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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, April 25, 1983
Half-opened records
The idea of making it a law that those records which the state keeps about its government and its citizens should be open to inspection and review by those citizens is a good one. But government has a way of turning the best of ideas into a joke.
Case in point: the state's new Open Records Act.
The act was originally intended to open to the public nearly all records that were required to be kept and maintained by public agencies. Medical records and certain legal documents were exempted for privacy's sake.
But somewhere between the act's introduction and the Kansas Legislature's session this week, the few exemptions ballooned to 31, and the Legislature has not been content to stop there.
State Sen. Elwaine Pomeroy, R-Topeka, proposed Wednesday that
part-time state officials also be exempted from the act. Part-time officials by the senator's definition include school board members, judges, city and county commissioners and — not surprisingly — state legislators.
The senator fears that busy public officials will be deluged with requests for records made public by the act, and will have to comply. Pomeroy said that he had no qualms about responding to "reasonable" requests, but that "deranged" people could request records.
ranged people could ask, "What are "reasonable" requests? Exactly who would qualify as "deranged"? Apparently the senator would like to be able to have a say in determining the answers to those questions. But that would defeat the purpose of the bill.
The idea behind open records is that the public can know what its government is doing. It is strange how often public officials see that kind of disclosure as unreasonable.
Chance for negotiations slim in Central American conflict
By MAXWELL GLEN AND CODY SHEARER
Field Newspaper Syndicate
HAVANA — Cuban officials responded with wry and wistful detachment to recent calls for US:Cuban talks over growing tensions in Central America.
Pragmatic as negotiations sound, the Cubans said, appeals by elder statesmen from the United States and several Latin American countries probably won't bear fruit. Indeed, interviews with several members of Fidel Castro's inner circle reveal that the common cause needed for negotiations seems nonexistent. As a result, the warring factions in El Salvador and Nicaragua may be forced to resolve their differences to the last man.
"Of course, the appeal for a "many-sided dialogue" — issued April 5 by a group of prominent citizens including banker David Rockefeller, former secretaries of state Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie, and former officials from Argentina and Mexico — seemed to come at a critical juncture. Cuban-backed guerrillas have been mounting attacks on the El Salvador who backed rebels have been in the fighting. The Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Both Havana and Washington have begun to worry that their clients will draw them into larger, unwanted conflicts.
Stressing themes of non-intervention and respect for national sovereignty, the private group suggested that negotiation "should begin among the governments of Central America, their opposition movements, the United States, Cuba and the Soviet Union, and the interests of each of the parties can be safeguarded without continuing war in Central America."1
reut, when we made the same suggestion last Thursday to Ricardo Alarcón, Cuba's vice minister for foreign affairs, he said such talks would yield too little, too late, if anything.
Alarancon that while talks might have been useful to Cuba a year ago when Salvadoran troops were on the offensive, "Now we must wait."
necent events, he said, indicate the FMLM guerrilla forces in El Salvador would "inevitably" prove victorious, perhaps "within the
year." In this light, negotiations are no longer squarely in the interest of Cuba or its allies in El Salvador's countryside.
Alarcon feared that a negotiated settlement would be as improbable as talking points would be vague. A former head of Castro's Havana underground during the 1958 Cuban revolution, Alarcon contended that negotiations would only help the Reagan administration "persuade people that it's not only thinking in military terms."
Cuba's intransigence, unfortunately, is compounded by an equally-anticipated United States posture. According to American diplomats here, the Reagan administration isn't interested in sitting down with the Cubans — or their allies in Nicaragua and El Salvador. They say that Cuba's repeated snubbing of U.S. overtures has left Washington cool to the idea.
But, as the New York Times revealed last week, negotiations are generally anathema to U.S. policy makers. The Times disclosed an April 1982 National Security Council document on Central America which stipulated stepped-up efforts to "isolate" Nicaragua and Cuba and "to avoid congressional-mandated negotiations, which would work against our interests."
Further deflating the prospect for cooperation was the postponement last week of a regional summit scheduled for May. Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala said that talks at present would serve no useful purpose. Few, if any, parties involved in Central America are willing to work out their differences amicably.
Does this mean that negotiations are hopeless?
Not necessarily. Inclusions by anti-Sandinist forces backed by the United States have added an ironic new twist to the region's affairs.
Ronald Reagan stands to lose as much politically prestige at home than he gained in the war. The president might find Nicaragua the best place to start lowering the region's temperature.
yet, on balance, the lines have been drawn too deeply and for too long to expect a mutually constructive give-and-take. The forces which favor military solutions simply outnumber those that believe in peaceful means. Even where there may be room for creative initiative, machismo will take precedence over the interests of peace.
The University Daily
KANSAN
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Humans malfunction in machine era
For many years one of the highlights in the otherwise moribund town of Heston, Kansas, was a character known as the "windmill man," so named because he constructed the brightly-colored windmills that doted the lawns in towns
colored windmills that dotted the lawns in town.
On many a windy day, he could be seen standing on the corner under the only stoplight in town, propped up by a post on which several red, white and blue wheels spun in different directions.
His efforts to make the most of his retirement served as a reminder of the basic human need to function, to contribute something of worth to our society.
Increasingly, we are making it more difficult for every person to fulfill that need. Our love of technology has turned into a virtual worship of anything newer, faster or better, and the gods of our progress are tools. From wrenches to robots to highly sophisticated computers, allowing ourselves to define the tools of evolving tools that are evolving exponentially.
Each tool that we develop to better accomplish a task is used to create a machine that can do the entire job better and faster than before. And machines can learn from mistakes and better machines that make the old ones obsolete.
Indeed, the whole process is a little like rushing headlong down a darkened path, never stopping even to light a match until we run smack into a wall.
As we leave what Kurt Vormegut would have called the second industrial revolution, we are headed inexorably toward that wall. While th-
first industrial revolution devalued muscle work by employing machines, the second one devalued routine mental work through the use of muscles. The third most widely used machine processes involved in running the machine.
And the third one is already beginning, with its thinking machines capable of programming themselves with the deepest thought processes imaginable. The devaluation of human thought cannot now be far behind.
At the heart of this devaluation is the triumph of mechanized slave labor over expensive and
MATT BARTEL
erp-prone human labor. We cannot advance technologically without a much greater use of machines to do our mental and physical work, but by attaining the mechanical breakdown of software we are able to putterized function, we will essentially be dehumanizing previously human functions.
When that happens, a vast class of people with nothing of value to contribute to society will be created. Where once a blacksmith could make a living by contributing that ability to others who would, in turn, pay for it, the adevent of the automobile eliminated the need for his talent.
The nature of progress is such that each successive talent to be eliminated will have required greater intelligence. As our machines get smarter, they replace a higher and higher class of worker, until eventually the only people of any use to society will be those with genius-level IQs.
what we will have left will be a Vomnegutian world, with the managers and engineers living on one side of the river and the masses on the other, barred from ever contributing anything to their society.
in AMERICA. And then what will the man who isn't a genius have to live for? The American dream of rags-to-riches will be gone, replaced by an unalterable hierarchy of stupid and smart.
A solution to this problem may well be impossible; if there is a solution, it will certainly not be easy to find. We cannot go backwards; yet, we cannot continue in the direction we are headed if we are to remain dedicated to the quality and equality of humanity.
quantity and equalism. Meanwhile, the world will be full of windmill men, those who strike to find their own niche in a world that really has no place for them. And that, in the final analysis, may be the vital difference between a man and a smart machine.
When a man is no longer smart enough to be of use, we cannot turn him off.
use, we cannot turn him off.
Thought for the day:
"For a rhyme without reason Floats down to the bottom Where the scavengers eat 'em And wash in with the tide..." — John Prine
Letters to the Editor
To the editor:
Israel not obstacle to Mideast peace
To the tour
The April 12 speech by James Akins, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and a recent guest column by Seema Sirohi distorted the situation in the Middle East by portraying Israel as the main obstacle to peace.
Akins claims that the only reason that American politicians support aid to Israel is that they need the political contributions from the Jewish community. Besides grossly exaggerating the amount of the contributions, he fails to explain why, for example, the countries (only in New York, Florida and California, politicians throughout America support Israel.
The reason America has continued to support Israel is that it is the only democratic country in the Middle East, and the only trustworthy ally we have there. American Jews and non-Jews, like myself, recognize that the only way the Jewish nation can survive the constant threat of annihilation by the Arabs is for Israel to remain militarily secure.
initially seemed to be accused of buying influence, it is the Arab countries, who have used oil and trade boycotts to entice oil-poor nations to take their side. Indeed, the Arab boycott of Israel has persuaded many American businessmen and corporations, greedy for Arab trade, to turn against Israel. It may be that Akins' views
are influenced by the fact that he is now a consultant on energy and foreign policy for multinational corporations.
Both Akins and Sirobi insist that the Palestinian problem is the reason that peace in the Middle East so far has been impossible. They failed to point out that, for the time being, the Islamic State has been at war with one or more of its neighbors, and none of the disputes involved the Palestinian problem.
Sirohi claims that Israel's policy in the past has been "to acquire, not surrender, land." She forgot to mention that the land was acquired as a result of Arab attacks on Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Israel also returned the Sinai to Egypt under the Camp David accord.
A solution to the Palestinian problem will only come when the Arab world decides to contribute more than just weapons to the PLO. The small percentage of Palestinian people who remain in refugee camps are still there because the Arabs have not welcomed them into their countries for political reasons. When Arab leaders gather up enough resources, they will be tough to do, since Israel has been democratically chosen) to recognize, and negotiate with Israel. Middle East peace will be possible.
David Dingee.
Wallkill, N.Y. graduate student
Nursing story wrong
To the editor:
The article "Number of graduate nurse
students declines” contains incomplete data which lead to the erroneous conclusion that there has been a 20 percent decrease in enrollment in the KU master of nursing program. The master of nursing program requires 11 semester credits in courses outside of the School of Nursing. Therefore, students enroll on the Regents Center campus or the Lawrence campus and these courses. The enrolment records obtained by your instructor in the office of admissions records of the College of Health Sciences does not include students enrolled on the Regents Center or the Lawrence campuses. The actual number of nursing masters students enrolled in KU courses 1983 is 222. This is an increase of 13 students from Spring 1982.
Bob
The article is correct in that the ratio of full-time to part-time enrollments is changing. This resulted in a nine percent decrease in the full-time equivalent (FTE) student enrollment from Fall 1983 to Fall 1982; however, there was a 3 percent increase in FTE enrollment from Spring 1982 to Spring 1983. While the economy and lack of federal graduate student support funds are resulting in fewer full-time students, the master of nursing programs continues to serve an increasing number of nurses interested in this advance degree.
Rita Clifford assistant dean, School of Nursing
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 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 reserves the right to edit or reject letters.