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Friday, September 30, 1977
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unused editorials represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial staff. Signed column represent only the views of the writers.
Clean industry needed
Last week's announcement of a 820,000 advertising attempt to attract industry to Kansas shows thinking that merits praise, especially considering some unpleasant truths about trends in Kansas' economy.
trans adoption. The advertising campaign, in the form of a 20-page section in the Oct. 31 issue of Business Week magazine, was announced by Gov. Robert Bennett at a meeting with San Francisco business leaders. Bennett said the campaign,Financed solely by private contributions,founded the "most ambitious enterprise to promote Kansas" and are willing to lay their dollars on the line to promote the state."
At first glance, the plan might seem a threat to one of Kansas' virtues: its relative lack of industry, crowds and related problems. But those lulled by Kansas' current economic health — especially those who live in northeast Kansas, which will continue to benefit from its proximity to Kansas City — fail to realize the problems central and western Kansas will face someday without nonpolluting industry.
THE ECONOMIES of those areas of the state traditionally have relied upon agriculture and fossil fuels.
But current statistics indicate that many farmers are deeply in debt and unable to sell their massive grain reserves at a profit. And when, if ever, the farm economy improves, studies suggest they will someday need more than $20 million in precious irrigation water, perhaps within the next generation.
The fossil fuels industry is enjoying a second wind now because of more
sophisticated secondary recovery techniques and higher oil prices. But when the remnants of gas and oil are depleted, the wells will be considered dry again.
So what must then pick up the slack, and what has already strengthened the economy of some central and western Kansas communities, is light industry.
munitets, is, TS A PRIMARY concern is that an influx of industry will foul the area's environment. Business' most public governments, with considerable public support, have been selective in their choice of which industries to attract. Also, the public support for clean industry indicates that local governments will continue to be choosy.
A potentially more difficult problem is assuring that Kansas communities, if they attract industry as a result of the ad campaign, grow gracefully. The communities that have so far been successful in luring industry have done it, to a large extent, with tax breaks and revenue bonds.
The problem here has been that cities, after giving the tax breaks, have not always been able to afford the increased city services for the new industry and added population. Surely the Kansas Department of Economic Development and other government agencies should aid local governments in realistically assessing the impact of new industries on their communities.
No one who enjoys Kansas wants to lose the clean, wide-open living that remains across much of the state. But relatively undeveloped areas of the state have a right to accept, even actively seek, wisely-planned industrial development.
Two-sided deficit policy keeps public in suspense
If there is one thing refreshing about the Carter administration, it's that they never make it. The Carter entitlement, from the President down to Amy, have given us plenty to smile about, even if we're not quite sure what we're doing in behind their shenanigans.
Sometimes they are all so busy being amusing that they forget the content of what they are saving.
A case in point is Jody Powell, Carter's press secretary, who is in a position that has traditionally spawned a slew of hatchet men bent on making their boss look good and his opponents look as bad as possible.
Until a few weeks ago, Jody seemed to be not of that mold. But during the Senate inquiry into Bert Lance's finances, he was accused of manner suddenly turned vindictive as he blurted out a series of unsubstantiated charges against Senator Charles Percy, a former congressman and insulters. Later, Powell apologized, pleasing temporary indiscretion and promised he would never do it again. As it turned out, Mr. Powell did because the charges against Percy proved false.
POWELL'S temporary desertion from Carter's game plan of keeping an open, honest face is the right choice. The same can not be said.
Dave Johnson
Editorial Writer
however, for Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumthal.
In remarks made Tuesday at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Blumenthal told the world to lay the groundwork for condensation of the world's economy. There is "no cause for undue gloom" about the world economy, he said, no doubt putting at ease every American who is worthless and no record predicted trade deficit and balance of trade deficit.
At the same conference,
Blumenthal estimated the 1977
trade deficit would be from $25
billion to $30 billion and the
balance of payments deficit
would be from $10 billion to $20
billion. Both would be the
highest ever for the United
States.
Blumenthal said the deficit was "large and worsome," but he also doubted the deficit would reduce the value of the dollar in the world money market.
"IT IS well understood around the world that the United States economy is strong and growing . . . the strength of the dollar will be maintained," he said.
No doubt Blumenthal has a vested interest in talking up the U.S. economy, even if he stretches the truth a little. But to discount the importance of a record deflation payment is a direct contraction of the goals expressed by Carter.
During his presidential campaign, Carter expressed his intentions to extinguish America's balance of trade deficit, a goal, he reasoned, that could be accomplished by 1980. Either Blumenthal is competent enough to govern the Carter administration has concluded that they can not erase the deficits by 1980.
Blumenthal's statements leave unanswered the question of whether a large balance of taxes would increase the economy. But regardless of whether it is fiscally sound or not, Blumenthal and Carter should sit down and decide what Blumenthal's policy is going to be.
To have Carter saying at home that reducing the deficit is one of his administration's long-term priorities is a real test of the world that the deficit will not devalue the American dollar is not only discouraging but also confusing. Carter should decide in the office in many administrations and administration and use that it is carried out.
Kid porn beneath free speech
A bill currently before Congress seeks to curb the exploitation of children by the pornography industry. The House has passed a Representatives measure on Monday and sent it to the Senate.
the nanbul of representatives who voted against the bill did so because they feared the bill raised questions about the First Amendment guarantees of the speech. They persecuted speakers of the bill's constitutionality might enable lawyers to find loopholes that would allow violators to go free.
Free speech is too noble an ideal to shelter pornography merchants who deal in the lowest form of child abuse imaginable (especially to gratify the perverted sexual fantasies of adults with money to spend. A publisher or film maker who violates the rights of children, physically and emotionally, surely cannot do so on the name of pornography. Speech it does for the money.
"KIDDIE PORN" has become big business in the United States and millions of dollars and billions of dollars finance books, films and photographs of children in actual or simulated sexual activities with adults, including women when the makers and sellers of
this trish are arrested, they come to court crying that their First Amendment rights have been violated.
Editorial Writer
Lynn Kirkman
Permitting such people to invoke the First Amendment will ultimately cheapen free speech for all of us. Freedom of speech, perseverance and sacrifice of our heritage since our beginning as a nation. We have defended our right to speak our minds, and we are indebted to others who defend us, even when their ideas were opposed to our own
Allowing the public to confront politically unpopular ideas has been considered one of our unalienable rights. American Nazi parties and various obscurity cases have tested the First Amendment and won the right to meet, publish and discuss philosophies that were thought to be mainstream of political thought.
FOR EXAMPLE, support could probably be found for the author who faced prosecution for writing about the abuse of boys of incest or child molesting. Such practices may be abbreviated to us, but we
would defend the author's right to publish such a work. His work of fiction involves his exploration of the physical shapes of children.
But the author who chooses to illustrate his book with color glossy photographs of boys and girls engaging in art, he calls it to call upon the protection of the First Amendment and enlist our
support in his cause. The time has come for Congress to draft legislation that defends the unalienable rights of children to grow up free from the horrors inflicted upon them by pornographers in quest of the almighty buck.
We must acknowledge that free speech does, indeed, have its limits. Free speech does not, indeed it cannot, be extended to
cover gross crimes against a part of our population that has no voice with which to defend itself from the degradation of pornography. If free speech must be protected in children, we must question whether it is truly a worthy goal.
In the name of human decency, we must draw the line now.
Prolonging death cruel practice
By EDWARD A. RAYMOND
N. Y. Times Features
I remember when my grandmother died many years ago. she was very old — in her mid-70s. But she had been falling, and she had no blood bleeds. It wasn't long before she was gone.
And so it was with my other grandparents. They lived their span, got sick and died within a fairly short time, most of them
The doctor who advocates that no effort be spared in attempting to extend all human life is acting in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath. It is an appealing philosophy that exalts the selfless nature of man.
In those days, it was the wisdom of the families to care for their own as best they could and then let them go peaceably. Life-support systems were then not well-developed. Emergency room doctors were not so avid.[17]
Now as many as a dozen people - doctors and other hospital personnel - may be involved in a hectic effort to resuscitate an aged and failing heart or one that is already gone. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes it is bad.
Sometimes I feel as if I am walking through the halls of the living dead. These ancient hulks cannot walk, talk or communicate in any fashion. Is it admirable to sustain these people?
IT IS ALSO comforting to know that one will not be abandoned in extremity.
I feel, however, that this ideal is being carried to an extreme that is proving a heavy detriment to our society.
This issue has been brought up in the courts recently at great length without any clear decisions being made. The courts, as it is a matter to be decided solely by family and doctors.
In the course of my practice, I
frequently make follow-up visits to my patients in nursing homes. Sometimes I feel as if I am walking through the halls of the living dead. These ancient hulks silt or lie impassively.
HE'S ALL YOURS, FRED.
They cannot feed themselves, and when they cannot swallow, a tube is passed into their mouth to sign of interest or recognition.
interest in recognition
I ask, is it admirable to sustain these people?
Let me cite two instances in which I was recently involved. Friends of mine, a young couple with several children, told me of one of their parents who was in a nursing home.
SHE WAS blind, the higher functions of her brain were
gone, and all her joints were immobile. She had been fed by a stomach tube for a year.
The financial burden to the young couple was impoverishing them. The doctor in charge, because of personal convictions, refused the family's request to remove the tube. We then brought our patient into the room where I removed the tube. In two weeks she quietly slipped away. The family was immensely grateful.
Another instance involved a 92-year-old deaf woman with an unmanageable colostomy and constant diarrhea. She had many body ulcers and appeared most of the time. She developed a severe urinary-tract infection and pneumonia. After talking to the patient's family, I decided on no treatment.
THE DOCTOR—owner of the nursing home (who disguised his financial interest with a cloak of false compassion) was most indignant. He demanded we give her large doses of
antibiotics, maintaining we could save her.
Yes, we could have brought her back — to not much more than a living hell and only for a few months.
There are many thousands and there will be hundreds of thousands of such people who have lived beyond their time. This situation is causing imbalance and economic dislocation.
No rules or laws can be made to govern the management of the old and infirm. It must be understood the concern of the people concerned.
The question simply is this: Would one like to be sustained by tubes, bottles and drugs? Uncaring and gradually becoming a cruel caricature of his former self?
Edward A. Raymond has practiced surgery for 23 years in York and formerly was on the New York Medical College.
To the editor:
Christian newspaper 'little sham sheet'
We often don't realize how fortunate we are to have the Kansan. It is often very frightening to read a newspaper stitched collegiate journalism even in its sincerest form.
A case in point is that silly little newspaper called "today's student," which emerged on campus Monday. Advertised as having the "largest circulation of any national student paper," Mr. Carter is credited with religion as the basis for cynicism directed at Jimmy Carter, prime-time TV, astronomers, Karl Marx,
KANSAN
Letters
atheists and the University of Kansas. Is nothing sacred any more?
This stilted little sham sheet, obviously the product of religious elitists, concludes a series of data on current campus sex attitudes by claiming that "... some of the media, with its playboy philosophy, its tenacity to make it buck, is not taking account the basic facts of life. . . ." Such sensationalism drowses its own idea in its hypocrisy.
The really repignant item in this mutant messenger, however, is one contributor's slam dunk of KU's fraternity system. This guy relates a woeful tale to the fact that "stomached ... for us as individuals, reflected in almost every eye."
He claims that it was then he that "he saw what these guys said to him that they selfish and self-centered as I was." His happy ending came
Letters Policy
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typed and include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the writer's class and name town or staff position. Letters should not exceed 500 words in length. The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
with finding ``true brotherhood`` with 10 devout Christians who shared an interest. Great. We're happy for him.
nut his disgust with the fraternity system disguises us. We know that we have "true brotherhood" at our house and in church. We remember the day of our initiation last February, not as a "riotously good time that tradition said we were supposed to be baptized into the brothers of different religious persuasions (including one Jewish brother) securing our housemother to her church. If the writer, Nereon Correns, the fraternity whose fault is that?
We subscribe to the ethic of religious homogeneity and choose not to advertise our faith. I guess the alternative for fanatics is publication of asinine sermons on good paper.
Paul Dry Kansas City, Kan., sophomore (and two others)
Missing major mystifies grad
To the editor:
Unfortunately, the diploma states only that I received a bachelor of arts degree. At no place does the diploma address the degree I earned me, so I wrote a polite letter to Chancellor Archie Dykes to see
I graduated last May with, among other things, a bachelor of arts degree in math. I was naturally pleased with that official piece of paper stating that I had indeed received a college degree and was finished with my undergraduate studies.
if he could arrange to send me a diploma that stated my major.
The response, from the office of admissions and records, said, "On Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of General Studies diplomas we do not list the majors, only Bachelor of Science diplomas show majors."
I interpret their response as a polite refusal to change their policy. Having paid attention for four years, one would think the University would have the courtesy to print my major along with my family name statement, do the B.S. diploma include the major?
I write this letter, therefore,
in the hope that you will print it to inform students of the current diploma policy. Perhaps the Student Senate can do something; perhaps the senate will announce records will spontaneously change their policy if enough negative opinions are expressed. As it stands, though, I can't see any reason to declare a major if you are studying for a degree. Arts B.A. or B.G.S. degree.
I hope that when I graduate from medical school, the diploma mentions that I received a M.D. degree.
Bob Ardis
Bob Ardis Lawrence medical student
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Editor Jerry Selb
Published at the University of Kansas daily August 14, 2017
Students attend August and July except Saturday. Sunday and holiday are on Friday and Saturday.
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