UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of the
April 25,1980
Hell no, we won't go
The West German government has decided to join the United States in recommending that its national Olympic team not go to the Moscow Olympics this summer. This decision, and similar decisions by more than 30 nations around the world should lend a great deal of support to the United States' position. The 1980 Summer Olympics may even be canceled.
And that would be a shame. Every four years since 1896, in theory at least, athletes from all over the world have gathered to compete against one another for nothing but the glory of sport.
It was a noble ideal. But it never really worked. All Olympics after the first modern games have been contested under national flags. And just about every Olympiad since the first one is, by some sort of nationalistic dispute.
The Games were not held in 1916, 1940 and 1944 because of world wars, although there were some who said that war should not have stopped the games. The 1940 Winter Olympics were almost held in Japan, but reason prevailed.
The 1936 Summer Olympics were held in Germany, and Adolph Hitler used them to try to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryan race, such superiority being the basis of his politics.
In 1968, Mexican students used the Olympics to showcase their demonstrations against the government.
In 1972, Arab terrorists killed 11 Israeli team members in Munich. In 1976, Canada refused to allow
Taiwanese athletes to compete in the Montreal games because of political problems with the People's Republic of China and 30 other nations refused to participate because South Africa was allowed in.
Maybe the United States should, in the spirit of the Olympic ideal, fully support the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Right. You bet. The Soviets have said the Olympics show the world that there is no need for foreign policy. For despite their claims of recent weeks that the United States is ruining the Olympic spirit with the stench of politics, the Soviets have boasted for years that the Olympics would prove international acceptance of their way of life and politics.
Now the U.S. government is asking American athletes and the rest of the world not to attend the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which were invaded by Afghanistan.
But there is a time when nations must choose between one ideal and another. The United States has correctly decided that upholding the ideal of an apolitical Olympics was not worth ignoring the ideal that the Soviet government, with its increasing domination of the nations around its borders, should not be accepted as a peaceful, sports-loving Olympic host.
And it's too bad that the athletes who have trained for years will have to sacrifice the possible glory of an Olympic medal because of the United States' stand. But it's also too bad that the athlete who has trained for years will homeland and lives to the playful Olympic teddy bear that seems to be hungry for new lands to conquer.
Search for alliances must begin at home
To the Editor:
Recently the United States has been experiencing a severe drought in harvesting concrete allies to buttress its foreign policy. This is especially true in two prominent issues: the Iran crisis and President Carrie Bush's policies that frustrated and indignant Americans are perplexed about why we find it so difficult to locate support nations.
Numerous countries do not adhere to U.S. policy for obvious political and economic reasons, but they also exist, regarding especially the United States' treatment of Third and Fourth World nations in the past. Our government has had little success in distinguishing indifferent and haughty disposition toward these countries. We have practiced an attitude of, "You need us more than we need you."
The United States should display a more conciliatory and more direct foreign policy. We would not be concerned with pressing America to steadily amplify our efforts in aiding the economic growth of Third and Fourth World countries, but we cannot continue our huge, gluttonous consumption of precious oil and natural resources. It has been predicted that within the next decade American economic and political order will shift dramatically, and very possibly violently. The United States must be able to adjust it to retain its position as a world leader.
What can we as individuals do to help promote alliances? Here at KU we have many different models representing 56 different nations. These people are treated as outsiders, which of course, they are. We frequently, however, learn that our students are often even. We tend to snub, abuse and ignore them, even as students, or as "sidlers", though, return to their homes and statesmen. Therefore, their impressions of Americans here at KU reflect views of the United States in the future.
Of course, Americans often have great difficulty establishing relationships with foreigners because of the differences in language and culture. We are understandable. However, we each must make a sincere effort to welcome them, by setting aside prejudice and political and religious disagreements, and looking at us as outsiders, but as fellow human beings.
Given the current world turmoil and tension, we could use all the friends we can get. The United States cannot afford to lose so much money now or more than ever, we need to build lasting relationships and personal rapport with the people of borderline and even hostile countries. In doing so, we have a greater chance of moving forward peacefully—we must take part in it.
Steve Steger
Washington, D.C., freshman
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Newroom--864-1510
Business Office--864-1528
USER 095-6481 Published in the University of Kansas daily August August Bay and Kentucky and March August Bay and Kentucky. Please contact me for details. You may also visit www.usk.edu/usksu for more information or for an email address (usk@usk.edu) for any questions. I will be available 24 hours a day, every year to answer your questions. My phone number is (317) 845-3686. My email address is usk@usk.edu. My website is www.usk.edu.
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kannan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 80463
Editor
James Anthonv Pitts
Managing Editor
Dana Milner
Campus Editor
Editorial Editor
Brenda Washburn
Campus Editor
Carl Beiser
Associate Campus Editor
Judith Woodburn
Associate Campus Editors
Amy Holiday, Ellen Tornado
Art Director
Orelle Maddox
Sports Editor
Earle Earle
Associate Sports Editor
Game Myers
Associate Sports Editor
Marie Hayward
Business Manager Vincent Coultis
Retail Sales Manager        Elaine Bratcher
Customer Service Manager    Dan Traval
Advertising Makeover Manager    Maiden Swain
Classified Representatives    Tammy Heim, Natakale Diane Jade
National Manager          Pat Davis
Social Product Manager      Karen Harley
Staff Artist              Karen Harley
General Manager            Advertising Manager
Rick Downs
For most lovers of books, the thought of destroying any book is appalling. Books are things to be read careful, their words treasured. Even the scent of inkled pages is alluring many readers, and who can deny themselves of leather-bound copies of classic works?
For lovers of freedom, however, the burning of books is a gut-wrenching stab at personal liberty. To destroy the work of a book-lover, you must use speech and of press. Book burnings deny, also, the access of readers to the opinions and works of others; it denies them freedom
Book burnings choke freedom's fire
Book burnings are sensational, crowd
propagating propaganda events. The flames are
There was a book burning in Douglas County recently. Book burnings—frightening things—have been symbols of repressiveness. This book burning, although a small one by members of a local theater troupe, has the giant conflagrations of Hiller's Germany.
kate COLUMNIST pound
lit in the name of protection, either to
claim or to protect a group from ideas
claimed, or to protect a group from ideas
they consider objectionable. Book burnings
been used as an deactus moves by
leaders to protect their
THE PROTECTION provided by book burnings is false security. Burning literate rather protects a nation from the fire of insurgent extremists congregation from influences it considers sinful. The burning does not change the insurgency and it does not remove the mild influence.
The security created by book burnings, then, is merely an expensive lie, paid for freedom. There have been book burnings throughout history that attempt to eliminate anything that threatened them. Nazi Germany used book burnings, not only to protect itself, but to incite the German population. In 1942 Hitler controlled the natural inclinations of people. Such inclinations as dancing, singing, and independence. Even the Roman Empire was—as well as people it considered heretical.
IT IS FORTUNATE that the Puritan and Nazi societies did not survive. They died, in death, cheeked to death by repression. Though meant for governmental or religious pressures, at least not for long. The human mind is too fruitful, too questioning to ever be conquered. This is the Galilee, a Martin Luther, a Margaret Sanger comes along and proves that, despite rigid laws and unreasonable rules, this society will challenge those who seek to bind them.
THE MOST FRIGHTHENING aspect of book burnings is not their objective, control of the expression, but the fact that they can be contagious. They are used to incite, to be fainted, and to spread their feed on fear. Fever and hysteria spread like the flames of a raging forest fire.
From burning books and record albums, a religious group may move on to burning
magazines and newspapers, or trying to keep others from reading the material they dislike. A notion or political group may try to influence a person's literature to control a segment of the population. It has been done; there are governments that do it now. The faith-inspired actions of a small group could grow into a large group that would turn on the group, devouring its parent.
OPPOSING BOOK BURNINGS, however,
is not as easily done as it may seem,
particularly when one is opposing a burning
such as the one in Douglas County.
The group that sponsored the book burning was the congregation of the Ninth Street Baptist Church, and participants voluntarily took their books and record albums into the flames. The burning, accustomed to this, were members of the congregation said.
freeing themselves of the need for material belongings and removing influences they considered satanic.
IT IS THE RIGHT of a religious group to conduct rites it considers necessary for the exercise of its religious course, acts that are illegal. The right of a religious group to burn books can, however, conflict with the rights of others to express themselves and the right of members to be burned.
Group pressure may induce members to burn books, or keep them from reading books. Without reading the material, how can a teacher make a reasoned judgment of its value?
Censorship of books and music in school libraries has been done for years in the United States. Parents and school officials must comply with such works as "Caterer in the Rye" from
library shelves. By doing so, they deny students the opportunity to read the material and freely make their own evaluations about its content.
BUT PARENTS HAVE a right to become involved in the educations of their children. Parents have a right to be concerned with the music of their children, rights of churches and of parents, however, stop when they begin to infringe on the rights of musicians, even their children and followers.
Book burnings, one of the most violent forms of censorship, a are appalling. Even as an expression of religious faith, they have a sinister impact. But in a truly free society, they must be tolerated, despite their misuse. They must, however, be watched. Society must protect itself from flaming extremism before it becomes unstoppable.
Technoloav muffles barnvard gigolo
By LEO TRACHTENBERG
New York Times Special Features
NEW YORK—Where have all the roosters gone?
since 1906, I've spent much of my life in the country, but in all that time I've seldom seen a dog, a human or a cow. Crows split the forest air with their cawing; catbirds me maintainly in the honeycandle shrubs; calves, dropped from trees, go down the hills and blue dusk; dogs how call across winter fields under a shimmering moon. But the dreams, the tumultuous, soaring cock-a-
doodle of the rooster has vanished from much of rural America.
Why? Is the chicken pass? An extinct species like the dodo bird? Every menu, every dish, a recipe. Contrary, At thousands of crossroads, the gated college smells benign, inviting us into his chicken emporium. Still, the question What has happened to the barnyard rooster?
The answer can be traced to rampant technology. Back in the time when the dinosaurs roamed the plains, millions of family farms dotted the landscape. And almost every one of them had a
flock of chickens scratching around the barnyard.
ROOSTERS AND HENS lived a life that was elemental and classically simple. As a woman, she was scarcely pregnant, dropped her fertilized egg in a broody nest and sat on it until a blanky-aged chick took over.
As for the rooster, that chauvinist bird turned to the world what he was all about. He was a predator of cats, and barnyard in happy recall of amorous events past and anticipation of more来. And when he saw it, he was proud.
in barns, fields, farmhouses, even across city lines.
Alas, the family farm is being replaced by agribusiness, large factory-farms with single cash crops. Now, the eold dominance of fertilizer efficiency dominate chicken raising
NOWADAYS, THOUSANDS of brens heat for egg production are housed in huge buildings from which they never emerge. The eggs are stored in the roof and you won't hear a single clucking hen. Roosters are put into mates with the hens, and the eggs are shipped to an incubator plant.
---
At the incubator plant the eggs are electrically warmed and the chicks are shaded. The neonate nocentis are shipped to still another plant and kept in massive cages, Leaversworth of fowlom, to be fattened, demixed, frozen and stored in a box. That’s chicken "warning" in this article and is common.
THE ROOSTER IN this process is a assembly-line gigolo incarcerated within the four walls of the chicken works. His glorious cry is muffled, unheard by his neighbors, for world. For him, gone are the sun and blue sky, the barnyard Eden of chicken dome past.
Now, even most country people get their chicks at the market instead of raising them in a backyard. You can buy them who needs all that fuss and feathers? All those coops and chickens? And mess? And who needs them?
One morning, from somewhere in the spread of the gentleman's farm bordering my five acres, there floated to my disbelieving ear a distant, galvanic cry.
MIRABLE DICTU! Quickly I pelt down the road for a look around my neighbor's place. There among a gaggle of gese and hens was a large handsome rooster. Cooking a brazen eye at the world, he swaggered across the yard, his crumption flapping with every tussle of arrogant head. And he crowed his head foal off.
Now, as the sun moves up over my country haven, I arise each morning to that malicious and frightening animal of sound of animal exultation. That vitalizing shout to the world-coak-a-toddle-doo! Lea Trutchbergen lives in New York. Lea Trutchbergen lives in New York. make documentary films and is a