OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
September 15, 1983 Page 4
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daykan Kannan (USPS 605-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Findl Hall, Kannan, Missouri 60685, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions. Excluding Sunday, the regular school year subscribes to $1 for six months, Subscriptions by mail are $1 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $1 a semester through the student activity for FASTMARTST. Subscription fees are $1 a semester for FASTMARTST.
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM STEVE CUSICK
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
MICHAEL ROBINSON
Campus Editor
PAUL JESS
General Manager and News Adviser
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
DAVE WANAMAKER MARK MEARS
Retail Sales National Sales
Manager Manager
LYNNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
JOIN OBERZAN
Advertising Adviser
High tech's role
High technology appears to be a savior to some.
Certainly, the benefits of increasing the state's high-technology programs are numerous. Hi-technology firms attracted to Kansas because of the state's recent push for such companies will bring more jobs to the area and to the state.
More graduates, for example, would be able to stay in the area rather than leaving for the East or West coasts.
Along with additional companies and jobs come increased tax revenues, which can then support other areas of state government — higher education, to name one.
However, many people have pinned their hopes on high technology before all the questions have been answered.
Yes, high-technology companies will bring some new jobs and they will bring some increased tax revenues, but will the revenues be enough to remedy the state's economic woes?
Moreover, the questions of hightechnology as they relate to the University of Kansas deserve particular study.
Much of the research done at leading high-tech schools is related to national defense, and some of that research is classified, according to Jamie Schwartz, secretary of the state's Department of Economic Development.
The issue of classified research on campus has sparked controversy in the past, and it is likely to do so again.
The University Senate will meet this afternoon to discuss whether to relax the rules limiting classified research at the University.
Some of the questions involved include the amount of control high-technology companies should have in teaching and research programs, and the training of students to match the needs of certain employers. Those questions and others deserve a full hearing at today's meeting.
Gagging a government
Reagan administration officials will soon have to start communicating by mental telepathy if the paranoia over security leaks continues to grow in the White House. Saying "hello" is on its way to being a breach of national security.
This time the administration is trying to gag employees who have top-secret clearance by screening speeches and articles they do on their own. The Justice Department issued the secrecy measures last month, and in an effort to plug all those pesky leaks, the Defense and State departments are working up similar gag rules.
The Justice Department's rules would apply to everything from books and lectures to fiction and letters to the editor. Next, they'll be wanting to read letters to mom and any scribblings a creative bureaucrat may have put on a bathroom wall.
Even those in top-level posts would be affected. Lloyd Cutler, President Jimmy Carter's White House counselor, said the rules would prevent high-level policy makers from speaking out in interviews and opinion articles. That's
great. The most well-informed minds in the nation aren't able to speak on an issue, and the public gets little of the real dope that's going on in Washington.
Sen. Charles Mathias, R-Md., said the directive would even apply to civil servants who have left public service.
"A broad interpretation of the president's directive would consign these thousands of men and women to a virtual vow of silence on some of the crucial issues facing our nation." Mathias said.
But that may be just what the president wants. The latest rules grew out of an executive order issued by Reagan in March that gave agencies more authority to police their ranks for snitches.
These gag orders aren't designed to keep the public from knowing sensitive information, they're designed to keep the public from knowing potentially embarrassing and politically harmful information. They create the same type of paranoia that fueled McCarthyism.
But no matter how hard the administration pinches, the talkers are still going to squeal.
Unpopularity contest
Jim Watt, the steward of our land, is ready to sell leases on a half-billion tons of federal coal to his friends in the coal-mining business. And he's defying the House to do it.
The House Interior Committee had adopted a resolution blocking the coal sale, but that means little to Watt, who's been wringled with Congress in similar situations ever since Ronald Reagan took office.
But Watt says a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the right of either house of Congress to veto an act of the executive branch gives him the authority to lease the coal.
The coal is located along the North Dakota-Montana border. Two of the nation's most powerful environmental groups have filed suit to stop the sale. They believe coal mining can do nasty things to the land.
The same issues are involved, too. Watt wants to sell the natural resources on public lands, and environmentalists, Congress and the public don't want him to do it.
Watt probably doesn't care — he hasn't seemed to in the past — but this move will probably add to his already enormous unpopularity.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, 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 home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individuals to submit their columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffer-Finl Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
No more free handouts
The cost of not eliminating poverty in the United States is devastating.
While the government has provided food, housing, rent subsidies and other free aid to the poor, it is not providing the best help for these band aid solutions.
The federal government is spending millions of dollars on the nation's poor, who in turn soak it up
Staff Columnist
faster than the government can speed up the money flow.
We haven't found an effective solution, and the cost of our blunders has spawned a financial drought both nationally and locally.
Kansas received more than $400,000, and about $13,000 was given to Douglas County
Half of the $100 million emergency bill was distributed to each of the states for food and shelter for the poor, while the other half was distributed to states which needed it most.
To take a dip in the public well in
The latest mistake in this liberal genre is the Emergency Jobs Bill, which Congress passed in March as part of a larger $4.6 billion jobs bill.
this case, the poor must have a monthly income, whether from government or private sources, of $699 or less.
The food aid is given one time and ranges from $20 for a single person to $75 for a family of five or more.
The Council on Community Services of Douglas County distributes the money in this area via four outlets.
the distribution started Tuesday, but already one of the outlets, Penn House, 1035 Pa. St., is out of its allotment.
The rapid rate with which the money was taken by low-income residents illustrates the need for money and the ineffectiveness of the
Louise Silber, director of the Council of Community Services, said that the money helped but that it was not nearly enough.
the poor who actually get the money will spend it in one trip to the market and be asking for and needing more next week. Only merchants will really benefit from the rain of taxpayers' money.
Silber said money that provided jobs would be more effective in the long run than money given away without a return commitment.
In some similar programs in Lawrence people receiving aid do have some commitment to work, but for the most part, aid is given without strings.
And the waste of taxpayer money will continue when money from the larger jobs bill filters to the states.
Kansas will distribute money from at least two of the 64 programs in the bills job to communities for aid in nutritional education, some job training and a weatherization program.
As with the emergency programs, the jobs bill should not have been passed without making the poor work for the aid they receive.
The food-shelter aim of the emergency bill should have been eliminated and used to create a system that would help ensure the New Deal legislation in the 1980s.
In Lawrence, more bicycle trails could be built, roads could be repaired, streets could be cleaned and paved if required. The list is nearly endless.
In such a situation, those who are old or handicapped would benefit from the general prosperity through special care and care for the elderly and handicapped.
Others, both men and women, would work or starve under such a program.
The larger part of the jobs bill is to create such programs in response to the lagging economy, but Congress has neglected to put needed relief money on the table and giveaway money, and in so doing has partly defeated its purpose.
We do have choices in the matter. But if we continue handing out money or food for tree, many of the trees will be damaged and will have little incentive to work.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Column shows damaging attitude
To the Editor:
I feel some comments are needed in reference to Kiesa Ascue's column titled "Little Sisters System Should Be Abolished" in Tuesday's Kansas. While the bitter criticism of the Little Sisters program may be well-founded in some instances, there are ideas being circulated which are more degrading than the Little Sisters program.
Ascuse's main objection to the program seems to be its humiliating treatment of freshmen women. She proposes that we "... discourage the ridiculous Little Sisters program in favor of programs which help women develop respect for themselves."
How are we freshmen women supposed to develop this-respect for ourselves that Ascue seems to be so concerned about when we are constantly stereotyped as 'sweetly-smiling ... child-women'
who don't know any better than to "prance daintily" into the malevolent grasp of lecherous boy boys?
This condescending attitude is farmore damaging to the freshman woman's sense of self-worth than the Little Sisters program in the vast majority of the fraternity houses on campus.
Kathie McGarrie
Tulsa, Okla., freshman
Bad tradition
To the Editor:
The article on Little Sisters by Kiesa Acceur appearing in Tuesday's Kansas raises a few interesting points about our society. As the article implied, women cannot become the head of their society until they refuse to accept subservient and dog-like treatment. Bowing to the male ego is simplistic and degrading. Accepting a sex-based
form of subservience is an insult to any educational institution. While the Little Sisters program may offer a blanket of security to unanchored freshmen women, it also seems to instill values of subservience and docility. The Little Sisters program clearly perpetuates sex-based discrimination. Never would one see men playing the role of a "Little Brother" at a sorority. Men would not subject their egos to such abuse.
As the article points out, our society must rise above such Neanderthal impulses. To change traditional relationships, women must educate themselves to their own potential rather than to uphold traditions which demand them to be more passive and militant. The Little Sisters program should be abolished at KU and at every institution of higher education.
Kent A. Ward Topeka senior
.
NEW YORK — For three years, Benigno Aquino Jr. and his family found sanctuary in the United States. We are proud that he lived among us. We won't forget his humanity, his courage and his commitment to deference. Life after death deepened the historic bond between the United States and the Philippines.
Memory will live
His murders have made certain that his memory will not die. Aquino is now part of the family that dates to the 19th century.
President Reagan's announcement that he intended to visit Manila in November was made before Aquino was slain Aug. 21 on his arrival at a Manila airport. Reagan must now reconsider his plan.
The likelihood is small that all the facts of the murder will ever
Former Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations
WILLIAM VANDEN HEUVEL
come to light. Undoubtedly, the report resulting from the official investigation will uphold the integrity of the investigation. Marcos that he was not involved
Marcos has said, "We practically begged him to help us in the effort to protect his life." Too bad those efforts did not extend to supplying the security that the presumed threat to Aquino's life would have reasonably suggested.
Marcos has also told his nation that "the communists did it." The official investigation may sustain that accusation, but we should remember that the Marcos' definition of "communist" was based on that of two democratic commitment who abbreviated violence.
Reagan shouldn't postpone his visit because of what Marcos did or did not do to Aquino, but rather because of the damage Marcos has done to the Filipino Constitution.
Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Gen. Douglas MacArth – and thousands of Americans and Filipinos who died at Correidor, Bataan and Luzon in World War II – helped create that constitution, which assured free elections and guaranteed the civil rights of the Philippine people.
When Marcos suspended the Filipino Constitution on Sept. 21, 1972, he set in motion that violence that inevitably led to the brutality and bloodshed of Aquino's murder.
If President Reagan decides to carry out his plan to visit the Philippines, I hope he remembers the way Pope John Paul II handled his television appearance with Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the leader of Poland's government. The pope blessed Poland and its people, not the dictator and his government.
Therefore, when the people of the Philippines watch Reagan, I hope the president will mention the outrage and sadness that Americans share with the family of Benigno Aquino.
Copyright 1983 the New York Times.
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