Opinion
Page 4
University Daily Kansan, April 1, 1983
Amending the rule out
The Department of Education announced this week that instead of male students having to prove they have registered for the draft in order to receive federal financial aid, they need only fill out a statement to that effect, even though financial aid offices may not be able to verify those statements for up to two years.
But apparently that's fine with the Department of Education, which is now leaving open the option of scrapping the rule altogether.
The department is doubtless acting because of pressure from financial aid offices in colleges and universities, recent court injunctions and two bills pending in Congress — one of which was already passed by a House committee — that would delay implementation of the registration rule for up to seven months.
And now a department official has said that if the registration compliance
rate is high enough, the rule won't be needed at all, which is the same argument that was advanced by many onponents of the rule in the first place.
The Department of Education is correct for looking twice at a rule whose constitutionality, as well as common sense, has already been questioned. But we are hard-pressed to find the sense in the new rule.
If the purpose of the law is to catch those who have not registered, enforcement will be slow at best because of the long verification period. If the law's goal is to prevent those who have registered from receiving federal money, again, this will difficult to do until after the fact.
The best rule change would be for the Department of Education to acknowledge that tying draft registration to financial aid was a bad idea to begin with, rather than keeping the regulation and watering it down to make it palatable.
Watching with interest
Crime rates in college communities, with their unusually large transient populations, are traditionally high. Although Lawrence isn't normally thought of as a hotbed of corruption, this university town is no exception to that tradition.
Local crime is rarely an item of extreme controversy, simply because residents have come to accept burglaries and thefts as somewhat commonplace. In fact, many people seemed to think nothing could really be done to prevent such incidents.
But area crime prevention officials have come up with a way — a way one officer calls "one of the most successful programs that crime prevention has ever had." The program did not originate in Douglas County. Officials here picked up the idea, called "Neighborhood Watch," from other cities across the state and nation. Neighborhood Watches are organ-
Neighborhood Watches are organized by residents of small districts
within the city, in cooperation with law enforcement officers. Essentially, neighbors agree to keep an eye on one another's property, particularly when one or the other isn't home, and report to the police any suspicious activities.
And it works. In some Lawrence neighborhoods, not a single burglary has occurred since the program was started.
Perhaps KU students, who often are vulnerable to burglars and thieves, could pick up on the idea. Crime prevention officer Bob Avery has invited residents interested in forming Neighborhood Watches to call him at the Law Enforcement Center. Such a program could be adapted to residence halls, to fraternity and sorority houses, even to apartment complexes.
And maybe the knowledge that students are keeping an eye out for one another's property might be enough to deter someone from lifting a rack of bicycles or a stereo set.
Arms race growing hotter as weapons talks cool off
By DONALD A. DAVIS United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan is applying steady and mounting pressure on the Soviet Union in an unwavering belief that unless Moscow feels ennued by U.S. military might, the Soviet Union will not seriously negotiate disarmament
"If you're going to negotiate, you have to have some strength on your side," the president said this week. "You have to have some reason for giving up enough in the face of reducing their own weaponry."
Therefore, Reagan sees success for the odd process of launching a massive and expensive improvement of the U.S. armed forces while training for reductions of forces and weaponry.
The latest move — Reagan's proposal to build a space-age supersystems to destroy missiles zooming toward U.S. targets — clearly demonstrates the far extremes at which the White House and the Kremlin are operating. Reagan says it is only a defensive measure and Soviet leader Yuri Andropov treated it as an "insane" offensive strategy.
When he announced the program last week, Reagan said the bottom line was that since the dawn of the atomic age, the "strategy of deterrence has not changed."
"We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression," he said. The president likened the superpowers pointing arsenals of missiles at each other to card players in a war, and that it didn't matter who pulled the trumpier first because everyone would suffer.
So he outlined the high tech answer — a shield made up of advanced lasers and such things to
wipe out any incoming missile. As when he named the MX missile the “Peacekeeper” Reagan said the new system would be solely for them to help push nuclear missiles into the sunset.
The Soviet leadership immediately viewed the proposal with gloom. In a return to Cold War rhetoric, Andropov denounced Reagan's futuristic proposals and charged that they could "open the floodgates to a runaway race for all the strategic arms, both defensive and offensive."
Reagan then shifted the focus again with his newest proposal for reducing medium-range missiles in Europe. And he said Tuesday that there is "no change" in U.S. determination to put Pershing II and cruise missiles into Europe if doesn't come to terms in those talks in Geneva.
Early next month, he is expected to announce a decision on basing the nuclear-tiered MX manufacturer.
The main question at this point is whether either side is listening to any possible peace overtures from the other side, or if the arms race is overheating once again.
President Reagan said he doesn't think "there's anything particularly new in the world."
And the Kremlin clearly does not view Reagan's intentions as peaceful.
"Let there be no mistake about it in Washington," Andropov said last week. "It is time they stopped devising one option after another in the search of the best ways of unleashing nuclear war in the hope of winning it."
Perhaps the rising tension and polemical rhetoric between the two superpowers will be reduced only if the two leaders find a way to sit down at a summit meeting sometime this year.
BARLING
UNIVERSITY OF MONCLEMEN
Sailors sharpen reality of war
leaving Barbados a few weeks ago after spring break saddened me, of course, as the end of any holiday does. But as I realized that I had left a bit of my heart on that island, I also knew that I had scattered pieces of my heart around the world.
They'll never come back, and I'll never be the same.
By chance, the week I was there the U.S.S. Kennedy and the H.M.S. Invincible both docked in Bridgetown, the main city of the tiny country. Two of the largest aircraft carriers in the U.S. and British navies respectively, they dominated just as their countries dominate the world.
And suddenly war took on a real meaning for me.
Eight thousand sailors converged upon the beaches, pubs and discs. They were young and fun. They danced and drank. One threw me in the waves and laughed and lauded.
But that same sailor, a British sat, sat one night over beers and challenged an American to a verbal duel about sonar and radar capabilities, how fast and fuel-efficient their Harrier jets and our planes were, which ship's artillery had a higher kill ratio.
They are soldiers.
Quiet walks on monolith beaches often turned to life on board the ships — the emotions one runs through knowing a torpedo is speeding toward the forward hull, how it felt to survive the Falklands crisis and be awarded medals for victory but lose eight shipmates.
And another, a big, blight Californiaian, took me on a tour on board the Kennedy, a 17-deck mammoth that carries 85 aircraft on its deck and nuclear missiles in its hold.
Thev can be killed.
While I sat on the plane home to Kansas City, a vague emptiness filled me. Images of smiling.
ANN LOWRY
tanned faces and azure waters lapping against white beaches alternated with the imposing portrait of those ships and of uniformed crews continually working on the flight deck, always ready.
That emptiness was replaced by a terrible dread when I picked up a newspaper at home.
They can kill.
Troops. They are not faceless numbers to me or the Dons and Tomy, Barney, Eddie and Katie.
They are lads of 18, 19 and 22 with haunted eyes, who sometimes want a hot shower or soft cream.
They are boys who grin impishly and murmur
softly about their mums and little sisters who await their homecoming in a few months.
My thinking is not so simplistic that I would dismiss all naval personnel. They signed on for the war.
But I hate the thought of them receiving orders to change course for the Middle East or El Sejur.
I was compelled to reach out and talk to them, intrigued as they frolicled freely and happily then hoisted stereo cassette players on their shoulders and headed back to their ships where their duties ranged from painting to directing aircraft, deadly aircraft on the dangerous flight道.
I hate the unfairness, the reason for any war, the political faceoff of leaders in armchairs manipulating lives.
My Midwestern, suburban consciousness was fungal wide open by a tropical gust and was filled with some of the harsh realities that have existed all these 20 years without me.
So now I join the ranks of military men's mothers, daughters, lovers and friends who will never isolatismion in their lives—those to allow war front is a save spot aching continually.
I'll write letters and carefully watch newspapers for ships' names.
And I'll never really be able to think as a kid again.
Am Lowry, Prairie Village junior, is editor of the entertainment page.
Winter's last stand holds back spring
The land is wasted now. Everything looks worn and tired from fighting off the cold; February's snores are long gone in the first rude snow; and the warmth of Christmas fades to black.
These days. There is only endless sky. At night, you can feel the devil ride the north wind, passing by. He wants to suck your soul and lift you south of here. Then gallop on to the next town.
It has been raining and cold for so long. This winter has come crashing down. Seems like it will never end. The plants and trees, you'd think they'd know not to trust the sky.
But still the bums came peering around, poking out like wide-eyed schoolkids. They really thought they could grow. Birds started to sing, wrestled all down its guard. Then winter was around.
Now sullen birds puff their feathers up, trying to keep warm against the wind. They don't sing much anymore. They know the emptiness of betraval.
Out in the country the fields roll away in
brown, a thousand shades of it. And the trees are
grown with their branches twisted and gnarled.
Bob
You know winter loved with us this year, lulled
you up when the snow is out and then I need to be there.
In the muddy feedlies, the cattle are walking in wide circles with dumb love in their eye, waiting just as we are. Waiting for something to change, for the winds to shift and winter to die.
us in February by dragging out the sun. He led her past until we fell in love, then stole her back again.
But one morning, it can't be long, the cold rains will take their quarrels away. Then green will come falling down and cover trees and fields and yards.
Now we pay
You can feel his hot breath on those thick summer days, as he waits to make a move and rip across the land, lashing his steed and lapping.
And it will splash along the sidewalk and flow over tangled bushes, along the fences by the door.
Still, the sun is stronger than a thousand twisters. They come hit and run, too weak to stay. And summer will grow fat and last forever. Winter will cool off, and that only cause to let the stars to come out.
The darkness closes in from the west in the blowing storms of spring.
The sun has got to shine. The woods will be
tuck with life as the sun climbs up each
branch, and the sun sets.
But good is fragile on the open plain. Old Scratch can never die. He'll climb off the north wind, panting and lame, and mount the southwest wind, riding tornadoes across the sky.
Maybe today is the beginning after all.
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