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Thursday, February 24, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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VIEWPOINT
CBS' olympic coverage is far from gold-medal
Every few years the world gathers together for its best to compete. The Winter Olympics are a great display of international goodwill through the spirit of competition. However, the high standards of the games have not been reflected in the CBS coverage of the 1994 Olympics.
CBS has focused intensely on everything except sports. Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan dominated reports from Lillehammer even before they competed. They have been mentioned in almost every facet of CBS' coverage, including Men's Downhill and the Opening Ceremonies. Worst of all are Connie Chung's exclusives, entitled "Tonya Watch."
Another weakness of CBS' coverage is its strange handling of the time difference issue. Norway is seven hours ahead of Lawrence, and CBS doesn't want to show all the events live when they can tape-delay them in prime time. However, they insist on masquerading as if the events are live. The results have been reported all day on radio and TV, but CBS acts as if the viewers are oblivious to the fact that the events happened hours earlier. Instead of acknowledging the time difference, CBS acts as if events are happening in our backyard.
A third weakness is the vast number of commercials that inundate the coverage. According to the Kansas City Star, Olympic coverage consists of 18 minutes of commercials an hour in prime time, whereas a typical hour contains 12 minutes of coverage. This 50-percent increase in the time devoted to commercials seems excessive.
J. J. ANDRE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Norway's TV networks should ignore terrorism
Last week Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" was stolen from the National Art Museum of Norway. This was followed by a "suggestion" by a Lutheran minister and anti-abortion advocate that the painting might reappear if Norwegian television networks show the film "The Silent Scream." The film shows the abortion of a 12-week-old fetus.
Norwegian television networks should not show "The Silent Scream" in response to the Rev. Borre Knudsen's suggestion.
One main reason the networks should not comply is that it sets a dangerous precedent. If a parent gives his or her child candy so the child will stop screaming, the parent will have to give the child candy each time, or the child will scream louder. If the networks comply this time, they will be forced to succumb to other fringe groups, or they will scream louder.
There is no way to tell whether anti-abortion advocates stole the painting. They could be claiming the theft to promote their own cause. If this is true, even after following through with the demands by showing the film, the painting would not be returned because the protesters never had it in the first place.
Essentially, the demand comes down to terrorism Although violence is commonly associated with terrorism, it is not a necessary condition for it. The difference between the mid-eastern terrorists of the '80s holding Americans hostage and the alleged actions of these anti-abortion advocates is only in what they hold captive.
DAVID ZIMMERMAN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSANSTAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
JUSTIN GARBERG Business manager
Editors
Aest Managing Editor...Dan England
Assistant to the editor...J.R. Clashome
News...Kristel Fogler, Katie Greenwell
Todd Selfert
Editorial...Colleen McCain
Campus...Nathan Olean
Sports...Jean DeLevenne
Photo...Daryn Dessay
Features...Sara Bennett
Wire...Allison Lipper
Freelance...Christine Laue
JENNIFER BLOWEY Retail sales manager
Ruinnaea Staff
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Campus sales mgr ... Jason Eberly
Regional sales mgr ... Troy Terwasser
National a & Coop sales mgr ... Robin King
Special Section mgr ... Shelly McConnell
Production mgr ... Laura Guth
Gretchen Kootterlinschmith
Marketing director .. Shannon Reilly
Creative director .. John Carton
Classified mgr .. Kelly Connelys
Tearse sheets mgr .. Wing Chan
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Canada's single-payer health plan provides care for all through tax
I was watching CNN Headline News the other day when I saw something curious. They showed one of those commercials the Health Insurance Association of America put together featuring white, upper middle class, right-wing families who supposedly are just like you and me. Serious, balding "Harry" and his pretty wife "Louise," played by actors, were engaged in a whine-a-thon about the President's health-care proposal and how it would create a massive federal bureaucracy that would bring our society crumbling down, or something like that.
Five minutes earlier, the channel had aired a news story about how women don't stay in the hospital for several days after giving birth anymore, as they used to do, although doctors recommend it. Why? Their medical insurance won't cover it. The new procedure entails giving new mothers a videotape on newborn care and sending them packing, a sort of revolving door of obstetrics.
I understand that insurance companies cannot afford to pay for new mothers to lounge around in the hospital for days at a time; they need to use that money to produce and air commercials slamming the President. But what always gets me is that the insurance industry doesn't seem to know how good it's got it.
The President's Health Security Act was put together with the insurance industry in mind. The proposed system would insure that every American would have access to a health insurance policy provided by the very same companies that are fighting the plan. The industry would be allowed to continue its profiteering, albeit at a reduced rate.
The danger to the industry is that their campaign will be successful:
that Americans will see the President's plan as being inadequate and undesirable, and turn instead to a Canadian-style national health program — the only proposed program that would really end the gravity train for the insurance companies. Called the "single payer" plan, this method of health-care financing would provide health care for every U.S. citizen through a federal tax.
The 52,000-member surgeons' group has the courage to say what few others have in our profit-crazed society. The single-payer system is administratively simpler and offers the best plan for insuring that citizens can choose their doctors, according to the group's chair, David Murray, who testified to that effect before the House Education and Labor Committee.
On Feb. 10, the American College of Surgeons, a professional organization not known for radicalism, endorsed the concept of a single-payer system of health care.
This is not at all what we have heard from Republicans, insurance company representatives and others who
never have had their hands inside an abdominal cavity. We're told that the huge, anthropomorphic government will assign us to doctors as if it were pulling them from Pez dispensers. Yeah the notion that we can choose our health-care options now is largely a myth. Only 29 percent of companies with fewer than 500 employees — the companies at which most of us work — offer workers a choice of health-care policies. If the doctor of your choice isn't involved with the policy you get at your job, too bad.
There is an enormous bureaucracy in the insurance industry. People who have nothing to do with curing profit from sickness. It's difficult to begrudge health-care professionals the money they make practicing the healing arts, but it's equally difficult to see how our country benefits when our health-care dollars line the pocket of insurance company paper pushers. Only a single-payer health program would cut these superfluous moneymakers out of the loop.
EMERGENCY
Paul Henry is a Taecoma, Wash., graduate student in Journalism.
Tax Tip: Underwear is deductible
Today I am announcing the firstever Amateur Tax Tips Contest, featuring an exciting prize, as well as an opportunity for some lucky winners to serve lengthy terms in federal prison.
The purpose of the Amateur Tax Tips Contest is to provide normal people with practical, real-life answers to their tax questions, as opposed to the complex and vague "advice" we so often see in columns written by the kind of goody-two-shoes money geeks who actually save their receipts and record their mileage and file their tax returns on Jan. 2 and finished their science-fair projects early. I'll give you an example of what I mean.
QUESTION: "How much can I deduct for a business office in my home?"
COMPLEX, VAGUE MONEY-GEEK ANSWER: "Calculate the size of the office as a percentage of the total living area, then use this figure to compute the pro rata costs of utilities, mortgage interest, taxes and insurance."
PRACTICAL, DOWN TO-EARTH
ANSWER: $*$5.523.87*$
You can deduct anything. People have deducted used underwear. And
Now I applaud Mr. Clinton's generosity. Although I am troubled somewhat by the idea of any guy voluntarily giving up his underwear. Whoever says that guys are unwilling to make lifetime commitments clearly has not examined the intimate bond that can develop between a guy and his briefs. If a guy's wife secretly throws a veteran pair of underwear away, the guy will whistle in a distinctive manner, and his underwear will leap out of the
garbage and bound toward him like a loyal retriever. That's how close the guy-underwear bond is.
The irony is that I happen to own a set of briefs that are probably quite valuable, inasmuch as they are signed, in ink, by a well-known humor writer. (There's a perfectly innocent explanation, but he's embarrassed about it, so as a courtesy to him I'm not going to reveal his name here.) (Instead, I'll reveal it here: Roy Blount Jr.) I estimate that, for tax-deduction purposes, these briefs are worth $2,473.02. My use of an exact-sounding number is one of the most important Amateur Tax Tips:
when isay "people," I of course mean "Bill Clinton." According to news reports, in past years President Clinton deducted as much as $2 per pair for used underwear that he donated to the Salvation Army, which in turn gave the underwear to some needy individual, who in turn threw it into a trash bin.
ALWAYS USE AN EXACT-SOUNDING NUMBER WHEN YOU ARE MAKING SOMETHING UP The Internal Revenue Service goes over tax forms with dogs that are specially trained to bark aggronly when they find round numbers. If you HAVE to use a round number for some bizarre reason, such as that it is true, you should put a little note in the margin that says "This number is actually true."
ALWAYS "DOUBLE-CHECK" ALL FIGURES. I say this in light of a 1993 Washington Post article concerning a Centreville, Md., man who received a bill from the IRS for $68 billion. A lot
of careless taxpayers would have simply paid the bill, but this man had the presence of mind to question it, and as a result he will be eligible for parole in just 224 years.
No, seriously, he got it it straight-ened out. The *Post* article doesn't say exactly how the *Post* article is that he will be allowed to make two easy payments of $34 billion. This just goes to show that ordinary taxpayers CAN "beat the system." And you can help them, by sending in YOUR tip to our Amateur Tax Tips Contest. The only restriction is that whatever you send MUST BE ON A POSTAL CARD. Send your card to: Amateur Tax Tips, c/o Judi Smith, Miami Herald, Miami, Fla 3132. TI report the best tips just before April 15. The people who suggested them will receive a handsome mention of their names in this column, as well as a chance to be audited for life. The person who suggests the best tip will receive, at tremendous personal tax-deductible sacrifice to me, a historic literary object that has been valued, in print, at $2,473.02. I may even wash them first.
Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald.
Textbook prices interest faculty and students
At some point, it would seem the level of assessment of the financial burden should become a matter of careful consideration by the faculty
The article in the Feb. 15 issue of the Kansan detailing the high cost of certain textbooks and supplies is worth consideration by both faculty and students. A common practice in text selection is to have the faculty member teaching a course to specify the text. Since faculty members get free copies of potential texts, they may not grasp the overall financial burden they are laying on the students in the course.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Insofar as the individual student is concerned, the cost of a text is the immediate concern. As more and more of the burden of a university education is being shifted from the state onto those in school, these students may insist on a degree of control of the costs they must bear.
in a department and its administrative officers.
The following questions might focus a bit of attention on textbook selection:
1. Should a book be selected if it is issued only in hard cover? A soft-bound book would be at least half as expensive as the hard-bound conv.
2. Should a text be selected that contains much more material than can feasibly be covered in the
3. Should a book be selected that would not be used for the same course in the subsequent semester or year? If it would not be used, then the student cannot sell back the text and recover part of the cost. Of course, texts would need to be changed from time to time, but the cost to the student should be considered.
course? Students should not be forced to pay for materials that will not be used. In my opinion, students would be acting both responsibly and helpfully by complaining to the chair or dean about such texts. If the book is required in a subsequent course, the fraction of the students taking the follow-up course should be taken into account.
4. Since some subjects change only slightly over the years, can texts be specified that are in soft cover and in outline form? For example, Schaum's outlines in mathematics, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics cost about $13 a copy, contain around 300 pages, countless examples and may present most of what a student needs to understand. Or is a $60 hard-cover text with slick pages and colored illustration five times better?
The writer realizes that the foregoing comments and questions do not take into account other aspects of textbook selection.
James Maloney Emeritus Professor, Chemical Engineering