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Friday, September 8, 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Bureaucratic Decisions
Now that Larry is gone, he
can play — least of all by
the Board of Regents.
There is talk among some University administrators that the next chancellor will be the choice of the Regents, and no one else.
It will be remembered that Chalmers was one of five candidates for the job recommended to the Regents by a student-faculty search committee. That committee had a great deal to do with the selection process. Still, the final decision was left to the Regents, as it should be. But he did not take a much stronger dictorial position than last time, hoping it might save them what embarrassment they feel they suffered at Chalmer's hands. Perhaps they feel their own hand-picked man
wouldn't cause them any sleepless nights—and wouldn't question their edicts.
This is all speculation, though, until Sept. 16 when the Regents meet to consider the situation. It may be unfair, then, to accuse the gentlemen of such a plan until it materializes.
Yet they are saying little to make one think otherwise. With the Regents—as with most bureaucrats—it is necessary to read between the official lines to get the full significance of what they might have to say on a subject. So far, little can be said except that they have made no effort to support or affirm a joint selection process.
—Thomas E. Slaughter
We can only wait for their decision.
Built-in Fire Hazards
The report by an insurance agent stating that a "severe threat to life safety existed" in Corbin Hall was particularly disturbing to me since I live there. Right now the question seems to be not whether that hall would be more dangerous than the other halls in the event of a fire, but rather, how much more dangerous it would be.
The difference of opinions between the people in the housing department and those of the State Fire Marshal Department and the insurance agency makes it almost impossible for anyone to figure out how dangerous the building actually is.
Most of the women who have lived in Corbin prefer it to the cement-and-brick cereal boxes sitting on Daisy Hill. The cliche generally employed when speaking of the building is that "the place has character." What gives Corbin character is the corridors that lead to unexpected places, oddly shaped or small private lounge areas and bedroom. Now it seems that the delightfully chaotic layout of the building could become a nightmarish maze during a fire.
What disturbs me about the report made by the insurance agent, J. Walter Coon, is that it was made just last year. South Corbin is almost fifty years old and North Corin is over twenty years old. I realize that there have been new developments in planning buildings to insure some safety during a fire but all those kind of developments did not happen in the last year. Either the fire inspectors of past years have been negligent or they just did not know the regulations.
I suppose that it is also possible
that the same inspectors have
given the university a new
siderations, which could be dangerous. If that is the case, then all we can say is that we appreciate their doing nothing for us. Despite what has happened in the past, it now would be impossible for the agency to continue building like Corbin to meet a large number of safety standards. The money for such a project does not exist.
There are some things the housing department could do to help alleviate the problems, such as making the exits more clearly marked and enclosing the staircases. More elaborate improvements could be made as the money becomes available. Right now, however, the hall will have to rely on its past good record. Women living in that hall will have to take the responsibility to be a little more careful with electrical heating units, cigarettes, candles and other things that could cause a fire. A false fire alarm is not funny in any hall, but in Corbin, a stunt like that would be worse.
I hope the housing department carefully studies the reports made and acts upon them to make that hall a safer place. However, no building can be made absolutely safe during a fire no matter what kind of fire prevention and detection equipment is installed. I doubt that there are any types of provisions for escape that would make a burning building easy to get out of from all places in the building.
The people in that hall are going to have to rely on one another to exercise a reasonable amount of care when dealing with any kind of heating elements or flames in the hall. The best way to prevent people from being hurt or killed from a fire is to not have one.
Mary Ward
James J. Kilpatrick
Evaluating Presidential Prospects
WASHINGTON—Vast quantities of hot air and hard work are being expended these days in analysis of George McGoventry's tax and welfare proposals. The labor is largely wasted.
His proposals in these areas have value for one reason only: They tell us something of McGoventry's cast of mind. His hostility toward inherited wealth, for example, offers an interesting insight into the candidate's social and economic attitudes generally. But it is a frivolous and ill-advised tax structure, adding ten billion here, subtracting eight billion there, and little is gained by dissecting his welfare plans. The nit-pick details are irrelevant.
Presidential candidates ought to be judged primarily in two broad areas: by their perseverance by the people; and by we ought to pay close attention to what they say in three specific fields: foreign affairs national defense, and the court. Most of the rest is fluff.
By "personality," I mean to ask of a candidate: What kind of man is he? How does he react to a crisis? How does he get along with his team in the face of danger or humor? When does he lose temper? Presidents are not plaster busts or disembodied figures. They are mortal men. If the Democratic nominee had a burglar, would the mudmuck Muskie or Tom Euglena, the voters would have been entirely justified in considering the
events of Chappaquiddick, the tears at Manchester, the history of nervous exhaustion—not as isolated misfortunes, but in the context of presidential tensions. If you can't stand the heat, said Manman, stay out of the kitchen. How much heat can they stand?
By "instincts," I mean primarily to suggest a candidate's political philosophy. The White House is not likely to be occupied any time soon by either a flaming radical or a muzzled reactionary. A more serious attitude somewhere in between. We are entitled to ask of a candidate: Are his instincts generally liberal? Or generally conservative? The terms cannot be precisely defined, but they are well understood all the same. These are the instincts—the cast of mind—that a President will invoke when he walks. One President names John Mitchell as attorney General. And another names Ramsey Clark.
Except for what it tells us of his instincts, McGovens's statement on welfare reform is something chiefly to be clipped and filed. It comes to legislation, a President's directive, or disposes. As a Senator from South Dakota, the gentleman has some direct say-so on capital gains. He can vote yea or nay. Presidents have great power, but the lack of a different sort of power—one such as power lies in the conduct of
foreign affairs. McGovern on Israel thus merits attention. McGovern's recent public letter on Greece was directly relevant to the special bid. When a candidate speaks these questions, we must listen.
By the same token, because a President serves as commander-in-chief, McGovern's statements on national defense are of high importance. He would have it if he had ordered order troops home from Europe, to put ships in mothballs, to fix manpower levels in the armed
services. A President's war powers are not unlimited, but no one seems to know what the president we should pay close attention.
Finally, it seems to me, my voters should keep in mind a President's appointive powers—notably his power to nominate members of the U.S. Supreme Court. In his speech at Miami, Nixon made no speech to intentions clear: He promised, and opportunity, to name additional justices in the "strict constructionist" pattern. McGovern
has been equally definite, though,
in a different way: He has
that he will the first
nomination to the Court will go to
a woman.
The campaign has two months yet to go. By November, the voters should have formed a fair impression of personalities and they will have heard plea from people sitting aside the things that don't count, we ought to look hard at those that do.
(C) 1972 The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Jack Anderson
Opium Build-up Threatens U.S.
WASHINGTON — President Nixon's herculean effort to stop drug smugglage, at last, has slowed the flow of heroin from Turkey and Southeast Asia. But a U.S.-led crackdown on Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan
Even our mideastern ally, Iran, has started to grow its own opium under government control, but the government may not be able to stop illegal shipments from being diverted to America.
This is the warning of the Central Intelligence Agency, which has also reported omnivously.
"Rumors persist that some members of the royal family and parliament are narcotics users. Swiss authorities recently charged an Iranian Prince, who accompanied the Shah to Switzerland, with having transferred pure oilium to Geneva."
Secret documents from the CIA and other intelligence agencies describe dangerous opium buildsups in South Asia. This could be a shad in the arm for the Mafia, whose supplies in Turkey and the Thailand-Laos-Vietnam area is slowly beginning to dry up.
The new smuggling menace was raised by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence in memos dated June 26 and June 9.
Tribal producers in Afghanistan and Pakistan unoubtedly would be willing to sell to Western traffickers . . . The potential for substantial diversion of opium westward exist
"Whether or not substantia-
quantities of South Asian opium
are diverted to the U.S. and
Western Europe will depend, in
the final analysis, on the Western
traffickers," reports the CIA.
"Laxities in South Asia would offer a distinct advantage to small truckers if they should decide to import South Asian opium market."
Onium Gum
In Afghanistan, production is up. Starving peasants, "lacking adequate food supplies because of recent droughts, have resorted to chewing opium gum to ease hunner paurs."
In Pakistan, too, production "may have risen sharply since 1969," the CIA. In both countries, "penalties for narcotics violations are minimal."
The intelligence documents also suggest that the Mafia would have no trouble corrupting officials in both countries.
In Afghanistan, the documents report, "official corruption including high-level protection of narcotics dealers is . . . a problem" and "smuggling is a way of life."
In Pakistan, "official corruption is reported to be a serious problem" among the Land Customs, Sea Customs, provincial police and paramilitary forces.
Worse, "the existing hashish network in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be used to send substantial quantities of opium from Afghanistan to other documents. Afghans already have "professional" and sophisticated" means of getting hashish by air to Beirut, Beirut and by sea to Karachi. Some has reached the United States.
Second, Mr. Ward seems to imply "cartier blanche" that all graduate instructors are basically bad teachers, and it may not be a bad thing totally. On the contrary, I would suggest that graduate students are among the best instructors. Many are just preparing for their exams and are closer to the trends in their field than perhaps in one's own field. A graduate instructor is still a student, and thus is closer to
struction without need for formal training in the "art of inspiration." This problem, however, is not limited to the student instructor alone, but is inherent in the whole system.
as opening the door to greater departmental responsibilities. On the university level, we might ask why graduate instructors are without representation in such departments as the Faculty Council. The University as a whole can continue the trend started this semester by providing "teaching seminars" and offering other opportunities for training in the field of faculty administrators and professors alike could benefit from such opportunities.
As for India, the documents say it now produces about three-quarters of the world's legal opium for medicinal purposes. The widely held view that India is effectively controlling its opium production is a "myth," the documents allege.
First, I am not aware that professors or instructors at K.U. have ever been required to "show up" for classes before heir before hiring. This of course is a major fallacy of the system, which gives a man a degree and then tells him to go out and work. It is not necessary to degree is somehow a key to in-
To the Editor:
student interests and relates to student problems. Older professors have many problems finding common grounds with their younger charges, both ideologically and culturally, and graduate instructor-student relationship is one nearly of peers.
Iran still doesn't produce enough legal opium for the country's registered addicts, who receive the drug under a national program. But the opium harvest is increasing.
Third, Mr. Ward's suggestions for improving graduate student instructions are insulting. His idea is to go behind the teacher's superiors. He wants them to superiors. What are we that Mr. Ward thinks we are to be ratted on like "truant children"? There is no dignity to one's position as a student and any student who has problems with my own teaching or methods
will find an open mind on my part
and a willingness to change or to
adapt to meet the students'
needs. Graduate instructors after
all are human, and I think fully
to criticism. If a graduate
instructor is not willing to help in
the classroom, he should go
to his superior, but first, at least
give us credit for human
instincts.
Gene Dorris
Stillwater, Okla.
Graduate Student
Eastern Civilian Instructor
Admittedly their are a number of teaching problems within this university, but to place guilt for the failure of the shoulders of the graduate teaching instructor as Robert Ward does in his editorial *Designing Grad Students'* deposition at least a cursory retort.
I am not suggesting that graduate instruction could not be improved. There are a number of factors that must be considered faculty can begin to treat the graduate instructor as a teacher with teaching responsibilities, and you can begin by providing graded courses in office space and supplies well
Readers Respond
In Defense of Graduate Instructors
Meanwhile, allege the documents, "the estimated 100-300 tons currently being smuggled into Iran, that could become available, exceeds the total opium equivalent needed to supply the United States Market."
Ohio, is finally yielding to Senate pressure and holding hearings on a bill to give State Department independent grievance board.
Diplomatic Grievances Diplomats at the State Department have been compelled to end diplomatic treatment from their bosses. This week, the squabble among the striped pants set will boil over into a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee.
A present foreign service officer, John Harter, who fought on an appeal against shabby department, has told his story in a letter to Hays. Even State's grievance board upheld Harter, urging that he be promoted, and reimbursed for his lawsuits' fee.
Thomas was involuntarily retired with 21 years of service, couldn't find another job and finally took his own life. In her letter to Hays, Mrs. Thomas calls the foreign service "a highly politicized system with self-serving cliques."
Hays has also received a poignant letter from Cynthia Thomas, a foreign service officer who got her job at State after her foreign service husband, Charles, killed himself.
Two present and one former foreign service officers are breaking the gentleman's code of silence and slashing their wowers. One whine is John Hemenway, who claims he was fired because he argued with his bosses over U.S. policies in Berlin.
While the Hays hearings have made the State Department believe that these stories may surface, some of their fears are unwarranted. Hays has confided that he does not commit to a committee until the next session.
The State Department, however, has largely ignored the recommendations which are now on his promotion, but that's not his promotion, but that's all.
This means that the Senate would have to go through the entire process of passing their version of the measure again. The board decision is set up outside the department's own jurisdiction.
In his letter to Hays, Harter said that, at State, "to survive and prosper is to be cautious.
Chairman Wayne Hays, D-
bland and obsequious."
Copyright, 1972,
by United Feature Syndicate. Inc
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