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Friday, October 23, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Opinion
Good cents
If taxpayers want services, they must pay for them.
And in the case of the proposed 1 cent Douglas County sales tax, the services are worth the cost.
tax, the services are worth the cost.
The proposal, which will be decided in a special election on Nov. 3, would add a penny to the $4/2-cent sales tax in Lawrence,
no comings would be well spent.
Those peninsula would be well spared. Lawrence would get about 60 percent of the proceeds, the county would get about 34 percent, and Baldwin City and Eudora would get about 2 percent each.
would get about 2 percent cut.
In Lawrence, the money would go toward such things as social services, the arts, historic preservation, public safety and storm maintenance and drainage. The county's share would go toward the same types of services, plus public building and parking facilities.
Reagan vehemently swears that he won't raise taxes, but the trait of this tax leads to the White House.
The sales tax is necessary mainly because of losses in federal revenue sharing funds, which can be blamed on President Reagan's policies.
This method is best: no lotteries, no hidden trapdoors. You pay the money, and you get the goods.
The services are necessary. It's time to open our pocketbooks.
Room for improvement
The University of Kansas is making progress, but in this case progress may not be soon enough.
Five KU residence halls lack the fire prevention standards required by the state. Six years ago, the state fire codes changed. Residence halls were required to place smoke detectors in each room, or 30 feet apart in each corridor. Lewis, Templin, Hashinger, Ellsworth and McCollum halls still do not meet the requirement.
The housing office plans to install smoke detectors in every room in addition to putting them in the corridors, which goes beyond what the state requires. Although the act is commendable, timing is crucial in this matter, and the University can't get to every room quickly enough.
The scholarship halls, Jayhawk Towers, Stouffer Place, Joseph R. Pearson and Gertrude Sellards Pearson halls already have functioning smoke detectors. Smoke detectors are being installed in Oliver Hall now. Smoke detectors will be put in Lewis and Templin in 1988; in Hashinge and Ellsworth in 1989; and in McColump in 1990.
By 1990, all KU residence halls will be safer and fire protection will be at a new height. Although the cost of installation for each hall is about $40,000, the University is making a solid investment for the future.
But the University also has a responsibility to protect itself and all its residents now. Therefore, the University should consider modifying its plan and install some smoke detectors in the corridors of the five remaining halls until it can reach every room.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Jennifer Benjamin ... Editor
Jul Warren ... Managing editor
John Benner ... News editor
Beth Copeland ... Editorial editor
Sally Streff ... Campus editor
Brian Kabelline ... Sports editor
Dun Ruetlimann ... Photo editor
Bill Skeet ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Bonnie J. Hardy...Business manager
Robert Hughes...Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer...Retail sales manager
Kurt Messeramith...Campus sales manager
Greg Knipp...Production manager
David Dentrell...National sales
Angela Clark...Classified manager
Ron Weems...Director of marketing
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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'Star Wars' targets the sky-high deficit
It seemed like such a good idea to the president. The Strategic Defense Initiative would race lasers across space to spare the United States the horrors of nuclear bolocaust.
What started as a good way to spend money on defense instead of offense unfortunately became an exercise in absurdity.
Americans have never taken the possibility of World War III too seriously. If we could be sure the Soviets would be worse off than it, we might make our nuclear weapon seem a little more bearable.
In May, a 15-member panel from the National Physical Society, the country's largest professional society of physicists, released an study of the feasibility of the laser wars necessary for "Star Wars".
Like the bomb shelters of the '50s. Americans thought that if a defense against the bomb was made at an edge when it came time to fight.
The panel was a comprehensive cross-section of some of the most competent minds in the world. The panel included three Nobel Prize winners, who won for their work with lasers, and several top scientists involved in SDI research for the government.
One member of the panel said the entire idea was based on physical principles that are as yet undiscovered and quite unlikely. He added that he was 99.9 percent sure it wouldn't work.
But 30 years later, it has cost a lot more money to discover there is still no salvation from the bomb.
Their report disclosed that it would take a decade or more of intensive research at a cost of between $125 billion and $175 billion to find out whether SDI was possible.
Bear in mind this price does not include the cost of development or deployment; this is the minimum price out whether it’s even a possibility.
Further, the panel did not even look at the computer system needed to manage SId, an obstacle many think isEDI more improble.
Many question its usefulness. Theoretically, even if it were deployed, it would be ineffective against low-flying missiles. The Soviets would merely need to concentrate their efforts on this type of weapon to make SDI obsolete.
There are, of course, other reasons the U.S. should drop SDI
Jim Farquhar
Staff Columnist
More surprising, those who conceived SDI said it would only protect against 90 percent of incoming missiles.
Another concern of SDI opponents is the fear of spin-off systems this research will no doubt stumble across. SDI is used to the discovery of new and more expensive ways to kill people.
I'm sure those innocent generals at the Pentagon have no intention of putting arms into space, though it would be wise to drop them down the path toward this goal.
So while many of the world's most intelligent minds enjoy a hearty belly-laugh at Reagan's hallucination, Congress continues to spend money on a hopeless political issue.
It is naive and dangerous not to recognize this reality.
Supporters, hard-pressed to find reasons in SDI's favor, do not allow themselves to see what is in the best interest of the country.
Imagine how many people $175 billion could feed or clothes; or how many students it could put through college; or how much closer to a balanced budget we'd be; or even how much effective military equipment it could buy.
It's no longer an issue of what is right; rather, it's a question of what would be the correct political move.
For that is the grand irony of the situation.
Not only does SDI rob this country of things it actually needs, but it cuts the amount of money spent on arms. SDI has become the most expensive line-item on the Pentagon budget.
So while Reagan blindly follows the path from which he will not allow himself to stray, the Soviets are gaining the ability to blow up the Earth more times than us.
Can we stand for this?
The time has come to drop this fantasy, take our losses and beat it. Somebody dash out to the bomb shelter and awaken the president. Hiding is not the best way to fight extinction.
Jim Farquhar is an Olathe junior majoring in journalism.
Weapons in space curb nuclear threat
President Ronald Reagan announced on March 23, 1983, that the United States would research a defense system for the future that would have the unprecedented capability to protect the country from nuclear aggression. His move spurred a plan to reverse a generation of reliance on the threat of mutual annihilation.
Many short-sighted critics mocked the president's Strategic Defense Initiative as nothing more than an act of futility. But a number of these people attack SDI without understanding the full scope of the project or reading beyond the headlines.
The narrow-mindedness makes one thing clear: SDI opponents are setting impossible standards for the project and are, in effect, creating a straw man to destroy. It is obvious that some opponents of SDI expect instant perfection and set impossible goals for the project, any other high-tech endeavor, needs time before production.
In fact, some critics rely on studies that tell only part of the story.
A prime example was a widely publicized study released in May by the National Physical Society that declared that an effective defensive shield, using advanced technology, was unreachable in the near future.
But what many fail to realize when drawing conclusions from the report is that laser weapony is only one phase of SDI.
A large portion of SDJ development involves the use of kinetic energy weapons. Kinetic energy is released when a moving object collides with another. These weapons are by far the most developed and advanced.
Much of the current technology that is being expanded in this area dates back 25 years — namely the Nike Zeus anti-ballistic missile of 1962 and the Nike-X that achieved many breakthroughs in the area of electronically steered, multi-function radar.
The kinetic energy phase of SDI has been termed "SDA" short for Strategic Defense Development and Deployment, and its technology includes small, non-nuclear homing interceptors aided by advanced heat-seeking sensors.
The total cost for this type of system would be less than $125 billion, with 40 percent of that to pay for equipment and independent report released car-
Christopher Wilson Staff Columns
lier this year, a fully implemented system of this design would have the capability of providing a 93 percent effective defense.
This would be more than enough to deter the Soviets from carrying out a debilitating first strike, while virtually eliminating the possibility of any lone missile, such as one launched accidentally, from the front. Both of these considerations seem to deme many criticis.
The study also concluded that full deployment before the turn of the century was within reach and would be a logical stepping stone toward more advanced methods of defense, such as laser systems.
A common theme among many critics is that SDI is too futuristic—we're getting in our heads. But many also felt this way when we initiated an attempt to put a man on the moon and when we began to research the atomic bomb.
Shouldn't we give the great minds of this country the opportunity to explore and develop a system with the defensive goals of protecting our country from total destruction?
Why has it become acceptable to cling to the outdated proposition of mutual annihilation as a sense of security? So many countries have access to the devastating technology that the Soviets had a 15-year head start to make considerable progress on an SDI of their own.
Richard Perle, an expert on SDI, said, "Throughout history, those menaced by offensive weapons have sought defensive ones with which to protect themselves. One would think that the awesome power of nuclear weapons would have led nations capable of doing so to seek a defense against them."
President Reagan has built a foundation for the future defense of this country and we must not abandon this cause. A reliable defense system may be years away, but without a doubt, the future benefits current SDI research could provide our generation, and others, is well worth the wait.
Christopher Wilson is an Olathe junior majoring in political science and personnel administration.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed