UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of the editorial staff.
October 30,1979
Nuclear power costly
The sheer destructive capability of nuclear power has turned a lot of people into anti-nuclear supporters recently. But for some, the threat of nuclear power is wiped out by a cost-benefit formula that seems to say that greedy America will only be hurt by curtailing that energy source.
But that economic cost-benefit equation is slowly beginning to show signs of working against nuclear power.
Nuclear power supplies only 3 percent of our total energy consumption-12 percent of our electrical—yet the cost is astronomical.
JUST LAST weekend, federal regulators told the utility companies building nuclear power plants in Kansas and Missouri that they must make more than 60 key changes for the plants to meet government fire safety standards. The cost may run about $10 million for the Wolf Creek plant in Burlington, Kan., which already has gone over the $1 billion figure in costs.
The money pumped into the changes
The NRC has acknowledged that stricter regulations are needed to prevent nuclear holocauses. But if the fear of destruction does not persuade people that nuclear power does not have a place in our nation's foreseeable energy future, then perhaps the NRC should the debate should persuade them.
Nuclear energy-in terms of both destructive capability and cost-is a non-profit venture.
The fact is that nuclear plants have not been proven safe. Arguments that say, "See, we stopped a catastrophe," do not ease any anxieties. The threat comes from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is one of the first to admit it.
and corrections that continue to pile up for the power plants are unsafe investments at best. Worries about the Three Mile Accident in March and a 1975 accident in Alabama have created an atmosphere in which it is very clear that a moratorium on the construction of these power plants may materialize down the road.
Current KU cheers often inane or crude
Ever wonder who the University of Kansas cheerleaders are cheering to?
I CAN, however, hear the "mike man" I can. He is one of the many detractors. His rhythmic chants of 'Jayhawks' are more often than not accompanied by an equally rhythmic chant of 'Jayhawks.'
I do. Each home game I sit in my well-carved senior seat on the 50-yard line to watch the ball go through the garbled scrapes of sounds like a high school cheer float up from 20 rows below me and I look down to see 10 nearly always scarily clawed young women waving their pompons at the crowd. By strraining me ears I can hardly catch the cheer over the din of the crowd.
Looking around I usually can count the number of persons following the cheer on one finger. Even that person looks a trifle bored.
Is this a symptom of student apathy? I think not. When KU fans are aroused, they are some of the most vocal and baiterous in the game, and they also can be some of the most lyratic.
It is the job of the spirit squirt to whip the fans into a frenzy and to create a wave of emotion that will carry the teams to victory. The best way to make it barely make rinkles, let alone waves.
MUCH OF the problem lies not with the squad, but with the cheers, many of which would be good for a junior high school squad to do, but which flap on the college level. "We are the blue. We are KU" may look good on paper. It even twitches. But try to go down and throw things with you on a Saturday afternoon and cheer curries into a ridiculous audacity.
There are several other equally inane cheers in the spirit squirt's cheerbook, each capable of drawing mowns and catfalls from the swamp. We still hear them over and over again.
Why? When it is clear that something is not firing up a crowd, why use it? Even in high school, cheers like that didn't work.
COLUMNIST
John
logan
Except for the artificial spirit of the "Pep Club" members—or banner girls or what have you—no one paid any attention. I know. Way back in high school I was one of the people on the sidelines who tried to stop them from doing it, but I didn't work them and it's not working now.
AS WILL be graphically demonstrated at this week's KU-KSU game, about the only cheers that get the crowd fired up are those with bawdy or downright flattery language.
For instance, the most popular KU cheer at the game will be the traditional response of "kiss me up," up KSU. "The response is not 'No you won't, we won't, we'll eat you.' but
Yet for the crudness of the words you'll find just about everyone in the stands, from sweet little freshness to elderly faculty members, on their feet scream the objections.
LIKEWIS, ONE of the most popular cheers of the spirit squad is one that concludes with an emphatic "Shove it," v. 41. He's on the sidelines in football team but the opposing fans as well.
It should be obvious that the good of high school type cheers just don't cut it at KU. Most of the fans just ignore them. What does he need to be clever cheers with veiled lewd meanings?
They don't have to be crude. Some cheers can be fine examples of the English language. For example, the KU Band's cheer of "emasculate them, emasculate them, relinquish the ball" is a rhetorical delicay that it conveys a clear and painful meaning.
College cheers are meant to be fun. They are supposed to make the game interesting for the fans, to fire them up to cheer their team. The most interesting part of the current bateh of cheers is I don't doing that.
And railroads probably will play an important part in our country's future, especially in light of today's rising energy costs—that is, if the railroads can survive.
The railroads have played a very important role in our country's past by helping to untie it and by making possible long distance travel and the transportation of
The railroads have been in the red for many years, and government officials are now beginning to have second thoughts about government regulation of them. They are realizing that the railroads might go gruff if their financial losses continue to grow.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BUT THE railroads can be an integral part of the country's future in terms of cheap transportation of people and goods. Railroads also situation intensifies, it will be more economical to transport people and goods by train rather than by airplane, automobile or road.
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The poor financial footing that the railroad companies are standing on, however, is jeopardizing their future.
MARY HORTON
Managing Editor Nancy Drescher
Campus Editor
Associate Campus Editor
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Tun Sheehy
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Lyn Byrcykowski, Job Fisher
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Many people say that the reason for the railroad's financial troubles is that the railroad has been so cheaply constructed more closely, he will see that governmental regulation of railroads is the real reason for its collapse.
Deregulation way to save railroads
THE RAILROADS are regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which has much to do with how railroads will be, and are run.
Cynthia Kay
Retail Sales Manager
National Sales Manager
Assistant Customer Manager
Assistant Classified Manager
Campaign Sales Manager
Art Director and Marketing Manager
Staff Photographer
Staff Artist
Vincent Coulson
Canon Nylon
Galvanized Steel
Deep Treasel
Alben Noyle
Ken Riggs
Kent Geiger
Adyanna Scald
people and goods. For this reason the current situation with the railroads cannot be imminent.
Advertising Adviser Church Churches
TWO OF the main financial problems now facing the railroad system are the continued use of unprofitable branch lines and the four or five different railroad companies that needlessly serve the same area. Under private regulation, those companies would be able to operate.
But under the ICC, thousands of miles of unprofitable lines still are being used. As
And this ineffective bureaucratic regulation has led to the poor use of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money and the continued financial decline of railroads.
Deregulation would mean that railroads would be able to discontinue those lines that were not economically feasible without having to wait for years for outside approval. And the railroads could merge when they wanted to and with whom they wanted to.
For example, because of its hearing delays, the ICC caused money-losing runs by railroads to be continued for many years before they were finally terminated. And many mergers of railroad companies have been approved only after several years of trial.
Deregulation also would allow railroad companies to set their own freight and fare charges, and more than likely, service providers. This could be the mismanagement of taxxner's money.
John
COLUMNIST fischer
All of this leads to public and business upstream. The people do not want to use the technology. The people are unreliable, and businesses are less willing to invest in them to have goods transported abroad.
money is needlessly used to keep those lines money is needlessly used to keep those lines available for the purchase or delivery of equipment that could provide for better and faster service of those lines that are needed.
in the best interest of the country and its future, the government should deregulate the railways now so that the railways can provide a better back on their own two feet before it is too late.
The government annually spends about $1 billion on railroad subsidies. This money could be better used, as such by helping subsidize farmers for the cost of transporting their crops by truck rather than by train or of rail discontinuation to a farmer's town.
continue to be uselessly pumped into the railroad companies by government subsidies to keep them alive.
CONSEQUENTLY, AS the regulation continues, more money is wasted, and
Louis W. Meck, chairman of Burlington Northern says of the current situation, "If rail lines in the U.S. were to be completely nationalized, the cost running them would be four or five times greater than would be under a private, profit-motivated system."
IN LIGHT of rising energy costs and scarcity of fuel, railroads can once again serve an important function in transporting
The circumstances surrounding the Wichita Gay Rights Ordinance is an excellent example of the need for education. The Wichita City Commission was well informed and sympathetic about the issues related to gay rights in the city and gay people. The general public was not well informed about the gay rights issue and was therefore an easy target for the propaganda
Too often the most visible forms of gay rights activism, as such as marches and parades, serve only to achieve visibility. This is desirable, but so is the public pressure of the social pressures and problems that cause the need for gay liberation.
THE 'GAY' Awareness Week will be held on Monday, June 15th one of the residence hall students at the GSKO Speakers Bureau will be present for open discussion and a question-and-answer session.
To the Editor:
After reading Thursday's column by the former Michelle Obama, we urge the liberation movement in Lawrence, we feel obligated to enlighten her about the direction and purpose of her work.
Another fact of our educational services is the upcoming Gay Awareness Week, which coincides with the Commission on the Status of Women and the Women's Caition. The purpose of the Gay Awareness Week is to make both the public and the students aware of the sensitive broad population in Lawrence and to educate the public about gay discrimination faced by gay people in Lawrence.
Gay rights activism is not declining at the University of Kansas. Gay Services of Kansas is better organized and more active than any other community and community programs than ever before.
KU gay activism organized, involved
Our counseling service is provided primarily for gay men and women who are unmarried, single, and unacquainted with sexuality. But it also provides counseling for anyone who may be having difficulty understanding or accepting a gay person, such as a friend, parent, sister or brother of a gay man.
THIS YEAR, the GSOK Speakers Bureau has spoken to several University classes and also at McCauley High School in Joplin, Mo.
Many of the programs in which GSOK currently is involved are inherently not very visible to the general public, such as our annual Summer Program, for the year, as last year, the primary focus has been on education, because we believe education to be the best method of fighting crime.
WE HAVE been educating ourselves, both by keeping abreast of the current research being published about gay people, and also by writing legal passions and past legal issues concerning gay rights.
The Speakers Bureau of Gay Services of Kansas was organized to provide a discussion panel of gay women and men to request one. The committee requested one. In the past, the Speakers Bureau has spoken to groups at Lawrence High School and the National Nursing School.
We have been educating the campus and community, primarily due to the efforts of our speakers bureau and our counseling service.
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
campaign launched by the Concerned Citizens group of Wichita. The group was concerned primarily with perpetuating stereotypes and myths about gay people.
TOO MANY gay rights decisions have been reversed due to ignorance. Gay Services of Kansas is working to destroy that ignorance.
The Kinsey studies and several other more recent studies have established the following: The United States to be approximately 10 percent of the total population. That would make the estimated population of Japan to be approximately 2,620.
of those 2,629 people, only a small percent join Gay Services of Kansas, but we are not so well represented by the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of Kansas. As long as they are unmarried, it is possible such as the University of Kansas, or by any other means, Gay Services of Kansas will be open to all.
Todd Zwahl
Co-directors, Gay Services of Kansas
Gays should maintain political activism
To the Editor:
In recent years, gays have enjoyed more freedom than ever thought possible due to the efforts of that often blacklisted group of people we call activists. Activism was the first major struggle in which Anita was driving the holy stake through the hearts of gays and it was strong during four major anti-gay flare-ups (Eugene, St. Wichita, St. Wichita and Miami). After four major defeats, perhaps a rest was achieved in the gays are human and not totally inexhaustible.
Thursday's column, "Gays Director Mileasing," raises a question as to the presence of gay activism. This is an im-ning of the fact that Gay activists are asking and one that is difficult to answer.
Within this "rest period," in which many of us were trying to fight against passivity, resistance and anti-discrimination advocates that the work of our predecessors does not last forever are critical to our own responsibility. The contributions made by activists of the last generation need to be addressed.
IDELAY, discrimination sufferers
together as "aggressive against"
discrimination. In smaller,
smaller, less powerful groups. However,
this idealismorgs that there are assist
with discrimination.
With this in mind, people should at least stand up for what directly effects them, but not as a way to justify themselves (twists)? Obviously many are riding on contauts, enjoying the benefits, but can still be cruel.
For the person with the lame excuse, "I'm only one person," there are hundreds of other people who think a thing. A social function like an ASOR meeting or a political planning meeting draws no one.
I believe activism is once again growing in Lawrence. Gay Services has reliable, responsible directors. It just needs some leadership. And it must be for ASGOR being ineffective, I might add that the organization has a speakers' bureau, gives counseling, legal, and medical referrals, is involved in the escort service for LGBT people, is not ineffectiveness, it is just not political.
Chris Budd
Christ Budd
Lawrence Junior
To the Editor:
Political push needed to help Cambodians
Torn by long years of civil war and invasion, Cambodia has run out of time and resources, and the inevitable rounds of hostilities have become more frequent to attend every war and are dreadful enough in themselves. But the Cambodian situation is compounded by something far more than the weakness of the nation's passion and devastation of war: the opposing political powers, each trying to keep their enemies under the siege of hunger and disease, is hindering the distribution of aid.
The government now in power, the Vietnam-backed Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, is delaying acceptance of the old Polot regime. The government organizations, hoping to find a distribution scheme that will exclude backers of the old Polot regime. Both the DRK troops and the military have been supplied and waylay shipments meant for the civilian population. With rigid ideological idocy, the two armies are systematically exterminating the Cambodians.
THERE Is no possibility that Cambodia can help itself. Only 10 percent of the arable land was planted for the August harvest and 90 percent was used for money, food and medicine has been pledged
by outside sources; but unless the warring factions that are now using the Cambian people as political hostages can be persecuted, the people will die in the very near future. 2 million people will die by the end of the year. Many observers, including Swedish anthropologist Jan Myrdal, have said that this will mean the death of a large number of them has said simply. "All the children will die."
The sad fact is that generosity, although essential, is not sufficient. Aid can reach Cambodians only if the armies will allow it. The military power of the political pressure is brought to bear on the DRK government. The U.S. can add to that pressure, by withholding foreign aid to Vietnam, by working through diplomatic ties, by public outcry and international cooperation.
Write your congressmen. Ask them to do something more difficult than sending money or Marines. Ask them to provide an immediate non-political distribution of aid in Cambodia. Write, talk to anyone you can think of who can help in building this project.
The human race still has a chance to avert a great holocaust, the extinction of an entire race, if we work together. For God's sake, let us not delay. Anne Willeman Mauley
To the Editor
Useless photographs waste scarce space
Apparently, there is confusion in the minds of some students as to the purpose of a newspaper, which is to present a newspaper is just what it implies; a "news" paper, containing information to inform its readers.
Photographs in the newspaper should serve as a visual means of presenting that girl's hair blowing in the wind to be news. It is very difficult to look around to see if it was actually blowing.
Similarly, how newsworthy is a man on a bike riding through a sprinkler? Now, who is going to photograph me?
Let it be known by those unfamiliar with the practicum of photofournalism that the purpose of a photograph is to inform viewers about events, its purpose is not to take useful subjects or scenes and fill up valuable photographic space that could otherwise be lost.
Dreux DeMack
Olathe senior
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