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Wednesday, October 6, 1971
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Since the environmental problems of our world have gained prominent play in the media, an often voiced solution to the problem of pollution has been that the same thing that got us into trouble mess will get us out—technology.
Those that propagate this solution to ecological problems must operate under very dangerous conditions than the solution to be more desirable than the problem.
For instance, take nuclear power plants. Electricity is needed and the traditional ways of producing it are "dirty," so use technology to find a way to reduce electricity. Technology came up with the nuclear power plant.
There's only one problem, the nuclear waste that is produced by these new plants is perhaps the most toxic and deadly pollutant of them all.
And it is quite likely that the meat waste will be dumped in Kangas
The possibility that Kansas will become the nuclear slop jar for the world has decreased somewhat. The Atomic Energy Commission, has written a letter to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, saying that new information has come to light in regard to the composition of the salt beds at Lyons.
This is certainly a turnabout for the AEC, which has long been the force of the Lyons site. The change must be set forth to the part of the efforts of Rep. Joe
Skubitz (R-5th District) who respire at the site where the site is located.
Also, Rep. Bill Roy and Gov. Robert Docking have worked on blocking the installation until sufficient evidence could be brought in. The officials said Kansas that the Lyons site would be a safe repository for the waste.
Nevertheless, the possibility that the repository will be located in Kansas still exists. The AEC, with the assistance of the Kansas Academic Survey is now going to look at other possible locations in the state.
That the waste must be disposed of is a fact that cannot be altered, and if Kansas is the safest and best place the world for it to be deposited, so be it.
However, the saga of the Lyons depository can serve as an important warning to the inhabitants of this fragile planet.
Man cannot rely on technology to rescue him from the ecological catastrophe.
A new system of priorities must be developed that places the sanctity of the environment above the convenience of man. Before a new gimmick is developed and marketed to the extent that it becomes a "necessity," to millions of people, the ecological consequences of such consumption must be taken into consideration.
What good is a dishwasher in a desert?
—Mike Moffet
Loss of Justices Sad
A hundred men have served on our highest bench,but not more
RIO DE JANEIRO-Forgive me for coming so belatedly to the sad news of Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan. The Supreme Court is my beat, but Harlan's retirement was not news in the Transkeel, and I never learned of Hugo Black's death. Both the Court and the country have suffered a stunning loss.
James J. Kilpatrick
It takes nothing from Harlan's enduring reputation to remark that Black was the more
usually this was when he felt bound by precedents he could not ignore. As a general rule, he held the position of activism. His dissenting opinion in Baker v. Carr, the Tennessee reapportionment case, will be read for many years as a classic statement of judicial flexibility.
Kilpatrick today comments on the retirement of Justice Harlan and the passing of Justice Black, two men that he places among the greatest to be on the Supreme Court bench.
than 15 or 20 hold much claim on history. Black and Harlan were among the great ones. They used a side by side bench seat in the branch. Black rocking a little in his chair, Harlan silent and immobile, and we styled one a liberal and the other a conservative labels locked preface meaning
Black's death is especially sad. In the Court's longevity sweepstakes, he had passed Story and the first Harian this year. If he was able to wait until March of 1972, he would have passed Marshall and Field also, and would have served longer than any Justice in history. As it was, he served for more than 30 years on his imprint indelibly on our law.
interesting of the two men—interesting in the sense of his whole career. When Roosevelt named him to the Court in 1937, few persons would have dreamed that this "radicib" had the stuff of a schoolmaster. Southern senator, poorly educated, tainted by his onetime membership in the Klan; his sole judicial experience had come with part-time service as a Birmingham police judge 17 officer. His nomination touched off the terrorist of abusive comment.
had made the protections of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states no less than to the Federal government. He never wavered from this view; and he never hesitated, in a hot fight, to defend his position with any judicial weapon at hand.
Yet Black survived to become one of the five dominant intellects on the Court during the 34 years that he graced the bench. The others were Cardozo, Marshall Frankfort—and John Marsh. Frankfort single-handedly, Black won his colleagues to his conviction that the Fourteenth Amendment, through its due process clause,
For those of us on the conservative side, Harlan has ranked as 'our judge' since he published his book that disappointed us now and then.
Brilliant though he was, Black had his lapes. He delivered the worst single opinion of the 1970-71 term in construing that portion of his campaign to be extended to the franchise to 18-year-olds in all elections. Black's "own view of the case" was a mockery of the dedication to so often professed to strict construction. Harlan dissented in scholarly opinion that made rubbish of Black's specious statement.
Yet just a few weeks later—and
this is a fascinating aspect of
Supreme Court coverage—the
supreme court case with another part of the
Voting Rights Act. And this time
Black was right and Harlan
wrong. This time it was Black
persevered" of the Constitution.
The two were more often antagonists than allies. One might have supposed that Black, the liberal, would have small use of his power and could never term, in a case from California, he wrote one of the most eloquent defenses of "Our Federalism" ever penned. In a Connecticut case, a few weeks later, it was again black Defended state laws he had acutely termed a "strange" opinion by Harlan.
Now they're gone. The two vacancies create a grave problem for Chief Justice Burger and a great opportunity for the Court, but they may suffice simply to pay tribute to the two grey eagles. They were the best the Court had, and they will be keenly missed.
(C) 1971 The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Garry Wills
Sad Reflection On Attica
I would like to begin with an incident, run over some parallels, and suggest some problems, before I reach a sad matter of reflection.
of the system, and were only lightly chastised (the worst penalty was 30 days suspension, and no fireman lost his job)
First, the incident. In August, news traveled through a tense major city that a sniper had picked off a fireman in his firehouse. Police number 1076 told the记者 he'd told so," the fireman's P-R man elaborated for the press. The next day it was discovered another fireman had—against rules—brought a gun to the station, and accidentally discharged it. Another officer was accepted, blaming the whole thing on "outside troublemakers." That was easy to do; it answered to antecedent fears. But for that very reason, it was despicable—a man bailed himself out of a house when he encountered social turmoil. Nonetheless, all uniformed members involved are part
Now, if the parallels. It would be bad enough if a self-serving "official" version of events were so quickly announced and accepted in this story, but what happens with Fred Hampton is killed in his bed in Chicago, and police tell a detailed story of a shoot-out that a Grand Jury finds incredible. Daniel Berrigan is charged with planning to kidnap, then the charges are quietly dropped. George whole officials shot in the back, and for a whole official tells us he was shot in the head.
Students are shot by the National Guard at Kent State, and the first version tells us that Guardmen were "sniped at" (just like the fireman). Worst of all, with world attention, the Guardmen are killed in version of guards killed by inmates is spread by telling easily falsified stories of slit threats.
There is a disquieting pattern here—the same, as some have observed, that we witnessed in the My Lai murders: officials, apparently by reflect, authorize versions of untoward events that favor certain individuals. Worse, this self-defensive reflex is widely approved or only softly condemned. We seem to be working
from a given postulate; officialdum can do no wrong, or if it does, we should not punish (or, if possible, even advert to) the wrong.
I have been willing to hope the same is true in the case of Robert Kennedy's and Martin Luther King's assassinations. But it is getting harder and harder to defend the anti-conspiratorial view. It is very hard to see the case, and in that of most charges against the Black Panthers (knocked down in court), as well as in the wild things said against Dan Berrigan. Officialism is panicking; telling so many lies that it grows hard to support authorities, even when they tell the truth.
Now, third, for the problems that raises. I wrote a book, once, arguing against the thesis that owed killed Kennedy as part of a conspiracy. I satisfied myself, with long study, that the conspiracy was true. The Commission were wild and irresponsible. I also think it reasonable to deny there was a conspiracy—either of students or of Guardsmand at Kent State. Since I hold, with Chesterston and I am not surprised we are all a little mad, I am not surprised when some men go all-the-way mad.
Now, last, the sobering reflection. A balanced shrewd conservatism hopes that the generations will rebuke the
But what if the seat of authority itself becomes a fearful and self-serving institution? In consideration of the public good*? Is it conceivable that the putative voice of society at large could become an adversary to the freedom from the saner generality of men?
fads, and history correct the day. Such a view looks to mankind in the mass for correction of mankind in the unit. Further, in an ordered state of things, it hopes that government will be able to speak to and for through a self-balancing process of debate and responsible enunciations of policy.
Only barely conceivable, I would have said when John Kennedy died. A real danger, though, when the Fred Hampton and Kent State revelations came. An acute danger after My Lai, Calley, and the charges against Berrigan. But still there was room for some hope, even so much that he reached the point where authority must be considered less reliable than its most irresponsible critics.
But, with Attica, we have arrived there. The official version was wilder and less responsible, even, than Mark Lane's version of Kennedy's assassination. What patishes we must seem, to be lied to by blatantly.
Copyright, 1971, Universal Press Syndicate
Letters Policy
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must provide their name and position down; faculty and staff must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
Griff and the Unicorn
By Sokoloff
"Copyright 1971. David Sokoloff."
To the Editor:
Ebert
Readers Respond
Ebert; Billy . . .
I have just finished reading an article in Monday's Kanan, which was based on a talk I talked to Kanan Kaner reporter last Thursday.
I was very, very sorry to see that, for some reason, a good portion of the article was devoted to a discussion of my feelings about David Miller. I present student body president, David and I agree upon fewer things than we disagree. I don't have any reason to attack him personally, and I know the reporter who took the story would have been bitterness toward David Miller. It's clear to me that, probably because of my own shortcomings, the story came across in a way that was very unfair to David Miller and some other people. Although David Miller has used students' money to have "steak with the faculty" is simply an error or misjudgment on the part of the Kanans. Although I may disagree with David Miller about how the teachers he and I should know he doesn't misuse it for his own purposes.
I felt very badly that several things I mentioned in the interview—such as the Legal Self Defense Fund, recognition and funds for Gay Liberation, and Student Senate sponsored legislation. The notes coopters—were omitted from the article which was printed. I apologize for the fact that what was printed seemed so cold and hard and personally antagonistic toward David McCarthy. The words which appeared do not coincide with my feelings inside.
Regarding the statement that David Miller should resign so that Molly Laflin could move up, that thrinking represents only a small part of what David's position. I have never—including the time of the interview—believed that it would actually occur. Several of the other statements about poor behavior from other groups in Lawrence, sounded and appeared insincere even to me as I read them, though the thoughts and feelings behind them are real. What a person could say about paper seems far less important than what he or she does.
All that I can do since the article has been printed is to say that I am sorry that my thoughts
came across in a twisted and distorted way. A good part of the fault is mine, and I am sorry.
—Bill Ebert
Former Student
To the Editor:
Billy Jack
To the Editor:
Unfortunately,
Barbara
Bullay Billy Jack" review
reached me too late, and
the movie anyway.
As a native American, Billy Jack didn't do much for me either (A honey playing an Indian band) but did a lot of melodramatic sob scenes). However, the valid points the movie did try and make about my Indian people's problems were completely obliterated by the film's focus on bigoted neo-scarism contained in Miss Schmidt's review. Under the twin banners of "relevance," and "credibility," Miss Schmidt got in more manifest destiny than chops from a troop of cavalry.
Her short-sighted racist approach toward Billy Jack, however, only epitomizes the racialized culture of calculated racism, and the cultivated stereotypes concerning native Americans kept alive by the general Lawrence appeal by their lesser extent (hopefully) at K.U.
Who do you see walking to town down Massachusetts when you tour by us in your dad's cottage? I don't have that, not chicanos, but American Indians. Who do you hear of being barred from public auctions and restaurants all too frequently? I am half cent of the time, it is we Indians.
The spelling fact that native Americans rank lowest on virtually every scale of language, as less even lower than blacks) doesn't seem to bother you, yet you jump from black, to chicane, to poor white with amazing regularity, to the dictates of political fashion.
How can, therefore, a whole segment of collegiate immigrates to give so much lipstick to groups, yet turn their backs on a people (native Americans) to whom (by treaty alone) they own a far greater debt? The answer is simple and one we Indians have known for a long time: With all these rights we are all FAKE.-Gary C. White
sophomore
Haskell Indian Juco
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