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Opinion
University Dally Kansan, February 17, 1983
Shifting responsibility
Gov. John Carlin and the Kansas Legislature appear to be battling for the hearts and minds of Kansans.
Both are losing
Carlin threw the challenge to the Legislature when he proposed removing all able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 51 from the state welfare rolls in order to stay within the Social and Rehabilitation Services budget. He made it clear that it was either that, or come up with more revenue for state government.
Now, the Legislature has given its reilly.
Earlier this week, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to give Robert Harder, secretary of SRS the authority to carry out Carlin's proposal.
If the Ways and Means bill goes through, it will be Harder's responsibility to decide where and how to cut services if the Legislature doesn't come up with the revenue and reduces the SRS budget.
The proponents of the measure say that most social service organizations already have the power to set their own
guidelines and that SRS will now be treated "like we do all other social service programs."
But the timing of this decision gives the appearance of a legislative body afraid to do its own dirty work. State Rep. Donald Mainey, D-Toeka, labeled it a "Pontius Pilate cleansing bill."
The idea of making state agencies more efficient is a fine one. But if the delicacy of removing 4,000 to 6,000 people from state assistance is not an issue that belongs in the Legislature, then surely there is no such issue.
State Rep. James Holderman, D-Wichita, said the state has a responsibility to help those who can't find work, even if they are able-bodied, when their unemployment benefits run out.
The state does have that obligation and no matter who carries it out, the state is directly responsible. All of state government must share the blame if that responsibility is not carried out.
That includes the governor and the Legislature.
The other day I was strolling down the icy campus sidewalks, wondering at the richness of tradition at KU.
tradition at KU.
There's so much tradition at KU, that you'd almost expect to see a fiddler on the red roof of Fraser Hall.
Have you ever tried to count how many traditions and beliefs touch us every day as we walk down Jayhawk Boulevard? I don't call myself a historian, but one day, I tried to catalog them.
Take the Chi Omega fountain, for instance.
People get thrown into it for many reasons:
birthdays, anniversaries, initiation,
engagements, divorces, heat prostration and loss of
HARRY MALLIN
virginity. The fountain symbolizes purification, rebirth and the virtue of all Chi Omegas. The last time I jumped in, I got hepatitis.
The stadium has some wonderful traditions. Whenever the Jayhawk score a touchdown, the KU fans lift their arms above their heads and undulate them. This is commonly called the "waving wheat." Occasionally, the people with their arms raised have plastic stadium cups clutched in their hands. This is commonly called a "cup fight."
The stadium officials say that the cup fights must stop. I will tell them my solution if they are willing to listen. Simply make the cup out of a baseball bat, and throw it. They say, they'll be too heavy for most people to throw.
There's also the stadium tradition of the KU Marching Band streaming down the stadium steps before the pre-game show. In four years of going to the football games, I've never seen anyone trip and fall. Perhaps next year will be the lucky one.
Potter Lake has a few traditions. In winter, people slide toward it on cafeteria trays. In
spring, people get acquainted in the bushes. In the fall, cadavers lie on the banks, wearing sunglasses. That's about it for Potter Lake.
Here's one tradition about the campus in general. Supposedly, the man who spent years of his life designing Strong Hall discovered that it faced the wrong way. It was built backwards. The man committed suicide three days later.
I'm unsure of the facts on that one, but if I had designed the campus and finally saw Strong Hall. I'd probably commit suicide too.
Ham, it's probably correct.
The only thing I like about Strong are those big turquoise shields above the main doors. They give Strong that "customized van" look.
give strong that emotion.
This is not, by any means, an all-inclusive list.
I've only scratched the surface. But back to that day when I was strolling.
I thought of all these traditions and suddenly wished I could create one of my own.
Here's a nice one. Maybe if I pushed hard enough, I could get everyone to say the "Pledge of Allegiance" before class started. When was the last time you said it? Do you even remember how it goes?" "I promise, every night at 11 . . ." Well, something like that.
or maybe I could get everyone on Wescoe Beach to sit in the lotus position. A tradition like that could put KU on the map. KU — the Mecca of the Midwest. But then again . . .
One slightly schizoid person, So, if you're ever driving down Jayhawk, and you get the urge to, shall we say, test your horn as you drive around the fountain, don't point your finger at me when 80 axe-wielding sorority sisters chop your car to pieces.
of the man in the mirror.
Perhaps I could get everyone to honk his horn as he drove around the Chi Omega fountain. I'm sure I'd have the support of the lady who works in the traffic booth and, of course, all the Chi Omegas.
How about changing the direction of traffic on Jayhawk Boulevard? A piece of England, right here in the river city. Yet isn't all this talk of starting traditions a little bit silly? Traditions don't just start. Most of them can't be traced back to any specific origin in history. They just seem to crop up. It's up to the people to start one. One slightly schizoid columnist can't do it.
South African strife escalating
South Africa. Western man's final fortress of power built on the yellowing delusion of white supremacy. A cadaverous remnant of barbarism passed off as rational Christian thought in the 20th century. A disgrace to the world.
If you are a black in South Africa, you are:
* fingerprinted at age 16.
- enrolled citizenship in your own country
- unable to vote.
- subject to arbitrary imprisonment for political activities.
- subject to house arrest for the same reason.
- without legal recourse in the event you are jailed.
- subject to threats, harassment, sabotage and beatings by agents of the government.
- forced to carry identification | peers at al
- forced to carry identification papers at all times.
- required to obtain official permission for any journey
- banned from white parks, beaches, restau
- paid four times less than the average white worker.
- Subjugated to an education system that spends, on the average, $940 a year on each white child, $290 on each child of mixed race, and $90 on each African child.
The list winds on and on. The number of humiliations and evils that blacks and so-called "coloreds" experience every day in South Africa is incalculable.
And for many, the flash point is getting closer. As one black schoolteacher and mother told U.S. News & World Report, "We never feel free, South Africa warps your feet in a practicing Christian, feel capable of murder. Everyone is affected by this awful system."
The policies that have produced such simmering resentment are the result of the ascension to power in 1948 of the Nationalist Party. While racism in South Africa dates back to the arrival of the first German and Dutch traders in the 1600s, it was not until the fate"48
sites. The Laverie, who was fired last week, denied that she had ordered that Kaufman be investigated or that she had said to other agency officials that she wanted him fired. But she was accused of lying under oath to Congress when a former EPA inspector said in an affidavit that Laverie had asked the inspector's office to investigate Kaufman.
Two House subcommittees first got wind of these scandals last fall. At that time, the committees were questioning EPA official Rita Lavelle about her firing of whistle-blower Hugh Kaufman, who was interviewed on "60 Minutes" about the agency's inept handling of toxic waste sites.
Instead, Attorney General William French
Even the Justice Department has soiled its hands in this scandal. When Congress voted Gorsuch in contempt, legally the U.S. District Court ruled that he should not argue for her conviction before a grand jury.
EPA soap opera turns to dirty affair
Every day, more dirt about the EPA's inner workings is exposed. The agency is under fire for its handling of the toxic waste-site cleanup program and for "close" ties between EPA officials and companies that dumped their poisonous wastes in Indiana and California sites. The EPA has also been criticized for allegedly shredding copies of subpoenaed documents just three weeks after the House voted EPA director Anne Gorsuch in contempt of Congress for not giving a House subcommittee those very documents.
The story gets worse.
the Superfund program. The $1.6 billion Superfund was set up by Congress in 1980 to pay for toxic waste-site cleanups. That fund has also been cloaked in scandal. House members have accused EPA officials of manipulating the funds to benefit Republican congressional candidates over their Democratic opponents.
The story goes. After hearing numerous complaints that the EPA was dragging its feet on cleaning up many of the worst waste sites and was entering into deals with the offending companies, two House subcommittees ordered Gorsuch to give them all
election that the government began to overly construct a segregated society.
the documents about the agency's handling of the Superfund program.
const a sex regime.
The cornerstone of that society is something called the Population Registration Act of 1850. Like so much of the racist legislation in South Africa, it is draped in the benign governmentspeak that masks the true intent of the law.
Put all the facts together and what you get is a seamy little tale of the executive branch of the U.S. government abusing the executive privilege doctrine. The executive branch's powers are not enumerated in the Constitution but are loosely described as being able to do what is necessary for maintaining and protecting the public good.
Gorouch refused to hand over 64 of the documents, saying they contained sensitive information.
The House, whose duty it is to oversee federally financed programs, did not find Gorsuch's reasons good enough to keep her from passing on the documents. In December, the governor asked him to hold his inconstep Congress, an unprecedented action against an official of her rank.
The recent scandal at the Environmental Protection Agency is as smelly as some of the toxic waste dumps the agency is supposed to be cleaning up. The scandal has the makings of a good soap opera, but, unfortunately, the consequences are extremely dangerous to our health.
The essence of the act is the designation of everyone in the country in one of three ways: the president, the prime minister, or the chief executive.
But the U.S. District Court judge threw the administration's case out of court saying that it was improper for the Justice Department to ignore the legally prescribed steps by filing a lawsuit and that the two government branches should seek a compromise solution outside of a courtroom.
material that could possibly jeopardize the government's cases against violators.
The number of committees that want to see the celebrated documents has risen from two to six, and the Senate has now joined the House's battle against the administration.
practice.
Last week, Rep. Dian Glickman, D-Kan., said that House members thought the administration was holding back the documents to "protect business interests."
Smith instructed the department's lawyers to file a civil suit blocking the House's criminal suit. The Justice Department maintained that the House had no right to vote in contempt because she was just doing her job and was protected by executive privilege.
By virtue of their racial tag, blocks are legally confined to one of 10 African "homelands" scratched out of the scrub-filled back country.
The struggle for the documents bolls down to whether the administration should be allowed to use an important Constitutional doctrine to do its dirty work. Gorsuch's — and Reagan's — cries of executive privilege are simply scams designed to protect their administration's business interests and political manipulations of federal funds.
It is President Reagan who all along has told Gorsuch to keep the mysterious documents out of Congress's hands, thwarting a complete congressional investigation of the EPA's affairs. And it is Reagan, now that the president even named him as a key from Congress, the even more and press, who refuses to comment.
Never mind that more than half of the black population actually lives near the cities in
Their status is termed "temporary" and every year they must return to their particular homeland to re-register for permission to work in the cities.
KATE DUFFY
BONAR MENNINGEF
In defense of its policies, the government asserts that the homelands are designed to give "self-determination to ALL of South Africa's peoples."
housing projects, such as the infamous Soweto, or in squatter settlements.
And the Afrikaners — the white settlers of Dutch, German, and French heritage, deeply conservative and devoutly Christian — are becoming increasingly reactionary and truculent in the face of the burning fuse of African rage.
Despite an efficient apparatus of suppression, the government is faced with an increasingly defiant black population.
The voices of black moderation that attempt to work toward gradual reform are constantly undercut and discredited by the white minority.
Devoid of citizenship in South Africa and relegated legally and often physically to the homelands, where for many there is absolutely no social or traditional bond, blacks carry the South African economy on their backs while enjoying none of its benefits.
Inevitably, it will all come tumbling down.
The true goal of the homelands, however, is to "avoid sharing political and ultimately economic power with Africans while at the same time retaining African labor," according to the Study Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Southern Africa.
History shows that the alternative to moderation and patience in confronting injustice is violence and revolt. Today, South Africa is like a tall building listing in the sand.
Many others who view the South African scene are pessimistic about the possibility of a peaceful solution to the country's enormous problems.
Says an American observer in Africa of the two methods, "Neither, in my opinion, has had the slightest effect. When pressure is overt, as in the Carter era, South Africans retreat behind their barricades. When it is subtle — Henry Kissinger-style — they interpret it as tacit approval and pay even less attention to American wishes."
They are, in effect, exiles within their own country.
President Carter openly condemned the policies of South Africa. President Reagan has opted for a quieter, more behind-the-scenes approach.
And on that day, when generations of injustice begin to in an irrational wave of hate, whites will pray before their exclusive God and wonder why they could never before listen to Him and understand what an equal and opposite reaction really means.
country.
Attempts by successive American administrations to pressure South Africa toward change have been, for the most part, futile.
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