Opinion Page 4 University Daily Kansan, May 4, 1981 Shame of the cities If this spring is any indication, the coming summer is going to be a hot one. And if last summer was any indication, summer '81 might just also prove to be a violent one in this nation's cities. The seeds of discontent have been planted for years. As the country's revolutionary fervor died down in the early '70s, promises were made that social conditions would be improved. Entering this decade, however, not only have those promises not been kept, conditions have been steadily getting worse. And the past few months, budget-shakers in Washington (and state and local governments, too) have decided that the existing social programs, which made at least feeble efforts at change, must be reduced or eliminated. All, of course, in the name of proving economic theories and boosting defense appropriations. just see those unfulfilled human needs lash out in anger this summer. But budget-cutters in Washington, who thrive on comfortable government salaries, see social spending as billions of "wasted" dollars instead of as programs meeting human needs. Bureaucruals may Miami, Wichita, Orlando—those cities erupted last summer as angry hordes of poverty-stricken blacks and whites rioted in the oppressive heat. They had peered into the crystal ball of the future and found it held nothing for them. With the evaporation of CETA programs and the purging of welfare rolls in the rhetorical search for the "truly needy," those cities, and may others, seem bound for trouble this summer. Rioting can't be justified, but it can often be explained. And when it can be explained beforehand, and the beginnings of this summer forebode, all America must share the blame for the destruction and deaths caused by rioters. Perhaps it's time this country realize that the "truly needy" constitute an entire class of people of all races locked into an endless cycle of poverty in the hell of urban and rural blight. Only when Americans (and budget-slashers) think of each other as people instead of as statistics will the current time bomb be defused. Classes in sex education present facts, not morals Sex education in schools is a fraud, according to Scott Thomson, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Thomson says that sex education should be abandoned because society is so permissive that students aren't going to learn good old-fashioned values like celibacy until marriage. We should stop trying to control children's society is permissive and "we simply cannot JANE NEUFELD shovel sand against the tide. Schools cannot be as effective in sex education as parents would like us to be simply because all of the media and also the films are pushing kids in the direction we want them to go. Well, this is a new argument. I've heard that sex education is a comma plot to corruptr our youth and inflame them with just, but I've never heard that society, the media and the public have come plots to determine the high morals taught in sex education classes. Thomson seems to be saying that sex education is education in values. It tries to instil in young, impressionable minds that sex is evil and rotten until one is married, but a permissive society keeps neutralizing its lessons by showing students television shows, movies, books, magazines and numerous real-life examples of foricators and victims of sex abuse. Students sometimes or fire from the sky, but actually seem to be having a rather good time. Thomson has totally missed the point of sex education. It is not valuable because it teaches morals; it is valuable because it provides information. Morals about sex can be taught at home. Information about sex, however, is too important to leave up to the discretion of the family. If society is permissive, all the more reason to educate people about sex. And saying that education should be left to the family is about teaching how to respond if children should be the one to teach the child geometry. Even assuming parents knew enough to teach their children geometry, would they? It's the same with sex. I don't think many parents would particularly care to spend a lot of time teaching about letters, offering about letters, apart and condone. Which leads to the main argument for sex education in schools—that if we don't teach children they'll get information off the streets or out of filthy magazines. This argument has its problems, because a few sex education classes are not going to stop anyone from reading Playboy and exchanging information at recess. However, education classes enable students to separate myth from reality about the environment. Sex education classes may offer a lot of unsolicited advice on what to do with the information they give, only that the advice is based on experience. The information may be remembered. Of course, many people are horrified by sex education classes because they think students will rush out and put that week's lesson into practice. These people have obviously never been in a sex education class. Sex education is a lasting monument to the ability of our students to make any subject on God's green earth boring. The section on reproduction in my biology class had people literally slumped over their desks with their eyes glazed while the teacher wrote the names of hormones on the board. Above the most excitement in the class was a few drawings of diagrams of the human body the teacher used. or take for example, this thrilling statement on female anatomy, "The ovum is captured by the ovarian end of the Fallopian tube. The tubes are not connected to the ovaries but have projections which appear to close about the ovary during ovulation." It's not exactly an inclement to rip off our clothing and jump into bed with a plush blanket. Some people will probably never accept sex education in schools, but then again some people try to ban dictionaries that use the word "bed" as a verb. But to say that sex education should be dropped because it doesn't help to control the budding libids of students is probably one of the most asinine arguments I've heard all the time. And it is given to students some facts about the consequences and operations of those libids. KANSAN The University Daily (USPS 605-440) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Monday and Thursday for $3 a month. Mail in applications to the University of Kansas Attn: Jennifer Wheatley, 605-440. Bids by mail are by $1 for six months or $2 a year in Deeney College and $1 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $2 a member, paid through the student activity fee. Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kankan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas, Kansas City, KS 72801. 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Nena Gal, Gail Segers Copy Chiefs Trace Hamilton, Janetelle Hess, Ed Hiscock, Barb Padget, Bob Schad, Staff Photographers Ben Biger, Scot Baker, Bob Greenspoon, Kevin Kraus, Mark McDonald, Rob Poole Editorial Columnists Eric Brendle, Cynthia Curri, David Lewis, Jane Neuvel, Peter Somerville, Dan Torchi, Joe Woodburn Business Manager Terry Fry Retail Sales Manager Larry Leibengood National Sales Manager Barb Light Campus Sales Manager Karen Keaver Production Manager Kevin Winsup Classified Manager Annette Carver Transmission Manager Jane Wendover Staff Artist Rick Binkley Photographer Rob Hammerman Retail Sales Representatives Juliette Beeler, Tolikia Berry, Judy Caldwell, Sally Cordell, Hillary Crow Dumna Henoch, Ann Hornberger, Marcee Jacobsen, Terry Kreeber, Laura Manez, Howard Shallmann, Thaine Shetter General Manager, New Advisor General Manager and News Advisor ... Rick Munser Kannan Adviser ... Chuck Chowlin Semester of serving Kansan's readers brings surprises, rewarding experiences We get some fairly bizarre phone calls in the University Daily Kansan newsroom. Sometimes our readers call in with great ideas for news stories. And sometimes they don't. One man suggested that the Kansan editorially advocate widespread artificial inimination to ensure a brighter crop of students in the future. It was perhaps the silliest thing I had ever heard. Yet, as syrup it as sounds, the Kansan welcomes all calls—even the ones that are silly—from its readers. The primary function of any newspaper should be to serve and to inform its readers. At times, newspapers have failed to serve its readers. To be sure, if readers are not calling in and comments are, then the newspaper is not doing its job. This semester the Kanas staff made a concentrated effort to be accessible to all of its readers. It wasn't easy. Deadlines and the general pressure of the journalism business immense intense and uncomfortable - for staff members as well as visitors or callers. On one occasion, a student senator gazed in the Kansas' newsroom doorway, obviously a member of the senate. rang and typewriters buzzed in the background. "I if you want to see someone, come in," said, walking up to him. "We've turned off the door." "I appreciate that," he said. Yet the Kansan needs to reach out more to its readers and a good newspaper must never quit trying to do so. And a good newspaper DAVID LEWIS Editor must reach its readers without compromising its news judgment and ethics. The bottom line in reaching readers is coverage. This semester we tried to stress the "whys" of the news, instead of just stating the news. Last week the Kansan ran a series of videos at the University of Kansas. It focused on finances—the real root of the athletic problems. The last four months have been busy ones in terms of news doverage, here and abroad. An attempt was made on President Reagan's initiative to keep the Americans after holding them captive more than a year. Americans once again ventured into space, this time with the space shuttle. The Kanan shined its brightest during these events. Many long hours of sleep were lost to get some of these issues in those wooden boxes stationed on all over campus. For our readers, the effort unquestionably was worthwhile. With our successes, came the failures. We had our share of misleading headlines, inaccurate information, copy editing errors and other errors. Such problems did not help our credibility. But a newspaper's credibility cannot ever be destroyed for its staff. Otherwise, the readers lose out. You see, someone who doesn't have the readers best interests in mind doesn't usually last too long on the Kansas. Someone who has read this book has a work has to be motivated to serve the readers. The reporters' bylines you see today will become the editors' names of tomorrow. The summer and fall Kansan editors-to-be have begun the selection of their staffs. As with every semester, the names are going through change. Yet for the reader's sake, let's stick to a list. 4oc Santos'81 Reagan tackling incredible bureaucracy One of the reasons Ronald Reagan has been a godsend for this country is that 1994 was fast approaching—and I don't mean just the year—and no one better than Ronald Reagan has understood why. No one better than Ronald Reagan has understood that big government, by reason of its very bigness, is the biggest internal security threat we have ever faced. Bigger than the Red Scare, bigger than crime, bigger than social unrest, has been the threat posed by that ever-bigger collection of 10 million bureaucrats residing in and around our nation's capital. Though no one ever elected them, they wield a power that might as well be absolute. Though this power at any given moment exceeds that of the president, the Congress and the state legislature together bureaucrat bears for wielding his share is a mere ten millionth of the whole. In short, these bureaucrats have rendered what used to be our democracy into a paradox: a system of rule by power. This paradox is best represented by a perverse painting of Max Escher. On the far left side of the painting is a depiction of a flock of rather pleasant-looking geese. These are our Congress and president, who are elected by, and directly responsible to, the people of the country. Then, as the painting proceeds to the right, the geese start to undergo a rather bizarre transformation. By the middle of the painting, they have become funky fesege-fish mutants. These are the high government officials who are appointed by, and directly responsible to, our bureaucrats. Thus, they are only indirectly responsible to the管理局; they are half-bureaucrats half-notificants. But then, on the right-hand side of the painting. the geese-fish begin to look more sinister. These are the uner and middle-level bureaucrats. Finally, at the extreme right of the painting we have the lowest-level bureaucrats; diabolical bureaucrats; and some who don't know how to do it. Their hideous grins they can't conceal. They know only too well how good the pickin's are in the murky lagoon that is the federal bureaucracy. They know that civil service laws coupled with bureaucracy red tape preclude the possibility ERIC BRENDE that they will ever be fired, even if they fail to show up for work for six months straight. They know they will receive long lions pensions that now account for $30 billion of the federal budget—an amount equal to that expended for the benefit of our nation's most demonstrably needy welfare recipients—the blind, the handicapped and the dependent children. They know they can take two sentences of text before it describes it into two thousand pages of double speak. They know that it is in their best interest to be inefficient, for that way they receive more They know that by their sheer numbers they constitute about the largest special interest group. They know that, at their pleasure, they can allocate taxpayers' money to such areas of vital public publication as the study of Polish bisexualism and kidnapping. But worst of all, they can do all these things with impunity. They know they are answerable to the people for their actions only insofar as they are answerable to their section subheads—who are answerable to their division heads, who are answerable to their division department assistant to the assistant secretaries, who are answerable to their department undersecretaries, who are answerable to their division department officials, who are answerable to the elected officials, who (gasp) are answerable to the people. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that now the people are answerable to the lowest level bureaucrats. Indeed, not only are the bureaucrats notorious for their totalitarian. After multiplying themselves so prolifically over the last 15 years, these piranah-like creatures have gnawed their way into every area and aspect of American life, penetrating and subsequently feeding on state governments, business executives, and businesses big and small and even the inner sanctity of our society itself—the family. God help us all! Or in lie of God, Ronald Reagan. Indeed, he, more than anyone else of our generation, has commanded an aptitude for taming wild piranha-stormed governor of California, the number of state employees remained constant, except in the state university system. And already, as the national public records freeze in number of federal employees, as well as cut their more than generous allowance. It's a good start!