OPINION
December 4,1984
Page 4
The University Daily
KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kanan, USPS 620-640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall. Lawn, Kanan 620-640 daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and six periods Second class postage paid at Lawn, Kanan 604-640 Subscriptions by mail are bids for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County, Colorado. Postage fees are paid through the student activity fee POSTMASTER. Send address changes to the University Daily Kanan, 118 Staffer-Flint Hall. Lawn, Kanan 604-640
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
General Manager and News Adviser
JILL GOLDBLATT Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Central meeting
The KU Conference on International Affairs with the topic "Contadora and the Prospects for Peace in Central America" brought more than 300 people together Saturday to discuss and learn about the initiative proposed by four Latin American nations — Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and Mexico — to bring peace and better economic conditions to Central America.
During the conference, two officials from Nicaragua discussed their country's view of the Reagan administration.
The pictures they painted, of the United States doing more harm than good by interfering in their country's political choices, is not the way most of us, who take pride in the democratic ideals of this country, would like to see ourselves. There were also people at the conference who did not agree with the speakers' interpretations.
Another speaker at the conference, a KU professor of Soviet and East European studies, William Richardson, addressed U.S. concerns about the role of the Soviet Union in Latin America. He said that the situation was not so much that the Soviet Union and Cuba were making friends in Latin America as that the United States was making enemies.
His analysis also may have been rejected by some at the conference, but there were a good number who understood and agreed with the point he was making.
The discussion, disagreements and questioning gave those who agreed and those with other points of view something to think about.
People attending the conference had the chance to gain insight into a situation that continues to grow in complexity and seriousness. They were able to hear and see for themselves firsthand.
Although the conference, sponsored in cooperation with Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum, produced few answers, it was an opportunity for people to interact and struggle with some important questions.
Last week the conference lost a little of its allure when keynote speakers canceled and changes had to be made in the program. The conference went on anyway, however, and those who spoke offered their insights, pointing out the need for the United States to understand that countries in Latin America want the right to choose their governments for themselves.
Bugging the bugs
WASHINGTON — I have for years been reading about, and occasionally writing about, various breakthroughs in insect control.
So plentiful have these triumphs been, it's a wonder there are any bugs left to control. However, although a few species may have lambasted, clearly no diminution is needed in the total insect population.
One reason for their perseverance is obvious. Consider, for example, the stringless, parasitic leaves of *Aloe vera*, and the peeling, on alfalfa blotch leafminers;
In the nine years that the Agriculture Department has been releasing these wasps in them old alfalfa fields back home, the imports — natural enemies of the blotch lemmonier but harmed bees — have saved farmers about $29 million in crop damage.
Entomologists say that the wasp buildup last year alone "was sufficient to prevent damage and millions to afflict crops in 10 states."
This year marks the centennial of the importation program. During the past 100 years, the natural enemies, either parasites or predators, of more than 50 important insect pests have been released in U.S. fields.
Before we start rejoicing too unreservedly, however, let us ask ourselves this question: What happens when the last blotch leafmasters finally bite the dust, as they appear doomed to do?
Does anyone seriously think that all those European wasps that have been mass-reared in this country will simply curl up and die?
No If I know anything about insects—and I think that by this time I do—those wasps are going
to find something else to prey upon.
I'm not trying to pose as the purveyor of insider stock market information, but if you get a chance to get in on the ground floor of a new alfaalfa wasp insecticide or a tip from me and climb aboard.
Another recent scientific breakthrough to come to my attention is a synthetic cockroach aphrodite developed by Yale
One magazine advertisement pictured a postcard bearing the following message: "Hawaii great. Did you get the 100 mangos?"
DICK WEST
Before tearing up your exterminator's telephone number, however, remember what happened when the U.S. Postal Service sought to encourage tourists to mail home more postcards.
University chemists. It has been billed as a potential new way of doing in rouches by buring them into traps treated with insecticide
That ad prompted an Agriculture Department official to point out that it is illegal to mail mangos from Hawaii to the mainland.
United Press International
In other words, insects are like grass fires — very difficult to stamp out. Should the synthetic cockroach aphrodiasis prove effective, we probably will soon have a new breed of under the sink creepy crawlers that are turned on by old postcards.
He repeated an idea that the outbreak of fruit flies in California in the early 1800s originated from infested fruit brought in or mailed from Hawaii.
Wish you were here
Daily nap no answer
News item: Millions of Chinese government workers must forfeit one-half of their map time each day starting Jan. 1. China's State Council has concluded that the current map time is a "sign of inefficiency."
As a tired, overworked student, I'm compelled to consider the possibilities of such a nap-obsessed society I've seen my share of those days when my head wouldn't stay any higher than the desk and I would be thinking for a sister. The people in China might just have a revolutionary idea.
As reported by United Press International, "mapping or 'siuxi' — a constitutionally guaranteed right — sometimes seems to be an obsession in China. Mattresses and beds are tucked into crates in every factory and office building."
Some days I've thrown caution to the winds and stayed in bed. However, while I snouzed, a quail was inevitably being administered or roll
Then there’s always the fear that keeps me from taking a nap almost any day — tear that if I take a nap, I’ll wake up feeling worse than I did last night. But I can have an hour’s sleep. I will want to stay there for at least three more.
Then I have to face the probability that my body's clock will be thrown completely out of killer. I'll take that nap at noon, and when it comes time to go to bed at night I won't be tired enough to sleep. Hell takes on the form of an alarm clock ringing in the morning. Then I must get to that early lecture class, listen to the monotone professor and fight off the effects of gravity on my eyelids for an hour.
LAURIE McGHEE
On the other hand, before we completely reject the idea of regular naps, maybe we should sleep on it
Staff Columnist
I suppose that a society that had regular naps wouldn't really be such a good idea. For one thing, in a society that lacks regular naps we don't have to invest in mattresses to carry with us.
was being taken in that class where roll is never taken. In addition, the guilt associated with laziness is another thing I have to deal with — a punishment worse than the crime itself.
Consider an imaginary scenario. Each day at the same time, an entire campus, even an entire city, would suddenly drop to the floor onto rolled up mattresses. Mmm, now the time for that much needed break in a breeze Relax. Feel the stress escaping from your body. Drift off.
At the end of the hour, business would begin again as usual, right where things left off. Everyone is refreshed and ready to face the rest
Taking a nap requires for it, motivation a very good excuse, because taking a nap means messed-up hair and makeup, wrinkled clothes and a dazed and confused look for at least 15 minutes afterward.
Someone I can't imagine what it would be like to walk among all the zombies with their sleep tousled hair and pale skin. A look different when they wake up.
What's wrong with this picture?
Babv Fae questions arise
After all of the national coverage and sensationalism, after outliving all four adults whose hearts had been replaced with animal hearts, Baby Fae died. Even before her death, the idea of transplanting a baboon's heart into a human had caused a great deal of controversy among animal rights groups and the medical profession.
Baby Fae received the baboon's heart in surgery Oct. 26 at Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda Calif. She had been in serious but stable condition on Nov. 15, but her kidney function deteriorated that day. She died at 11:44 Lawrence time.
Baby Fae, born in mid October,
suffered from hypoplastic left
heart syndrome.
The longest-lived previous recipient, a 59-year-old South African man was died 3 days after being infected with the chimpanzee heart in 1977.
Besides the obvious, several other aspects this operation in an unfavorable light. First of all, the doctors went into this operation knowing that in previous tests on animals, none had survived with the cross-species transplant.
Lucy Shelton, coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said. "They were set up to do this experimental procedure no matter what. I think it's tragic. What they've done here is not the best thing for the patient
RICK
SHERIDAN
Staff Columnist
or the family, and definitely not the best thing for the baboon."
Hospital officials drew criticism for not trying to find a human donor before the operation took place.
Another argument against the decision to do the transplant was the fact that previous heart transplants have given chance of living had been mentally competent to make their own decision on the matter.
Leonard Bailey, the physician who performed the operation, thought that Baby Fae might be able to leave the hospital and never need a human heart, but the theory did not pan out.
In this case, Baby Fae could have been kept alive without the baboon's heart long enough to get a human donor to fill the void.
Good reasons certainly exist to continue research into the possibilities of doing the same thing on a successful basis. We must learn from our mistakes and look for other alternatives that stand a better chance.
From an Oriental approach, the idea of transplanting body parts is ridiculous. The Oriental idea of wholistic health is to treat the body as an integrated whole instead of as a spare-parts bin This approach has been around for centuries and years of relevant study. Ideally, the medical profession in the West could begin to incorporate some of these Oriental principles while it continues "futuristic" research
Baboon Heart
Human Heart
Nation's Heart
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
War on drugs wastes resources
I am writing in response to an editorial [Nov. 28, "Cocaine war"] I believe that the U.S. government's attempt, alithe beetle, to eliminate the drug traffic between this country and Colombia is a waste of time, money and, more importantly, human lives.
To the editor:
Didn't anybody in Washington pay attention to Prohibition? Apparently not. You'd think that we'd have figured out by now that the need for auxotaxation from any source one likes is a part of human nature. Maybe "need" is too pejorative; how about "tendency?"
In the Nov. 26 issue of the Kansan
Agreed, the drug traffic is sucking, or rather sniffing, millions of dollars out of U.S. hands, or noses, into Colombian bank accounts. The money could be back here, doing to the economy what a huge influx of dollars does to the economy. The point is that our government is trying
countmist Mike Royko pointed out the often-overlooked drug pushers here, tobacco growers and liquor producers. At one time, the U.S. government tried in vain to suppress alcohol production and consumption, which brought about the era of "bathtugh gin." My grandmother, happy taxpayer and loyal Republican, made gin in her tub.
to treat a symptom and not the cause — the cause, of course, being somewhere in that eternal void, human nature.
We should be the Colombians' warmer about murdering five of our citizens for every one of theirs that we extricate. We will probably get our bureaucratic underwear in a hage kurt over the completely needless deaths of our citizens they execute, and do something equally barbaric like send troops there, or some other God awfully inappropriate thing.
What a waste of effort all around!
Lawrence junior
A