UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
August 30,1978
Support pre-enrollment
Efforts by the Student Senate calling for a campus wide pre-enrollment system should be the end of KU's archaic enrollment system at Allen Field House.
A petition calling for pre-enrollment was circulated last week during enrollment by Ed Bigus, student senator, and it had about 400 signatures before the week'send.
In addition, the Senate plans to form a committee to study pre-enrollment—monitoring administration efforts and providing its own ideas. With a concerted effort by the Senate this fall the administration could, at long last, be persuaded to try pre-enrollment. Strong Hall has little to lose, if anything.
The advantages of pre-enrollment should need no introduction. Since 1974, the University has studied the possibility of computerized pre-enrollment.
In May 1976, KU students were told that pre-enrollment probably
would be used by spring 1978, but it didn't materialize then or now.
The KU computer system is capable of handling pre-enrollment, but it lacks an additional computer program before it is fully operational. Once a decision to purchase the program is made by the administration, pre-enrollment is only a step away—coming, perhaps, as early as fall 1979.
Armed with a strong student body backing, the Senate can substantiate what many have said for years: KU needs and deserves preenrollment.
The Student Senate, in circulating its petition, has wisely called upon the students to voice their feelings about campus-wide pre-enrollment. (The petition, for those who wish to sign it, is in the Senate office in the Kansas Union.)
But now is the time to act. The Senate petition represents each student's chance to lobby for a needed addition to the University. It should not be disregarded.
Decide on firing range
It is inexcuable, but nevertheless true that the Douglas County Commission has allowed more than a year to elapse without resolving problems with a firing range in the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.
The firing range has been idle since early last year when its ventilation system was found inadequate, allowing toxic lead smoke to accumulate at dangerous concentrations. OSHA standards for lead concentration allow an average of no more than 20 milligrams of lead per cubic meter of air, but a test at the range early in January 1977 found lead concentrations ranging from 15.42 to 26.65 milligrams.
Wisely, the range was closed before health problems occurred, but the commission has moved at a snail's pace toward resolving the problem.
LAWRENCE POLICE officers and Douglas County sheriff's deputies have been forced to drive to a firing range near Lone Star Lake to practice their marksmanship, while a range only two floors below their offices gathers dust.
The delay, according to commissioners, has come in trying to determine whether the range can be fixed at a reasonable cost. The ventilation system, with its improperly installed vents, soon is to be modified without charge by the architectural firm that designed the building. But state health officials are unsure whether the changes will make the range safe.
If the changes are inadequate, the range can reopen only after the replacement of the ventilation system.
That could mean big bucks—perhaps $35,000 to $50,000 for renovation and several thousand a month for operation.
County commissioners find such a costly solution unacceptable.
"IF IT'S NOT economically reasonable, I will recommend that we do something else with it—make it into a cafeteria if nothing else." Peter Whitenight, commission chairman, has said.
Before making a decision, however,
the commission plans to wait until an
architectural study of several other
firing ranges is completed.
Although the County Commission, in seeking a financially acceptable solution, has laudable intentions, far too much time has been wasted without any remedy to the problem. Since May 1977, commissioners have rejected four proposals for ventilation improvement because, they said, the proposals were too expensive or unreasonable.
Perhaps $178,000 has been invested in the firing range through its construction, and that would seem to mandate further investment to make it usable—as a firing range—not a cafeteria.
If the commissioners deemed a firing range necessary to the building's design, why the sudden reluctance to follow through with their commitment?
A solution needs to be agreed upon now, lest the commissioners find that inflation has raised the cost of repair—as it no doubt has during the past year—while their indecision has held fast.
In the splendor of the Vatican, the son of a poor Italian villager, Albino Luciani, emerged last week as the 823rd successor to St. Peter, the first pope.
New pope should continue reform
But Lucian, who took the name John Paul I, will not have time to rest in his new splendor. Next week he assumes his duties during one of the most influential, yet troubled times of the Roman Catholic Church's history.
Today more than 700 million persons consider themselves followers of the new pope. But the needs of the 700 million are as different as the nations they come from.
That role has been changing throughout the world during the past two decades and it is up to John Paul to stabilize the role of the church.
POPE JOHN PAUL inherits the reigns of an institution that has taken on somewhat of a split personality in different economic areas of the world.
The major problem facing the new pope is defining the role of the Catholic Church to the Church.
In the poorer nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the pope must continue to lead his priests and bishops in the battle for human rights. In recent years the Catholic
Dirck
Steimel
Church often has been the only organization aiding the common people against governmental intrusion.
While the Catholic Church's role as human rights advocate in the Third World is clear cut, it blurs in the more prosperous areas of North America and Western Europe.
For centuries the church was the great father figure of all Catholics. It remained conservative and stable until Vatican II, a reform movement that began in 1963 and did away with the Catholic Church's father figure image.
The Vatican Council was called by Pope
John Paul II, and he was by Pope Jude
Holland John's death in 1965.
Ancient Catholic institutions such as fish on Friday, Latin masses and special clothing for priests and nuns fell by the wayside in the wake of Vatican II.
INSTEAD of the conservative, fatherly image, the Catholic Church began to look as though it would be a reform church. In the mid-1980s it often looked as though women priests and marriage for clergy were just another corner for the new Catholic Church.
But a 1968 decision on birth control by Pope Paul threw a wrench in the reform movement and the church's role has been unclear since.
Pope Paul was in poor health for about eight years before his death and many Vatican observers believe that Paul's illness has been a factor which reforms had stalled in the past few years.
In some areas, such as marriage annuities and social reform, the church has been very progressive in the past 10 years. But crucial questions like birth control, infantility and collarage have remained unanswered throughout the past decade.
FOR THE church to retain its credibility in the Western world and maintain its human rights work in the Third World nations, a flexible pope is necessary—a pope
who realizes and can deal with the differing problems of the two economic worlds.
Decentralized power of power the walls of the Vatican is a major step needed in the church. Bishops and priests should be able to attend in church policy according to their needs.
The birth control issue should be addressed immediately by the new pope. Contraception is the only logical way to ensure the birth rate and the church must realize that.
In the United States the number of people entering convents and the priesthood is reaching dangerously low levels. In time the church will have to allow priests and nuns to marry in order to keep people interested in the fields.
THE CHURCH needs to continue the reforms of John XXIII and Paul VI in order to be a valid force and not just a dusty institution.
Some havev, said that the new pope took the name John Paul to show he would follow the reforms of his two predecessors. Catholics havev explained what the name of the new pope means.
Pointless efforts result from wish to be unique
Record-mania. It may not be recognized by the American Medical Association as a specialty of medicine.
It probably has a better name, but no matter what it's called, record-mania is spreading. It's that madness that causes people to be more dangerous things than to be remembered.
A prime example: Earlier this month, three men from Albquierey, N.M., became members of the helium-filled balloon. The Double Eagle II landed in a French wheat field while a Welcome-to-France crowd greeted the soldiers as they arrived on shields and tramping three acres of wheat.
Despite 17 unsuccessful attempts at the feat, and seven related deaths, the three
Allen Holder
Americans decided to make the voyage. But they didn't do it to history, they did they hadn't done it to make history.
However, they're expected to make a lot of money now that history has been made
Maybe that flight can be compared with the trans-Atlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh 51 years ago. But somehow, that seems different. Airplane flights across the
U.S. position affected by revolutions
By STANLEY HOFFMAN
N. Y. Times Feature
The United States finds itself in a most uncomfortable position. Its two biggest assets—military might and economic power—do not guarantee quick and successful evacuation. For example, escalation, we must avoid military clashes with our chief adversary. Using force against his proxies can be disastrous, as we discovered in Vietnam, if the regime we try to bolster incapable of standing on its own may fail. Our ability identifies with a popular cause.
CAMBIDGE, Mass.—The contradictions and inconsistencies of the Carter administration's foreign policy are real. But could another president do much better?
The first revolution affects America's position in the world. Our relative power has declined in an infinitely more complex world. Thirty years ago our allies were our dependents, and our main adversary had succeeded. The economic and economic power was overwhelming.
We judge the success of our diplomacy by reference to a golden age that we idealize: the postwar years when the United States made an important but. But two major revolutions have occurred.
Today, Western Europe and Japan have become major centers of economic power. By comparison, America's productivity and technological lead have fallen.
We are too eager to export our own goods—again to the Russians, planes to the
In a world of 150 states, most of which have only recently been emancipated from colonialism into poverty, many of which are still in prison, have failed attempts at being enlisted in the cold
Europeans, arms everywhere—and too dependent on arms outside energy and raw materials to use our wealth and technology as a stick, and we are in tough competition with our allies when we want to use it as a carrot.
war—although they do not mind enlisting one or the other superpower for their own causes—the United States cannot behave as they have done before. They struggle the struggle of freedom against tyranny
Both this contest, and the new complexities of international politics, turn the other grand American dream—that of being the first philanthropic world order into a nightmare.
NMELE
The second revolution affects the making
of American foreign policy. Until the early 1970s, the president had enormous leeway. The public supported him, as long as he stood up to the Russians while preserving peace, and Congress had continually abolished the ties to the public and secret agencies of the executive.
Since Vietnam and Watergate, individual members of Congress insist on having their own policy on every issue. Both the House and Senate have opposed apparent ineffectiveness of American power, seek domestic scapegates, show nostalgia for the simpler days of containment and sustain a wrongheaded conviction that our country's muscles will bring relief and rewards.
Those three men now say they have a new goal. They'll attempt to fly around the world in 30 days. Even Jules Verne wouldn't expect that.
The president is torn between domestic pressures and external imperatives. The former demands toughness, both against the press and in general against competitors. The latter require careful choices, a will to forego short-term spectacles in favor of long-term interests and a complex balancing act aimed at reelection of presidents that often go in opposite directions.
American institutions and instincts have created their own obstacles, waived only in war-time or when foreign policy and cold war were synonymous. It is not surprising that the administration has not resolved that the nation was good and that it has sometimes made it worse.
(Stanley Hoffmann is a professor of government at Harvard.)
In a similar quest for fame in mid-August, swimmer Diana Nana attempted a grueling 100-mile-plus swim from Cuba to Key West, where she completed after 41 hours and 70 miles in the water.
ocean are made constantly. It is doubtful
Atlantic balloon flight will ever be
become
She spent months of planning and
publicity gathering and about $150,000 of her
own money.
But after only a few hours in the water, Nvad been ill and later had to give up.
Nyad failed, but her name has become almost a household word throughout the country and she won't disappear from the spotlight soon. She recently signed a $100,000 personal appearance contract with a toothpaste maker.
Nyad gained, at least financially, from her venture. But she knew that she would be hospitalized for exposure and exhaustion immediately after her attempt.
And neither her training nor her swine were easy. When she finally quit, she said, "I just never got around."
Those attempts may seem rather pointless, but trying to attain such goals has to
True record-mania, however, is far more pointless.
be a little admirable. I suppose it's that good old American spirit coming through.
In Salina this summer, two girls attempted to set a record for Frisbee throwing. They failed in their first attempt, but vowed to try again.
The Guinea Book of World Records
in an entire section to "Human
Achievements"
But under the "Human Achievement" category, "Students and Miscellaneous Endeavors," the records tend to be a bit on the strange side.
There are records for fastest speed
and the longest distance walked and even
the longest marriage.
there are records for dancing the twist,
apple peeling and continuous hand clapping
at the dance floor.
But who really cares what the record for continuous hand clapping is? And who would want to be champion baby-carriage pusher?
I suppose the key is in being remembered.
Everyone wants to leave his mark on the world, and some people think any type of mark is better than no mark.
But I'm not sure I would want to be remembered if my only accomplishment was being a great teacher.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Monday through Thursday during June And July except Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Second-class paper paid at Lawrence, Kansas $15. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $29 a year in Douglas County and $16 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $1 a semester, pass through the student activity
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