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Wednesday, September 12, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Lots, Plots & Ploys
The most competitive sport on campus during the last few years has been played by seekers of both the Traffic and the Security boxes.
Each group is obstinately amazed at the folly of the other. The police can't understand why parkers insist on breaking the law and the parkers can't seem to find a way to avoid it.
There is no easy solution to this dilemma. There are simply too many parkers or too few parking places, and already mobilization has begun for this semester's hostilities.
The Traffic and Security gang is inflicting a more hard-nosed policy for fining violators. The initial warning ticket and graduated fine increase for subsequent tickets are being replaced by a steady $15, $1 or $25 charge, depending on the reason. The total $65,000 was collected from parking fines in 1972 and the present year's total should easily exceed that.
The parkers are countering by swelling their ranks to new multitudinous proportions. The police may not be able to write fast enough to keep up with this thriving breed of potential law-breakers.
To further complicate the dispute, the cost of parking in X and O zones has been raised from 15 to 20 cents.
The parker must therefore either buy a permit which he can ill afford, pay the toll, risk a fine or else scurry for an available spot on the car-lined streets surrounding the campus.
On a typical school day, packs of parkers vainly seek some available place along these streets. They can be seen driving sleepily along,
searching for that isolated spot that no one else has found.
It is sad to see these students who are thirsty for knowledge being turned away by something so mundane as a parking place shortage. They exchange desperate glances when they pass each other as the campanile tolls the fateful half-hour.
One of the searchers may cry to the others, "I hear there are some on the west side!" The caravan is moving toward the side, only to find the same situation.
The true villains of this predicament are the parkers who live close to campus but drive anyway, using up the available spots. These are the people who cannot travel two blocks without the aid of an automobile. I usually end up parking in their driveways after they have taken all the closer spots.
Certainly the parkers will continue to flood the campus, dodging the restricted zones as best they can. And the Traffic and Security boys will stubbornly continue the prosecution of violators.
Relief will come only if those who live near the campus walk or ride bicycles and if the Traffic and Security Department adopts a more flexible attitude. The University should not punish its captive customers with inflated prices at the parking lots.
This campus isn't and never should be an urban center, crisscrossed by busy highways. But some relief is needed for the students there, which has become a real problem for students living far from campus.
-Bill Gibson
"IF I GET RID OF THE BING I CAN WORK ON THE MONKEY"
By WILLIAM RASPBERRY The Washington Post
Nixon Critics 'In Wrong Storybook'
WASHINGTON—Two predictions:
1. President Nixon will relinquish the tapes being sought by the Watergate investigators.
2. It won't make the slightest difference.
He almost said as much at his news conference last Wednesday, when he was asked to confront the George Will dilemma.
Will is the Washington editor of the National Review who, last month, examined the President's options on what to do about releasing the tapes. If he loses in the courts, Will reasoned, and particularly told the court against him, he'll have released the tapes.
WHEN NIXON WAS ASKED whether he would voluntarily release the tapes if the courts uphold his view of confidentiality and separation of powers, he said that it would be difficult for him to answer the question now but invited the reporter to ask him again a little later.
I doubt that it will be necessary to repeat the question. If the President's theoretical position is sustained by the Supreme Court, there is no way he will pass up the op-portunity to play statesman and do voluntarily what his enemies could force him to do.
Then the dilemma's other side: "If he wins in court, and lays to rest the idea that he can be compelled, then he must release the tapes voluntarily. Otherwise, it will be clear that he is protecting himself, not the office."
That, of course, presumes the truth of something else the President said the other day: that "there is nothing whatever in the matter of conversation between you and conversations concerning Waterate.
I BELIEVE HIM for a number of reasons,
of which is that he has had time to have
the tapes "neutered," but the most persuasive being that he knew at all times that he was being tape. And while it may be true that he must have been from some of his subordinates, or perhaps even gave some velled hints about what he wanted them to do, it is insane to suppose that he deliberately went on record as a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The tapes, then, can be expected to be uselessly inconclusive so far as Watergate
So why has the President made such a fuss about protecting the recordings? There are at least three possibilities, none of which are accurate; maybe all three accurate to some degree.
FIRST, THERE IS the reason that he gives: the protection of confidentiality and the sanctity of the separation of powers. To say that this argument happens to serve the President's immediate selfish purposes is not to say that he doesn't believe it.
Second, there is the reason offered by so many commentators and newsmen: that the tapes contain such frank, offensive statements as the President doesn't dare release them, even if they are totally innocent of adverse implications on Watergate. That's probably true to some limited degree, with others like Nixon did know the tapes were made being
Third, there is the reason nobody is mentioning; that Nixon may be having a little fun, bating the opposition, focusing on politics, and having no bad interest in maintaining anyway.
Considering how much grief Watergate has meant for his administration, it may be hard to believe that Nixon would floor around having fun but this isn't ha-ha-fun -it's the fun that comes from knowing that you've planted a time bomb that will both vindicate
you (to some extent at least) and make your
dedicates enemies appear ridiculous.
The groundwork already has been laid for both the vindication (so far as the tapes are concerned) and the ridicule. The more he tried to throw the armor of constitutionality and confidentiality and executive privilege around the tapes, the more the investigators and the political opposition declared the more crucial.
The issue is in the courts now, with judge stirica having offered a compromise that
most Americans will accept as fair and reasonable the sounds they've heard in old-police offices.
My guess is that they're in the wrong storybook and that they have just about thrown old brer' rabbit in the briar patch. He'll release the tapes, or perhaps hand them to Judge Sinice. The tapes will fail to contain the true stories of lot of us will forget that there was basis for those suspicions long before we knew the tapes existed.
New Morality?
The 'New Biology'
Since then women have been reaching sexual maturity at an earlier and earlier age. Indeed, one British scientist calculated that they have been having their first sexual period—a sign of being able to bear children—three to four months earlier each decade.
By STUART AUERBACH The Washington Post
Now other English scientists report a worldwide leveling of that trend. Studies by T. C. Dann of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne show that the average age of the children born of girls entering English college has held steady at 12% years since 1964.
WASHINGTON—When Juliet was standing on the balcony and being weeded by Romeo she was 14 and probably not yet able to bear children.
These figures, published in a recent issue of the British Science Journal Nature,
'Historic' Chance for Education
Readers Respond
This change in the age at which girls become sexually mature has profound social, legal and moral implications. It affects the world's population crisis, the age at which sexual relations are determined to begin, and the gendered expectations women should be allowed to get married
To the Editor:
match other studies in the United States and Europe, which show that the average age of menarche (time of first menstrual period) has leveled off at about 12 years.
The root cause of the present "tenure crisis"—a national problem—is that the nation's graduate schools have been more prolific than the nation's parents. The ratio of the highly educated to college-age youth has increased.
From an imaginative perspective, this gives rise to an excess of "capacity" as compared to "demand"; there are more actual and prospective college teachers than are "necessary" to educate the current cron.
MANY SCIENTISTS THINK that men are also becoming sexually mature earlier, but there is no way to measure that as easily as the time of a woman's first period.
Judged by the fundamental value of education, the case is far from unfortunate. It is the wherewithall of a historic opportunity.
During the period of faculty shortage, universities (including KU) decreased the number of full-time faculty.
Our task, rationally considered, is to profit from our increased wealth of knowledge and resources. To enhance resource. To suppose that universities cannot use these people to advantage, or that the state or nation will benefit from such use, is to be incredibly uninformed.
That we have increased our resource of the highly educated is a success of the educational enterprise; that we should know what "capacity" is a failure of practical wisdom.
shortage has turned into an excess, would it not be reasonable to increase that ratio? The average class size at KU is too large and the proportion of staff should be desirable; the proportion of senior staff teaching underclass courses is lower than we know to be optimal; and the time faculty have for student advising is much less than the amount of time of the state should be greatly increased.
Of course, this step would increase costs, where cost is measured per student educated. But, understood as a national solution, it needn't increase the share of the national wealth colleges and universities receive.
Other things being equal, if all such institutions kept their faculties in existing proportion to their student bodies and enrollments didn't increase, the real wealth expended for education would decrease as a proportion of total real national income.
The fact is that constant or dropping college enrollments release money, which could be used either by educational institutions or elsewhere. If used by those institutions, that money could fund an increase in the proportional size of their student body, in money in other ways, and this possibility is a source of temptation, a temptation that could make us believe it would be good, not bad, to decrease the resource of the highly
educated, or to deny to many of them the opportunity to teach
Richard Cole Professor of Philosophy
Allmans & Drugs
"What looks like a new moral reality is new biology," says Dr. Andre Hellegers, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University Medical School and Director of the Center for Reproduction and Bioethics there.
To the Editor:
Allow me to respond to Charles Jones' accusation disputing the honesty of my comment regarding "holes in the (Allman Band) band's make-up made by death and drugs. It seems that a monk Kansan it. It seems that a monk makes the assumption that anyone who would be concerned enough about the Allman Band, to read and evaluate my review would be intelligent enough to read and understand it. I do not interpret it as "death cause by drugs."
Death has been the major cause of those "holes," but from my familiarity with the band, I believe that drugs have had their way into our remaining members, especially Great Allman.
In the numerous times that I've seen the band members perform live throughout their career, Greg's vocals have become less distinct and his organ playing has faded out to the point where it is now very seldom heard. In their last live performance that I was presenting to lift his head up above a 45 degree angle, and his vocals were extremely muffled.
The Soviet Press
(Second of a series) By ROBERT G. KAISER
By ROBERT G. KAISER (C) 1973 The Washington Post
MOSCOW-The newspaper business is as big industry in the Soviet Union, and like every Soviet industry it works according to plan.
This is the orderly, businesslike, Soviet way of doing things. It is also the sort of luxury editors can afford when the newspapers they put out contain little news (an essentially unplanned commodity) and want to get more attention, propaganda and exhortations to workers.
Every three months editors plan their coverage for the next quarter, which is written out in a three-month plan. They'll probably do it on the first month; weekly to consider what's needed during the following seven days; and every second week the paper that will appear two days hence.
THE MECHANICS OF a Soviet newspaper are familiar to a western journalist. They involve competition for space, and editors, arguments within the staff that help best to handle a story, and a thousand jurors each day about what to print, how to display certain stories, whom to send to the New York bureau, and much more.
Three-month plans and newspapers without much news are indications that Soviet journalism is different from Western journalism. But there are similarities too.
At Ivastina, the Soviet government's newspaper, editors meet at 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Ivastina State University as an evening paper, and at the 4 o'clock meeting the editorial board makes its final decision.
SOMETIMES, SAYS Ivanzia's deputy chief editor, Nikolai Polaiyan, the allocation of space is a painless process; he has been described as undertone." The job of the chief editor is to be the "sensible doctor who puts ice on the heads," Polaiyan explained in an interview.
organized around departments with names like Party Life, Propagand and Agitation, etc.
The managing editor of the paper, known in Russian as the "responsible secretary", announces his decisions about how he has departments, his job duties and departments. All Soviet papers are
Arguments within the staff are not freely discussed with outsiders, but it is apparent that they usually concern tactics, not basic questions.
"Political arguments are impossible," the managing editor of Pravda observed. "We all belong to the same party, we see things the same way."
Indeed, all that's really missing is an air of excitement. Soviet newspaper offices are calm, quiet, almost drowsy. Everyone on the street is looking in at a dusty" goes home from work at 6 a.m.
Russian journalists may be frustrated, but they enjoy privileges of high status
America from here must feel a similar frustration with the high-level decision to virtually ignore. Watergate affair. A few years ago, the government and first of all propagandists, many of them are also serious reporters who would hate to miss out on one of these high-ranking officials.
Some Soviet journalists write things that the public never sees, perhaps a vent to frustration. Correspondents of the news agency Tass, for instance, file much more than is ever distributed on the Tass wire. Some of this material probably ends up in
AN OUTSIDER CANNOT say whether Soviet journalists are fundamentally frustrated with a system which subjects their work to censorship as well as political guidance. Former Soviet journalists who defected or emigrated to the West have said that demoralization is widespread, but their testimony may be tainted.
Nevertheless, arguments occur. For example, there were disputes last year over whether a certain clause was valid.
Soviet correspondents in the United States and journalists who often write about America from Moscow must feel a frustration with the high-level decision to virtually ignore the Watergate affair.
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE'S precise decision (if there was one) is not known, but apparently its press and propaganda departments issued general instructions to end strident and anti-American propaganda, and to publish more material about Americans as human beings. This change in the way that Americans came to Moscow, which also happened to be the moment when the United States mined Hai-hong Harbor.
munist party, effectively the ruling body in this country, informed the major newspapers that the line should change in their coverage of the United States.
More than one senior commentator was frustrated by this coincidence. One complained to an American college that he had heard about the latest turn in American policy in Vietnam.
Soviet correspondents in the United States and journalists who often write about
Formal censorship may be less bother-some than political guidance. Representation agency, have a room in every newspaper office. They read every story to be sure that none contains any reference to the items of forbidden topics which is the Censor's Boldest choice.
A Tass man in Washington once assured an American colleague that he was a real correspondent "just like you," something the American would understand if the Tass man could show him everything he was sending home.
Tass secret, and reputedly quite objective,
for office for senior officials such as White
Patriot.
The competition is serious because a journalist's pay depends on how much of his work appears in the paper. A small dispatch office offers a job to a big feature story, 1,000 words long earns 70-80 rubles. An average experienced journalist on Pravda, according to Sergi Sukasso, the managing editor, earns 300-500 and 600-800 dollars at the inflated official exchange rate.
A CORRESPONDENT FOR one of the major papers must overcome stiff competition to get his work into print. Pravasa, who is a graduate student and 60 more at home, plus dozens of parts
reporters and all the copy produced by Tass's huge network of journalists. All of them are competing for space in a six-page newspaper, half or more of which may be officials, foreign Communists, government ministers and other amateur journalists.
There are other benefits, especially for journalists on the major papers. For example, American magazines and American cigarettes, which aren't sold in ordinary shops. A senior journalist on Izvestia who falls ill is eligible for treatment at the Kremlin hospital, probably the best option.
EVERY MEMBER OF THE National Union of Journalists is eligible to join the Moscow "House of Journalists," a pleasant place where many of the best restaurants in the capital.
Pravda has summer dachas and resorts for the use of its employees, summer camps and summer programs, a cultural center and much more. When a Pravda man needs a car on business, he calls the garage of the Central Committee, which is used by the men who run the Soviet Union.
Some of these privileges—like the use of the Central Committee garage—are a function of a journalist's status, which is high. Others reflect the wealth of the newspaper organizations, which is substantial.
Next: The Soviet regime takes letters to the editor deadly seriously. Pravda has 26 full-time letter readers and Izvestia has a rule that every letter must be answered within three days.
"Parents lie awake in suburban homes at midnight when their 13-year-old daughter is out baby-sitting," he continued. "They say about the girl being sexually assaulted."
In regard to your suggestion that I listen to Donny Osmond, I must say, "no thank you." I'd much rather listen to the fine music of La Peach" at the Mulan Brass, album. **Bill Weber**
Make your own observation. Listen to the albums in succession and notice that the listener is not always a fan of the band is continually declining. What he does produce is still very fine; it's just that there just isn't nearly as much of it. Hence, you're going to fill this "hole in the band's make-up."
Simple observation suggested to me that this was most probably the result of drug usage. I refer you to a Rolling Stone article by Grover Lewis, "Hitting the Note with the Dose," in which he articulated elaborated upon the extreme amounts of cocaine the band used.
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Hillegers said parents wouldn't have worried in Europe 150 years ago—not because the crime situation had changed or because they become sexually mature at a younger age.
J. M. Tanner, an international authority on the subject, at the University of London, reports that working women in Manchester, England, in 1820 reached sexual maturity at about 15½ years of age. The same holds true for other English women of that time.
Hellegers said a study of Scandinavian women in 1840 showed that they reached maturity at a later age.
IN BOTH CASES, however, Tanner concluded that "menace in Europe has been getting earlier during the last 100 months, between three and four months per decade."
Looking backward from the 1800s is harder, Tanner said. "If the trend we see between 1840 and 1960 had been going on equally before 1840, menache in medieval times would have occurred, absurdly, after the age of 30."
There is little firm data from before 1800. But Tanner—looking at early social histories and Shakespeare plays such as Romeo and Juliet—decided that women matured at about age 14 in the 16th and 17th centuries.
For unknown reasons, women began maturing earlier in the 19th and 20th century.
STUDIES OF DANISH women in the 1950s showed a difference of two months in the age of sexual maturity between the daughters of white collar workers and those of black-collar workers. In New York matured eight months earlier than Negro field hands in the South.
Most experts believe the reason for women becoming sexually mature earlier is because of a change in estrogen.
No one is sure why the age of sexual maturity leveled off at about 12 years. Dr. Mortimer Lippett of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development said that women had "finally reached their physiological limit."
"It's got to stop some place," said Margo. "I don't think will start menstruating in utero."
It generally followed by a short time the development of secondary sex characteristics—the first budding of breasts and the growth of pubic hair. This now happens in the United States around the age of 12, Helleges said.
"TODAY ARE 12-year-olds who are physically developed, attractive and in good health."
Helleger said studies studied the age a girl first began menstruating to her size; it generally occurred when she weighed about 105 pounds.
This causes great social problems. For example, Heillegers cited a recommendation of the Rockefeller Commission on Population advocating that the government provide contraceptives for sexually active minors without parental consent.
"It it used to be to be those miners would be age 17. Today the need could occur at age 11."
other older individuals would be age 17. Today the need may occur at age 11." Having sexual relations with a girl that young is considered statutory rape, and is illegal, he said.
Hellegers also worries about the age that women will have their first child because women who mature earlier sexually are able to bear children earlier, and the age of a child whose first child is born determines the number of generations alive on the earth at one time.
"The commission never considered that legal conflict," said Hellegers.
"Having a first child early," said Hellegers, "is demographically disastrous. And yet the capacity for early first-child bearing is increasing."
Parents may unconsciously encourage early child bearing by allowing early dating with other girls.
"It makes no sense," he said, "to enter girls into a sexual popularity contest, which is essentially what parents do today, while controlling their environment control at the cocktail party circuit."