Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, March 4, 1982
Recall drive succeeds?
On Monday, a group of Lawrence citizens met in the Knights of Columbus Council 1372 building. The group included many upstanding citizens—former mayors and former city commissioners. There were speakers and applaure, and above the head table was a big, bright sign that shouted "4,268 Recall Signatures. Congratulations!!"
What was the gathering? A PTA meeting? A planning session for a bake sale?
Nope. It was a meeting of the Lawrence Committee, a group that organized a petition drive to recall City Commissioner Tom Gleason.
Many citizens on the committee are plenty mad at Gleason. And it all began in early February, when Gleason sent a letter to City Manager Buford Watson asking that Watson resign, or face the possibility of being fired. Gleason later decided not to move for Watson's termination, but the citizens were still angry.
"Gleason abused his powers," one man said at Monday's meeting. After this, "How can we trust Gleason to behave?" a young woman asked.
In some ways, the citizens are right. Gleason probably did overstep his authority by suggesting that Watson resign. And Gleason was foolish to reveal his intentions to a reporter with a gift for gab.
But in most ways, the citizens are wrong.
Especially when they charge that the evil Tom Gleason brought politics into the previously pristine Lawrence city government. Balderdash.
And the committee's suggestion to recall Gleason because he wrote one ill-advised letter is extreme—a little like using an anti-ballistic missile to kill a mosquito.
At this point, a lot of "ifs" come in.
If the county clerk declares more than the required 3,760 signatures valid, the city will schedule a recall election.
And if a simple majority of voters want to recall Gleason, the four remaining city commissioners will choose a replacement for him.
But if the commissioners reach a deadlock, City Attorney Milton Allen will choose Gleason's successor.
In other words, it is possible that Gleason's position will be filled by a non-elected commissioner who was chosen by a non-elected official.
At first glance, the Lawrence Committee's actions seem harmless. Petition drives are exciting, and everyone is entitled to be righteously indignant now and again.
When the citizens met in the K of C Hall, under their big, bright sign, it probably was easy for them to forget that they were not planning a bake sale, but a shake-up in city government and the end of a man's term in office.
4. 268 signatures. Congratulations.
Older academics down-play rewards of university life
Bv New York Times Special Feature
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — "Everybody knows" that a Ph.D. is a poor financial investment for a college graduate. The cost-benefit calculation in dollars is simple, and if the doctorate is an uneconomic pursuit, it stands to reason that graduate programs should not be supported by alumni grants or subsidized by government grants.
Such simple logic does have the virtue of allowing us to assume the future of the graduate education in this course.
One must begin by stating a few general propositions.
How can one determine the value of getting a Ph.D. in the 1980s? *looking at the problem from the point of view of the student, would I advise one of my children to get a Ph.D.* ? From the point of view of the university, I must ask: Should we tilt toward more advanced points of view or support a pre-point of society, a question arises: Should graduate education be supported and subsidized?
Discounted, risk-adjusted dollars earned over a lifetime cannot be the principal measure of benefit for the individual, the institution or society.
We know very well that there are many incentives besides money. I would rather do what I do than be a professional athlete, or corporate executive whose earnings are enormous. So economists would take a share of my investment in education and career and call it a "consumption expenditure." I do not find this a very enlightening taxonomy.
Furthermore, it is a mistake to think of graduate education in general. The present demand for Ph.D.s varies considerably by field. The key issue is whether there is a market outside of the academy. The demand for Ph.D.s, and the importance of the sciences and some of the social sciences.
One must also take into account the fact that there in always a shortage of first-class minds. Most principal institutions today have vacancies in nearly all fields. These universities cannot find people who meet their own high academic standards to fill vacant posts.
Let's turn now to an institutional perspective on the value of graduate education.
The costs are indeed enormous. At Harvard, our "free" dollar subvention to graduate education has risen by 250 percent in the last decade, largely to make up for a decline in government support. Facilities for graduate students are expensive—especially when exclusively in the sciences. And advanced students consume a great deal of faculty time.
Nevertheless, the benefits seem to far exceed any dollar measure of cost. Our best graduate students constitute a group of dedicated young scholars and lively teachers. They play a central role in the intellectual life of the university by attracting distinguished scholars. It is as simple as that. For a place like Harvard, there is no choice.
What about the student?
All of this is true, it may be it worth recalling that many of us who are now over 50 years of age started academic careers in similarly dark circumstances. We had a scholarly fire in our bellies and we knew that academic life was special in offering a great deal of freedom and the opportunity for continual investment in one's self.
We can be clearer about the costs than the benefits. The direct costs are perhaps $5,000 to $10,000 a year for from four to seven years. In addition, we must include the earnings foregone while the individual is in school. And in some fields, we must add the risks of unemployment.
Universities must continue to attract our share of the finest minds. It is obviously valuable to society when excellent students flock to our law, medical, business and other professional schools. But unless a significant number continue to choose careers in arts and sciences, the quality of our civilization will suffer. For better or worse, American universities are the principal source of ideas for society, and when they are not deteriorate in quality, decline is inevitable.
And what about the national interest in education?
We, the older generation of academics have been bad-mouthing academic careers in recent years, and for that we may pay a high price. We should be honest about the difficulties and risks. But it is self and socially destructive not to be equally vocal about the benefits.
(Henry Rosovsky is dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.)
Vietnam's image taints news reports
"What is history but a fable agreed upon?"
-Napoleon Bonaparte
Every day this spring you can see "N Vietnam Syndrome" news reports, a shield of minimal facts over a file-film view of some Huey helicopters, floating above rice paddies, and M-16-toting troops on hot landing zones in Vietnam.
But the announcer is talking about El Salvador.
There was a picture in Newsweek last week of a "guerilla" in a red and white striped sports shirt and designer style jeans. The article said the enquiries were logging shoes.
This one was standing behind a heavy caliber machine gun, grimming.
In the background, other guerillas were in dark and olive drab clothing, they looked tanned and sweaty. They were wearing boots, and they weren't grimming.
The articles's lead paragraph said President Reagan parried El Salvador questions from the press with a "literary revisionist history of the Vietnam war." Newsweek's own poll found that the 74 percent of Americans familiar with the Reagan policy thought U.S. involvement could turn El Salvador into the "Vietnam of the '80s."
If you are confused, don't worry, it seems everyone has El Salvador confused with Viet-
The catchword of quagmire, Vietnam, is being used everywhere in association with El
In a recent Associated Press story, Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., made an extreme comparison after he was told by Thomas O. Enders and Elliot Abrams, assistant secretaries of state for inter-American affairs and human rights, respectively, that political murders had decreased from 9,000 in 1980 to 6,000 in 1981.
One of our advisers was filmed carrying an M-16—and a briefcase, by the way—the reaction to the symbolism of that weapon in an American adviser's hand, in a tropical environment, brought yet another onslaught of back-footage and "quagmire" comparisons.
In an AP story last weekend Sen. John Glenn, R-Rohio, remarking on the suggestion of American military intervention in El Salvador, said "I don't want to see the rewulsion of the
Sen. Pell said, "the whole gory business reminds me of the Vietnam war. In Vietnam we wanted a higher body count. Here, we want a lower body count."
American people when the first bodies come back in body bags."
Body bags !?  body bags! ,geez, John, who said anything about eggy bags? Starting your
little eggy!
This Santanyaneasque attitude—those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it—colored coverage of the Veitmann War. No more apt example exists than the effect of the "Dienbienphu Syndrome" during the siege of Khe Sanh in the spring of 1968.
Exploitive Khe Sanh press reports—primarily AP- fed a craving in the American public when a historical comparison of the attacks on the US military and of Dienbienhao was made. The Vietnamese
W.J. ANDREWS
The Dienbienphu comparisons were marked by overgeneralizations of military purpose and troop placement, but they represented, finally, a simpler, more public could understand; us against Them.
overran the outpost in 1954, catalyzing an in- France that ended in its disemployment.
The comparisons provided reality to the abstract war.
So the press corps in Vietnam, often against their own wishes, infused as much drama into the essentially static story as they could,maintained it and thereby the state-side editors-wanted it.
The "Dienbienphi Syndrome" ran so deep that President Johnson had a model of the base built at the White House and made the Joint Chiefs of Staff a sign wav that Kwe Sanh would be held at all costs. In the ensuing paranola, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to the San Valley near Kwe Sanh, to fend off the anticipated siege.
This left the coastal cities weaker than necessary when the Tet offensive began in January 1988. The lst Calvary had to be hurried away, and help the Marines re-take the battled city.
But the attack on Khe Sanh never came. Some believe the whole syndrome was meningitis.
The "Vietnam Syndrome" coverage of El
Salvador parallels the "Dienbienphu Syndrome" of Khe Sanh. The "Vietnam Syndrome" hysteria wreaks havoc with efforts to get at a real situation.
Robert Elegant, a former Vietnam correspondent, reported that foreign journalists visiting Chalatenango, a village in El Salvador, were "greeted" by bursts of machine-gun fire from guerillas in nearby hills.
The journalists supposed, Elegant said, that the rounds were fired to let them know that the guerrillas were still in business, since there had been no fighting there in several weeks.
Story-savvy guerrillas?
Elegant also relates a tale that guerrillas were roused into returning fire from their hideouts in San Salvador when demonstration leaders from the foreign journalists were thought to be an attack
Another report said that one small truck of troops in transit from one minor garrison to another, was "covered" by no less than six minibus fulls of foreign crews.
Is this news? By foreign press service
orders, the press department has
charges, probably not. By whose standards then?
The networks standards. It goes like this:
“... if we have someone there we can say and run some nice, exciting Vietnam stockfootage. We’ll get a nice share, no problem.”
Already this type of coverage is damaging. The internal political dissension over the El Salvador controversy is approaching a challenge to the administration is noticeably skimish on policy.
If the intensity of 'Vietnam Syndrome' continue, an aberrant policy might necessitate
And this is one time when the administration would be served best by nonapnoception and
improve his communication.
For El Salvador is not on the other side of the fence, those other perversions of collective security are at play.
El Salvador is in our own backyard. It is predominant in our sphere of influence.
El Salvador is not Vietnam's twin by any standard other than external appearance—as Khe Saah's surrounding environment and general situation so vividly resembled Dienbophu.
So let's not continue this comparison of Vietnam to El Salvador just for the sake of a bake off. No, we can't do that.
Lets restrict coverage to the real story.
*If necessary coverage to the rear is necessary.*
*I will want to see war reruns we'll watch M.A.S.H.*
The University Daily
KANSAN
(USP5 60-640) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Thursday during June and July except Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Second-class package paid at Lawrence, Kansas and four-day package paid at Eavail in Iowa. The student subscriptions are by a semester, passed through the student activity fee year outside the county. Student subscriptions change of address to the University Daily Kansas, Flint Hall. The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 69088
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Letters to the Editor
Perhaps most important is Shaffer's short treatment of the differences between a plan of lower taxes as opposed to increased taxes. With increased taxes and expenditures, the effects of lowered unemployment are obviously aching much more rapidly, but the danger is that higher taxes will be only temporary and illusory when it is achieved by government spending programs.
To the Editor:
I am truly surprised that Harry Shaffer, in his letter to the editor of Feb. 18, decided to take such a partition stand on an issue that deserves much more objectivity than he accorded it. Shaffer brings up the points that all Democrat politicians have been bringing up over the past 50 years: namely that we must spend our way to address the point that our curated economy added dollars to an already over-inflated economy do nothing more than waste the taxpayers' dollars.
Reagan programs would reward risk-takers
With President Reagan's program, the objective is to decrease taxes so that increased capital will become available through increased savings. This capital not only takes up tax revenue but also creates an amount of time to plan for programs that will take advantage of this newly available capital.
One billion dollars in jobs programs make it appear that America is being put back to work, but when that billion dollars runs out, so do the jobs. But when the billion dollars are returned through the taxpayers into the economy via newly created capital, not only are new jobs created, but they are created for more than a few weeks.
Prosperity cannot be created through the largesse of the federal government. Prosperity comes from the hearts and minds of the working men and women in this country and from those individuals who are willing to risk venture capital on productive possibilities.
Douglas Martin,
Clay Center law student
Unless private risks are rewarded in our economy now and in the future, Americans no longer will be able to benefit the waft that have been caused by the economic condition than any other nation on earth.
Kansan stifles comment
One must certainly wonder as to the professionalism and integrity of your teacher. If he or she brought a letter
To the Editor:
to the editor rebutting Dan Torcha's column on Morton Grove's anti-gun ordinance to the Kansan editorial office and gave it to a member of the staff.
I became curious about the letter's fate on Feb. 9 when it had not yet been printed. I was told that it had apparently been lost, as no one knew what happened to it. I left another copy with the staff at that time.
When it had still not been printed by Feb. 16, I again went to the Kanasan office and was told it had been printed. A full three weeks after I originally delivered it to the Kanasan, it still had not been printed.
In the past, I have experienced resistance by the Kansas staff to printing prognum letters, but this is carrying such resistance to a ridiculous extreme.
How can the Kansan staff be so hypocritical as to clammer for freedom of the press beyond that guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, yet deny to those of us who would defend the Second Amendment to the same Constitution the only practical forum for reaching the student body—a forum which we must help support through our tuition?
John Barrett.
John Barrett, Clearwater, Kan., law student