with Vantage. Liggett has worked with a brand named Vello.
Meanwhile, as its competitors are preparing to attack
No news doesn't stop presses
There was a day last month—I think it was Jan. 16—when nothing newsworthy happened. The media reported a lot of events that day. The wire services didn't shut down.
And if **wires** is defined as the words that fill the media, they are right. There shall be words
Radio and television newscalls had their usual air time. Newspapers didn't fail to appear, nor did they print fewer stories. They were hard to tell that nothing had happened. Walter Cronek
Why didn't responsible journalists tell us that nothing had happened? They didn't realize it. The media are at-
didn't mention it; the New York Times ignored it.
tuned to the generation of news.
That there might be a day with
no news has never occurred to
them.
By John Hickey Contributing Writer
Not so anymore, with the advent of radio and television came an increased demand for news, as Daniel Boorstin has written about it in "Images." News had to be updated hourly instead of daily. Real events were too unpredictable to be easily seen. They didn't occur in an even bait in floods and droughts.
So the media shifted the emphasis from the news itself to the newspaper or the newspaper used to fill a standard form.
Instead of waiting for the
and more words forever. The media see to that. News used to have significance. It was generated by real events. If nothing happened, there was no news.
As hundreds of millions of dollars and the time, energy and talent of thousands of people are committed to this commercial epic, we are also going to be subjected to several propaganda onslaughts celebrating the system that has created the community leaders may read Hobbs' letter and agree that he and his competitors have achieved new lows.
More yet. There is a rumor that Reynolds has another job that requires to go 9, mage ready to go, and that Philip Morris is preparing to burrow under the Carlton market with a brand called Pump.
Rather they are questioned routinely, and whatever they say or fail to say becomes news. A news conference is an event in itself. It isn't an event in the old sense of the word, but it is as if it were. It is what Boorstin has called a pseudosecence.
news to happen they began creating it. Politicans and government officials weren't to be trusted to inform the press when they had something important or newsworthy to say.
A non-existent ciggie with,
.00000000 tar and nicotine
ought to win the lowest. But
as matters stand now, the
Then there is that darling of editors everywhere, the feature story. It is timeless and often pointless as well. But it is easily captured in a flow of news going. There were a few features story Jan. 16.
Several presidential candidates were interviewed; and.
although they had nothing new to say, their comments were reported as news. Ron Nessman said a lot of things that the press saw fit to publicize, but none of them was new. Congress failed to act on several bills, and that failure was duly reported.
Hence Hobbs' introduction of Now, which tips the scales at 2 mg. tar and 2 mg. nicotine.
The only significant thing wasn't reported—that nothing newsworthy had happened all day. As long as the news is fitted to the data, there can be no priority given to real events. On days like Jan. 16, when nothing is new, there will still be news; on butons when several important things happen, you must compete with pseudoevents.
controversy is to be settled by the high tribunal of fluff and puff, the advertising industry's feeble instrument of self-regulation, the national advertising business of the Company of Businesses. Are you a Businesses. Isn't it an awe and a thrill just to read your august name?
That is the price of valuing the container more than its contents.
That could imperil Carlton's claim to be the lowest-tar tarantula in history, but imagine the panic in the corporate offices of the American Tobacco Company that the American Tarantula was counting Carlton? Some sort of counterattack had
With Madison Avenue now abuzz with predictions that $200 million will be spend this year by the various contestants in the low tar milligram battle, the Hobbs refuses to retract his lowest claim, which he made to so many of us community leaders, on the grounds that while Carlton 70% may indeed be a successful centrally distributed in so few stores they don't exist for competitive purposes.
to be devised. The answer was the invention of Carlton 70's. These Carltones are only 70 mm. They weigh about 2 kg, but they weigh in with a mere 1 mg. nicotine and 1 mg. tar. Napoleon may have introduced the metric system, but it took the rubberette industry to teach it to us.
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