UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
SEPTEMBER 18, 1978
Harper points the way
A refusal by Mike Harper, KU student body president, to support a proposal for a three-cent tax on cigarette sales is welcome news.
Harper's action came at a meeting last week of the Board of Regents Student Advisory Committee, which is composed of student body presidents of the seven Regents schools. A statement supporting the proposed tax, however, was endorsed by the student body presidents of all the other Regents universities, and will be sent to the Regents Council of Presidents, state senators and gubernatorial candidates.
Revenue from the tax, estimated at $8.4 million, would be used to fund women's and men's intercollegiate athletics and recreation at the state's universities. However, it was this usage that Harper objected to, saying that the tax would not directly benefit KU students.
"it's not my job to promote an athletic corporation that's doing pretty damn well for itself," Harper told the committee.
"If we're going to tax something, KU should get more out of it. We already get $4 million a year from alumni for fund athletics, and I can't see putting an additional $8.4 million into it when, if anything, that money should go for scholarships for students from the state."
Although his point is well-taken,
Harper did not extend his objections far enough. The idea of the tax—for forcing smokers to bear the burden of athletics funding—is preposterous. The proposal, made earlier this month by members of Associated Students of Kansas, illustrates a fundamental law of government: funding regardless of fairness.
But Harper's dissent on the tax proposal points to an even more important issue soon to face the Student Senate—KU's possible membership in ASK.
In supporting the cigarette tax, the other universities said they needed the additional tax revenue for their athletics funding—not so at KU. Interestingly, all of those schools favoring the tax also are ASK members.
It has been argued that KU would benefit very little from ASK membership because its needs differ from those of member schools. Harper's refusal, it seems, is an example of this.
When the Senate prepares for its vote on the ASK membership Wednesday night, that refusal should be remembered. Too many differences separate KU from ASK schools.
Although Harper says KU's membership is "even more up in the air than ever before," it should be just the opposite. One must hope the Senate has learned from Harper's recent example, and votes to reject the ASK membership.
City needs bike paths
To the editor:
wound like to draw your reader's attention to the gripping front-page photo by Randy Olson in your Sept. 13 issue. This photo depicted the aftermath of yet another auto-bicycle accident in this town. The victim, who was turned away from the scene as the bicyclist's blood flowed down the pavement. In all likelihood it was no more the driver's fault than the bicyclist's, but the fact remains that the students and citizens of Lawrence, in a manner similar to the driver in the photo, are turning their heads away from a desperate need for bicycle and motorbike along the main thoroughfares of Lawrence.
According to Sgt. Garcia of the Lawrence Police Department, at least 14 injury accidents of this nature have been reported this year.
It seems to me that the initiative for any action by the city to improve this situation is going to have to come from the students and the community. It is also an ultimate victims of this neglect. The situation can only become worse in the years to come, as the price of fuel and the costs of maintaining an automobile rise and then to alternative methods of transportation.
John G. Odell
Allan W. Hall
Microbiology Lab Technicians
Presence of brain key to abortion fight
To the editor:
The abortion controversy is a political issue and, as such, has become infected with language intended to persuade by emotional appeal at the expense of careful argument. Both sides have given reasons for their positions; a positive attitude and in both cases the names are misleading.
Those in favor of abortion call their movement 'pro-choice.' Most people would agree that free choice should be maximized and government interference minimized. But the key question is: What kind of choice?
The government can and should restrict the individual's freedom to choose a course of action which directly and intentionally injures other human beings. If abortion is the killing of a human being, then it makes little sense to speak of a free choice to do so.
Those against abortion call their movement "pro-life," and most people would agree that life is valuable and should be preserved. Here again, the key question is: What kind of question? In our society, we feel little compaction about killing cows and humans, but we don't think human beings. Clearly, the kind of life that should be preserved is human life, and, just
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teve Frazier
General Manag Riek Musser
KANSAN letters
as clearly, the moral and legal issue of
whether what kind of life is to
count as human life.
At eight weeks the fetus has all the organ systems of a new-born baby, but it also has the same organ systems, including the tail, feet and limbs. We do not essentially human organ systems before their presence becomes relevant. We would not be tempted to assign political rights to a pig if we discovered it has a human body, because such most matches us off from the other animals.
Mark Brown Lawrence graduate student
At five months the fetus begins to look recognizably human and this fact may evoke a sympathetic reaction. But at this stage the brain has just begun to develop into a human brain. Most brain development occurs in the third trimerate.
If the presence of human brain is taken as the mark of human life, then abortion would be wrong when the fetus passed the placenta. If the presence of human brain is difficult to determine exactly when this occurs, and, given our relative ignorance, it may be on us to infer the presence of the fetus.
If this threshold were passed sometimes in, say, the third trimester, then abortion should not be allowed after this point and should be allowed before this point. Other considerations may have relevance to the case of a fetus at this time it seems to me that this is the central issue.
Mark Brown
Canoeing coverage overlooked victory
As usual, the Rogues did it again, and, as usual, the Kansan did it again. For a veteran KU-K-State canoe racer to read a map, they were out for her wonder where you were all weekend.
Due to some ingenious ingenuity by the K-State A.U.R.H. the race was somehow scheduled on the day of KU's opening football game. The number of Rogues able to score so far has been so to a meager 12. The seven men and five women that did make it, however, were determined enough to paddle to a five-minute lead at the halfway point, and reach the finish line before leading the finish line. The Rogues now have three consecutive victories and four total.
If you were to research the history of the race, you would be made immediately aware of the ever-present rivalry between the two dominating teams; the K Rogues and the K-State Kaw Dads. Even though both teams are not eligible for the victory in this game, someone else shows hope to bring the glory back to his or her own school.
Tales told about residence ball food sometimes are wild and vicious, but they're not always true. However, students who choose to live in University of Kansas residence halls have nowhere to run when the food isn't good.
To the editor:
Halls meal contracts deserve study
Students sign a contract agreeing to purchase 2 meals each week at the hall. They have to, because an optional meal-buying plan, in which students can choose how many meals they buy at the hall, isn't available.
The Rogues are proud to be Jayhawks and even more proud to have beaten the Wildcats. We are anticipating the Kansan's coverage of the spring, 1979 race so Jayhawks can read about what we hope will be the fourth consecutive Rogue victory.
Only a few weeks into the fall semester, a committee that will recommend a contract for next year's residence halls has begun to meet and will discuss such a plan, according to the University Residence Hall contract coordinating and review committee.
Slade B. Putnam Leawood junior The Rogues
As always, a new residence hall contract probably will bring higher prices for students—possibly 8 to 11 percent higher, Smith says.
Maybe one should be made available.
THE COMMITTEE will discuss several changes, but as Lenor Ekdahl, director of food service for the residence halls, said, the optional meal-buying plan is "always in the foreground."
Vet no plan has been implemented.
The plan could benefit several types of students. Some students go home on weekends. Some miss lunch every day, and some rarely make it back to the hall for dinner because of outside jobs or other activities. And many students rarely eat breakfast.
For those students, an optional meal having plan would be a great idea.
It has to be said, however, that provisions have been made for those students who can't make it back to residence halls for classwork that conflict with the lunch hour can pick up a sack lunch before they leave for classes in the morning. Students who can't make it back to the hall lunch or dinner can reserve the room on the first day of school, if they call before the meal is over.
But a dinner that has been kept warm for
two hours can't compare to a hot meal. Those students who want to live in a residence hall but have conflicting schedules are usually out of luck.
OTHER STUDENTS like to get away from the hall and eat out. Mary Jo Kleeman, Fort Scott junior and an Ellsworth Hall resident, said she doesn't always want to eat what the hall is serving. So she eats out three or four times a week.
MNELLY
Kleeman, who has lived in two other halls, said, "I wouldn't mind living in a dorm as much if I could eat breakfast and three or four meals a week."
KU students aren't alone in residence hall meal problems, but some schools have faced the situation and offered a potential solution. At several other universities in Kansas, programs that allow optional meal plans are available. Kansas Board of Regents schools offering such plans are Fort Hays State University, Baylor University and Emporia State University.
At all three universities, which have offered options for several years, students can buy from 10 to 20 meals each week. At Fort Wayne, residents aren't obligated to buy any meals.
SOME BIG EIGHT schools, including Oklahoma State University and Iowa State University, residents can choose to purchase either 15 or 20 meals a week. At Iowa State, students can purchase meal programs only as many as meats at the hall as they want.
However, all three schools said the plans had administrative problems.
Meal-buying plans, however, are far from universal. The University of Colorado says it doesn't offer a plan because of high administrative costs.
The idea still is discussed, but its chances for approval are slim. Smith said if any changes were made for next year in food, the focus would be on good quality, rather than the number of meals.
At KU, plans have been discussed at least since 1975, when students were polled about a optional meal program. A plan wasn't adopted then because not enough students indicated an interest. But that was three years ago.
Several problems stand in the way of such a olan at KU.
It isn't known how much interest KU students have in a plan. Several inquiries were made to the AURH office last year, Smith said, but relatively few have been asked about them. So not such a plan aren't letting AURH know, or there simply isn't much demand.
The low cost can be partially accounted for because cafeteria cooks prepare food for fewer students than live at each hall. They will ask how many students will eat each meal.
AT LEAST INITially, the cost of each meal could be more to the mails if an optional meal plan is started. In addition, the cost of each meal for students who eat 2 meals a week could then be more, Smith said.
Currently, students who live in residence halls pay approximately $1.95 a day for food, not including labor, according to Ekkahl.
There are no simple solutions when many questions remain unanswered.
How much could a student save by only buying 10 meals a week? How much would it cost for a student to buy 20 meals? What problems could a meal ticket plan create?
The problem merits study. The solution won't come quickly and it's unlikely that a proposal could be made before a new contract is agreed on next month. The proposal must at least deserve to see a serious study begun before a contract agreement is made.
Controlling students who agree to buy 10 meals a week from eating 20 meals also could prove to be a problem at first, but that identification cards by using student identification cards.
Reporters face barrier of fear in U.S.S.R.
Rv WHITMAN BASSOW
BY WHITNEY BISSON
N.Y. Times Feature
NEW YORK—Shortly after I arrived in Moscow in December 1955 to take up my duties as a United Press correspondent, I rummaged through the old cables filed by some of my predecessors. Among the yellow sheets was a story by Walter Cronehill which has some bearing on how the United States is treating American reporters today.
That cable was written in 1948, one of the worst years of the Cold War, and somehow the war helped spur the Stalin era. In his story, Mr. Croukite reports that for the first time in the nearly two years he spent in Moscow, a plain, or ornate street-the-street Russian actually sooke to him.
That historic event occurred when Cronkite walked out of the building on Ulita street Furmanua which housed the United States street and fell on his seat. A Russian rushed up to him to help him to his feet and asked whether he was all right. Cronkite needed no assistance, but replied that he indeed "khorshow," meaning all right.
THAT WAS the extent of the conversation. And that. Cronkte wrote, was the extent of his relations with non-official, or official, Russians during their entire stay in Moscow.
As I reflect on the harassment of American and other journalists in Moscow who are trying to carry out a particularly difficult assignment, I wonder if the Kremlin is not trying to reduce, if not cut off, all communication between the enterprising reporter and the non-official information by bringing a barrier of fear between foreign corporations and the Russian people. The end result of such a policy would be the one-a-year conversation about something as meaningful as a praifall.
THE WORKING correspondent in Moscow already has a nearly impossible assignment. Not only is there often a language barrier, but the more tangible barrier of regulations promulgated by the press department of the foreign ministry. These regulations are designed to prevent correspondents from covering news outside the official channels. In principle, no citizen should be permitted to citizen without official permission if the purpose of the conversation is to obtain information for a news story.
When I worked in Moscow for the UP and subsequently for Newsweek, I found that about 50 percent to 60 percent of my audience was on the press, TASS, the official news agency,
press conferences, from interviews with musicians, athletes, ballet dancers, writers and other cultural figures and trips arranged by various Soviet government agencies. Government leaders were often interviewed at diplomaticceptions.
BUT THE reporting that provided the greatest insight into Soviet society was based on conversations with the Russian children, who were my friends who opened their hearts and made their lives part of mine. We talked about apartments, work, cars, children, schools, in-law houses, a sports hall, parties, concerts, and soccer games.
During my two tours of duty in the Soviet Union, I must have met several thousand Soviet citizens. From each came a bit of life that for me formed the mosaic showing
Each event was a unique personal experience, expanding my knowledge of the Russian people and life in the Soviet Union. At the same time, this contact with individuals provided an essential ingredient for my work as a reporter.
The situation seems to have changed for the worse since then. In the aftermath of the Whitney-Piper trial, American correspondents will find the tough google if they want to discharge their duties in a responsible and conscientious way. The question is whether the average Russian: "Keep away from American (and foreign) reporters!"
what the Soviet Union was all about. Without this access to the Russian people and the Georgians, Armenians, Ukrainians, Uzbekes and the others, reporting from Moscow would have been as dry and uninformative as a TASS handout.
THE HOPES and fears of these people could not have been made known to Americans. Our view of the Soviet Union has changed, but they are the communist writers in the Kremlin.
AS A RESULT, social contacts between reporters and Russians will dwindle. Casual meetings will be brief. Russians will clam up when they find they are talking to a representative of the scorned American press. Fear will dry up the unofficial sources of news and insight. It could be a return to the "Cronkite era."
Like their predecessors, American reporters will keep on probing Soviet society despite the difficulties they encounter. They will risk harassment, enlightenment or death in some cases hostility, the suspicion, the threat of arrest and expulsion. It will not be an easy time.
Those of us who read their dispatches or watch their reports on television should be grateful for the efforts of a small group of Americans that seek to keep us informed about our vast, complicated and powerful country whose fate is in soixectrically linked with ours.
Whitman Bassow is executive director of the Center for International Environment Information. He was a correspondent in the Moscow bureau of the United Press (1955-88) and Moscow bureau chief for Newsweek (1960-62). He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1962 for writing "slanderer" dispatches.