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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Dec. 11, 1962
Space Deaths
According to a usually unreliable source, the American press, nine Soviet cosmonauts have died in space for their beloved homeland. In a very discerning article from the North American Newspaper Alliance, a list of the victims is provided, including names and dates of the alleged accidents.
The article, published in an area paper, reported:
"IN FEBRUARY, 1959, Terentiy Shiborin, Soviet cosmonaut and an air force officer, was launched into space at Kapustan Yar near the Black Sea. His radio signals were recorded for 28 minutes. Nothing was ever heard from him again."
Two of the alleged unsuccessful probes supposedly put a man and woman (in the same capsule) into orbit. In both cases their voices were recorded for a period of time, then all contact was lost.
EVERY CASE MENTIONED in the article ends with the statement that the signals from the space ships were lost. In only one case was there
ever a Russian announcement of a cosmonaut's death. And that announcement was more than two years after his alleged flight.
Now it is quite possible that the Russians have lost nine cosmonauts in space experiments. But from the information available, it is equally possible that most of the nine experiments were intended to be of short duration and that the cosmonauts were simply brought back to earth. We know from experience that Russia does not always release news of her successes, just as the U.S. does not release news of all of its successes.
It is equally possible, and probably true, that the U.S. has a manned space program aside from its TV series down at Cape Canaveral. Perhaps the U.S. has a secret manned flight center operating in Alaska, Greenland, Guam, or, more likely, on the small, security-shrouded Ackland Island off the tip of New Zealand. It is possible!
The point is that we should not become too gullible or too naive in this modern day and age. Let's put a strong foot forward and avoid being sucked in by unconfirmed, undocumented sensationalism.
Arthur C. Miller
It Looks This Way
Childish Values Seen In Barn Party Question
Somebody is missing the point of all this discussion about barn parties, drinking and general hell-raising. And that somebody just might be that great mass of students who inevitably rise up in paranoic agitation whenever the word "administration" is mentioned.
THE ADMINISTRATION has the authority to ban barn parties, but the administration should not do so. The administration has the authority to legislate against drinking, but the administration should not do so. Students have a perfect right to go to barn parties. Students have a perfect right to get as stewed as baby's breakfast prunes if they want to. And that right should be defended. It should never even be questioned.
What should be questioned is the embryonic sense of values that has raised its baby-faced head this year.
It is cheerfully admitted that, for a KU student, a weekend is to be as much anticipated as shore leave after six months at sea.
BUT SINCE when is getting like baby's prunes the best way to work off tension? Since when did it become a cute trick to poke holes in windows? Since when did, "Aw, the boys are just havin' a little fun" become a rational justification for irresponsible action?
It may be that the administration is a little bit prudish. It may be that the students on the disciplinary council—who outnumber the faculty, by the way—are all prudes.
It may be, but I doubt it.
It may be that some of KU's fine students should grow up.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN that KU students should be above pranks—just above destructive ones. This does not mean that KU students should be "above" drinking—just above getting drunk. That does not mean that KU students should not fight for their rights—just that they should use those智 intelligently.
Of course, it may be that the administration's concern with the image of the University is off base. But it is concerned, and it is completely ridiculous that any administration, in dealing with college-age students, should ever even feel the need for concern.
This time the administration is not making an unreasonable request. It is not asking for the end of the world—just that students quit living as though it were.
The idea that the best way to have fun is to drink oneself under a table; the idea that wrecking things, whether the person is sober or drunk, is excusable as just working off some tension; the idea that nothing matters but selfish desire to do exactly as one pleases without considering, accepting, or admitting responsibility—these are neither tenable nor intelligent.
STUDENTS SHOULD BE SURE that their position of having fun is understood, tenable, and in agreement with standards of intelligence and responsibility.
They may be loads of fun, but students who think so should reassess their values.
PERHAPS ACTING WITH restraint would be hypocritical. KU students are very concerned with being natural. But if students are not being natural when they refrain from going blind at a party, if it is not standard procedure to forget four-letter words when talking to one's landlady, if it is not normal to leave a barn looking somewhat better than a Bowery saloon, somebody is fouled up.
Students who feel that acting with restraint is hypocritical should go back and take their freshman year in high school over again. They might learn something about civilization, and then their actions would not be hypocritical.
They might even be mature.
—Blaine King
Letters
Should Abolish Death Penalty Editor:
Mr. Marshall, I realize that in the very conservative, backward state of Kansas it is necessary to tread lightly when criticizing a hallowed institution such as hanging, but don't you think you could have been a little more radical than saying, "Maybe Kansas should revise its method of carrying out capital punishment"? ('Hang Until Death,' Daily Kansan, Dec. 4).
Hell yes, it should revise its method of carrying out capital punishment. If it won't offend strait-laced Kansans too much, I might even be so bold as to suggest that they abolish capital punishment altogether. I hear a cry from the pious now, "Sure, and let the killer run loose murdering our children, our wives, God-mother-country!"
DEAR VIRTUOUS KANSANS: Within 200 years people will look back on your "necessary" death penalty with amazement, horror, and disgust. They will be ashamed that their ancestors could have been so barbaric as to actually seek social revenge by hanging other human beings by the neck until death. They will view capital punishment as we now view witch burning—as a product of a barbaric animal hate, ignorance, and vengefulness.
Can't you read? Don't you know that there is absolutely no valid evidence that capital punishment either deters or prevents crime? Can't you see that capital punishment is useless, outmoded, and the creation of a disgustingly sick philosophy? Apparently not. You still have the death penalty and editorial writers who think the only thing wrong with it is the method used in killing the offenders.
WHAT DIFFERENCE does it make how you kill them? Why not burn them? Better yet, let's revive the long forgotten method of tying four draft horses to a person's four limbs and then tearing him apart. This would surely be more ghastly, and therefore would discourage more prospective murderers. Right? Isn't that the correct reasoning; make the penalty strong enough and there will be no more offenders?
This idea is as archaic as the torture rack. It's as archaic as your present death penalty. It's sick. Why the hell don't you do something about it?
Larry Shawhan Belton, Mo., junior
Comment and Criticism
Editor of Standard Levies Criticism
A few days ago an article appeared in the Kansas written by Fred Zimmerman which expressed concern over the United States' "lagging" economy. In a most articulate paraphrase of Keynesian economic conclusions, Mr. Zimmerman called for the somewhat worn but still sophisticated remedy of more government spending, or more euphhemistically, increased investment by the "public sector."
In his search for a worldly horn of piety, Mr. Zimmerman made several errors. If one is trying to gain an honest understanding of the nature of man and of his economics relationships with other men, many of the statements in that article should be examined thoroughly to see what they really mean.
IN THE FIRST place it should be kept in mind that wealth is produced solely by the application of individual energy and resourcefulness to natural resources. The individuals' efficiency is then increased by entering into a system of voluntary trade and exchange under a division of labor. These are basic economic facts. In this context it can be clearly seen that an individual can increase his actual productivity and wealth only by developing more efficient tools to use in transforming natural resources into economic goods.
Money is, speaking simply, nothing more than an economic good which is in general demand and stable supply, which is used as a medium of exchange. In a nation-state, the central government has exclusive monopolistic control over money; it creates a monetary system in which it alone mints, places into circulation and regulates the value of money. In addition to this, governments have the power to tax — to forcibly take money from their citizens. It is from this standpoint that Mr. Zimmerman discusses the various Keynesian paths to economic growth and perpetual prosperity.
IN THE FIRST part of his article, Mr. Zimmerman bemoans the lack of economic growth and concerns himself about an adequate growth rate. At first this seems a strange orientation, but then we remember that the "public interest" demands an adequate growth rate and that the "economy" exists to serve the "public interest." The next logical question would seem to be, Why does the public interest require a higher GNP? But then we remember that we are involved in a crucial "peace race," and "must" outproduce the outproducers. So much for the problem.
Further analysis by Mr. Zimmerman concludes that the reason for this problem is quite simple. A lack of investment has caused the sluggishness, and what is needed is for the government to "stimulate" private investment and to increase government spending.
Furthermore, he adds, to be reluctant to allow the government to incur a deficit during this whole process, is to be plagued by a "myth." In an attempt to allow no "myths" to prevail unchallenged, we should carefully examine these three aspects of the proposed solution.
THE POLICY which is advocated to stimulate private investment is a tax cut. Now, since at any given instant, there is a given amount of wealth in the economy expressed in terms of a certain amount of money, a tax cut would naturally mean that the government would have less money available to spend by allowing the private sector to retain more of the money it produced in the first place. If this was all that occurred there wouldn't be any increased investment as such, only a welcome return of the prerogative to spend money to those who produce it.
This, of course, is not what the Keynesians propose. They want an
increase in government spending. Understanding that the government does not create wealth but only taxes money from its citizens for its own spending purposes, this double increase is clearly impossible without incurring a budgetary deficit. This is all very well with the Keynesians, however, for they openly advocate deficit financing. But what is really meant by deficit financing?
When the government spends money which it does not have, printing press money is created and inflation ensues. This, coupled with other fiscal measures such as a lowering of the rediscount rates through the Federal Reserve Bank, makes for an artificial increase in the supply and availability of money.
This monetary policy stimulates a wave of credit expansion based on an unrealistic set of market data artificially produced by government flat. This well-known inflationary spiral continues as increased expansion requires increased spending to stave off any slump.
The real effect of this policy, of course, is nothing more than a continuous devaluing of the money and a confounding of the data and tools of economic calculation.
This cannot go on forever, and it will eventually result in a government decree devaluing the money which has been fraudulently circulated, and a complete lack of faith in the unstable medium of exchange. This will be manifested by true stagnation, and a reversion to dealing in real economic goods on a cumbersome barter basis.
Reflecting a moment, money is chosen as a medium of exchange only because of its general demand and stable supply; for this reason, seriously upsetting this stability by the creation of printing press money of dubious and actually fraudulent value is the sure road to eventual economic depression and chaos. The figures might look rosy for a while, but we should remember the words of J. M. Keynes, himself, when he was questioned about the long run effects of his economic policies. Lord Keynes stated, "In the long run we are all dead anyway."
The free market imposes no judgments of value. It is a system growing out of the free and voluntary registering and fulfilling of subjective wants and values. It is in the controlled, interventionist economy that force is relied upon when the judgments of politicians, about what is good for the people, replace the judgments of these people themselves on the market place.
A true advocate of the free market cannot properly concern himself with the amount of economic progress the country "ought" to experience but can only make predictions about what conditions might result if people act in a certain way. He is, in the end, not interested in directing other people's actions and in planning their economic behavior. He is concerned with planning his own actions. He does not wish, or believe it wise, to govern other people. He governs himself.
David Jackman, III Editor, The Standard Wichita sophomore
UNIVERSITY DAILY HANSAN
University of Kansas student newspaper
become became between 1904,
brentleywilson, 1908, chris
1912, 1913
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.