OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansa
The University DayKan Damen (USPS 600-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer-Flint Hall, Lawrence, KA. 60043, daily during the school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding holidays. Subscriptions paid by Lawrence are $15 for six months or $7 in Douglas County and $18 in Kearns County. Student subscriptions are a KS semester through the student activity page *POSTMASTER*. Send address changes to usps.dkans.edu.
February 15, 1984 Page 4
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
Editor
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY
Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER
Business Manager
CORG GORMAN
JILL MITCHELL
Retail Sales Manager
National Sales Manager
PAUL JESS
JANCE PHILLIPS  DUNCAN CALHUNO
Campus Sales Manager  Classified Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
A town hit hard
Government often is thought to be the most immune to economic problems. As the citizens of Coffeyville have so painfully discovered, such is not always the case.
ered, such is not always the case. The southeast Kansas town is racked with economic problems.
Several large manufacturers, once employing hundreds of city residents, have closed in the past year or two. Many other concerns have been forced to lav off workers.
Property taxes also have taken their toll. Business leaders in the city complain that the state's method of calculating property taxes results in a sky-high tax bill.
And now, about one-fourth of the employees on the city payroll have been laid off. One of the city's two fire stations has been closed. Residents in the western part of town now face a longer wait as the fire trucks travel from the downtown station.
Other areas of city government also have been hurt, such as the police and public works departments. Coffeyville leaders now are investigating ways to save money in other areas of city finances.
The city, without drastic cuts in its budget, faced bankruptcy. It began to slash $750,000 from the budget.
No, probably not. Cities in some other parts of the country face similar problems, although few have such severe financial woes. But still, the town of 15,000 seems to have had more than its share of hard luck.
Among the places yet to be examined is the budget for the municipal power plant. A boiler explosion at the plant in August claimed three lives and sent the town into mourning.
The residents of the town must wonder: is Coffeville under siege?
Lawrence is fortunate not to face such problems. Budget reductions at the University have taken their toll, and it lings. However, Lawrence's problems are minor in light of those some other Kansas cities face.
Too many people think that circumstances are more favorable elsewhere. Perhaps they are, in some cases. But the example of towns struggling to keep a fighting spirit alive should inspire other cities to forget their more petty problems.
Denying states' rights
The big foot of the federal government is out to squash the rights of individuals and states.
But it would also take the right to drink away from 18 to 20-year-olds in 31 states.
A bill introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives last week states that "prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages . . . to those under the age of 21 is necessary for the public safety and welfare."
The bill's sponsors say that creating a national drinking age will lower alcohol-related highway deaths among young people.
A person becomes a full member of society at a certain age when he becomes accountable for his actions, accepts certain social responsibilities and is given certain privileges.
Determining the drinking age has been left to the states. After all, the states have the right to decide whether there is to be any alcohol within its borders to begin with.
Nationally, the government has set such an age in a few areas of social responsibility - the most significant being the voting and
draft registration age. In both cases that age is 18.
Some states, such as Texas and Wisconsin, place the drinking age on the same shelf as the right to vote and the duty to serve the country.
Other states - a total of 19 - have a drinking age of 21, placing public welfare above the individual
And then there are states, such as Kansas and Colorado, that have gone somewhere in between. They distinguish different ages for drinking cereal malt beverages.
A national drinking age contradicts previous laws set by the federal government concerning an individual's responsibility to society, and it strips a state's right to decide what is proper for its citizens.
Giving sensible advice
son. The approach taken by William D. Ruckelshaus, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was reassuring. "Calm down," he said. No public health emergency exists. EDB can be removed from the food supply without having to destroy grain.
Reports linking particular products with cancer in laboratory animals have become so frequent that most consumers, public officials and affected industries have learned not to panic at the initial announcement.
People now wait more or less patiently for more facts.
Americans have been through the cancer-in-lab animals drills enough to know that "calm down" is sensible advice.
Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald
larvae in fruit and ground worms in soil
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-space 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 last and home town or faculty or staff address. The Kansas anthology includes介ials and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
With a few exceptions, that was what happened last week after reports about EDB (ethylene dibromide), a poison used to kill weevils in stored grain, fruit-fly
The skeptics are wrong
Our dead are buried; our living have escaped. But the Lebanese people remain to fight and succumb to Syrian-Soviet influence.
But many people think the United States should not have been involved in Lebanon or that our withdrawal was too late.
And when northern Lebanon becomes southern Syria, we will see that U.S. involvement was noble, and then the circumstances, in United States.
To the skeptics, the United States lost good men for nothing. and
Staff Columnis
Lebanon should have been left to solve its own problems.
MICHAEL BECK
But the forces met unanticipated hostile reaction from the Syrian-backed militia in Lebanon and the liberals at home, both of
The multinational peacekeeping force tried to unify the country to prevent Syrian invasion, a worthy one that was not beyond reality.
But our government foresaw a collapse of Lebanon because of Syria's selfish demand for the country to help draw the country together.
which hindered effectiveness and eventually lead to troon withdrawl
But this move, they say, won't work because the Soviet Union will probably veto any such move. And even if such a force from the United States enters, the Brussels would violently continue to oppose any outside involvement.
But those critics fail to see that the Syrian demand for northern Lebanon is nothing but brutal imperialism, reminiscent of Hitler's demand for Lebensraum (German living space) that started World War II.
Some analysts think that the Christian segment may request a U.N. peacekeeping force to act as the multinational force acted.
Because of the seriousness of the symptoms, Lebanon probably will not be able to cure its syriya. Syria will remain on the north to regain its heritage
But as Syria begins its devastation of northern Lebanon, Isreal will probably respond with an equal or superior force to protect its own borders by taking over southern Lebanon.
Now that U.S. and other forces are withdrawing, Syrian expansion seems inevitable.
With the new Shamir government, the rally for southern Lebanon may not be immediate, but a confrontion seems possible, even inevitable.
LETTERS POLICY
'We will then see the moral value of our attempts at peace.'
Lebanon will then cease to exist,
and two militarily well-endowed nations, Syria and Israel, will divide the spoils of this victimized nation.
Many Americans may not care. Those opposed to our involvement will sigh with relief that we are not only involved in the confrontation.
And although these same people concern themselves with equal rights, hunger and nuclear war, they are not concerned for the peace and human rights of the Lebanese people.
We have given Lebanon to the Syrians. Perhaps we had no choice, but the government was not wrong in trying to protect the Lebanese people for such a brief time, from the Syrian-Soviet tyranny.
Analysts have painted a bleak picture of Lebanon's future. What they predict, though, seems feasible. And the rules of this war may not forbid the use of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
But reports will soon bring the news of further destruction in Lebanon. We will then see the moral value of our attempts at peace. And we will know that we were right in trying to help the Lebanese people.
The United States may not suffer from the Middle-Eastern turmoil. We are getting out of this war-torn nation.
Debate grows over religion in China
In the five years Western church leaders have been able to visit an increasingly open mainland China, a sharp debate has developed over the nature and extent of religious freedom for Chinese Christians.
Christian Response International, an organization that monitors religious expression in communit nations, has reported a government crackdown on Chinese Christians in the "house church" movement.
Some recent reports, however,
suggest that even the degree of
limited religious freedom enjoyed
by Muslims in China is growing.
Mao Tse-tung may be in danger.
Much of the dispute about what is
DAVID E. ANDERSON United Press International
happening to religion in China depends on the angle of vision observers take to the relaxation of their muscles and movements since the death of May.
Chinese rulers have taken a double-dedged approach in their effort to find a place for religion in the post-Mao society, on the one hand reopening churches and printing and distributing Bibles, while insisting that churches be registered with the government.
Chinese government officials say that there are about 3 million Protestants in churches recognized by the government and that some four or five churches a week are being reopened.
Western critics of the government, however, maintain that there are another 20 million Protestants in the "house churches" that refuse to register with the government or participate in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. They see as the "anti-imperialistic, patriotic organization of Chinese Christians."
As the debate goes on over religious freedom on the mainland, anti-Communist government authorities on the island of Taiwan have begun their own crackdown, expelling two Presbyterian missionaries, apparently because they publicly said that the future of Taiwan should be determined by all the people on the island.
Their expulsion, according to the Rev J. Oscar McCloud of the Presbyterian Church, "would seem to reaffirm the stance of that government oppose the determination for a people of China and in tsuing to give the people of Taiwan an opportunity to shape their own future."
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
I would like to commend the courage and integrity of Ed Stamm for his open resistance to the undraft.
Some have asserted that his refusal to sign the legally mandated Selective Service card is "no big deal," incurred that it has consequently been a matter of such a controversy and empty rhetoric.
Mr. Stamm does not approve of the way that the United States has invaded and conquered numerous nations throughout history. His critics refuse to even address his complaint.
No doubt they prefer, as does Ronald Reagan, to assert that the United States has never invaded or occupied another country.
Mr. Stamm is historically accurate while his critics and the president are only participating in a ludicrously obvious deception.
After all, didn't the President refer to the military assault on Grenada as an invasion? He tried to explain that he was not a terror and called it "rescue mission."
What kind of person falls for such transparent distortions of the truth?
I think that Henry David Thoreau answered that question during the period when he was critical of colonialism for the invasion of Mexico in 1846.
He asserted, "The mass of men serve the States thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing Army and the militia, the jailers, the constables, the posses conitatus, etc."
"In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral senses, but they put themselves on a level with wood and brass. In good wooden men can persebe manipulate that will serve the purpose as well."
Things have not changed so much. Men of wood deny historical facts and compete with an electronic battlefield to be better machines than cruise missiles and "smart bombs."
"Such command no more respect than men of straw, or lumps of dirt."
Thoreau said other things in his essay on civil disobedience. Those of Mr. Stamm's generation who are not行走 corpses might benefit from
reading more history and more thoughtful commentary by people whose moral sense, rather than ambivalence, has guided their actions.
David Huet-Vaughn Leawood senior
Cover both sides
To the editor:
When the stories regarding athletic ineligibility first appeared in the University Daily Kansan, I was torn between my feelings as a student athlete and my knowledge of journalistic responsibility.
As a journalism student, I realized the public has the right to know why several top KU athletes would not be participating this season.
However, as the story has progressed, it is difficult for me to understand how this form of public humiliation for the student involved can benefit the athletes or KU students.
By continually repeating the story, the stereotypical college athlete is stamped over and over again in the reader's mind.
Another problem is that the Kansan neglected to cover both sides of the story fairly.
The first story suggested that the player in question had been allowed preferential treatment in adding a class. When I talked with the drop-add officials, they were unable to give me even a ballpark figure as to how many KU students actually engage in this process.
Perhaps, in the Kansan's rush to inform its readers, it missed the real story. The problem does not lie in the athlete and the coach attempting to discuss the grade, but rather the communication between the athletic department and academic policymakers of the university.
No congruency exists in University policy regarding problems inherent with athletic participation. Each semester athletes and coaches struggle with inconsistent scheduling and attendance policies.
Until the athletic department and the University policy makers can reach a specific approach to handling these problems, unfortunate
The student athlete is subject to individual instructors' attitudes towards collegiate sports and the student athlete.
To each his own
Beth Brainard
situations such as this recent controversy will continue to occur.
I commend Coach Brown for his involvement with his players both on and off the court. Brown's actions reflect his concern for promoting the athletes who should be shared by the University that these athletes represent.
To the editor:
In response to Mary Coffey's letter whining as to how boring the Sunflower State is, I think this whole thing is much ado about nothing.
She mentioned being from Birmingham, Mich., a suburb of big macho, exciting Detroit. Isn't it nice that this city leads the nation in rape, robbery, muggings, assault, such excitng night-life activity.
As far as ethnic festivals, concerts and walks along the river are concerned, these things can be done right here in boring Lawrence, not to mention a 45-minute drive into Kansas City for a greater selection.
To each his or her own, but I personally find boat races and the Grand Prtx about as exciting as her mention of turtle races.
As you can see, all of Miss Coffey's mention of how boring Kansas and the city of Lawrence are, for the most part is wrong.
Sure, you won't find these activities as often in Lawrence as you would in Detroit. But please note that there is a lot of several million to a town of 55,000.
Her mention of Kansas having only radio stations that play whimpy top 40, well Miss Coffey youre wrong there too. Please check your FM radio dial out at settings 102, 103, or 105 and right here in boring Lawrence
I don't recall seeing Michigan or Michigan State among them! Maybe they were listed under "schools to
She seems to think she has done the University of Kansas a favor by enrolling here, as she says she has an answer ready whenever asked "Why KU?" as if it were some second-rate junior college.
Sorry lady, the laugh's on you.
Few universities in the country have
the respect and academic acclaim
that the University of Kansas has.
Just a few years back, back New York
University, the top 20 universities in the country.
attend that are exciting," but don't expect to find a job once you graduate.
To the editor:
A place is what you make it, and it seems to me that Miss Coffey probably sits at home a lot feeling overwhelmed by work and back in ever-so-exciting Michigan.
Wasting money
Lawrence resident
Please do us boring Kansas hicks a favor and go back to Michigan.
After reading your latest article, Feb. 8, 1984, concerning the future plans of the Associated Students of Kansas, I find myself disgusted, repulsed, and unable to remain silent on this issue any longer.
They've now decided on spending our tuition money to send Chris Edmonds and Co. to Harvard University. They've sent $1 million in Conference on Voter Registration."
In addition to being a complete fraud, ASK is also simply a bunch of big spending liberalists on better how to waste the taxaxes money.
After that they'll visit another eight universities. One need only to look at the speakers at this conference to see what it is these junior politics will be learning — Ralph Nader, Bobby Abzug, Randall Berber, some prominent proponents and Joseph Lowery!! You must be kidding!
This list reads like a Who's Who of the biggest bleeding hearts in America. This would all be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that the students are the ones paying for this appalling trip.
Furthermore, isn't it rather ironic that ASK officers aren't even elected; yet they are attending a conference on voter registration?
It's time for ASK to admit what they are: a userless group of leftists who do absolutely nothing but further their own interests.
David Tepoorten
Vancouver, Canada, senior
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