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Tuesday. November 1, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial staff. Signed column represent only the views of the writers.
Insurance plan biased
Foreign students who complain about the University's new health insurance requirement have a legitimate gripe.
Starting this semester, the University has required that foreign students buy a health insurance policy before enrolling. American students face no such requirement.
The mandate, similar to one started 10 years ago for Kansas State University, was approved last spring by the Kansas Board of Regents at KU's request.
Clark Coan, dean of foreign students, said last week at a meeting with disgruntled foreign students that KU requested the requirement because the Nigerian government would not buy health insurance for students they sponsored unless the insurance costs were part of regular student fees. Officials also have reasoned that foreign students need the extra protection of mandatory insurance because their distance from home and relative unfamiliarity with the United States make for increased vulnerability to the woes of American health care.
IF THOSE REASONS really are why the requirement was sought, the requirement is indefensible punishment of the whole because of problems that affect a few.
Isolated problems should be dealt with on an individual basis.
Perhaps a special financial aid program could be established to help foreign students whose sponsors refuse to pay for health insurance. Surely uninsured students faced with massive unexpected medical bills can cause problems, but whether they come from Ohio, Ohio, or Toledo, Spain, it would not be reasonable to establish repressive University policy.
Whatever the reason for the health insurance requirement, it is discriminatory.
To aggravate the slur, the student-approved insurance company, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, offers its policies to foreign students by the semester or by the year. American students, however, can buy monthly or quarterly policies.
foreign students plan to meet with Del Shankel, executive vice chancellor, to discuss the complaints. Shankel ought to understand that they must be asked to remove the requirement.
The foreign student's task of confronting day-to-day American red tape and social discrimination already is formidable enough. There is no excuse for adding institutional discrimination to the foreign student's list of problems.
Korean citizen questions U.S. demand to get Park
By KIM DONG REE N.Y. Times Features
SEOUL, South Korea—I always respect the spirit of freedom, which is regarded as the basic concept on which the United States was founded, and the humanitarianism passionately cherished by the American people. Indeed, I value them as much as anyone else does.
I believe that most of my fellow countrymen share my view. We Koreans are no less passionate in the love for freedom and justice and humanity than I am, not less in safety, not less in protection, even at the risk of our lives, than the American people.
That America's law-abiding spirit to protect human rights is not extended to Tongsun Park is a contradiction that defies understanding.
THE CONTROVERSIAL lobbing activities of Tongsun Park must be seen in the light of the peculiar circumstances we
But the circumstances surrounding us in Korea are poles apart from those of the American people. By this I do not mean to say that we, as compared with the Americans, have a small land and population or that we lack wealth but I am trying to emphasize the circumstantial fact that our freedom, humanity and lives are under a constant threat by a Communist regime.
You should not associate what I call here a Communist regime with the Soviet Union or East European states of today, nor are they as strong as a Regime that is more hideous and brutal than the Stalin regime in its early stage is poised only 25 miles from our capital, Seoul. We are creating a greater freedom and extremaist extremist methods.
Koreans are in. I am a mere lonesome writer in Korea who has never met this Mr. Park. I am in no position to judge whether his activities were eyes of United States law.
But judging from the charges against him in the indictment, his alleged activities were motivated by anger over the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea, or to secure more assistance for Korea.
If so, as a Korean citizen, I cannot be harsh in judging his activities and would like to ask our American friends to understand such Korean sentiment in viewing this case. I do not believe that we appeal to the people of the United States, our best friends.
Even if such a request were rejected by the rigid lawabiding and sense of justice on the part of the American people, I would not and should not resent or denounce the United States. To emphasize that such sense of emphasis that such sense of justice and law-abiding spirit should never be practiced against only a specific person.
When a Japanese court requested the delivery of A. Carl Kotchian, vice chairman of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, on charges of bribery in the Lockheed scandal, he and his co-ordinator this request on grounds that it would be against the judicial sovereignty of the United States and the will of the person involved. At the time, I agreed fully with the U.S. position.
Such a law-abiding spirit of Americans to protect human rights ought to be extended to Park, too, but in reality the Korean government has said that the Korean governmen deliver him against his will.
THIS CONTRICTION defies understanding. For what acceptable reason should Korean universities accept universally accepted legal principles? It behoves the United States to offer an explanation satisfactory to people in this connection.
There might be found numerous international precedents of similar occasions. But what I request and expect more ardently than unbiased application of such rigid law-abiding spirit is a sympathetic concession to the truth in which the Korean people must safeguard their freedom, humanity and lives.
I must remind you that although freedom is a common concept for both countries, the conditions under which Korea must enjoy and preserve it are different. It is true that America, a fact that merits a deeper understanding on the part of the United States.
Kim Dong Ree is a novelist,
essayist and dean of the Arts
College at Chung-ang
University.
Jimmy Carter finally might reverse his plummeting popularity by acting strongly in human rights in South Africa.
U.S. can influence S.Africa
South Africa has launched the most repression against human rights in more than two decades. In one day, the country was hit with a brutal controversy in Africa — cracked down on blacks.
In predawn raids, the South African government detained more than 50 of the country's best-known leaders. The largest black newspaper was closed down and charged with charges. Eighteen black and interracial organizations were banned.
About the only good thing that
has happened in South Africa, the center of racial tensions and protest in recent months, is that the government finally has consented to an inquest into the attack on black leader Steven Biko.
Mary Mitchell
Editorial Writer
BIKO DIED while in police custody in September. An autopsy already has revealed that Biko suffered extensive brain damage. Biko, the leader of the Black People's Convention, was first said to have died from a hunger strike. He is
Justice Minister James Kruger, who is responsible for the investigation, said last week that he was confident the police had committed no wrongdoing, even after he had read the preliminary autopsy report and the affidavits taken from him. But they also cited all brain damage as the cause of death but also cite kidney failure and at least a dozen other bruises and abrasions.
the 20th South African black known to have died under mysterious circumstances during the last 18 months.
Immediately after Biko's death, Kruger said, "I am not pleased nor am I sorry. Biko's death leaves me cold."
Kruger's reaction defies all
sense of human decency. It smacks of insensitivity.
PRIME MINISTER John Vorster is equally callous and calculating. Two weeks ago he dissolved Parliament and called for national elections on Nov. 30. Vorster and his party are expected to win easily. The campaign offers a offer little competition because it is divided by feuding within its ranks.
Supporters of the repeal proposal are hoping, of course.,
The new constitution, which will evolve as a result of this election, will offer no political rights to the country's eight million urban areas black Vorser's proposed reforms are a thinly disguised version of a dictatorship. A dictatorship would
MISSouri MERCHANTS have grown tired of seeing all those dollars pouring across the state line every Sunday. A proposal will be before the voters to allow store owners the option of remaining open on Sundays.
only be a step backward in the fight for human rights.
Carter's first step in trying to correct the tyranny of oppression so blatant in South Africa was to support a mandatory arms embargo by the United States. Young has consulted with leaders of Britain, France, West Germany and Canada to frame a joint agreement within the security Council to deal with the South African issue. These nations have also agreed on a resolution calling on all governments to halt new investment in South Africa.
THE UNITED STATES is South Africa's largest trading partner. Last year U.S. imports from South Africa amounted to $1.33 billion worth of goods — and have an investment there of about $1.5 billion. But South Africa has defiantly stated that the country does not own its own and is self-sufficient.
But Botha is wrong.
Something needs to be done.
Pietter Botha, South African defense minister, has severely injured a man he embargo. He said the United States needed someone in charge who would know that "you can dictate to a people.problem."
No sin to repeal Missouri Blue Laws
The arms embargo is a step in the right direction. American enterprise can be a lever to force Africa obviously is not interested in working within its own government to correct discrimination, but repression has grown to its growing racial tensions.
Carter has fulfilled one promise that he made in his inaugural address. He said, "Because we are free, we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere."
Economic sanctions in the name of human dignity are justifiable. These restraints would be a sound effort to voice disapproval. They could bring a change in the tyranny already rampant in South Africa's apartheid government.
The Blue Laws may be effective in the interior of Missouri but, in the Kansas City area, they have taken their business elsewhere. They pack the family in the car and head to shopping centers in Kansas where Sunday shopping is legal - and their dollars are
The big game in Missouri these days is mortality vs. money. And the two contenders are neck and neck as election day approaches in the Blue Laws Super Bowl.
The state of Missouri, for those who are not aware, has laws that prohibit various types of retail sales on Sunday. These laws give store owners the Law, were enacted to give store owners and their employees a chance to observe the Sabbath and to encourage potential customers to engage with them, that center on church, home and family.
Lynn Kirkman Editorial Writer
the law would leave the question of Sunday openings up to the merchant. It is entirely within his businessman who takes his faith seriously will choose to remain closed on Sundays. No law will require him, or anyone else, to oblate this tenet of his religion.
that most merchants will choose to take advantage of Sunday shopping.
Neither should any law force citizens to observe a religion that is not their own. And that is why we give them a tried, somewhat丰满, to do.
Perhaps the voters of Missouri will wake up to this and vote to repeal the Blue Belt law, which is good business — it's good sense.
Those who favor retaining the Blue Laws have dragged out all the predictable arguments. They have made shopping provides an opportunity to violate just about all of the Ten Commandments. Some groups in the country keep the Sabbath holy, they say. If parents have to work in
these stores, the kids will be lodged in day care centers — so much for honoring thy father and thy mother. Sunday shopping will cost — if not all — of the效益 of modern society.
HOW THE VOTES of Missouri will respond to these arguments will be seen next year, because, when religion is dragged into any issue, the emotional overtones often throw logic out the win.
It should be obvious that morality cannot be legislated. But it is noteworthy that a great deal to do with buying a new
THE PROPOSED change in
raincat or lawn mower on Sunday afternoon. In more and more families, both parents work five or six days a week, the rest of the time the whole family can get together for shopping trips.
Further, the continuation of the Blue Laws is an attempt to impose Christian morality in a secular area. Many religions do not worship on Sunday, and a number of Christian churches also use communal baths. The state is out of line in trying to insist that all residents observe one particular day of rest — or any day of rest at all.
Punk movement not a cancer
KANSAN
To the editor:
Having read your article on the "cancer" of punk, I feel compelled to offer some qualifications, if not downright refutations, of Rick Thaemert's summary.
I grant that some of Thaemert's more superficial observations on Britain are true. There is massive unemployment among American young too.
There's also widespread resentment in England against an economic system that condemns youths to failure before their lives hang together. They pray, "The so-called punk movement is anything but a stagnant cancer, it's a vibrant nucleus of grassroots revolt striving to shed its societal chains and belt with a superficial nihilism, an alternative creative environment."
Letters
Refusing, for the most part, to conform and stoop to the established channels that have tamed and destroyed the punishments, the punks have established numerous "guerrilla" record labels and newsheets that operate independently of the punk movement. They hardly a sign of cancerous stagnation, either.
One should also bear in mind that there very expression "punk" is a creation of a media
The punks, with their characteristic self-presence, delight in revolting the organs of the establishment press and revel in their anarchic glee at the press. The punks are enough to have become assimilated into straight society.
network obsessed with the negation of individuality and lumping together of people into stereotypes. Many of the young people you describe as "punks" are active against racism in cooperating with their West Indian peers, and they're also committed to the broader, alternative libertarian movement independent of Americanism. That hardly a cancerous development either.
It's wrong to say that it's the punks who roll people down the King's Road on Saturday mornings, too. Most of those yobs are the teds, kids who dress in stylish style, and those on the extreme right and who have existed in various forms in London since the early 1960s. I'll accept the argument that some punks are actively engaged in street violence, but it is extremely unfair to blame the punks for the contempt of contemporary British youth on one subcultural group.
now, as far as the future of rock and roll is concerned, I thank the heavens for the punk. Punk rock is aggressive, exciting and sexual, clothed by the unmistakable irony and original style.
Personally, I find punk concerts vastly more enjoyable than the empty posing of faded superstars in flasks like the
How preferable this is to the bland slush that all too often contaminate American radio stations under the title of 'rock
recent, miserable Beach Boys show in Allen Field House, and I don't have to pay the equivalent admission to gain admission, either.
A last point I'd like to make, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the powers that be, is that the best thing about the punks lies in their rejection of Anglo-American capital, an
"I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." songs by Joe Strummer, lead singer of the Clash—and that's one of the healthiest lyrics I've ever heard in a European rock and roll song.
economic system based upon the exploitation and selfishness which threatens to reduce life to mere consumption and love to "two minutes and fifty seconds of squawling noises."
Alex Seago London, England graduate student
If Lynn Kirkman's column,
"Masters of brush, oilers utter
failures with pens," was a
painting it would aptly be titled
Unimaginative titles not failures
"Woman stating everything she doesn't know about art."
J. T. Long Lawrence graduate student
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