4
University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, Oct. 22, 1985
Enough time to heal
Broken bones and torn muscles need time to mend. A person whose leg has just been set can't be expected to run an obstacle course.
But that's what faces still-healing mental patients who leave psychiatric hospitals to rejoin society. Each day stretches before them like a track full of hurdles. Finding a place to live and work. Managing money. Rebuilding a social life.
Overwhelmed by these tasks, many patients end up back in the hospital. Kansas state psychiatric hospitals have 5,000 to 6,000 admissions a year. But these involve only 500 to 600 people — many of whom enter, leave and reenter the hospital several times.
The School of Social Welfare is working to end this sad cycle. Last week it began to train community mental health workers in Kansas to be better case managers — advocates who help patients make the transition from living in an institution to living on their own
Case managers match their
clients with the community services they need. They also provide personal, day-to-day support — helping with grocery shopping, arranging a ride to work or simply sharing a pizza and a movie.
This practical assistance could be the difference between success and failure in life outside the hospital. During KU's four-year pilot study, the hospitalization rate was 69 percent lower than normal.
Case management reduces not only the human but also the dollar cost of mental illness. State hospitalization costs $120 a day for each patient. The new program will cost between $30 and $60 a day.
Keeping costs down is crucial. President Reagan's reductions in domestic spending have forced communities and states to pay more of the tab for mental health services. The School of Social Welfare is helping communities meet their obligation to help mental patients pick up the threads of their lives and reweave them into society.
Increasing farm exports
It's called increasing exports.
The House of Representatives last week came up with an answer to the farm crisis.
The 1965 farm bill that passed out of the House pins hope for long-term financial recovery in American agriculture on increased overseas sales of corn, wheat and soybeans.
While many lawmakers said they weren't happy with the bill - a compromise on one of the most complex issues facing Congress - the House accurately identified increased sales as the most obvious way to pull farmers from their financial mire.
Now the task before the House is seeing the solution through.
Representatives know what it will take to sell more American farm goods overseas: lower interest rates. And low interest rates will come only when congressmen attack the federal budget deficit.
For months, Washington politicians have predicted doom for all sectors if the budget deficit isn't cut. The problems of the American farmer are the first of those ills to show themselves in human terms.
Now that the House has said what needs to be done to ease farmers' woes, it's time for action.
Real House action on farm problems will come only when representatives start hacking away at the deficit.
Still blaming the victim
Women, forget the advice your mothers taught you about remaining passive during a rape so the rapist doesn't kill you.
That same advice may be all it takes to allow the rapist to go free after a jury hears the facts.
The Jackson County jury decided that because the girl did not physically resist the assault she gave her implied consent.
A Kansas City, Mo., man was acquired two weeks ago of charges of rape, sodomy and kidnapping of a 16-year old girl.
One juror said after the trial,
"The girl didn't verbally or physically convey to the person that she didn't want to mess around. He had no way to know what he was doing was wrong."
Although the defense conceded the girl had screamed before entering the man's truck the jury still wanted to hear that the girl had used some heroic effort to free herself before she was actually raped.
This case shows that society still blames the rape victim because of where she was, what she was wearing or what she was doing to provoke the attack. Few other criminal cases force a victim to defend actions while those of the attacker become incidental.
Rape counselors, parents and rape tell young women that fighting an attempted rape can put their lives at risk. Rape, they say, is an act of violence, not of sex.
The Kansas City case may set an unfortunate precedent. Does a woman now have to prove how much resistance she offered before the attack is considered rape?
But if the ruling in this case stands, it will send an insidious message: Anything less than total resistance makes a woman a willing partner.
The only resistance a woman needs to offer to prove that she has been raped is the answer "No." Anything else blames her for the crime and lets her attacker go free.
Rob Karwath
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Supreme Court teeters at a crossroad
Justice in the United States is approaching a crossroad. Those who would like to point the way for us say the future of the Supreme Court teeters between tyranny of the majority and tyranny of the court.
Five of our eight associate justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are 76 or older. Three of those five, justices William J. Brennan Jr., Thurgood Marshall and Harry A. Blackmun, compose the Supreme Court's last bastion of liberalism. They are trying to hang on until a Democratic president can name their replacements.
Brennan, 79, the oldest and most liberal of the justices, came to the Supreme Court in 1856. He helped make sweeping decisions on voting rights, affirmative action, rights of those accused of crimes, busing to integrate schools, legalized abortion and prayer in public schools.
Brennan recently criticized the Reagan administration's desire to fill the Supreme Court with judges who believe in strict interpretation of the Constitution. Such conservatives only feign deference to the 200-year-old framers and phrases of the Constitution, he said. Their philosophy masks antipathy to the claims of the minority; they interpret the Constitution narrowly to avoid finding violations of human rights. Brennan said.
Judges must make value choices while interpreting the Constitution, he said, and apply them to modern circumstances.
"Our acceptance of the fundamental principles has not and should not bind us to those precise, at times
anachronistic, contours" of the Constitution's text, Brennan said.
Guest Shot
Shawn Aday
On the other side, conservatives have long cried "tyranny of the court" against the liberal judges. They said the court, while dominated by liberals in the '60s and early '70s, led American society where it did not want to go. They said the Supreme Court overstepped its authority to settle questions of constitutionality and accused it of making new law.
the last two years the Supreme Court had loosened the rules for admission of evidence in criminal cases, seeming to heed the popular notion that too
'So which would be the better course, tyranny of the majority or tyranny of the court? Should the Supreme Court's overriding interest be the will of the people or the interests of minorities?'
The Miranda decision of 1966 is an example. It asserted the rights of those accused of crimes to be informed of their rights and to have a lawyer present during questioning. Miranda and subsequent decisions severely restricted how police could gather evidence that was admissable in court.
many criminals were being freed because of technicalities. It appeared that the Supreme Court had evolved to a position that more fit the needs of society, while still respecting the essential rights of the individual.
So which would be the better course, tyranny of the majority or tyranny of the court? Should the Supreme Court's overriding interest be the will of the people or the interests of minorities?
Before Edwin Meese became attorney general of the United States, I would have favored willed of the majority. After all, I was pleased that in
But such gradual evolution may be distorted now by the number of justices who could leave the court suddenly. And that would be exacerbated by the Reagan administration's concentrated search for replacements who believe in the strict interpretation of the Constitution.
A former senior Reagan official recently told Newsweek magazine that the selection process for all
federal judges emphasizes "philosophy and disregards almost everything else, including an open mind."
If exemplified by Meese, the administration's "mind" on constitutional rights is shockingly closed. Meese has called Miranda an "infamous" decision. In a recent interview with U.S. News and World Report magazine, he questioned the need for an accused person to be told his rights and he questioned the right of the accused to have a lawyer present before police ask questions.
Meese also has challenged affirmative action. And he wants to knock down Congress' 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act, which made it harder for state officials to split the black vote by redrawing the boundaries of voting districts. In opposing the amendments, Meese is overriding the wishes of the Republican National Committee and many Republican congressmen, including Robert Dole, Senate majority leader.
I would like to believe Brennan underestimates our majority. I would like to believe our open society cradles enough wisdom and compassion to respect its minorities without being forced to do so by the Supreme Court.
But when I consider that President Reagan appointed Meese and wants to appoint like-minded justices to the Supreme Court, I find myself hoping that Brennan and those other old tyrants can hang on for three more years.
Mailbox
Yet another bright young student has taken her own life. There was probably nothing anyone could have done to prevent this tragedy, and I leave it to the experts to provide the insights into causes of suicide.
Guns no easy solution
There is a side issue, however, that begs our consideration and action: The 21-year-old student was able to buy a gun at noon and two hours later use it on someone, in this case herself.
I first I was shocked this was so easy to do in Kansas; now I am outraged. Not that a waiting period necessarily have changed her decision, anyone, for whatever reason, can so easily buy so lethal a weapon.
Why can't there be a longer waiting period? Why not require a gun safety class, at buyer's expense, before the receipt of the gun? Is our freedom impinged by driver's education? Why can people with a history of psychological problems buy guns at all? Why?
I would like to thank the people of the National Rifle Association for answering these questions for me. Some of these same people who are upset by the profusion of interest groups, promote their own multimillion dollar lobby to keep us safe from gun control. Why?
For the NRA, gun ownership is a sacred right, the gun itself worthy of idolatry. The gun is like no other instrument, device or machine. A gun has only one purpose.
Sure, they respect it, for it confers power and control upon the owner. It can solve problems with the mere squeeze of the trigger. Got a burglar? Squeeze, problem solved. Got an ungrateful wife? Squeeze, problem solved. Even non-gun enthusiasts respect its ability as a problem solver. Got a painful and unfathomable life? Squeeze, problem solved.
Gun owners are so afraid their precious rights will be taken from them entirely if they give even an inch on gun control. Why are they so afraid? So long as they are not excons or mentally unstable, what have they to worry? Their adolescent epithets and slogans do nothing to oromate their cause or respect.
The student's death personally saddened me greatly. I am saddened even more when I hear otherwise rational people advocate gun possession. Too many gun owners are fearful of life and hide behind an illusion of safety and power. Is that freedom, or captivity?
One more thing. Guns don't solve problems, people do.
Jeff Miller
Overland Park graduate student
'Star Wars' dangers
I attended a telecommunications seminar on Oct. 2 and the talk by LL Gen Graham, Pentagon spokesman; both were concerned with Strategic Defense Initiative and coupled with an extraordinary piece of journalism by Victor Goodpasture (Oct 16).
I would like to clarify a few points with regard to SDI. The meetings I attended were given by people in authority — a government representative and the chairman of the coalition from SDI — and I trust their information is more reliable than Mr. Goodpasture's.
I give some statements made by Mr. Goodpasture and my repones. "It (SDI) is a powerful new bargaining chip." This is totally untrue because Mr. Reagan has repeatedly stated that SDI is not negotiable.
"Expertes put the cost at around $60 billion." This may be true for research and development, but the cost is not $50 to $1,000 billion. Still a bargain?
"The same technology that renders nuclear missiles impotent and obsolete can be used to knock out Soviet bombers and cruise missiles." SDI is useless against both forms of offense. Mr. Goodpasture seems desperately misinformed.
Lt. Gen. Graham made the disturbing statement that "the U.S. would be better off if it was hit by 300 Soviet cities, instead of 6,000" because the SDI has a projected 95 percent efficiency.
The view that 300 strikes is acceptable and the hope that "if the United States was lucky, many of them would hit a less populated area" is a disconcerting attitude toward human life. Three hundred warheads anywhere in America would do a lot of damage.
I think the government attitude of "us and them" is very dangerous, very expensive and another example of the bad balance of world priorities. I am angered and frustrated at being a pawn in a game I don't want to play, with no say in the decisions. That's democracy, Victor.
Tim Cooper Exeter, Great Britain graduate student
Tasteless directory art
While some of our failures are the result of inadequate funding, it is also the case that we need
Surely the formation of taste is one of those goals. And yet we continually fall short — consider the architecture of Wescop Hall, the violation of the hillside with the "telephone booth" at 15th and Iowa, the trail silt fence incongruous against the monumentality of Strong Hill East.
We talk much at the University about goals and aspirations, ideals that are to make us better members of the human race in general and those small areas that we as individuals populate.
University Directory on financial grounds — surely a plain brown wrapper would have been cheaper and, to my mind and eye, preferable.
Poorly designed and poorly executed, it is perhaps what one might expect of an institution whose art museum is a limestone mausoleum complete with concrete "his and her" urns.
Elizabeth C. Banks associate professor of classics
Humor attempt failed
It's a sorry state when a Kansas columnist can't even correctly quote from another Kansan story. I am referring to Gina Kellogg's "report" on scholarship halz ing in the Oct. 17 Kansan.
Miss Kellogg gets the quote right but misses the boat on the quotee. She writes, "If you eat lunch at the hall, you're expected to clean up and put your dishes in the dishwasher' one young man said."
I usually refer to myself as a woman and as to young, well, I am not anicient but I am a senior. Miss Kellogg, didn't someone tell you that she said a quote if he or she minds having his or her sex changed?
This error is indicative of the entire column. In actuality, it was a mishmash of exaggerations and unfounded comparisons. As far as I could tell, the column had no point. Even though the title led one to believe the article was about hazing, it was not. Instead the "University's most-admiried students" were compared to Pavlov's dogs, referred to as inmates of some prison or mental hospital and consoled for having to endure the "sorry plight" of school hall living.
Miss Kellogg's attempt at humor failed dramatically, as would her article if it was to be graded.
Anita Barter Shawnee senior
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