OPINION
November 7,1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas, USPN 626400 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuart Flint Hall Lawn, Kan. 60453 daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods second class payment at Lawn, Kan. 60461 Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $1 and are paid on request. Address changes to the University Daily Kansas, USPN 626400
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
Four more years
The voters have spoken -- and resoundingly.
Work, however, does not end with an election, even a landslide. President Reagan has four more years in office and a long list of items to attend to.
A landscape does not necessarily mean easy traveling ahead. For one thing, Republican strength in Congress is not overwhelming; Reagan, if he is to succeed in his second term, will have to revive the coalition that worked so well before the 1982 congressional elections. For another thing, the path has been rocky for the two recent incumbents before Reagan who won by large margins. Lyndon Johnson was plagued by Vietnam, Richard Nixon by Watergate.
What, if anything, might dog Reagan in his second term? Some possibilities are:
Economy — Some economists predict a recession for next year. If Congress acts as it did two years ago, the pressure will be on for a tax increase and spending for relief.
Taxes — Momentum appears to be building in Congress for significant tax reform, perhaps in the form of a flat tax. The Treasury Department is supposed to release its own plan later this year; Reagan's challenge will be to defend himself on the fairness issue, which came up with his 1981 tax cuts.
Budget — The deficit is huge. Reagan has wavered on whether he would support a tax increase to reduce the deficit; he will have to decide.
Defense — As debate lingers on the deficit, defense spending will look increasingly attractive for cuts. Debate in Congress on the MX missile and space defense technology may add to the perception that cuts can be made. The fairness issue can be counted on to resurface if cuts don't occur.
Arms control — Will the Soviets return to the bargaining table now that they know Reagan will be around for four more years? That's Reagan's gambit, though he made overtures to the Soviets late in the campaign, such as in a speech at the United Nations. Reagan must keep in mind that peace is an important public concern and that appearances play a significant role in the public mind.
Social issues — Abortion and prayer in schools received considerable attention in the campaign, but assorted constitutional amendments have yet to pass Congress. Reagan will have to decide how much political capital to expend on these issues, even as other volatile issues split Congress.
Supreme Court - Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Court after his landslide in 1936. Will Reagan and several aged liberal justices compete to see who drops first? Should Reagan have additional chances for nomination, he will be reminded of the Republican platform's commitment to pro-life judges.
Central America — Congress has been growing resive as U.S. involvement in the region grows. More surprises like the manual on subversion might give Congress the incentive for outright confrontation.
In short, Reagan's landslide might well prove to be the calm before the storm. Even as prominent Republicans line up for the race to the 1988 nomination, they and their GOP fellows in Congress will, with Reagan, face difficult choices in the coming years.
Reagan said several times during the campaign that he was running again to complete the agenda begun in 1981. He has gotten off to a running start with the landslide, but the ground ahead looks very slippery.
Vietnam Memorial
Distinguishing between the KU Vietnam Memorial and the war itself is an important distinction.
The memorial will honor the people from the University who died in the war and thus is a positive endeavor.
Many remember the Vietnam War with much bitterness and resentment. Their recollections — of U.S. involvement in a war with which they vehemently disagreed, and the names and faces of friends or relatives injured or killed — do not evoke feelings of patriotism.
Yet, as a member of the KU Vietnam Memorial Steering Committee said, people can oppose the policies and still be willing to honor those who served.
This week is KU Vietnam Memorial Awareness Week. The committee handling the activities of the week has shown a commendable sensitivity. Its program of films, slide shows and discussions are thoughtful selections that neither glorify nor deny the war and its atrocities.
Much time and effort also has been put into the memorial.
Much time and noise has been put into the memorial. The KU Vietnam Memorial Steering Committee conducted a competition for the memorial's design. It recently changed the memorial's location from Chandler Court of the Frank R. Burge Union to Marvin Grove. The change should enhance the completed memorial.
Armid trees and open spaces, people will have a peaceful atmosphere for contemplation and reflection on a war some would prefer to forget.
Besides honoring people who gave their lives for their country in a controversial war, the memorial offers hope that future generations will stop and reflect on the terrible tragedy that is war.
Apartheid a proper student concern
Recently the issue of KU's investments in companies that do business with South Africa has resurged.
The ups and downs of the Ad Hoc Committee on South Africa has shrouded this issue with mystique, raising the issue to that of insignificance.
The committee has done its best under difficult circumstances. Until this year the issue did not enjoy the importance and publicity it deserve.
Sure enough, this year's highly publicized rally brought some bad publicity to KU's investment policy. The riots in South Africa the past two weeks were, of course, the secondary course of all the publicity. Being a black South African, I can only look with delight that people over here are at least concerned and worried about my plight.
The South Africa issue, however,
does not only involve divestment of
KU funds from corporations doing
business with South Africa. Di
divestment has pros and cons; on the
negative side, blacks, whom
divestment is designed to help, will
- let us not forget that we are talking about the lives of 22 million black South Africans, who do not have the right to vote.
definitely be hurt more than whites if U.S. companies divest. A recent survey shows that the working class black South African does not want divestment, but the survey fails to include the majority of black South Africans, who happen not to be industrial workers.
that the United States can use to exert pressure on South Africa to change—and I emphasize this—not just reform its policy of apartheid, or institutionalized racism. Let us not forget that South Africa has defied, often with U.S. help, every measure of support by the international community.
On the other hand, divestment is just about the only feasible means
The world has but two choices on South Africa: accept divestment as
This dilemma is fostered by the winner of the 1984 Nobel peace prize: Bishop Christophe He advocates inter-religious dialogue in South Africa as a peaceful solution.
the solution, or let the events in Sou-
 Africa take their course, a course that promises to be bloody. The latter choice sends creepy sensations up my spine. The former choice means suffering for some time.
On campus, the issue has raised some controversy. Foes of divestment say it is not a student issue. How can it be a student issue when student money is invested in companies that in a way exploit the plight of black South Africans? How can it be a student issue when the student body includes many South Africans? How can it be a student issue when black South African students are massacred for their protests of apartheid, or what they through batons supplied by companies in which KU students' money is invested? It must then be an issue for the birds.
To suggest that all this is not a student issue is naive and ridiculous. I wonder whether the people who have taken this course as a member of the KU student body
or as a human. Those of us who have witnessed and read about protests over South African policy, which have occurred inside and outside South Africa, know that the voices denying it as an issue are the voices of the people.
Those who say it is not our issue as students are saying we should not be concerned about racism, short of condoning it.
I advocate neither economic sanctions nor violent solutions. We all know that a powerful racist regime exists in South Africa. Are we going to stand aside and watch, or are we going to act peacefully against that regime? When President Reagan said that the Soviet Union had done things evil by any sense of morality that Americans have, he forgot to call his ally — and the Soviet's stancehunched ally in actions - South Africa.
Bishop Tutu tsu. "Apartheid is as evil as Nazism and communism."
We, as future leaders and students,
have our future and the world's
future in our hands. We can either
be brilliant or even brighter for all mankind.
Paul Mamabole is a Johannesburg, South Africa, junior.
Work not so grave in old coroner's office
The coroner's office bundled his personal effects in a box and shipped them to the widow, in California.
The widow was surprised to find that her husband's personal effects
"I saw all these people lined up to see the body. I thought the guy must have been dead."
Mike Royko is on vacation; the following column first appeared in 1978.
A retired Chicago detective remembers going to the county morgue late one night, after a well-known gangster had been killed.
The same detective recalled when he was working on a paddy wagon and was sent to a hotel room where a dog had been found by the night clerk.
"He was yanking on the stiff's ring finger. He had one foot under the armpit to brace himself, and he was shaking and tugging, trying to get the ring off.
"Then I realized what was going on. A deputy coroner was charging the man."
Then there was the case of the movie actor who dropped dead while he was passing through O'Hare Airport a few years ago.
When he got there, somebody was already in the room — a stocky man wearing pointy shoes and a gray fedora, with a big cigar in his mouth.
"I said, 'Whadya think you're doing?'
"He didn't even blink. He says,
'OK, you can have the wristwatch.'"
So their main job was to rush to the scene of big murders and pose for
MIKE ROYKO
Syndicated Columnist
In recent years, the office has been rather subdued. In its heyday, however, when coroners were politicized, they were only one of the publicity any way they could
included three Chicago telephone directories.
She was even more surprised to find that the personal effects didn't include his ring, cuff links and silver bracelet.
Ah. Chicago history. This particular chapter ended a few days ago when the political office of the Cook County coroner ceased to exist. It
"Gentlemen," a coroner once declared when a head had been found in a city sewer, "this is the work of a murderer."
We are told that this will make the investigation of deaths more efficient and scientific. Compared with the coroner's office, even Dr. Frank enten and Igor were more scientific.
was abolished and has been replaced by a professional medical examiner.
They also liked grisly crimes, in which the victims were put in oil drums, garbage cans and other receptacles. The coroner would pose with his head in the in, peering about for a clue, or even the killer.
One coroner especially relished the slayings of gangsters who had been shot through the hat, as well as the head. He would then pose for a picture with his forefinger sticking out of the hole in the hat.
Not that they weren't scientific. A reporter once asked a coroner how deen the wound was in the corse.
pictures, pointing a finger or cigar at the body.
The coroner also conducted inquests, which had little legal standing, but they provided a few hours of testimony; only men who always sat on the jury.
It was always a poignant scene when the bereaved relatives of the deceased sat and listened to the terrible testimony, while a jury of old geeers in yellow shirts and purple hats strap hats sat there loudly sporing.
"Hmmmm," he said. "About three inches." Then he popped the pen back in his vest pocket
The real stars of the coroner's office, however, were the deputy coroners a small army of ace investigators who could walk into a room and in a minute make an accurate appraisal of every piece of jewelry on the corpse.
"Lemme check," the coroner said, as he used his ballpoint to measure
To quality as a deputy coroner, a person had to possess the following: a letter from the ward boss; a diamond ring; a diamond and pinky ring and a cigar.
When somebody died of anything but natural causes, a deputy coroner rushed to the scene. They always rushed, because they were afraid the wagon men might grab a locket.
Once there, it was the responsibility of the deputy coroner to have the body sent to the nearest funeral home owned by his brother-in-law.
I doubt whether a scientific medical examiner will ever match the legendary coroner who was there when a politician named Dingbat Oberta was found with a bullet in his head and a car of agonis in his pocket. The coroner held up the ascorbins and said:
He would get the name of the dead person. If the name was "James Doe," he would go to the phone and call his downtown office and say, "James Roe is dead." The downtown coroner would say, "Got it." He would write "James Sloan" on his list of dead people. Then he would call a newsman and say, "Blain Cohen is dead." The next day, Blain Cohen would read it in the paper and have a heart attack.
Then the deputy coroner would go to Blain Cohen's house and write down "James Roe."
Then he would gather the facts. It was done this way:
"He died of a headache."
Human rights contradictions hurt oppressed
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
Does Victor Goodpasture (Oct. 25 guest column, "Rescue mission was needed"), cheerleader of U.S military intervention, support an invasion of Haiti to free its people from the dictatorship, then to "breathe the air of freedom"?
Here's a country that has a hereditary dictatorship, no respect for individual liberties, torture and murder of enemies, no election and unbelievable corruption in the highest of places. However, we'll probably never hear Goodpasture speaking up for the Haitians, because the
Haitian leader, "Baby Doc" Duvalier, is one of our" thugs. That's why Cubans are political refugees, and Haitians are bums looking for handouts.
Does Goodpasture pire for the days of Somoza in Nicaragua" Is he sad that we can no longer exploit cheap labor for only the cost of training and armeniates to keep the people in line" Is he proud that our country supports "democracy" in the Phillipines, Indonesia, Honduras, South Africa, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina and so on?" Does he think that the only had armed thugs are those who cry
Are Greendads such wimps that they can't be trusted to deal with their own despots? Were they better off when a small hand of armed thugs claimed to be in control — assuming, for the sake of argument, that they were merely wolves — or when the awesome U.S. military occupies the city? Certainly, they can move safely in the streets now, as long as no one is cleaning his gun, but the political process is out of their hands.
out for economic justice? I accuse him of supporting oppression in the case of a rape victim.
During the Civil War, would Goodpasture have supported a British invasion of our country so that they could decide how the new government would be elected, while British troops occupied our streets and citizens wilt around asking "Aren't you glad we occupied your country?"
Who appointed us God, to decide the fate of other nations? We would scream bloody murder if someone hurt us, or even if we it were easier that way.
Ed Stamm '83 Lawrence resident