OPINION
I
The University Daily KANSAN
September 8,1983 Page4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan (USPK 650-640) at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-First Hall, Excelsior, KS 60045, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions, excluding the holiday months; are $12 per day and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lakeside or Kansan; Subscriptions by mail are $13 per month or $3 for a year in each county. Student subscriptions are $3 a semester paid through the student activity page. POSTMASTER=1. Send resume to USPK 650-640.
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
Managing Editor
Editorial Editor
MICHAEL ROBINSON Campus Editor
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
ANN HORNBERGER
Business Manager
DAVE WANAMAKER
Retail Sales
Manager
MARK MEARS
National Sales
Manager
LYNNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN
Advertising Adviser
PAULJESSE
General Manager and News Adviser
A needed truck
The distance from the top of Ellsworth or McColum halls to the ground is a long way — too far to jump, certainly.
The Lawrence City Commission decided Tuesday to buy the city fire department a new ladder truck, one able to reach the upper floors of the residence halls on Daisy Hill. The truck should markedly increase the safety of students who live in the halls.
The $30,000 comes from the KU housing department, according to a letter submitted by Chancellor Gene A. Budig to the city commission. Taking the funds from that area seems reasonable, considering that a new ladder truck will increase the chances of hall residents reaching safety should there ever be a fire.
The ladder truck also will benefit other people in Lawrence, some of whom live in buildings that are too high to reach using the fire department's present trucks.
The commitment of KU funds, which will cover about 10 percent of the cost of the truck, represents a good use of money in a way that benefits students directly.
Far too often the city's long-time residents and those who are here for only a few years — students — ignore each other.
Lawrence and the University are linked, for good. The two might as well get along as well as possible.
KU students often seem to forget that many Lawrence residents do not live in this town because of the University. Those people live here because they have jobs, families and roots here.
But the people of Lawrence sometimes forget, too. Students come to KU not to take from the community, but to join it briefly.
More recognition by KU students and by city residents of the role each plays in Lawrence can only be a benefit.
There's hope in talks
Humans can cling to a glimmer of hope in the gloomiest of times. These may be the gloomiest of times
But that little bit of hope is still there.
- the Soviets just blow a passenger jet out of the sky, and wars - this one over money, that one over religion - continue to spread more hate around the globe.
The Soviets and the United States sat down to the negotiating table again Monday. They're talking about missiles on European soil.
The United States must let the Soviet Union know that the action was unacceptable, but that the negotiations must continue.
The talks started again after a two-month summer recess. Unfortunately, the return to negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, came shortly after the Korean airline incident. The paranoia is undoubtedly higher than usual, and U.S. negotiator Paul H. Nitzue said there was an "unavoidable linkage" between the incident and the negotiations.
The talks center on NATO plans to deploy up to 527 U.S. cruise and Pershing-2 missiles starting in December if no agreement is reached.
Monday's meeting was the 87th time the two sides have met since the talks, began 21 months ago. Negotiators haven't come very close to a breakthrough, and when the last round ended July 14, both countries were blaming each other for the lack of progress.
Talks resume today. Maybe this time it will really work, though. Maybe the negotiators will sit down and realize the stupidity of perpetuating an arms race.
It's not likely. But there's still hope as long as they're talking.
Victory in Chicago
Mayor Harold Washington finally has won an important battle in his ongoing, bitter war with Chicago's old-time machine politicians.
Led by Alderman Edward Vrdolyak, an audacious and slick politician sometimes called "Fast Eddie," the 29 members of the 50-member City Council capitulated to the mayor's plan to repeal a cut in real estate taxes that former Mayor Jane Byrne had promised right before election time.
Washington, faced with a $50 million deficit in the city budget when he took office, had little choice but to suggest the city repeal the tax cut.
The ardent followers of Vrdolyak, who was schooled in the Richard J. Daley political tradition, vowed they would never let the bill pass, claiming that thousands of small Chicago homeowners would suffer terribly from the repeal.
Firefighters, police and their wives and babies picketed City Hall. Cries for compromise finally reached the council members, and members huddled together to work out a face-saving compromise.
The council members only gave in after Washington played his trump card; he threaten to lay off 2,045 city employees to lower the deficit. In a big city like Chicago, that translates into residents worried about increased crime, fires and traffic accidents. And these residents let their council members know about it.
Of course, as often is the way in politics, it wasn't a complete victory for Washington: Only part of the tax was repealed. But still his political expertise and his persistence finally paid off in Chicago — home to hard-ball politics and big-league hitters.
The University Daily Kansas 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 class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individuals to submit a short column. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
"AN UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT HAS ENTERED TERRITORY COMPANY."
OUR TERRITORY, COMRADE
Both countries at fault
President Reagan was quick to express outrage and to sling accusations at the Soviet Union last week after a Korean Air Lines jumbo jet disappeared over the Sea of Japan.
Before all the evidence was in, he pronounced the verdict: the
Soviet Union was guilty of murdering 269 people.
Although the Soviet Union was slow to tell its side of the story, within a day it had returned a verbal volley, blaming the CIA for the presence of the airliner in Soviet air space.
"Words can scarcely express our revulsion at this horrifying act of violence," he said.
Although I was saddened at the loss of 289 lives, I felt more confused and manipulated than outraged.
Neither side seemed as intent on remedying the situation as it was on fueling the negative impact that the world had of its opponent.
Now the Soviet Union has admitted that one of its fighter pilots shot down the Korean airliner, though it continues to blame the United States for the incident.
"This crime against humanity must never be forgotten," Reagan said Monday night.
The admission justifies Reagan's early accusations. Armed with that confession, Reagan could have been expected to dole out punishment in proportion to the severity of the crime.
But the punishments he mentioned in his address to the nation were not enough, and it rests on anyone's memory. The limits on cultural, diplomatic and scientific exchanges that Reagan has proposed are no more than a slap on the wrist of the Soviet Union and no less than a slap in the face of those whose fury against the Soviet Union was aroused by Reagan's earlier rhetoric.
The sanctions Reagan is seeking to impose against the Soviet Union are worse than inconsistent; they reveal the incident for what it really is: another skier falls down a steep slope between the two superpowers.
I am no more outraged by the attack on the Korean airliner than I am by the battles being waged in Lebanon, Central America, Afghanistan or Chad. Hundreds of people are being killed in these countries while the Soviet Union and the United States point self-righteous fingers at each other.
Until these two superpowers seek peace rather than world domination, the blame for their defeat is not with either but with both.
Deficits worked in 1940s
WASHINGTON — Those of us who believe that $200 billion federal budget deficits represent the most serious threat to economic recovery from the recession, counterargument: the success of deficit spending in World War II.
Distinguished world economist Jacques de Larosie, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, deficits a serious obstacle to world
WILLIAM PROXMIRE
Democratic Senator from Wisconsin
in the past 24 years. Men, men, blacks, whites, Hispanics — all are finding more jobs. Corporate profits have increased sharply.
recovery because they will require such large-scale government borrowing. With the mobility of international capital, this collossal credit demand will keep interest rates high not only in this country but also in other countries. De Larosiero has the support of many eminent American economists.
But consider what has happened to the economy recently, under the "specter" of a $200 billion deficit. Interest rates have dropped by almost half. Unemployment in July fell more sharply than in any month
Certainly, there are some things wrong with the economy. Our farmers are suffering hard times. Interest rates have stopped falling and the economy has been deficits continue to frighten many nervous Nelles, including this one.
But the suspicion remains that deficits may make sense in periods of economic slack. Despite recent gains, unemployment remains high and we have an urgent need to spend billions of dollars to clean up our air and water, improve education and provide improved housing.
To the extent that federal spending can do these jobs efficiently, I still say no. These would be good programs, but my instinct still tells me we have to worry about them. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should not worry.
increase taxes? Doesn't it make more sense to cut taxes further?
Why worry about inadequate revenues when the taxes we would increase would simply deprive our taxpayers of the funds they need to fund projects and process, stimulate the economy? So why is it responsible — as I believe it is — to
In other words, why not deepen the deficit, just as we did with such notable success in World War II. In 1943, the deficit rose to $4.9 billion, or 29.6 percent of the gross national product. As a consequence of the wartime deficits, unemployment fell from Depression levels to a remarkable 1.2 percent in 1944 and has remained relatively low for decades. Industrial production shot up to 100 percent of capacity.
Interest rates stayed down during this period of skyrocketing deficits, as the Federal Reserve Board fully immodulated Treasury borrowing.
that experience suggests that we should spend every penny we can justify for every good federal program and get into some we have avoided in the past. And it is important that we work and run a monster — four to five times our present monster — push it right up to a trillion dollars a year.
I don't think we should, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if some economists somewhere could more convincingly explain why not.
Copyright 1983 the New York Times
Ban puts damper on press
A Massachusetts judge flipped a heavy hammer last week, driving a spike into the constitutional heart of the American press.
The judge banned publication of an interview with one of four men who are scheduled to stand trial in the murder of a woman in a New Bedford, Mass. bar.
In justifying the ban, the judge said publication of the interview would seriously impair the defendant's right to a fair trial.
And although the judge lifted the ban after a radio station broadcast its own interview with two of the host, it event unchallenged by higher courts.
The trial involves a much
publicized incident May 6 at big
Dan's Tavern in New Bedford
and the teenager was raped
raped for two hours on a pool table
The press, already the loser in other First and Sixth Amendment battles, can only watch solemnly and painfully and hope the decision doesn't trigger an open season on the press.
by four men while others cheered.
27 with our Word Shocker class. They all seemed excited when I secured an interview with one of the defendants, in which he gave his version of what happened that night.
In the radio interview with two of the defendants, the two said that no one had sex with the woman, but that she had entered the bar asking for money, kissing the defendants and eventually undressing.
Shortly after the Times-Standard interview, an attorney for one of the defendants requested an injunction that would prejudge his client's case.
The judge granted the injunction violating the press' First Amendment guarantees.
Throughout the years, the court has imposed restrictions on the press in trial situations and has used them to limit the printing of sensitive information.
And although the rules are unfair in that only an editor should decide to run a story, they force courts to certain criteria before banning stories.
The Supreme Court has ruled that in banning a story, a court must be certain that release of the story presents a clear and present danger and that such a story could create juror bias.
The New Bedford case already had received intense, one-sided publicity and releasing a story of the view could only help alleviate bias.
The Supreme Court also has said that judges must prove that alternative methods to prevent bias, such as changing the location and time of trial and extensive questioning by their selection, would be impossible.
Rescheduled the time and place of the trial, though difficult, would not have been out of the question. The judge could also help to eliminate jury bias.
So while wiping his feet on the First Amendment, the judge disregarded previous Supreme Court rulings.
The decision indicates that some courts seem to think the watchdogs of society need watching and that they should not rest up to suppress the Fourth Estate.
Unless a higher court overrules this decision, other courts may try to use the Times-Standard case as a basis for imposing further relief.
And the public should fear for an injured and restricted because the judicial spike in this instance is long enough to thrust deep into American freedom, which depends on a free, unrestricted press.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Article gave incomplete picture of Africa
To the Editor:
I was excited to see my mug in the Kansan on Sept. 1 and an article about the broadcasting internship I had in Africa over the summer. However, I have some problems with the story; there is enough to disappoint both Africans and Christians.
Some portions of the article, in particular the way monkey meat and "social hygiene" were pre-empted to perpetuate a distorted view of Africa.
When asked what needed to happen for Africa to progress. I mentioned that diseases and the
slave trade are two haunting items from the past that have hampered Africa.
Unfortunately, disease is still a problem, and ignorances I mentioned, not accurately quoted, contended. This means no means draw a picture of Africa.
In rural Liberia people use rivers and lakes for bathing, washing, playing and drinking. And, out of ignorance, while they are in the water they may do other things we wouldn't.
nationals I worked with. First of all, I don't think that is so unusual — everyone should be alarmed by cursing — and secondly, I didn't curse. I not only consider cursing inconsistent with missionary character but Christian character as well. I would rather not be known as "the missionary who cursed at Liberians."
The article mentioned that my cursing tended to surprise the
The most important item to clear up came at the end of the article where I supposedly said that the evil nature of man can't be changed. A friend of mine put it best: "If this is
true then what were you doing as a missionary in Africa?''
Briefly, without using Christian buzzwords and complicated phrases, the great news of the Gospel of Christ is that God has power over the sinful nature of man. Christ upon entering and while actively working in a believer's life works with the believer to subdue this nature. The Bible says that God wants us to share in his own nature.
Mark Sellers Roseville, Minn., senior