November 5.1984
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Klaman (USP5 60/640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, KAN 6043; daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods. Second class postage payable at Lawrence, KAN 6044. Subscriptions by reqal are $15 for six months or a county. Student subscriptions by reqal for six months or $3 a year outlaw the county. Student subscriptions address changes to the University Daily Klaman, 118 Staffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, KAN 6043.
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PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
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Walter Mondale
The Kansan Editorial Board endorses Walter Mondale for president as the better of two less than exciting candidates. The decision is based not on the muddied tangle of statements of so-called fact or the ethereal statistics that have pervaded this campaign's rhetoric, but on the clear difference in the attitudes of the two candidates.
The primary question of this election must be whether the nation is safer now than four years ago. All the talk about the economy or prayer in the schools doesn't amount to anything after the bombs start falling. The president has argued that the nation is safer now than four years ago from the threat of Soviet attack. Yet the absence under his administration of a treaty on control of nuclear arms is startling. So is the absence of any top-level meetings with a Soviet head of state until the campaign season. Worst of all is the president's attitude that such treaties are unnecessary, that the only true way to make the world safe is to intimidate the Soviets with weapons on land, in the seas and in space. The nation cannot risk another four years of that attitude.
In Central America, the president's attitude and actions have undermined the credibility of the nation. Incidents such as the Central Intelligence Agency's recent little black book on subversion, as well as the mining of ports in Nicaragua, indicate to the world that the United States under Reagan doesn't care about playing under the democratic rules it claims to be defending. The possibility of further U.S. military involvement in Central America, in a morally corrupt replay of the Vietnam War, is too strong to be ignored. When advisers carry guns, are they still advisers? How many advisers does it take to make a war? Those are questions that the nation cannot afford to have answered in a second Reagan term.
Reagan's domestic policies have been credited by many for bringing the economy back from a recession caused by Democrats. Undoubtedly the economy is stronger now than four years ago, though the credit Reagan can take for that is questionable. He has let some of his advisers, such as Paul Volcker and Donald Regan, preside over the recovery, and that is commendable.
But he has shown throughout that recovery and throughout his term a striking insensitivity to the needs of the poor. Statistics can be pulled out of the air to support almost any contention, so the question cannot be decided on statistics. When ketchup counts as a vegetable in school lunches, however, there is a problem of attitude.
Using witty anecdotes about Rolls-Royce owners who live off welfare, Reagan has built sentiment against adequate financing of entitlements that can keep people from starving while they wait for the recovery to reach the lower classes. Throughout he has shown a lack of compassion for the poor, answering their protests with lectures about what his vice president once called "vodoo economics."
The nation doesn't often get to put to the president its questions about those and other issues, because Reagan has removed himself from accountability. He is quick to take up the blame for things he cannot be blamed for, such as terrorist attacks in the Middle East. But he has managed to have only five press conferences this year, none since July. When he does step out from behind the protection of his advisers, he often embarrasses himself with gaffes and half-finished sentences.
Seldom does he stutter on two main ideological issues, abortion and prayer in the schools. On those he is quite clear. His opposition to the federal guarantee of the right to have an abortion — though his stand has been relatively ineffective — is a throwback to a time when women had no rights to anything. His support of a "moment of silence" or whatever he could get through Congress to allow a return of prayer in schools is similarly anachronistic, regardless of whether it smacks of state religion. What is most frightening is that he and his advisers, notably among them the Rev Jerry Falwell, will further leave their mark on the Supreme Court. The precious gains in civil rights of the past 20 years would be hard put to survive such a legacy intact.
Such is the failing report card of Ronald Reagan. All that could be expected of him in a second term would be more of the same; he has promised not changes but a continuation of what he set out to do in 1980. Mondale, too, is full of promises, most of them worth what most campaign promises are worth. Clearly he is far less than an ideal opponent for a highly popular and charismatic president.
But beneath Mondale's promises is an attitude, a voice of compassion for the oppressed of this country, an intent to protect our rights and protections, and a voice calling out for peace through negotiations, not through covert belligerence or the rapid buildup of nuclear might. No one can say what either of the candidates would do after the election; we can know only something of what to expect, based on the attitudes they have shown. It is in attitude that Mondale differs most from Reagan, and it is attitude that makes him the better choice.
Nancv Kassebaum
It isn't difficult to understand why Sen. Nancy Kassebaum holds a virtually insurmountable lead in the polls this election year.
In her first term, Kassebaum has become extremely familiar with military and diplomatic problems abroad and with the difficulties of transportation at home.
She made headlines in 1982 when, at President Reagan's request, she was sent to El Salvador to observe that
country's elections. Her work as chairman of the Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee has made her an authority on domestic transportation.
Most recently, as chairman of the 80-member congressional Military Reform Caucus, she has sought to increase efficiency in the Department of Defense.
During her term Kassebaum, 51, frequently has gone against public, and sometimes party, opinion. She voted to maintain relations with Taiwan and to guarantee federally backed loans to Chrysler Corp., but she voted to end revenue sharing to the states. In front of a gathering of KU students and faculty in October, Kassebaum defended her vote for a new federal law that would eliminate federal highway funding for states that fail to raise their drinking age to 21. Kassebaum, however, conceded that the law was not a perfect solution to the problem of drunken driving.
Her opposition during this campaign is token at best. Democrat James Maher, 46, an investments counselor from Overland Park, has failed in three previous bids for election to the Senate and is considered so low-key that the Kansas Democratic Party has donated nothing to his campaign.
The all while Kassebaum has continued to show that her leadership has jelled, that she doesn't need the support of her father, Alf Landon, for political success, and that she deserves another six years in the U.S. Senate.
Jim Slattery
Rep. Jim Slattery has served his first term representing the 2nd District with honesty and effort, and he clearly deserves a second term.
His opponent, conservative Republican Jim Van Slyke of Topeka, has been reduced in his advertising to an appeal for votes not on his own merits, but on his status as a Republican in a year bullish for Republicans. His attacks on Slattery's voting record have been numerous but ineffectual; Slattery has successfully defended the votes on which Van Slyke has perceived inconsistencies.
Slattery has had two years to learn the ropes, and two years in which to set himself apart as a representative who doesn't always say just what the voters want to hear, or what the liberal leaders of his party would like to hear. For instance, Slattery advocates the cutting of built-in increases in entitlement benefits — including Social Security — to a figure 2 percent below the Consumer Price Index. When he spoke before a group of senior citizens in Lawrence a year ago, he didn't dodge the issue, but instead began a discussion on it himself.
That issue is a part of Slattery's commitment to a reduction of the deficit, a commitment he has shared the past two years with several other freshman Democrats in the House. Slattery favors a freeze on current spending levels and use of a "pay as you go" policy for future spending increases. Van Slyke favors a constitutional amendment to balance the budget; Slattery has taken a more realistic approach.
In all, Slattery has put pragmatism in front of political ideology. He has stepped on toes more than once but has remained true to the interests he sees as important. Against an opponent whose main selling point is that he is a Republican like Ronald Reagan, Jim Slattery is by far the best man for the job.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Press coverage of sheriff's race overlooks key questions for voters
To the editor:
I am very disappointed in the way the press has dealt with the election for Douglas County sheriff. One would think that the issues are who paid the $300 that a Douglas County corrections officer took from a prisoner in December 1982 and who was at狱 when a man was wrongfully detained in the Douglas County jail earlier this year.
Merle Rothwell, Democratic candidate, has said that Sheriff Rex Johnson, Republican, had lost a prisoner for 26 days and also had insisted that his employees contribute $6 apiece toward repayment of the money stolen by a woman who was never prosecuted.
My conversations with both candidates led me to see several clear issues that the public needs to consider.
The first issue deals with the sheriff's responsibilities. Johnson told me that one of his goals was to return those people he dealt with to the community as productive and positive members. He along with the sheriff, a businesswoman and woman who had taken the $300 would be a burden to society in jail.
Rothwell has said that any public servant guilty of felony theft should be dealt with by the courts. The question is whether the sheriff oversteps his duties in deciding not to press charges against a suspected felon. Is this, as Johnson suggested, a problem? A police officer who stops a car for exceeding the speed limit but decides not to issue a ticket?
As it turns out, she is working in Lawrence and is making restitution payments. She has learned a valuable skill in teaching young people she encounters.
The second question I think we need to ask concerns the job of a deputy, specifically at an accident. Once a deputy had made an injured person "as comfortable as possible," the deputy must make sure that traffic is not endangered by the deputy. If the medical work is the job of ambulance personnel, who usually arrive within three minutes of the deputy's arrival.
should be medically trained because they will most likely be first at an accident. It seems to me that it is rare that an accident is so bad that oncoming cars would crash without a deputy directing traffic, and at the same time cars are coming at 50 or 60 mph, as Johnson told me.
Johnson has said that new deputies would be required to have crash-injury management training. The state requires such training for new employees, and Johnson does not think that he should require more than the state does. Johnson said, however, that he would reimburse current employees who underwent training. Rothwell has said that all patrolmen would have medical training.
The voters don't need to know who said what; they need to know what specific choices they are making. The press has successfully avoided dealing with these questions, and is very bad news for Douglas County.
Rothwell thinks that all deputies
I am amazed that I, not a journalist, have been able within 24 hours to discover on my own who the author of these articles are and to contact several of them.
Reagan and GE
Robyn Nordin
Overland Park senior
Robyn Nordin
Now it appears that in his current role, he's still doing a good job for GE. Reagan's tax bill of 1981, which shifted taxes from corporations to individuals, benefited one company more than any other — GE. Since the new law took effect, GE has gathered more than $6.5 billion in increasing profits, yet paid out not one cent in federal income taxes! The company actually used the new law to claim a $283 million refund!
During the 1960s, after Ronald Reagan's Hollywood career had hit the skids and an attempt as a variety emcee in Las Vegas had fallen through, he joined General Electric. Co Reagan became the spokesman for the products and ideas. For eight years his skills as an actor served GE well.
To the editor:
That may be legal, but it's a slip in the face of those of us who pay our taxes every year. If GE had paid the standard amount of corporate taxes, it could have covered Reagan's cuts in the funds for the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency or a dozen other agencies scheduled to feel the knife the next four years.
Moreover, GE is not alone. A study of 250 of the largest U.S. corporations found that more than half had no paid federal income taxes for at least one of the past three years — and all of these companies were turning profits. The deficient deficit is less a mystery when we realize that Reagan turned to his bosses at GE to write him a new script for tax laws. Our gullibility keeps them laughing all the way to the bank.
Chuck MagerI
Lawrence resident
Next year when time comes to rewrite the tax law, you can be sure that the scales of justice will continue to tilt and lift the rich boys higher. Just check the record of the past four years. If you really think that Reagan is your friend, try zeroting out your income tax. Then wait and see whether he treats you as he treats his friends.
Animal slaughter
Do the "animal rights" activists consider it ethical to eat animals even though they could very well do without? Baby Fae would have had no chance without the transplant, but people would be no worse off if they stuck to a vegetarian diet (the nutritive value of a vegetarian diet has been proven beyond doubt, and is beside the point in question.)
If you want to see the height of hypocrisy, I suggest that you go see the protest in front of the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. If all that the protesters wanted was media coverage, they would not percent successful. If on the other hand, the protesters protect animal rights, they should be in front of a shutterhouse before they even look at a hospital.
To the editor::
Siriam Naganathan Madras, India graduate student
I still do not understand how somebody could just ignore the slaughter of thousands of animals — which are killed for no reason (for people to eat is no reason) — and pick on scientists who are trying to improve our standard of living. The patients who, in the words of the protesters, "suffer," are, in fact, paving the way for a better future.
I am, however, quite sure that many protestors would be standing there if medical science had not experimented on animal subjects.
Before getting into an argument about the ethics of eating animals or using them in scientific experiments, let us spend some time in questioning the ethics of the priority of protesting the way of science and overlooking the slaughter of animals by the millions.
Balancing act
Laurie McGhee's column (Oct. 23,
"Macho' fails to describe concept of women")
is confusing and insulting to men and women alike.
To the editor:
Contradictory statements exist not only throughout the column but often within the same paragraph, as the following excerpt exemplifies: "Reliance on anything but oneself can lead to disappointment and eventually the inability to go it alone. Women do need that half of them that is 'macho,' but they will find it in a man, not in themselves." The first sentence warns against reliance, and the second demands it.
According to McGhee, men are also trapped in this dependency on the opposite sex, as she says, "when the man is allowed to practice his masculine role, he ackons leges his need for his feminine half, and the importance of the woman in his life" (McGhee 2016). He leads one to think that McGhee sees human fulfilment as an impossibility without succumbing to dependent and stereotypical male-female relationships.
Although "no man is an island." I think that we are all complete within ourselves, or at least have the capabilities to become so Many failed marriages are the result of being unable to satisfy "that other half of us," when in reality that is our job, not the other person's.
The key to satisfying our other half lies in something McGhee failed to mention altogether — our androgynous nature. Poets and psychologists, from Whitman to Jung, have been telling us for years that we are all part male and part female Virginia Woolf says, “in each of us two powers predate one, the woman’s brain the woman predominates over the man.” If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect, and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her.”
The recent interest of women in the "macho" comes from a desire to balance the feminine and masculine aspects of themselves in order to become more complete individuals. Men also must be encouraged to seek that part of their nature that is traditionally female and more self-reliant. These endeavors are the evolutionary challenges that face our generation.
Kathryn Steger
Leavenworth special student
Freedom to be
To the editor:
First, is "macho" really 'inherently masculine'? According to my dictionary, machismo is "an exaggerated sense of masculinity stressing such attributes as physical
Laurie McGhee struggles between two mutually exclusive ideas — that women do need men to be fulfilled and that women don't need men to be fulfilled. Although she does not come close to resolution of this contradiction, she brings up some points I would like to address.
However, we are searching for that side of ourselves that is not "macho" but strong and independent. (What is wrong with being the aggressive initiator, anyway?)
courage, virility, domination of women and aggressiveness or violence." I know few men willing to be saddled with such a description, its explicit negative connotations and its implicit pressures. I certainly don't think that women are striving for this image.
By implying that because I am female I am necessarily submissive, she misses the point. The ideal of the feminist movement, in my opinion, is to nurture the active and passive qualities in both men and women — some individuals are weak; others, more assertive, some need to rely on something or someone else to feel complete. There are also many instances where I discovered a balance of "masculine" and "feminine" traits in themselves, can, as McGhee says, "go it alone". Most important here are attitudes conducive to, and supportive of, this "freedom to be."
Here McGee falls into the generalization trap: "Women do need that half of them that is 'macho', but they will find it in a man, not in a woman." They say "macho" and assume instead that she means assertive and strong.)
I must also point out that it does not "seem perfectly normal" to many of us to "let the man be head of the household." McGee writes that, in so being, he is more dependent on the woman, implying that the female uses submission as a means of dominance to keep her in her proper place. How degrading to both individuals!
I think that men deserve more credit than McGhee's "men will always think of women in the same way." Many enlightened males are also seeking to replace the dominance-submission relationship between the sexes with one that is flexible and egalitarian
Sandra Pellegrini
Topeka graduate student