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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, January 27, 1983
Sad State of the Union
They cheered Ronald Reagan Tuesday night.
Several times during the president's State of the Union address, the joint houses of Congress interrupted him with applause. When the speech outlining his proposals and goals for the economic recovery had ended, the legislators cheered.
He must have seemed to them like the Reagan of old, returning triumphant and indestructible from his March 1981 assassination attempt, the balance of public opinion sweeping behind him like a cape.
But even with the cheers and the applause, the president's program simply didn't have the answers.
Reagan has turned, albeit slowly and stiffly, from some of the rhetoric that put him into office, but last night he again blamed high deficits on "waste and corruption" in social programs.
He again vowed to restrict growth in federal spending with a one-year
freeze, and again exempted the Pentagon from those restrictions.
At a time when Congress and the nation desperately need innovative leadership and new answers, Reagan bad neither.
His programs for economic recovery relied heavily on individual initiative and the help of a business community that was crippled and barely able to maintain its hold, let alone expand.
And through it all, the president insisted that an economic upturn was in the offing, a litany that becomes more difficult to believe each time it is recited — and turns out to be false.
Ronald Reagan acknowledged that his answers were not pleasant or easy and asked Americans to be patient. But the American people, by now, are looking for successful answers, not easy ones.
In the absence of those, we wonder what the joint session of Congress had to cheer about.
Last week, Barney Clark had an operation because of his nosebleeds.
We've all had our share of nosebleeds. Some people get punched in their noses. Some noses bleed because people have stuck their fingers up in the nose. Some people have nosebleeds because they've just had a nose job.
Barney Clark's nosebleeds don't fall into any of those categories.
He was having an operation on his nose for this reason: his nose could kill him.
Barney Clark, for those of you who don't know, is the first human recipient of an artificial heart.
And Barney's nose was bleeding for a very
HARRY MALLIN
good reason. Someone was telling him that he shouldn't be alive now.
Barney was a dying man. The operation to replace his alluring heart with the Jarvik 7 was a rush job. It was implanted before schedule it. He stood on the edge, holding on to life with his fingertips.
If it weren't for the wonderful Jarvik-7, Barney might have died the very day of the operation. Today, Barney lives on, a miracle of modern medicine and machinery.
But is that so wonderful? The story of Barney and his mechanical ticker was rated as one of the top 10 stories of 1982 by nearly every news service that bothered to make a list.
Barney was on the list, not so much because his life was a miracle, but because it was an accident.
What differentiateiates Barney from anyone else who is near death and comes to the hos'tal to be cured? And what makes him so different from who is being kept alive on life-support machines?
01983 MINNIEWIS
The answer lies in the amount of technology that went into the Jarvik-7.
Barney's new heart is a milestone in the world of technology, and if anything deserves to be on the list of top 10 stories of 1982, it is a story about technology.
1982 was the year that Time magazine's "Man of the Year" was the computer. It was also the year that industrial robots made thousands of jobs obsolete. And then along came the Jarvik7, the first step in making the human heart obsolete.
Somehow it's hard to think of a man who is having an operation for his nosebleeds as a hero. We expect a hero to be vigorous, healthy and alert. Some of the injuries in bed and deteriorates, despite the Jawik7.
Barney defied death by a true deus ex machina, the Jarvik-7. Is he a hero now because of it?
Is he much better off now than he was the day before his first operation? Health-wise, maybe. But what about mentally? I wonder what he's thinking about when he's alone. Life and death.
I'm not a very religious person, but when it comes to life and death, you have to be reverent
I think life is a damned good reason to wake up every morning. Sorry, but there's nothing I can say about life that wouldn't sound like an understatement to both you and me.
When my number comes up, that means to me that someone's calling. While I'm sure to put up a fight, such a fight is merely stalling the inevitable.
Barney Clark's number came up. Is he fooling himself or cheating himself by depending on the answer?
Mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do,
and, eventually, to die.
I'm no butcher, calling for Barney's death. I root for him from the grandstands of humanity and cheer him through this and subsequent encounters, now show the Jarvik-7 is a miracle of medical science.
But deep down, I wonder, when Barney finally does die, will that heart still beat away in his chest? How should we know whether the doctors will take out it, as if they were hoisting a good engine out of a wrecked car.
Clean Cabinet needed for 1984
The trumpets heralding the opening of the presidential primary season will collect dust for another year, but already, political experts are calling for strategic advantages for 1984's White House hopefuls.
President Reagan's recent appointments of Elizabeth Dole as transportation secretary and Margaret Hekckar as health and human services minister, and he is the president is gearing up for a re-election bid.
Those appointments may have boosted Reagan's popularity with women, but several important voting groups still view him as a latter-day Darth Vader.
To increase his chances for re-election, Reagan needs to set aside his almost puncture-proof sense of loyalty and hire a couple of new Cabinet members.
At this moment, in a secluded corner of the White House, presidential advisers may be reviewing Reagan's often maligned administration, asking why a Cabinet that would be politically popular.
Tampering with the Cabinet traditionally has been a favorite means of solidifying a president's position with a disgruntled electorate. And even the president's most trusted advisers admit that the current Cabinet could be held captive in *Campbell*'s heel during a reelection campaign.
"I think our first recommendation should be to relieve Mr. Watt of his duties," the first adviser says. "You know how he's infuriated environmentalists with his pro-business attitudes."
"Yes, I think you're right," the second adviser says. "I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I think we should encourage the president to appoint Euell Gibbons. That is, if he hasn't eaten everything under the department's irredition."
"Euell Gibbons is dead. I heard he contracted a rare tree disease while eating a certain type of bark. I think we should select Marlin Perkins of 'Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kindun'."
"That should get the boss out of the doghouse with those, darned environmentalists," the group says.
"I think next we should remove Raymond Donovan as Labor Secretary. To recapture the blue-collar vote, we need someone who was raised on meat and potatoes and sweat."
"We can't do that," the first adviser says
"How about Charles Bronson." the first
"No, Bronson doesn't talk enough in his movies or in real life to be a good secretary," the
"Then how about Gerry Cooney," the first adviser says. "He certainly has downed a lot of meat and potatoes in his time. And Lane Kirkland would never dare antagonize the conversation with Cooney in our corner, even if he had the team Members union backing him up."
"That's a championship idea," the second adviser says. "Now we need to appoint someone to mollythe elderly before the Gray Panthers pounce on us."
"That's an easy one," the first adviser says
calmly "I've had Lawrence Wek in mind for a Cabinet position ever since he went off the air."
"Good idea," the second adviser says. "While we're trimming their benefits, at least we can give the elderly some good song and dance. That can't be canned we say we didn't give them anything."
"Now we need to hand over the reins of the State Department to someone besides George Schultz," the first adviser says. "George has done a decent job, but that's a glamour position, and we have someone who is as exciting as cold oatmeal."
"We need someone," the second adviser says, "who has the magnetism of an Alexander Haig and the keen, sophisticated wit of a Henry Kissinger."
"How about Chuck Barris?" the first adviser says. "He certainly has both of those qualities."
"No, I don't think so," the second adviser says. "The people want us to negotiate an arms race with Russia, but Harris would gong the Russians before they had a chance to go on stage with their proposals."
"I think we should select Monte Hall. Not even a used car salesman has made more deals than Hall. He's just the man we need to negotiate with the Soviets."
"Well, I think we have created the perfect Cabinet for the campaign season," the first adviser confidently says. "I don't see the need for any more changes."
"Oh no, we have one more appointment to make before we can submit our proposals to the president," the second adviser says.
"All right," the first adviser agrees grudgingly. "Let's recommend that Bonzo be made honorary U.N. ambassador. With his experience in monkey business, he'll be an instant hit.
"Yeah," the second adviser grumbles. "He is part of the boss's old California clique."
Bad writing on wall for penmanship professions
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Rv DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — In case you've been wondering what all the hullabaloo was about, last Sunday was the 246th anniversary of John Hancock's birthday.
High point of the festivities may have been the launch of a survey to determine the "Ten Wages."
It was also, according to my calendar,
Now attending Day, which itself was
called for GameDay.
It is impossible to tell from the average restaurant tab what one has eaten, much less double-check the addition.
I wouldn't quarrel with most of the tentative selections suggested by the sponsors of Handwriting Day. Certainly there is room for other ideas to prepare food checks are among the worst offenders.
Typically, one would conclude that one had ordered two wavy lines (medium rare), a side dish of scrambled dots and a blue plate special ink blot.
Nor would I challenge the claim that there is a need for better pemanship by kidnappers who write ransom notes, hostage-takers who draft passwords, hand and bank robbers who slip notes to tellers.
I likewise accept without question the desirability of enhancing the legibility of motorists who bump into parked cars and leave notes under the windshield telling how they can
But some of the sample nominations seemed
gratuitous and there were rather glaring omissions.
Take doctors, for example.
While there is no gainsaying that the handwriting on prescription blanks is atrocious, an argument can be made that it is as good as it needs to be.
The time to worry is not when the patient can't make out what medicine is being prescribed, it's about what needs to be done.
I also take exception to the nomination of journalists to the "Worst Scrawlers" list.
It is true that part of the lore of the newspaper trade is the proverbial haste of reporters to file stories before their notes get "cold" and hence become indecipherable.
But how do you square that with the increasing tendency of judges to subpoena reporters' notes whenever they are hauled into court because of something they have written?
Wobbly penmanship presumably diminishes
But, contrary to what you might be thinking, I am not about to attack this aspect of American jurisprudence for the violence it does to the First Amendment.
Rather, I am nominating for inclusion on the "Ten Worst Scrawlers" list the judges who sign subpoenas.
Nothing could be more inappropriate than to have a subpoena for a reporter's signed notice by the company.
the credibility of notes as legal evidence. Why a prosecutor, defense attorney or presiding judge would want to subpoena several pages of hen tracks is beyond me. That sort of evidence almost surely will be entirely meaningless to a jury.
As Grantland Rice might have written if someone had subjugated his notes:
someone had subpoenaed his notes
'When the court found them
When the Great Score keeper
"Tallies up your final game."
"It matters not that you won or lost.
"But how he signs his name."
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