OPINION
University Dally Kansan, January 25, 1985
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas (USPK 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 6041, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 6044. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or in Douglas County and $18 for six months or a year outside the county. Student subscription is free. Address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 Stauffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 6041.
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Fine services
At a university as diverse as the University of Kansas, few aspects affect as many people as do student services. Thus, everyone is likely to have an opinion on such services. A report by an outside group looking in has praised KU's efforts.
Student services range from academic advising, to extracurricular programs. Anyone who has applied for financial aid or made use of the Kansas Union has come in contact with student services.
The Board of Regents, as part of a five-year review of every program at Regents schools, had special words of praise for the quality of the Union, KU housing and residential programs and the University's admissions and recruiting process.
KU stood out even though the Regents calculated that the budget for student services was 58 percent of the average budget for services at peer institutions. The figure seems low and serves as silent testimony to the efforts of KU staff to make up for what might be lacking in financial resources.
Not everything, however, is perfect; the Regents' report makes several suggestions for improvement, such as consolidation of University placement services. It recommends providing free catalogs to prospective students.
Overnight care at Watkins Hospital costs too much, the report states, and warrants careful review. During the 1983-84 school year, about 900 students received overnight care at the Watkins infirmary. Gene Kasper, Regents' director of special projects, has said that transfers or referrals of overnight patients could reduce costs.
The report comes at a strategic time; plans are under way for renovation of the Union, and enrollment has increased slightly from last year despite decreases at other universities. Administrators can work and make plans with an added measure of confidence. Their actions have been examined and found good in many cases, and KU is bucking the trend by continuing to attract students.
Reagan times 2
Ronald Reagan begins his second term with popular support unmatched by most recent presidents. Whether he has a political mandate to complete his conservative revolution, however, is questionable. Yet Reagan — and conservatives across the country — perceives that he has a personal mandate.
But a mandate for what? No one really knows, probably not even Reagan himself. The fate of his second administration will hinge largely on the outcome of the battle between the conservative ideologues and the political pragmatists who surround the president.
Charting Reagan's second term is difficult. It seems, at times, that he supports both camps. His ability to play both pragmatist and ideologue accounts for much of his political success. This is Reagan's secret.
The battle lines have been drawn, and the issues will be diverse and controversial. Only the outcome is uncertain.
On social issues such as school prayer, abortion and tuition tax credits. Reagan the ideologue likely will continue to lend considerable rhetorical support to the New Right's agenda. However, it is doubtful that Reagan the pragmatist will push hard for the changes unless Congress gives its support.
Reagan says he wants an arms agreement with the Soviet Union. Secretary of State George Shultz seems to have the green light to conduct wide-ranging negotiations. But the ideologues probably will define an "acceptable" agreement and pressure Reagan to work within their parameters.
Reagan the pragmatist may dominate on the subject of the domestic economy. He may well accept some form of tax increase, and he likely will push strongly for tax reform. As an unswerving conservative for more than 25 years, he would find no greater satisfaction than to slay the tax dragon.
And, finally, the Republican Party appears to be approaching 1988 with deep divisions between ideologues and pragmatists. Party leaders will be looking for someone to bridge the widening gap between the party's moderate and conservative wings.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and hometown, or faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites inquiries and groups to submit best essays. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
End apartheid but protect blacks
It all began, suspiciously, soon after the recent presidential elections. Jesse - Jackson; that is - was there as representatives of the Kennedy clan; Walter Faunty, District of Columbia delegate to Congress; and dozens of other congressmen.
No, it was not a wake for the national Democratic Party. Rather, it was the electorally defeated Left rallying to regroup itself morally, and politically in front of the South African embassy in Washington, D.C.
They came to say two things:
1)Apartheid is an evil system;
2)President Reagan's policy of "con-
fidence" should not be
weall agree on the first point.
The second point puts on one side supporters of immediate change and complete divestment, no matter its possibly tragic cost. On the other side are those who want to see the black majority live to enjoy the fruits of freedom, who counsel moderation and tangible progress by the South African government toward ending apartheid.
Fixed investment by the United States in South Africa was less than 13 percent of total foreign investment in 1982. That is based on book value.
not market value or replacement cost.
Total U.S. divestment by American corporations certainly would be a political blow to South Africa. It might also growth, reduce its access to U.S.
White unemployment levels probably would be affected only minimally. In the meantime, South Africa easily could damp the effect of the blow by seeking new investors and, for example, raising the price of mortgages under $1.50 an ounce to recoup the lost new of U.S. annual investment.
U. S. divestment without support from its European and other allies would, in effect, be more of a slap in the face than a blow to the body.
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan should instruct us that economic sanctions do not usually work.
Klaus Knorr of Princeton University concludes that trade reprisals rarely succeed “... because the punishment that can be imposed by does not inflict enough pain ... and tends to arouse the will to resist.”
The grain embargo imposed after
And resist is what the whites intend to do. The United States can 1) work with moderate and progressive whites who support evolutionary change; 2) follow the Carter methodology of denouncing South Africa, thereby fueling the political ascendance of white liberals in the reactionary Herstigte Nasionale Party; or 3) change the government by invasion and conquest.
The case for divestment stands on shaky moral grounds as well. Divestment for most blacks will mean no job, no money, no food and possibly death. Alan Paton, author of "Cry the Beloved Country," recently illustrated this point in the Sunday Times of South Africa.
He tells a story in which he, in a dream, is leader of the group World Disinvestment. His wife comes into contact with someone she wants women want to see him. One carries
a a child to Paton, and he sees that the child is dead.
"Why do you give this to me?"
"Because it is yours."
"How can it be mine, I have never seen you before."
"You took its life, therefore it is yours."
We in the West want to see change, and freedom in South Africa, but we constantly have to remember that it is not we who may die as a consequence of our actions Chief Joseph Kwazulu, said it most tersely: "It is we, the blacks, who have to stay alive in South Africa.
"I obviously understand the intentions and motives of those who call for the cessation of investment in South Africa. I also understand the feelings of a man who watches his children grow thin from hunger."
"He is the man that has the right to say that investment must cease. Nobody else, not even I, have that right."
The chief does not have the right, Jesse does not have the right, and certainly college students here in Lawrence, Kan., do not have the right to condemn others to such a fate.
Landers column causes marital crisis
My friend Belvin put his cup of tea on the table and slumped into a chair. I knew what he wanted to talk about. My friends listen, and good friends know.
"It's about, well . . . things have been a little rough," he said, looking at the tea.
"Not any more," Belvin said, taking the clipped column from his
"Hey, I know." I said. "It's your marriage. Don't worry about shocking me."
For a month, Belvin's wife, Milsie,
had been treating him like garlic in
a rose garden. And he looked wilted.
"Yeah, it's Mlisie," he said. "Or maybe I should say it's Ann Landers and her stupid survey."
"Don't you think she cares about what you want?" I asked.
"Maybe I don't get it." I said. "You mean the one about whether women prefer sex or hugging? . . Oh, I think I get it."
"I can't believe it," he said. "Milise took the thing like it was a majority vote. More women prefer this to what she wants. And all it's the wafts."
pocket. "She thinks she knows what all men want. She read the one response that said warm caresses
were enough. Then she says, 'Women want warm caresses. Men want warm carcasses.'
Not exactly a sweet nothing in one's ear. I thought.
"Oh, you haven't even heard the new slogan." Belvin said. "The other night in bed, she says, 'Women have a right to demand what they want. I'm entitled to the Big H.'"
"It sounds like she's getting pretty extreme." I said.
A laugh escaped me before I remembered how upset Belvin was.
"Is that supposed to make some point?" I asked.
"Of course — it replaces a cold shower," Belvin said.
"No, I mean about women's ideas of themselves," I said. "It certainly contrasts with the bywords of the early 70s."
My attention wandered a moment. I wondered if Belvin remembered when "the Big O" meant Oscar for playing championship basketball.
"I don't know," Belvin was saying. "Women may know what they want, but they haven't told the men."
"Maybe that's where we men are missing the point," I ventured. "Maybe they're telling us loud and clear."
Belvin stiffened a little. He thought I was changing sides.
"OK, look." I said. "We're not all jerks. Some of the guys mentioned in that column are. But I think all those no-sex-pleas answers have to mean something, and part of loving your woman is caring what it means."
"And so women get to demand their rights — is that it after all?" he challenged.
"Women should care about men's feelings, too." I said. "Look at the column. One woman says basically, 'Give me three children then leave me alone' and not complain when her husband does not leave her alone — permanently.'"
"So what should I do?" asked Belvin.
"Well, I'm no expert," I said. "But I think the point is that men are doing too much already."
"Yeah," he said. "Like the big macho performance stuff."
"Exactly," I said. "The women who answered in this column seemed to like being close to their men without doing anything."
"So I give her some time," Helvin said. "But I still don't think I have to forget the way I get to feeling. You know."
"No, don't apologize for it," I said. "Hey, Julie, we were made to go and get her, and all that. But make it worse besides a contest of vills."
When we parted, I saw a bit of spring in Belvin's step. I had a feeling that soon he would be smelling like a rose.
Subway thugs won't get his sympathy
As a curious reporter, I have some questions as to whether Bernhard Hugo Goetz really had to shoot the man who killed him for touring in New York.
But as some of you may recall, a few months ago a couple of young men, seeking to increase their net worth, put a gun to my nose. That wasn't the first time I was robbed or assaulted in the United States come to croaking — either from a twitch of a trigger finger or my own fright.
Were they really trying to rob him? Was he in any physical danger? Why were two of them shot in the back? Did he carry a gun in the hope that he might get a chance to use it that way?
So, as a recent victim, I have a different perspective than that of a reporter. As a victim, I already know the Goetz case to have a reaction.
It goes like this: To hell with the
suit. I'm glad Goetz shot them.
I don't care what his motives were or
Syndicated Columnist
MIKE
ROYKO
whether he has all of his marbles. The four punks looked for trouble, and they found it. Case closed.
Now, I'll probably hear from some lawyer or judge or police official or preacher, lecturing me on his case, taking the law into our own hands.
Don't bother, please. Sure, Goetz took the law into his own hands. When four tough-looking punks on a New York subway demand money,
Even one of the punks who was shot now nisively is condemning Goetz's short-cutting of the legal system. Barry Allen, 19, indignantly told a rebuke: "That man took the law for his hands, man. He got to be punished."
what are you supposed to do — draft a motion and ask the conductor to file it with the Supreme Court?
The real point of the Goetz case is that the official protectors who say
A shrewed that, Barry Allen. He knows what would have happened if Goetz hadn't taken the law into his own hands.
And Barry Allen and his pals would be riding the subway happily today, looking for somebody else to torment.
Under the normal victim-mug procedures, Goetz would have given him money. Eventually, a bored cop would have waved Goetz to a chair, taken a description from him and filed it with 10,000 others just like it.
Goetz shouldn't have taken the law into his own hands — the police, the prosecutors, the judges, the politicians — aren't capable of protecting Goetz or just about anybody else.
Oh, they might take a passing interest after a person has been mugged, murdered or raped. And if, by the wildest chance, the four punks had been arrested, what would have happened?
For that answer, just take a seat in any big city's criminal courtroom and watch the dismay on the faces of the victims as judges lightly slap the hands of those who hacks than victims are grinning at the end of a typical day in court.
All things considered, I'd say Goetz
was effective in making his point,
which was that he has a right to sit on
a public subway, minding his own
presence, nobody, nobody,
without being threatened, intimidated,
frightened or harmed.
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