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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Wednesday, Nov. 6, 1985;
Tacha's nomination
Deanell Tacha, vice chancellor for academic affairs, said last week that she felt conflicting emotions about the announcement of her nomination as judge for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
She was honored, she said, by President Reagan's nomination, but saddened because she will have to leave the University of Kansas.
Tacha, 39, would be the second woman appointed to the 10th Circuit bench if the U.S. Senate approves her nomination. Both Kansas senators have spoken well of her and say she deserves the nomination.
Yet, she will be difficult to replace.
Tacha played an important
part in developing programs to enhance educational opportunities for students. She also has been called the driving force on KU's Core Curriculum Committee.
These are qualities the replacement search committee must find in her successor.
In the past, those who have worked with her say her effectiveness stems from her enthusiasm for her job, her concern about academic matters and her ability to listen. They also have said she knows when and how to make a quick, appropriate decision.
Tacha's nomination reflects well upon the University, and she obviously should be congratulated. But at the same time, the KU community knows that she will be missed.
Asylum inconsistencies
The United States seems to have a double standard for deciding to whom it will grant asylum.
The Soviet sailor who swam dived into the Mississippi River last week surfaced in a safe harbor. Although his true intentions are unknown, U.S. officials clearly would have let him stay had he chosen to.
Meanwhile, 11, clergymen, nuns and lay workers are on trial in Arizona for providing sanctuary for Central American refugees fleeing death and torture. The government calls this "harboring illegal aliens."
This seeming inconsistency can be clarified. U.S. practice is to grant asylum only to political, not economic, refugees. It's easy to distinguish between the two once a few of the government's definitions are understood.
Political refugees come from communist countries such as the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Apparently many ballet dancers and tennis players are persecuted because their pirouettes and backhands are not ideologically correct.
Economic refugees are from Central American countries
Today, the Refugee Act of 1980 permits asylum if a person has a "well-founded fear of persecution." But immigration courts require proof that applicants actually have been threatened and aren't just nervous.
with governments backed by the United States, such as El Salvador and Guatemala. These refugees come here simply to make more money. After all, someone can earn a much better living if he is alive.
For example, Salvadoran death squares bursting into a woman's home to murder her brothers before her very eyes is not an explicit threat toward her personal safety. Sure, it might shake her up a bit, but that doesn't meet the government's standard. She, therefore, should be sent back home where she belongs.
The inconsistency of holding the Soviet freighter while at the same time hounding the sanctuary activists makes perfect sense — when one understands that different standards are used for refugees from totalitarian governments than for refugees from terror in countries supported by the United States.
A flicker of peace?
Recent letters to the Kansan indicate that the conflict in the Middle East still generates a lot of heat, but not much light.
So the flickering efforts of Jordan and Israel last week to move, however tentatively, toward peace talks have to be welcomed against the gloomy backdrop of the region's politics.
Peres' offer before the United Nations to negotiate with Hussein over the future of West Bank Palestinians was for once free of the impossible preconditions that have usually characterized Israeli peace offers.
The progress made by King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres toward negotiations seems even brighter after last month's rash of terrorist and counter-terrorist violence.
Hussein, for his part, has begun to apply pressure on the
Palestine Liberation Organization to ease its equally impossible preconditions for talking to Israel.
Israel has set one unwavering demand: It will not negotiate with the PLO as long as it fails to recognize Israel's right to exist. For the PLO's leader, Yasser Arafat, recognition is a trump card he doesn't want to play until he can gain some important concession from Israel in return.
But Arafat's down to his last cards. He is undermined by those in his organization who still think terrorism can win a Palestinian homeland. And he confronted by the growing number of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
If he waits too long for the ideal concession, it may be too late. And he can turn out the light on Palestinian hopes for the West Bank and Mideast hopes for peace.
Duncan Calhoun
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Rovals defeat media criticism
How 'bout them ROYALS!
You just can't seem to say enough good things about the Kansas City Royals. The Royals beat the odds and showed the naysayers on both coasts that the Midwest knows how to play ball
St. Louis has a great ballclub, The Cards and the Royals made the perfect World Series: two teams from the heart of America - only 247 miles apart - who can play each other only in the World Series.
The amazing comeback by the Royals, who at one time trailed three games to one, was made even sweeter by their 11-0 shutout in Game Seven. Their never-say-die attitude makes them world champions.
That's totally irrelevant. What matters is that the Royals won the
For a bit of ironic trivia, in the 1934 World Series, St. Louis beat Detroit in Game Seven — by the score of 11-0.
However, the large Eastern and Western establishments didn't have many nice comments about the Royals. Their biggest complaint was that the team hadn't recorded bad enough for them to deserve to be in the World Series.
Victor Goodpasture Staff columnist
games that had to be won. They went down to the wire with the California Angels and the Toronto Blue Jays and when the dust had settled, the Royals stood triumphant.
Here are are several comments from the peanut gallery who think that unless the Dodgers play the Yankees or the Yankees play the Mets, the Series isn't worth watching.
League champions but they are the World Champions.
Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The proposition put forth here is that the Kansas City Royals are the best team in the American League. Believe that and I'll sell you a vegetable peeler. If City Royals are the best team in City Royals, be the best team in Bulgaria, a superpower."
Alan Halberstadt of the Windsor Star in Ontario said, "You're (Kansas City residents) getting a rag for being too polite."
I'll take five dozen of those vegetable peelers, Jim, because not only are the Royals American
The sad part is that corporations no longer see the Series as a game, but as a way to make more money. Fans of the Royals and Cardinals, though, have not lost sight of what the Series is all about.
A Sports Illustrated writer moaned, "Everybody's basically stuck in Kansas. The game's in Missouri but you're staying in Kansas."
I admire those sports writers who endure pain and suffering just to get a decent story.
Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury-News called Kansas City and St. Louis fans "wacko."
The answer is simple. Lost television revenues, ABC complained that it couldn't attract as large a television audience with the Royals and the Cards as they could with teams from either coast.
Lower ratings mean less money. The large corporations in turn don't reach as many potential customers.
The media didn't call it the "Missouri River World Series." In fact, the national media have been rather silent since the Royals won, Kind of like when the Cubs didn't make it to the playoffs. They had come to see Brett and Company lose and were sorely disappointed.
Why is there so much criticism of the Missouri River World Series?
now they're trying to make excuses for the Royals' victory. "If Vince Coleman hadn't been injured, the Royals would have been history," they whine. "The Western Division of the American League is the easiest league in Major League baseball," they whimper.
teams in the World Series, or the Super Bowl for that matter.
In fact, the running joke now is that in the season couldn't possibly have been rigged, because Big Business just doesn't like seeing non-c coastal
It doesn't matter what anyone says. Congratulations, Royals. You've done well.
What does it take to convince these clowns?
Congress finally grapples with deficit
Congress has been long on talk and short on action when it comes to cutting federal spending. But last month, the Senate finally summoned up the courage to put its money where its mouth is.
After eight days of debate, 75 senators voted to approve the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, a sweeping reform of the budget process that promises a balanced budget by 1991.
This ambition and long-awaited plan demonstrates that Congress is finally getting the message. The people are fed up with what the federal government has been doing with their hard-earned dollars.
Every poll I've seen lately — and just about every constituent I've talked to — tells the same story: record-setting deficits are unacceptable. I agree. Slashing the federal deficit remains this country's number one domestic priority. Unless something is done, it will eat us alive.
In my view, the Senate Deficit Control Act justifiably includes the word "emergency" in its title. That's why I called the Senate into work on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 5 and 6. The news media labeled the weekend session extraordinary. I called it compulsory.
The Deficit Control Act, coauthored by Sens. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Warren Rudman, R-N-H., and Ernest Hollings, D-S-C., dramatically reforms Capitol'D Hill's budget process by imposing strict deficit limits each year for the next five years.
These restraints will result in annual cuts of approximately $36 billion. If those deficits are exceeded, a tough set of new controls will go into effect that will stop the big spenders in their tracks. By 1991, the federal budget would be balanced, something that until now seemed almost impossible, what with annual deficits heading toward and beyond the $200 billion mark.
Guest shot
Sen. Robert Dole
dent would have the authority to mop up red ink by reducing spending across the board, if Congress fails to live up to its budget responsibilities. In other words, members of Congress still may vote in funds for their favorite programs, but if it busts the budget, well, they'll be out of luck.
If nothing else, the Senate vote on Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was a vote of realization — the realization that the deficit problem was number one, front and center, in the minds of the American public. And a realization that the problem was not going to be wished away.
The Deficit Control Act is picking up steam, with President Reagan behind it all the way. You know this reform plan has broad support when the likes of Jesse Helms and Ted Kennedy vote together for the proposal. That's progress.
Nevertheless, there's still a long way to go. There are other, additional actions Congress can and should take — long-term actions to insure that we don't let deficits run out of control.
First, Congress could give the president enhanced authority to veto specific items in an appropriations bill — the so-called line-item veto. Earlier this year, the Senate debated this proposal, and although there was no consensus on the legitimacy of a filibuster prevented us from taking final action.
Under the Senate plan, the presi-
Second, the Congress should approve a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. While measures such as the Gramm- Rudman-Hollings plan should help us on the path of fiscal responsibility, its goals are finite—through 1991
Right now, however, our top priority should be to adopt the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings proposal. House and Senate conferees are now meeting on whether and how to go forward with this long-overdue disciplining measure.
The Senate has already demonstrated its willingness to tackle the issue. Now it's up to the House of Representatives to prove it has the mettle to do likewise.
Editor's note: This Guest Shot was taken from a press release mailed to the Kansan last week by Sen. Dole's office.
Notes from a custody hearing
In the groom of Cook County Juvenile Court, the doctors had testified for hours in great detail about how battered the baby was when it was brought to the County Hospital.
They told of the facial bruises, the internal bleeding, the concussion, the broken arms and what appeared to burn marks all over its tiny body.
Then Mom testified. Sometimes mumbling, sometimes crying, she sounded thoroughly confused. She said she didn't know how her baby's limbs and organs got so banged up. As for the skin wounds? She suggested it was the result of some sort of rash brought on by the bite of a bug in her bed.
Through it all sat Calvin, the boyfriend who was baby-sitting when the child became, in the mother's words, kind of "droopy" and was taken to the hospital. Calvin said nothing, but occasionally he grinned.
Finally, Grandma took the stand.
As she made a remarkable display.
She said that she went to the hospital and took out a camera and photographed her grandchild's toe.
So, they took the picture because they wanted evidence in case anybody accused them of having injured that toe.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
Ah, but did Grandma take pictures of the baby's battered back?
No. And did Grandma take pictures of any of the baby's battered limbs or face?
No. Or its injured neck? Forehead?
Buttocks? Legs?
No, only that one toe.
And that's the way it has gone during several days of testimony at the hearing to decide who will have custody of this child.
If you listen to the mother and grandmother, it's a great mystery as to how the child wound up looking, in the words of a doctor, like somebody tried to kill her.
First, the public defender asked for a mistrial. That means that everything that has happened in their case and they'd have to start over again.
She said her client couldn't get a fair hearing because of all the publicity that the case has generated.
And I suppose we'll never really know, because the people who had the baby when she was injured — Mom, Grandma and Calvin — say they have no idea how it happened.
Actually, the hearing wouldn't have been going on these past few days if it hadn't been for the publicity. By now, the baby would have been back home in the environment where it obviously got into such awful shape.
But at least the baby is safe for the time being.
Judge Ronald Davis has awarded temporary custody of the child to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which will place it in a foster home until the next hearing.
That hearing will be in two weeks. The delay was granted by the judge after the public defender, who is representing the mother, made a couple of complaints that I believe were about me and my columns.
It will be interesting to see what kind of medical expert she comes up with and how he explains the mauling of that child.
Then the public defender said she needed more time to prepare her case. She said that because of the publicity, she was having difficulty finding a doctor who, presumably, would find a sensible, rational and benign explanation for why this baby looked like it was worked over by Mr. T.
Say, s Dr. Frankenstein still in practice?
The public defender said she had recruited a medical expert, but that the publicly scared him away. So the judge gave her two weeks to round up another doctor.
I'm not surprised she's having this problem. It will be a supreme challenge for any doctor to corroborate the theories of the mother. On different occasions, Mom has said the injuries were caused by (a) the hospital, (b) heredity, or (c) that bug bite.
It was only after I wrote about the case that the judge ordered the immediate hearing, assuring the child of at least a temporary stay in a place where she'll be less accident-prone.
But I suppose that means little to the public defender. In any case, the judge denied her request.
In the matter of the proposed gun control ordinance, the stated purpose of which is suicide prevention, consider the following.
Gun control not cheap
Mailbox
Such legislation will not be passed cheaply. If passed, it will be after being upheld in state and/or federal lawsuits. Opposition to the registration portion of the proposed ordinance is understandable, as such registration is already mandated by federal law.
The bureaucracy necessary for the record keeping, enforcement, court and litigation costs to effect such a law will not be cheap.
The revenue lost by local businesses will be considerable. Firearms costing $200 to $300 or more are the rule, not the exception, and they may be purchased in Kansas City or Topeka more cheaply than in Lawrence in my instances.
Such a law — presuming it would work at all — would affect only suicides committed with guns. More specifically, it would affect only suicides committed with guns bought in retail outlets in Lawrence within three days of the suicide.
I find it inconceivable that the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars involved could not be spent in ways that would prevent many more suicides. After all, hot line volunteers and mental health counselors see many more potential suicides than do gun dealers.
Robert T. Curry Director of Laboratories Physics and Astronomy