Jonestown tragedy explored
BvLORILINENBERGER
Staff Reporter
The horrors of the recent Guyana massacre are familiar; widespread television and newspaper coverage of that November nightmare did much to acquaint the world with the People's Temple and its leader, Jim Jones.
Two months after Jonesstown, the outrage generated by the ritalin-like mass suicide and murder of 900 men, women and children in California.
But the realities of the Jonestown tragedy were recalled last night during a KU symposium that explored and discussed the incident and its implications for society and religion.
Tim Miller, assistant professor of religious studies and organizer of the symposium, said he hoped a better understanding of the People's Temple, of Jim Jones and of Jonestown would be gained through the symposium.
CHARLES NEUERING, professor of psychology, offered two possible explanations as to how a mass suicide event might have happened.
"In literature, I can find only one explanation why something like this might occur," he said. "This expounding of what happens to a person is said says that there is an in-borne death wish in all of us. In most cases, however, it is covered by our own particular need."
The second explanation given by Neuringer outlined the work of social psychiatrists involved in studying mass stress.
When people get together in large groups they tend to beseech their individuality, he said, "and a group begins to think."
"THE PEOPLE in the group are very susceptible to
influence, and especially if the influence comes from a very christianistic leader, such as Jim Jones."
Peter Hartcollis, director of the Menninger Hospital in Topeka, said he thought a lack of support on the part of church members and a fear of their own aggressive actions concerned them in the direction of a forceful leader such as Jones.
"First of all, very much dependence on other people leads ultimately to an ego destruction," he said. "The people in Guyana feared independence and their own aggressive tendencies, the demands of obedience by their charismatic leader."
A historical parallel between the Guyana carnage and the suicide of a tribe of Jews at Masuda during the Roman takeover of Israel was drawn by Bn Dresbler, assistant professor of religious studies.
"WHAT HAPPENED at Masada was that certain military leaders found themselves surrounded by Romans with no way out," he said. "They could no longer face the situation, explanation of who they were crumpled before their eyes."
Paul Berry, an administrator of the Disciples of Christ church, which ordained Jones a minister in 1964, attempted to explain why Jones was accepted into the church and why his Peleon's Temple in San Francisco was not.
"Jones came into the Disciples of Christ at a time when no church in America was doing anything, at a snap, about racial and poverty problems," he said. "He truly held a conviction that something should be done, as we did."
"CHURCHES CAN join the Disciples of Christ if they are organized, have a good track record, and hold Sunday services similar to most churches found all over the United States. This was just not the case with the People's Temple."
Jan Larson, assistant professor of social welfare, knew 10 persons involved in the Goya massacre, six of whom lived in Jonestown. She related her personal experiences with the experiences of a close friend, whom she would not identify.
It is not listed in our directory of the Disciples of Christ churches."
"My friend defected from the church in 1978," she said. "After she did, its members began to spread all kinds of bad things about her, namely that she had molested children and had tried to murder a friend of hers."
Larson said the People's Temple had tried to recruit her when she was living in California, but had left her alone
"I DID become close friends with Liz, Jones's mistress,
after we received permission from him to have a
relationship."
"Jones had sexual relationships with all the angels, who made up the hierarchy of the church," she added. "There was always a lot of spying going on. People had to confess them and had to tell about the sniper or slipper of other members."
Larson advocated the creation of a legislative authority to define the differences between a cult and a religion, so that religious leaders could have greater control.
This proposal brought reverent rebukes from members of the audience, although some people nodded their heads in agreement With Larson, who said she thought a tragedy similar to Jonestown could happen again.
The moneies have been known to stand up in stadiums and about. "It is better die than to stand (Sun) on the ground," said one.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, January 25. 1979
IHP head refutes recommendations
The University of Kansas—Lawrence. Kansas
Controversy about KU's Integrated Humanities Program rolls on.
Staff Writer
By DEBRIECHMANN
The committee completed a five-month evaluation this week of HIP and submitted its findings to the College Committee on Undergraduate Studies
Dennis Quinn, IHP director, denounced yesterday recommendations made in a report written by the IHP Advisory Committee.
In a press release, Quinn lashed out against the committee's report saying, "This report proposes to make HIP another victim of the policies of a KU administration that fears controversy and lives by public relations.
"We have not yet begun to fight," Quinn said. "This thing is going to drag on for a long time."
The committee made nine recommendations for the program. The first called for a Humanities Committee of students and seven faculty members. The committee would administer all humanities courses at KU in addition to tour IHP courses.
"THE COMMITTEE, instead of having the courage to say that we find IHP not guilty, pussyfooties and equivocates by repeatedly saying, 'we fund no evidence' of wrongdoing, as if there may be that they have failed to find, he said.
Quinn has described the program as an introduction to the humanities in which questions about philosophy, poetry and literature are answered through reading great authors.
HP began at KU eight years ago. The program was aimed at offering students a traditional approach to the development of western civilization.
Last September, the six-member HIP Advisory Committee was appointed to evaluate the program through written
and oral testimony. After five months of deliberations, the committee released its findings Jan. 20 in an 18-page report.
IN ADDITION to the Humanities Committee, the advisory committee also recommended other professors be worked into the IHP staff to add "more breadth and new blood to the curriculum."
Quinn objects to other professors teaching HIP courses if their views differ from the present HIP professors' views. This would destroy the integration of the teachers.
The committee also recommended:
- that IHP courses be given human course listings rather than their current Liberal Arts and Sciences course listings, and the students are told to find IHP courses in KU catalogs.
- that adequate information be distributed to high schools, incoming freshmen and junior colleges about the course requirements at KU, including special aspects of HIP.
- that the IHP Advisory Committee be dissolved and that all nine recommendations become effective by the fall semester of 1979.
- that the current IHP faculty be encouraged to continue teaching IHP.
Richard Frohl, resident director at JRP, said yesterday that the housing office was contacted Friday and told that there was a problem.
Quinn disapproves of the report and the committee's solution to ending controversy about IHP.
QUINN SAID the solution would be to eliminate IHP as a program; reduce it to four courses in humanities; depose the present director; and create a Big Brother committee to guide IHP in the ways of righteousness.
JRP men are hot but water is not
"The committee has found a final solution for the IHP question: it is death by administration—a discrete and slow euthanasia, performed for our own good. This is the style of murder preferred by the mob. No blood, no corpses, and no bad publicity."
But by yesterday afternoon, the only respite reported was when the water turned to scalding hot water, still preven-
tive of a fatal burn.
Some residents of Joseph R. Pearson Hall, which has been without hot water since last Thursday, have accused the University housing department of "insulting" them.
See 1HP back page
"You can see people getting more and more disgruntled," one JKP resident said. Other residents said they wanted compensation for the inconvenience.
BILL THOMPSON, JRP president, said, "There are some people talking about suing the University of contract and others talking about the potential down payment process."
Baldhillman, Kansas City, Kan., sophomore, said he planned to make an appeal before the Association of University Residence Halls for $450,000.
Although Fred McElhenie, director of residential programs, said he empathized with the residents, he said he did not think 'any compensation was warranted or possible,' because it was an unpredictable malfunction.
The trouble, according to Dean Milray, maintenance manager for the housing department, was caused by excessive cold water.
"The University is quicker than you to take your money when you break your contract," he said, "but when you break it—forget it."
Milroy said he first heard about the problem on Sunday and sent one of his members to the hall to confirm it.
A CREW already had been scheduled to work on another problem with the showers Monday morning, and Milroy said they decided to stop.
Although there was no hot water throughout the residence hall, the work crew spent Monday replacing the thermostat motors in the basement.
Milroy said he did not think the motors could have caused the hot water problem.
By 10 p.m. Tuesday, Milroy said, the crew had discovered what it thought was the cause in the cold water level and mixing valves.
Although Milroy said he was not sure when the hot water system would work completely, he hoped it would be early next week.
Several replacement parts were found in Kansas city yesterday and, others are to be obtained as soon as possible.
Board walk
Floyd Silvers, Eudora, squeezes through a row of crates used to transport fertilizer at the Nipak
Service Center, Second and Locust streets. The crates are stacked and saved until they are needed for another shipment.
Staff photo by TRISH LEWIS
Smoke clouds rights of non-smokers
Bv LAURA STEVENS
Staff Reporter
A young woman carried her lunch tray through the line in Wessex Cafeteria. She paid the cashier for her meal and took her order.
Until a few years ago, smoking was something that only smokers worried about. In 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States issued the first law to restrict reports on the hazards of smoking to the smoker.
Last week, Joseph Califano, secretary of the department of Health, Education and Welfare, issued another report on smoking and health, but it did not mention hazards to non-smokers.
As she removed the wrapper from her sandwich, a waff of cigarette smoke drifted into her face. Her eyes widened.
Since 1964, some government studies have gone further into research on the hazards of smoking to the non-smoker, after which it was clear that smoking is not a credible burden for the non-smoker but also a financial burden.
The woman is among a large, growing group of Americans. She is one of 63 percent who are non-
THE KANASAS LUNG Association distributes a pamphlet detailing the results of several government studies.
The pamphlet. "Second-band Smoke" divides the smoker into two types: "to speak loudly" that has been brailed into a smoker's voice;
lungs; and sidestream, which is smoke that comes from the burning end of the cigarette.
Sidestream ink, according to the pamphlet, has a higher concentration of noxious chemicals
The pamphlet says cadmium is under investigation as a compound that damages lungs and causes emphysema, a disease that causes thinning of the lung tissues. Once cadmium gets into the lungs, it
Sideset smoke has five times as much carbon monoxide, the poisonous gas which is emitted from automobile exhausts, and 50 times as much ammonia.
Sidestream stream has twice as much tar and nicotine and three times as much of a compound in the air.
Another noxious compound found in greater levels in sidestream smoke than in mainstream smoke is
ACCOUNTING TO ONE study, after smoking seven cigarettes in one hour, the carbon monoxide levels in air were increased.
The level of carbon monoxide in the blood of the non-smoker rises to 90 parts a million. According to the lung association, that is twice the maximum level set for industry.
According to the lung association, it takes hours for the carbon monoxide to leave the body. In the study, half of the chemical was still present after three or four hours.
Lung association publications also say that the human body, a water-filled substance with a low electrical charge, attracts cigarette smoke, a dry substance with a high electrical charge.
In addition to this, a study has been done indicating that demands on the use of air conditioning systems jump 600 percent to counteract odors and cigarette smoke. This raises energy costs.
Fire hazards also can threaten non-smokers. Lawrence Fire Chief Jim McSwain said Tuesday that the national figure of smokers and fire causes 17,000 deaths and smoking related materials as the leading cause of fatal fires.
The study showed that 93.1 percent of all fatal fires experienced in residences. Of those, 56 percent are growing ranchers.
Fire hazards also can threaten non-smokers.
McMain said he did not know how much property damage was caused by fires related to smoking, but he said residence fires in 1974, the last year for which fires are available, caused no more than $1.3 billion dollars.
He said many of the fires occurred when a cigarette or an ash was lost in carpet or furniture and smoldered for several hours before bursting into flame.
"In most of the fires," he said, "the funerals cut off the entrance of exit and the person man die of smoke (phallic) fire."
He said that smoke detectors between living and sleeping areas of a home can help prevent fire.
A BOOK CALLED "The Legal Rights of Non-smokers," by Alvin and Blyton Brody (Averill 1977), explains that overhead costs in businesses are relegated to the non-smoker.
Businesses and public offices buy abstrabs to protect their floors from burns. The cost of the abstrabs depends on the building type.
In addition, the book says cleaning costs are high, partly because of extra labor needed to empty ash trays and pump out dust.
The book says these higher tax rates, combined with other costs to the public, more than offset the $0 tax burden.
Tax rates of non-smokers also are raised in several ways, the book says.
For instance, government studies and research on smoking hazards cost HEW $10 million in 1973, according to a transcript of a U.S. House appropriations subcommittee meeting.
THE BOOK SAYS that the first way for the non-smoker to deal with the problem is to speak up.
Smokers, according to the book's figures, have a higher mortality rate than non-smokers. In some cases, the death of a smoking broadsheet winner contributes on behalf of public aidrols, using more tax money.
Income taxes paid by smokers are lost because smokers have a higher illness absence rate than non-smokers.
Failing that, the book documents more radical means. For example, opening a bottle of ammonia could be used to confront a smoker who will not put out his cigarette when asked to.
Besides personal means, the book describes legal means to protect the non-smoker. Kansas has laws against cigarette purchase by minors and statutes against smoking in public areas.
Groups against smoking also are becoming more involved in the non-smoker's plight. Organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association are involved in early education programs to prevent young people from starting to smoke.
The book says that groups such as Group Against Smokers' Pollution and Action on Smoking and Health are beginning to lobby more vocally in state legislatures, well as in Congress and among federal agencies.
If all else fails, a non-smoker can purchase several aids from speciality gift catalogs. One company in Hanover, Penn., offers a "smoker's candle," a device that, when lit, helps cover up and burn up cigarette smoke. Also sold is an ashriff with a filter above it to catch smoke if it hits the
Finally, a frustrated non-smoker can buy an electrically driven, miniature air filter that will fit compactly on a desk. It plugs into a socket and runs automatically to filter smoke within the area of a desk.