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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Wednesday, Dec. 4, 1985
End of KU's nuclear era
When KU officials dedicated the KU Nuclear Reactor Center more than 23 years ago, former Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe called the KU Nuclear Reactor Center a symbol of a march to the future.
Sometime during the next two months, a South Carolina company will help the University take the first step in another march to the future, a non-nuclear one.
The fuel in the reactor, about 7 pounds of Uranium 235, will leave campus.
The federal government will pick up transportation costs of removing the fuel, and the University will have realized a goal that it has had for several years. The actual reactor structure must be dealt with, but the first step will have been taken.
The nuclear era at the University will end, not with a dramatic and disastrous finale, but with a slow fade out. The reactor is not likely to be activated again.
When the reactor was running, few were concerned about
its safety — except the uninformed. The reactor was used for research, and the amount of power it generated perhaps could operate a toaster.
Other concerns helped end the nuclear era.
The reactor itself had been inactive since last fall.
The only academic program to use the reactor, the radiation biophysics program, died on July 1, after the University decided in the spring to discontinue it. At the time, the program served 10 graduate and three undergraduate students.
When KU officials were told to switch to a lower grade of fuel in October, they said they wanted to get rid of the fuel they had.
And an increasing number of federal regulations may have helped spur attempts to get rid of the fuel, as did the University's reluctance to continue radiation biophysics.
In the 30 years since Rosa Parks refused to move to the "Negro section" in the back of the bus, the legal status of blacks in this country has changed.
And the non-nuclear path began where the nuclear one ended. The time had come for the University to start on a new journey.
Remnants of racism
The arrest of Parks for refusing to give her seat to a white became the impetus for the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott organized by the young Martin Luther King Jr.
With her small but defiant gesture, the black seamstress unknowingly sparked a movement that would burn through the country and cause the dismantling of Jim Crow laws.
In the years since Parks refused to surrender her seat, black Americans have achieved tremendous economic and political power. Numerous civil rights acts have been enacted. And the country has witnessed the lessening of overt bigotry.
But last month in Philadelphia, a black couple and an interracial couple were victimized by the remnants of the racism that Parks faced 30 years ago.
The two couples moved into two all-white neighborhoods. Their new neighbors greeted them with jeers, taunts, BB shots and hurled bottles.
Mayor Wilson Goode responded by invoking a state of emergency in the neighborhoods to cool the heated racial tensions. But by then, Charles and Marietta Williams, the black couple, packed up and moved out of their new house.
The Williamsses, unlike Parks, surrendered to the oppressive ugliness of bigotry. The other couple has chosen to stay. For now.
In 30 years, most of the legal vestiges of racism have disappeared. But as the couples in Philadelphia found, racism has not been removed from the social attitudes of many people.
We can only hope it doesn't take another 30 years or another Rosa Parks for the last trace of racism to disappear from our country.
The U.S. surgeon general wants to snuff out smoking by stamping out all cigarette ads.
Dousing the wrong fire
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop should be commended for his crusade against smoking.
It's true that ads make the intake of carginogenic fumes seem fun and glamorous. Beautiful people nuzzle, walk along beaches and romp among leaves while waving cigarettes like magic wands.
But Koop goofed with this latest assault on cigarettes. Banning printed cigarette ads would not eliminate smoking.
But ads also spell out the surgeon general's warnings in black and white. They also include tar and nicotine information.
An ad may tempt a smoker to try a new brand. But few start the nasty habit because of manipulation by Madison Avenue.
Printed ads differ from ads on the airwaves. Warnings can't flash on and off a page. Magazine ads don't leap out to seduce everyone.
The Reagan administration could take more effective actions to douse smoking. It could back a stiffer sales tax on cigarettes or require more prominent warnings and labels in advertisements.
Until cigarettes are declared illegal, advertising them should be a tobacco company's right. Deciding whether to buy the lethal things is a consumer's responsibility.
Rob Karwath
Editor
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMillen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General manager, news adviser
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
Business manager
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sales
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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GOVEDNMENT SPOKEDEPerson,1985
GOVERNMENT SPOKEPERSON, 1990
SO A SQUAD OF COMMANDOS ATTACKED THE HOTEL.
OUR SYMPATHIES TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAD RELATIVES IN NEW YORK CITY
Notes on a conservative semester
Corks will pop and the bubbly will flow when the campus finds out that this is my last column of the semester.
the columns on South Africa, draft registration, SDI, drugs, Rambo, the Soviet Union and media bias flooded my editor's desk with letters. Someone even put a classified ad in the Kansan to refute one of my columns. Needless to say, I was very impressed.
I learned two things from all of this.
I believe very much in the marketplace of ideas. In a free and open society we can exchange ideas and then accept or reject them at
First, I learned that people love controversy, not stale humor. They love reading harsh criticism, not niceties.
Second, I learned that separating issues into liberal vs. conservative isn't always that simple. The words "liberal" and "conservative" by themselves are ambiguous. They are great for speech-making but lousy for problem-solving.
However, I still think that conservatism offers better solutions to the problems we face.
Victor Goodpasture Staff columnist
will. This is not possible in most parts of the world.
However, the conservative philosophy isn't getting the kind of exposure to the public that it should. The media is out of sync with the American people, who have given their overwhelming support to the solutions proposed by our conservative president.
Conservatives, among others,
believe that communism is the
If Reagan's solutions do not work, then the American people have an obligation to boot him and his conservative agenda out of office and elect someone else who can do the job. But before they do, the current administration ought to be given the chance to let its policies take hold. It's called democracy.
According to Winston Churchill, democracy is the worst system ever developed, except for the others that have been tried and have failed.
greatest threat to our liberties. There are those who disagree. But the Vietnamese and Cambodian boat people and the Afghan people stand as a reminder that, just maybe, conservatives are right on this one.
Aleksandr Solzhentsyn, the Soviet dissident, says there are about 80 million murdered Soviet citizens who will never be able to tell what communism did for them.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French historian who traveled through America in the 1800's, said that Americans equated equality with freedom.
His observation holds true today. Yet our federal bureaucracy has chosen to ignore de Tocqueville. The current administration wants to change that.
John Kennedy once said, "There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. And some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in military or in personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair."
This past semester, I have tried to
give students a point of view they may not have been exposed to. I stand behind every one of these views.
Those who write in refuting my opinions, ask questions that are usually answered in the column, if they would just read carefully.
I welcome open debates and other points of view. But at the same time, I know I'm right. If given the space I could refute every letter that has come in.
Friends have told me that several professors have spent entire class periods arguing over my columns. For me, that's job satisfaction.
My hope is to change current idealism into realism. They say the definition of a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. In part, that's very true.
I have found that there are a lot of closet conservatives on this campus. Now I have to convince the rest who still haven’t gotten the word.
There are still a lot of people out there, I've found, who think the nuclear freeze is some new type of ice cream.
Imagine.
The dream of a world government
Imagine — a world with no wars.
Imagine — the world as one.
That is what John Lennon told us to do. This set him apart from those in the mainstream who could not envision peace.
Today, the dream of one world still exists in various forms. One dream in particular is a dream at least as old as the Roman civilization — a dream of a world government, a world existing under world law.
A world government organization is needed now, because modern technological developments have transformed the world into a global village.
In the interest of peace and security, a federal world government must be organized to prevent international anarchy and to preserve worldwide law and order.
With a world government enforce
ing world law, the recent hijacking in Malta would have had a different conclusion. A rescue mission involving all nations would have been attempted; the hijackers would have been punished by the world government.
Also, the authorities handling the Achille Lauro hijacking would not have undergone a debate over who had jurisdiction in the case. A world government would have provided for trial and punishment.
The most impressive world government design would be an international federation run as a democracy. This plan would rule out any cries of international dictatorship, including totalitarian communism.
Let no one doubt that an ungoverned world will breed terror and tyranny. A world government enforcing world law can stop world terrorism and tyranny.
Dwight Hunter
Staff columnist
The best step toward a world federation is the United Nations. All of the member nations in the United Nations could approve a revision of the U.N. charter calling for changes, such as the establishment of a people's assembly whose members are elected by people in each sovereign nation. The International Court of Justice could be given actual judicial powers to help enforce world law.
True, problems exist with starting a world government. Communist nations are not standing in line for a chance to join a democratic international federation. Nations that do not belong to the United Nations also might choose not to join.
A dream, though, is a start of an idea. Pragmatism tempers the idealism into realistic policy.
If the United States or the Soviet Union were to be the first call for a world government, neither nation would join. Neither nation would want to follow the other.
The responsibility to start the call for a world government belongs to the Third World nations. After such a call, the United States and the Soviet Union could join in without losing their pride.
But first, people must begin thinking of themselves as world citizens, not just as American, French, Russian or Chinese. With a world government, there would be no need for an arms race or warfare among nations. A world government is the only hope to a lasting peace.
If all of us can join together, the world can live as one.
The bare facts on Chicago's Honeybears
I happened to mention to a group of female acquaintances that I was mildly disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Bears management to get rid of the Honeybear cheerleaders.
Ever since they began performing, I've found the Honeybears to be a pleasant cultural diversion during timeouts and other breaks in the action.
When I explained this to the female persons, one of them sneered and said, "Cut the culture bunk. You're just another leering male creep, gawking at their breasts and buttocks and having disgusting fantasies."
And as a patron of the arts and a student of dance, I admire their grace, agility and creativity. At times, they've reminded me of great moments that I have seen on the ballet stage.
Another one said, "Getting rid of the Honeybears is a victory for feminism. Those women were allowing themselves to be exploited by putting their bodies on exhibit for thousands of drooling degenerates such as yourself."
And a third bluntly said. "You just liked watching them shake their bottoms."
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
I protested, although conceding that I respected the Honeybears for having the determination and self-discipline to keep their bodies in such obviously healthy condition.
This brought on further hoots and jeers and the remark, "Why don't you admit it: You're sorry to see them go because you are a lech."
Their remarks were a classic example of the most unattractive of human traits — hypocrisy.
And they have forced me to discuss one of the dirty little secrets of many American females.
It's this: Of all the sports fans who gather in football and baseball stadiums or watch TV, the most lascivious and sexually motivated are the females.
Consider for a moment what you see when you watch three hours of professional football.
The cameras pan to them for only a
Out of that three hours, you might see a total of two or three minutes of a group like the Honeybears.
few seconds at a time. One or two
dainty dance steps and hand claps,
and that's it. Then it's back to the
field or a commercial.
Ah, but what is it that the female fans are seeing? I'll tell you what in a word. They are seeing "hunks."
But what do you see the rest of the time? Obviously, you and I and most men see football players — athletes engaged in a competitive sport. We see strategy, tactics and fierce competition.
Do you think that the average female is watching the offensive alignment, the shifting of the defense, the arm-waving by the middle linebacker? Is she looking for the subtle hints that will tell those of us who are true students of the game whether it will be a pass or a run?
They can deny it, but there is overwhelming scientific evidence to support my statements.
Like hell. The majority of the females are staring at some wide receiver's perky bottom. They're gawking at muscular thighs, lean hips and that part of the anatomy that Steve Martin, as the Bulgarian wild-and-crazy guy, used to refer to as the "booose."
Consider the study that was done by the prestigious Institute for the
Study of Lascivious Behavior, at the University of Ciego.
Professor Heinrich Goofus, director of the institute, said, "Our lengthy research and statistical data show wizot a doubt zat American women really liek to look at men's buns."
The introduction of the artificial surface into football has been another contributing factor.
As the professor said, "Zee vomen don't like to zee mud all over zum gus's buns. Zey say zuh mud is a turnoff."
In a survey the institute book of 16,000 female football fans, the women were asked what they look at when a pass play is developing.
The professor said that the results broke down this way: "Twenty-two percent said zey watch zuh receiver's buns, 18 percent said zey watch zuh defender's buns, 16 percent watch zuh thighs, and zuh rest say zey are watching a little of zis and zat. Whatever tum zem on. Not one of zem say zey watch zuh football."
And because I and others like me happen to think that a bit of female dancing at a football game is culturally uplifting, we are labeled as degenerates?
For shame, ladies, for shame.