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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, March 29, 1983
A weary world of hope
Pockmarked by the eruptive boils of war in the Mideast, South and Central America, shuddering under recent deluges of water in California and lava in the Hawaiian islands, shrinking from deathly drought in India and Australia, and frightened by worldwide joblessness and insecurity — our old, battered planet Earth could use a miracle.
thoughts of death.
But this week, crippled and shackled with its burdens, the Earth — like a forgotten Quasimodo — emerges from the darkness for a rare split second of hope. This week, as it watches its tenants relive old miracles, the Earth waits in curious wonder for another.
For the short time it has been the landlord of men, Earth has never enjoyed the soothing sleep of peace. It has never stirred without fear of rape from the avaricious strip mines of misguided technology and blind progress. It has never lived without thoughts of death.
But miracles are not easily found anymore. In Jerusalem, the Earth
watched in hope as thousands of Christian pilgrims, waving palm branches, began their Holy Year of Redemption. The Earth smiled. When it saw Israeli soldiers and their submachine guns, all smiles stopped.
summarize. In the United States and throughout other countries, the Earth waits in shadowy corners, watching Jews gather around the festival candles of Passover to celebrate their glorious exodus from slavery. But other Jews, in the Soviet Union, await their own exodus. And the neighbors of Israel move ever quietly to enslave the Jews again. The Earth is confused, and will not long watch these celebrations.
not long woken.
Other hopes, other religions, entice
the stricken Earth and bring it
stumbling again and again to the verge
of faith and security. But the miracle
never comes, and every journey leaves
our old friend more scarred, more
weary and closer to death.
No, miracles are not easily found anymore. But our Earth keeps searching. Its life depends on it.
Springtime at White House doesn't make picture rosier
By HELEN THOMAS United Press International
WASHINGTON — Suddenly it's spring at the White House. But instead of enjoying the flowers in bloom, President Reagan is manning the barricades.
The White House has become a battleground as Reagan stakes out his positions and takes on some improbable opponents.
Two years ago it would have been difficult to predict that the president would be fighting the bankers, calling them a selfish special interest group and chastising them for seeking to block legislation that would require withholding on interest and dividends.
But he has his dander up and has accused those in banking circles, who have been his supporters, of obstructionist tactics and hostage-taking in trying to tie their amendment first to the jobs bill and then to the Social Security package.
"It would be far better if the bankers would spend less time lobbying and more time lowering interest rates." he said.
It happens to all presidents.
At some point in their administrations they are bound to collide with old friends and backers, the kingmakers who can no longer call the shots.
If that isn't enough the president also is fighting a rearguard action against the Democratic budget proposal that would repeal the third year tax cut, reduce defense spending and increase some tax levies to bring the deficits down.
Rogan has used his harshst rhetoric against this proposal, calling it a dagger in the heart of his economic recovery program, and a declaration of war.
ation or War.
The fight for his own 1984 spending program
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Somewhere down the line, probably in the Senate controlled by the GOP, Reagan may get closer to his own terms, although he will have to show some ability to compromise on Pentagon outlays.
On other fronts, the president also has been belegued.
His top appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency have either had to resign or be fired, which leaves the agency in disarray. With seven congressional committees looking into the EPA operation, Reagan had to move quickly to reassert the credibility of his commitment to the public health and safety.
public health and safety.
He did so by calling William Ruckelshaus back to duty as EPA chief, a post Ruckelshaus held 30 years ago when the agency was created in 1970.
Reagan insists that the attacks against the EPA operation are unwarranted and says that he believes the agency's handling on the part of any agency appointees who may have tilted toward business.
But the president says that he wants common sense in regulating the environment and still believes that some environmentalists are extremists.
extremists.
If that wasn't enough, Reagan also has been upset of late with those in his administration who leak information to the press.
He has not pinpointed them, but he did sign an order that severely cracks down on so-called leakers, which puts their jobs in jeopardy and subjects them to lie detector tests.
But a couple of weeks after Reagan cracked down on potential leakers, he declassified some of the nation's top secret photos to make his case for a strong defense buildup.
up to his keister in leakers, bankers and environmental extremists. But about midterm for any president, that is par for the course.
Athletes lose to college sports
Recurring college athletic abuses have, over the years, disgraced universities and teams.
But in the rush to place blame and carry on with the game, the real shame of college athletics is often overlooked. Young men, a disproportionate number of whom are black, are used each year by colleges and universities to make money for the institutions, often at the expense of the educations of these young men.
The University After University committee formed in October 1980 and a committee formed in 1981 found that athletes were receiving inadequate advising, the University hired Pat Cleveland last September to devise a new advising plan for athletes.
Some professors and several senior football players said that in the past, most athletes were advised only by Mike Fisher, the academic counselor for the athletic department, and by Dionysios Kounas, associate professor of history.
Fisher denied the that he did the advising and Kounas would not comment.
Kounas would not commit the Critics of college athletes say that advising is not the only problem. Some point to lax entrance requirements as an abuse.
Those requirements are not strictly enforced for athletics or for other students who come to KU from out-of-state on special scholarships, said Del Shankel, professor of microbiology and biochemistry. Shankel was acting chancellor when the University committee was looking into KU athletics.
KU requires that its out-of-state applicants finish in the top half of their graduating classes and score competitively on the ACT to be accepted into the University.
athletes graduate and, if they do, whether their diplomas represent a high quality of education
The concerns that underlie all others about the academics of college athletics is whether the
During a seven-semester period, 43 percent of the 1978 KU freshman class has dropped out of school, according to a survey conducted by the office of institutional research and planning.
This year's graduation figures are not yet available, but 57 percent of the juniors and seniors from the 1980 KU football team have not graduated from KU, according to records at the
DAN PARELMAN
University of Kansas Alumni Association Of that 57 percent,19 percent are still enrolled at KU. according to the records.
Those who defend college athletics say that underprivileged blacks are given the chance to receive a college education.
However, Harry Edwards, a former track star who is now a sociologist, said in his 1969 book, "The Revolt of the Black Athlete," that most black athletes have received an almost criminally fraudulent deal educationally."
Family tradition denotes a survey that Edwards in fact, the results of a survey conducted at the University of California at Berkeley from 1971 to 1978 show that only between 20 percent and 30 percent of the black athletes graduated.
Critics, such as Edwards and former tennis player Arthur Ashe, say society dangles a dream of a professional sports career in front of the eyes of black children. But very few realize the dream, they say.
The sad truth is that universities, such as KU,
may be fueling that false dream.
There are no indications, for instance, that KU has stopped bending its entrance requirements for out-of-state athletes. When a University starts compromising its own standards, it begins to lose its credibility.
to it.
It appears that, thanks to Cleveland's new program, more faculty are now advising athletes and that even more will advise in the future.
Still, it seems difficult for some athletes to graduate or receive a strong education under the pressures to stay eligible and perform athletically. The blame for these pressures cannot be placed on any one individual.
placed on any one individual.
Fans that demand too much, alumni who only support athletics and members of the press that treat college athletes like celebrities are all guilty of putting the importance of college athletics way out of proportion.
But as long as KU sports teams are the rallying points for the University and Lawrence, and as long as KU athletics fall under the auspices of a firmly enthroned corporation, the educational victimizing of college athletes may never end.
never end.
One encouraging sign is that Cleveland has worked to build trust and communications among coaches and faculty.
But, as Shankel said, "In general, athletics has, perhaps, become overemphasized and institutions like ours are too dependent on the revenues they generate."
A winning football team may attract alumni contributions tomorrow, but an athlete's education will have to last him the rest of his life.
tion will win to last two years.
Note: Much of the research for this column was done by Bob Armstrong, Overland Park junior.
The Way's ideas conflict with Bible
To the editor:
To the editor:
In his March 10 letter to the Kansan, Cliff Rutter challenged his readers "to enroll in and complete the class on Power for Abundant Education" a seminar offered by The Way International, an Emporia-based religious organization), and then disprove, from the Word of God, any of the statements that are made in that class."
I must confess that, I have not taken up Ratner's challenge. I have never visited The Way College in Emporia, and I do not plan to do so in the near future. I am writing only to dispute Ratner's abbreviation implication that it is "impassible" to biblically disprove any of The Way's teachings. I am not usually given to give free publicity to cults such as The Way, but as a Christian, I feel a duty to expose the flawrant errors of this apostate organization.
The founder of the Way, Victor Paul Wierwille, has written a book titled "Jesus Christ is Not God." This is evidence enough to condemn Wierwille's teachings as unbiblical. The Gospel of John, chapter one, verse one, says that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Two verses later, him claims that He (the Word) was the Creator of the world: "all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." In verse 14 John tells us that "the Word became flesh and dwell among us . . . we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." The son of God, Jesus Christ, Creator of the World, God Almighty . . . is any of his writings in Cliff?
this sinking, "I am 10, 30. Jesus says, 'I and the Father are one.' Immediately after this, the Jews began to stone Jesus. Their reason? verse 33: "The Jews answered Him, 'We stone you . . . for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.' Wierwile claims that Jesus, not I, is the one; this passage, meeting his inability to comprehend a phrase that even Christ's enemies understood.
Joe Vusich,
Fairway senior
The apostle Paul defends the deity of Jesus in Colossians 2:9 "For in Him the wholefulness of
delay dwells babbly." In Hebrews 1:8, God says of His Son, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." Isaiah 9:6 gives the following prophecy concerning the Christ: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be called Upon his shoulder, and His name will be called 'Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'"
These are only a few of many passages the Bible that clearly teach that Jesus Christ is God. If Ratter truly believes in the Word of God as he claims, he will take these verses to heart and repent of Wierwille's pernicious doctrines. May God's spirit illuminate his mind and heart to accept the truth of the Trinity as taught in God's Holy Word.
Salvadoran news bias
David Huet-Vaughn apparently missed the point of Doug Martin's letter. Doug Martin simply advocated that Latin American Solidarity provide its own political funding, just as he or I would. He would not deny LAS its right to free speech, only a pseudo-right to subsidized speech. Apparently, Huet-Vaughn would also idize political causes and supposed majority support which he also support public funding, the victor in a public election, while denying such money to the loser? I would hope not. An individual should be able to support only the political causes which he chooses.
To the editor:
of power. I suspect that Hiet-Vaughn wrote better than he when he compared the El Salvador issue to the Lawrence nuclear freeze poll. As a poll watcher for the general election, I saw free ballot attendants allow people to vote who came in and told them that they had forgotten to vote on the freeze earlier. Poll attendants also engaged in electioneering.
in electionsetting:
To my mind this made the poll a fraud and a sham. Further, if all of those who voted in the general election but not in the freeze poll were
conservative boycoting the poll, voters in the general election opposed the freeze two to one
general election opposes.
If the public does support the position of LAS, it seems likely that the public's opinion is based on distorted information. The El Salvadoran government has been portrayed as barbarous, but hints have filtered through the media that the communist-supported guerrillas are at least as guilty of atrocities.
In a recent story by ABC News, the guerrillas touted the success they were having by treating the villagers with kindness as opposed to the old approach of killing those who did not support them. In effect, they admitted to having terrorized the villagers. In the past, we had been told that only government troops terrorized the villagers.
1
Several so-called government massacres have been suspect at best. A typical example occurred when guerrillas represented bare, bleached cotton dressed in bloody clothing, as the remains of a government massacre which occurred within 72 hours. How could the bones become bare and bleached within 72 hours, yet the bloody clothing remain intact?
they are calling remit. Many people warn us that the parallels between El Salvador and Vietnam. Perhaps we should take this one step further. Because we withdrew from Vietnam, Pol Pot came to power in Cambodia, killing an unprecedented percentage of that country's population, and the Vietnamese government has massacred supporters of deposed South Vietnamese government and invaded Laos and Cambodia, killing villagers who were conventional and illegal chemical weapons. Those who caused our withdrawal from Vietnam are responsible for these atrocities.
Since the moving force behind the Viet Cong and the guerrillas in El Salvador is the same, it isn't likely that the same thing will happen if the guerrillas win in El Salvador? If it does, supporters of groups such as Latin American Solidarity must shoulder the responsibility.
John B. Barrett, Clearwater law student
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