UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kanas editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of
OCTOBER 5.1978
Watch enrollment study
At the risk of sounding like a broken record on the issue of computerized pre-enrollment, we endorse the decision made last week by SenEx to reactive a committee to study various pre-enrollment plans.
We return to this issue once again, however, only because moves to even study pre-enrollment have been so slow for so long.
Those who have endured the University's current enrollment system know that it seems needlessly frustrating, and that those frustrations tend to promote attempts to circumvent the rules, rather than to encourage cooperation for greater overall efficiency.
The University, hearing the perennial complaints, at least has studied pre-enrollment in 1967, 1970, 1974 and 1975. Although KU remains the only Big Eight school without campus-wide pre-enrollment, all four previous KU studies on pre-enrollment ended in rejection.
WITH A NEW University computer system and use of those computers to store student records, pre-enrollment now appears more feasible. Administrators apparently have been waiting for a sign from someone, somewhere that pre-enrollment is worth pursuing.
If indeed students are interested in pre-enrollment, it is their duty to see that questions on such issues are answered by the pre-enrollment committee.
Although 25,000 KU students never will agree than any one system is ideal, they should remember the February deadline for the committee report and hold the University administration accountable for ensuring that enrollment reform is given a fair chance for success.
Kansas needs to push for bike trail program
To the editor:
Kansans needs to push for legislation and get moving with a trail program for our state. Abandoned rights-of-way are a commodity and the time for action is now.
This is in reply to the letter in the Sept. 18 issue of the Kansas. We would say to the microbiology lab technicians that we couldn't agree more that bicycle paths are needed, not only for safety but for energy conservation, recreation, etc.
Students can only hope that the time between now and February will be well spent. Although such University governance committees tend to lose themselves over the months—finally producing reports only to see those reports forwarded to other committees—a web of potential pre-enrollment problems requires time to be untangled.
At the present time a group of interested persons have organized the O-Keet-Sha Trail Conservation Committee. This group is using every means available to have the abandoned Union Pacific right-of-way from Lawrence to Leavenworth converted into a nature trail-bicycle path. We understand that because but Kansas has been asleep at the switch and we do not have the legislative authority to make these trails happen in Kansas.
The SenEx vote was to direct a pre-enrollment committee to study pre-enrollment methods—and their costs—and report back by next February.
Not only would such a trail provide a safe place for bicycling, hiking, backpacking, commuting, birdwatching, jogging and mountain biking, but a study done at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, by substituting bicycle use for automobile use in 6 per cent of trips from one county to another, could be 827 million gallons. In these days when we are more and more aware of the necessity of energy conservation, this is an added benefit. The added benefits of decreasing air pollution.
Harriet J. Hughes
As Gil Dyck, dean of admissions and records, warned SenEx last week, pre-enrollment could reduce the student's flexibility in picking class schedules. And pre-enrollment probably would require students, professors and administrators to plan further in advance.
Secretary-Treasurer
O-Keet-Sha Trail Conservation Committee
Friday Kansan hits low sensitivity level
To the editor:
The sensitivity level of the Daily Kansan hit an all-time low with Friday's edition, with three items which I, as a woman, found cheek and offensive.
The editorial cartoon was an insult to both Susan B. Anthony and George Washington;
the headline on the NFL story would be considered "cute" only in the atmosphere of a 1980s stag party; and the ad for Hillel's Saturday entertainment was more appropriate for a society of voyeurs than for a respected campus organization.
It is no wonder that the ERA has faced such opposition. Certainly for women at KU it is two steps forward and three steps backward in the pages of the Kansan.
Elizabeth C. Banks
assistant professor of classies
Hillel sorry for ad for its 'Naked Lady'
To the editor:
rhetu, the campus organization for Jewish students at the University of Kansas, deeply regrets having incurred legal problems on the KU campus by our placement of a picture of a partially nude woman in one of our advertisements for Saturdays movie, movie, and "Lady Goddess" Ladder."
At Hillel would certainly like to have open, friendly communications with all students and all student organizations here at KU. Although not realizing it at the time, we see now that the picture for the ad at KU is an example of a ascent tactic; used to exploit women.
This picture was not meant to be printed with any malicious intent whatsoever. And, again, we are truly sorry for having offended anyone.
Please rest assured that we will think twice about placing any ad that might in any way offend anyone or any organization Again, we offer our sincerest apologies.
Joey Weinstein
Hillel counselor
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U.S. needs an aggressive NRC
In a move that could have a major impact on the continuing skirmish near nuclear power in the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week ordered that the construction license for the Callaway County Nuclear Generating Station near F乳房, Mo., be completed. This would allow the owners cooperate with an investigation at the site.
Officials of the Union Electric Co. the St. Louis utility which owns the plant, said Tuesday that they would applaud the company for its efforts.
If the construction license is eventually suspended at Callaway, it would be the second such move for the NRC in three months. This would be an astonishing suspension for a company that could have come known for its deference to nuclear-mutilated utilities.
IN JULY the commission ordered a construction of a nuclear power plant in Seabrook, N.H., pending further study of the plant's effect on the environment. But after a series of fires, the plant had ceased. The NRC gave a green light to the project.
History and common sense would indicate that the final outcome at Callaway will be similar to the events at Seabrook. The central issue in the Callaway case is the refusal of Union Electric and Daniel International, the prime contractor at the plant, to allow the NRC to procure firing in March of Bill Smart, an ironworker at the plant.
Smart contacted the NRC last year with allegations of shoddy construction procedures at the plant. He claimed
John
Whitesides
that the procedures failed to meet construction regulations and could pose a danger to public safety when
DANIEL INTERNATIONAL contends that Smart was fired for insubordination. Smart contends he was fired for blowing the whistle on the plant's faction of employees by not being protected by NRC regulations and could be reinstated to his job. However, when NRC inspectors attempted to examine personnel record in employee employees about the case, they were removed from the site.
If Union Electric loses its appeal, which will be heard by a separate board of the NRC, plant construction will be halted indefinitely. In a 25-page statement, the company cited a mistake made in an attempt by Union Electric and Daniel International to hinder the investigation of Smart's firing was intolerable because it violated its duties and responsibility to assure the public safety."
Whether Union Electric will lose the appeal is another question. The company is represented by one of the
leading law firms in the nuclear field, and Gerald Charnoff, the lead counsel, is the top nuclear power attorney in the nation. He will contain that Smart's firing was a mistake. The NRC was and was unrelated to the NRC's field of nuclear safety.
but if the board's ruler is upheld on appeal, it will set an important precedent. The commission's responsibilities would thus include overseeing safe construction of nuclear power plants. That would be an important power giveaway that could be made to a facility for public safety by continuing with nuclear power in the face of enormous drawbacks.
The mere act of keeping the NRC inspectors off the plant site would indicate that Union Electric and Daniel International thought they had much to lose by a complete takeover. The regulatory Commission, the utilities toward public safety, a vital and aggressive Nuuclear Regulatory Commission is needed, one that would not be in the hip pockets of the utilities and other stakeholders.
The NRC's actions at the Callaway plant are encouraging. They show signs that the NRC might be ready to begin home regulation in the Seabank development. Yet, the NRC's actions at the Seabank plant do not bode well for the final outcome of the Smart case. The decision in that regard is indicated by indication of what role the NRC will take in the future.
N. Y. Times Feature
Catholics join in anti-Somoza fight
By BLASE A. BONPANE And LAWRENCE LITTWIN
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. — The dictatorship of Nicaragua's President Anastasio Somoza is toppling. Nicaraguans are voting against him with a general strike. The Sandinista Liberation Front and its supporters are voting with rifles.
What may surprise Americans is that the Catholic Church has virtually abandoned Somoza and has joined forces with the revolutionaries. U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance has the text of an interview with Somoza in which he concludes d'Escoto in which d'Escoto condemned the Somoza regime as "calumny, rape, greed and whatever dirtiness that exists."
AND SEVERAL weeks ago, three Nicaraguan bishops, Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo of Managua and Bishops Manuel Salazar y Espinosa of Leon and Levigoldio Lopez of Gran Gala, flew to the U.S. 25 28 39, fewed political prisoners and eight hostages.
Their purpose was to guarantee the terms of an agreement between the Somoza government and the Sandinista Liberation Front.
A crowd of 200,000 sent off the bishops and guerrillas, chanting, "Sandino, Sandino," in honor of Cesar Agusto Sandino, who battled United States Niners in Nicaragua more than 40 years ago. During the siege of the National Palace that preceded the bishops' flight, guerrilla leader Eden Pastora, a son of the Nazi Associated Press that the Sandinista Liberation Front was "eminently Christian, eminently Catholic."
HISTORICALLY, the church in Latin America has always seemed to be on the wrong side of social change, and many blame the church for Latin American underdevelopment. But there have always been types of Catholicism in Latin America.
One has been petrified by formalism, legalism and triumphalism. Currently favored by those supporting military regimes in recent years, this is referred to as integralist Catholicism.
This theology of liberation motivated many Nicaraguan priests to join the Sandista Liberation Front not as chaplains but as participants. These priests have followed a tradition going back in the New Republic, and in 1864 named Antonio de Montesino was expelled from Cuba for protesting the cruel and horrible enslavement of the Indians.
The second type of Catholicism gets its strength from the Gospel and from compassion for the poor and landless. It contains all aspects of life is today called the theology of liberation.
SINCE THEN, the rebel priest has been a president figure in the history of the Catholic Church in Latin America. Father Marcelino Díaz was shot by Dolores, "cry of pain," in Mexico in 1810 and his severed head was placed on a pike in Mexico City, which he almost conquered. Two other priests, Fathers Morelos and Sergio Martín, armed the struggle for independence.
But during the past quarter-century, the rebel priest and the theology of liberation have become the dominant themes of Latin American Catholicism. It was Archbishop Perez Serrant who interceded to save the life of a rash young revolutionary named Fidel Castro after his unsuccessful run on the Moncada barracks in 1935. And on Feb. 1, 1966, a Colombian government officer, Teresa Torres, killing the distinguished priest, sociologist, professor and member of the Army of National Liberation.
IN 1968, the theology of liberation became official. Under the moral leadership of Archbishop Dum Dom Helmar Cadera of Brazil, the Council of Bishops, meeting in Medellin, Colombia, issued a series of documents, including a message of Vatican II for Latin America.
The 1970s have shown no let-up in the growing role of the church in Latin America.
- DIEVER, THESE REBELS ---DIDGOURISH THERESE REBELS IS INNKEPT CIVILIANS!*
"holy trinity" of church-military-oligarchy may still be present in some countries, but in Nicaragua, what was growing support for revolution has developed into majority approval. One of Latin America's best poets, Father Ernesto Cardinal, writes:
Blase A. Bonpane and Lawrence Littiw are associated with California State University Northridge. Bonpane is a professor of political science. Littiw is the associate dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
"The government of Nicaragua has accused me of illicit association with the Sandinista Liberation Front. Now is the moment in which I declare publicly that I do belong to the front and that this is an honor."
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