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Tuesday, October 26, 1976
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions on this page reflect the view of only the writer.
For once, a real hero
The media are constantly and energetically striving to fulfill the insatiable hunger society has for the latest news concerning its heroes—both real and counterfeit. There are a few persons that truly deserve their elevated status and a few more that hold so much power over them. And the fact that whenever they make a move, even if it's just bumping one's head or thinking about lusty women.
HOWEVER, most of the VIPs we hear so much about fit only the modern definition of heroism—that you become a hero or heroine when large numbers of people start fantasizing about being in your shoes. Today's heroism usually doesn't mean having courage, ideology or virtue. We want to help the people want: wealth, power, sex appeal, artistic or athletic talent or just plain luck.
Yet, that doesn't mean that the true definition of heroism is dead. It's just that true examples of it generally receive less attention in print or on the air, unless, of course, some sort of catastrophe or derring-in is involved. The occasional glimpse we get of the "quiet" heroes and heroines in the news, however, is (or should be) much more heartening and constructive than things such as speculation on Liz Taylor's latest engagement.
A GOOD example of the kind of person I'm talking of was written about in the Oct. 23 Kansas City Times, in a story headlined "Dorothy Crabtree Understands Minority Role—She's White." The article, written by a fellow student, describes what it's like for Dorothy in Paseo High School in Kansas City. She's been the only white student out of 1,650 students for three years.
She has been ridiculed by many of the students because they see her as a representative of the white students who
every year move away from schools like Passaic better suburban schools that offer tutoring.
Some are puzzled by her desire to remain, even though she is active in school activities and is accepted by many other students.
DOROTHY SAYS simply that she chose Paseo because her family moved into that district and, after a year, she decided she wouldn't like to go to any other school—black or white. She withstood the original pressure and worked hard to impress her "her family within the church and on God," she said.
Most of us have probably never faced that kind of alienation, especially we whites. For instance, I asked a friend to go to the Staples and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes concert in Kansas City last week. He declined because he knew there would be only a few dozen whites in the arena. He isn't a bigot, but he said he wouldn't enjoy the concert because he just wouldn't feel at ease there; he would rather play without being intimidated. It had happened to him before. Some youths poked fun at his cowboy boots the last time he went to a black concert.
NO MATTER how many people believe in equality, vote for it and speak up for it among their circles of friends, it still takes people like Dorothy Crabtret to break down the barriers of fear. For our fears can make us traitors to our consciences. She is a true heroine because she shows strength and courage. As the author of the article said, "The strongest quality seen in Dorothy is faith. Faith in herself, her family, in God and in mankind."
The world could use more of that kind of heroic faith.
By John Fuller Contributing Writer
Editor lets staff eat cake
Once a night, usually,
someone in the newsroom
makes a trip to Joe's Bakery;
not, however, that Joe's
came to us.
Some of you may remember a picture page on Joe Smith and the University Press edition of the Kansan, Joe certainly remembered, and he thanked us with a three-tiered, white, one layer chocolate white, one layer chocolate white.
AS WE began to gratefully slice it, a few of us asked ourselves a question that two years ago, I had. It was a bad joke. Should we eat it?
Hanging on the wall of the newsroom is a code of ethics, similar to codes going up in newrooms all over the country, and a code of values, things of value. We put it up almost a year ago in the belief that journalists have a special position of trust, and to keep that trust they must owe their trust to no one except the reader.
"Gifts, favors, free travel, special treatment or privileges can compromise the integrity of journalists and their emeritus. The code reads: "Nothing of value should be accepted."
TECHNICALLY, then, we should have said thanks, but no thanks, to code, Joe. Inherent in the code, however, is the use of judgment. How valuable is the gift and does the giver expect something in return? Was the gift solicited before the story was told? Was it the giver's gift? Will it compromise us as objective journalists or will it help us cover the news fairly and fully?
Journalists may run a close second to politicians as the most pampered class of workers. Reporters can get free lunches, cafeteria dinners, tickets, vacations and a wide range of other goods not
Kansan reporters aren't in the free vacation category yet, but we are offered several of the assumed prerequisites of the trade. Some of them, despite our code, we take.
available to the nonpaying public.
OUR SPORTSWRIETERS take free tickets to football and basketball games that cost the average student $20. Our reviewers attend University and SUA concerts and plays
can drive it or sleep with it,
forget it."
Finally, there's the school of journalism dropouts who will take anything they can get their way. The virtue is intact. Some of them will defend their avarice by asserting they have earned their freebies, which naturally provided part of their salaries.
EVEN TO us, who earn, at most, about 70 cents an hour,
A third school says 'If you can eat it or drink it, take it; if you
Editor's Note Debbie Gump
free of charge, but everyone else must pay the admission price. And on rare occasions an editor or reporter will dine with an administrator while the rest of you eat a sack lunch.
that argument sounds silly. But it didn't sound so silly to one of the four students who free tickets, travel and gifts from news sources constituted wages and that any ban on them would be to bargain with unauthorized fans.
There are several schools of thought about accepting freebies, those things of value like cookies or a solute school says "Take nothing." Even if the gift is a thank-you-like Joe's cake—a or a ticket to cover a news event—that might help a reporter better understand the situation behind a story, don't take it. Our impartiality might be affected to receive something for nothing.
ANOTHER school of thought says, "Yes, we must preserve our integrity, but let's not get carried away with ethical considerations." For example, one journalism organization in the United States has ethics that puts Christmas gifts in a special state of grace "because of the tradition of holiday gift-giving."
The judge's ruling was challenged to the National Labor Relations Board by one newspaper that wanted to adopt a new code, including freeebies. The newspaper won and it now has a code.
We do turn down some freebies without hesitation. We
Staff photo by GEORGE MILLENER
The Kansan's policy toward freebies is still in the infant stages. When we accepted Joe's tickets to the Chinese banquet, the difference was that the banquet tickets could be considered an encouragement to dinner favorable b eatment.
WE ATTEND University productions without paying, but until this semester, our reviewers were attending commercial movie courtesy of a pass. That practice stopped when the theater owners disliked our reviews. We gladly learned their reasons; the owners probably still think we could write better reviews.
Yael Aboahalakab, managing editor, was on the staff members who risked a little intention for a large number of calls.
give all books and records for review that we receive from publishers and record companies to the Lawrence Public Library. Somebody should enjoy them, and we don't have any special right of ownership in our house we work in a newsroom.
We declined an offer to ride with the football team to the Oregon State game so that our sportwriters wouldn't be obliged to kowtow to Bud Moore when he gets upset. We weren't
able to cover the game in person, and we were recently barred with the rest of the press from football practice, but at least we weren't hesitant to print Moore's run-in with two photography students two weeks ago.
So, if we aren't consistent,
we're at least well-intentioned.
And, Joe, we know you also
meant well, but you really
shouldn't have. Perhaps
you shouldn't have either.
A right to freedom
At midnight yesterday, a new
wilder was born: the Republic of
Transki. But if the Third
Republic is built on the same
Nations have their way, sup-
ported by the liberal fuzzy-
wuzzies of our own country, the
infant will be slain in its cradle.
It must be supported of both
hope and hypocrisy.
independence will provide a pattern for a tolerable solution to South Africa's problems. The hypocrisy lies in the wilness minds of the all-or-nothing fees of "colonialism" in any form and in any country, or hope. The Transkei covers 17,000 square miles on the east coast of South Africa, just south of Durban and just north of East London. It is a land of wild, brooding beauty, inhabited by thousands of animals the Xhosa tribes. Transkei is about the size of Denmark and Switzerland. It is more than twice the size of Swaziland, and is larger than 22 member states of the United Nations. In contrast, the Xhosa such mini-nations as Babun, Bhutan, Gambia and Gabon.
I have flown over the Transkei, traveled its dusty roads.
Greg Hack Contributing Writer
Level of care for the elderly must improve
THE SENATE Subcommittee on Long-Term Care investigated nursing homes for five years. It then reported it had found countless cases of "crutality, negligence, dangers from fires, food poisoning, virulent infection, lack of human dignity, displacement and maternal regimenation, and kickbacks to nursing-home operators from suppliers."
One lost issue this election year is care for the elderly. Candidates for national, state and local offices occasionally drop a word or phrase — "unpaid," but nothing very specific has been said.
WORKING ON A Wichita paper this summer, I became aware of the state and local government's problems in policing nursing homes. The woman in charge of licensing care homes for young and old women is not a nurse to check more than 70 one- and two-bed homes and more than 25 large nursing homes.
Care for the elderly is, for the most part, a
scandal, even though some good care homes
THE GROUP sued for health department inspection reports and won, and it has exposed extensive patient mistreatment in the Detroit area. It found that 44 of the 80 homes in the district were abused by allegations of the state health code and that 19 of the 84 homes had more than 20 violations each.
More than 1.2 million Americans live in nursing homes nationally, and the subcommittee's evidence "indicates that a majority of those fall to meet standards of acceptability."
Things don't appear to be much better in Kansas either.
One story I report was about a 70-year-old patient at a small care home. She had
In 1974, Citizens for Better Care investigated 612 complaints, and said two officers were fired.
In response, Michigan health authorities have doubled the number of intent-to-deny license orders, revoked some licenses, and stepped up their own monitoring of homes.
Many of them were taken care of without bringing in health officials.
badly injured herself in a fall, but the care badly injured owner didn't get a doctor for her. If the women in charge of licensing hadn't happened to make a visit to that home, the injured woman might never have received medical attention.
SUCH ONE- and two-bed homes didn't even have to be licensed in Kansas a few years ago. And for every case that just happens to be noticed, how many more in it will happen and the rest of the state and the nation are missed because officials are short-handed?
IN SEATTLE, Citizens for Improvement of Nursing Homes is doing similar work and lobbying in the Washington Legislature. The group has won passage of a law that requires a $500 fine for every health regulation violation by a nursing home.
The operator's license was revoked.
In addition, the group prompted an investigation of charges of homes' missing patient's money. The investigation resulted in charges being charged with misuse of these funds.
Citizens for Better Care began in Detroit in 1969 with seven volunteers. The group now has more than 1,300 dues-paying members and a paid staff of 10 persons.
A fairly new group, Kansas for Improvement of Nursing Homes, hasn't had much success with the state legislature. But it isn't giving up.
Certainly, much needs to be done. In some cities, private citizens are taking action.
SO, THE nursing home situation is terrible, but it is improving in some places. It is a large problem that won't be easy to solve. But for starters, Kansas can pass penalties for violations and provide the people needed to enforce the laws.
So far, Citizens for Better Care is the only such group to receive federal grants. The government in Washington, D.C., should give money to help other groups doing similar work in more than 15 cities in America.
"Old people are more afraid of going into maring homes than they are of death itself."
visited the capital at Umtata and interviewed the incoming prime minister, Kaiser Prinz Ferdinand. He ourf affluent standards, is poor. Only about a fifth of the land is arable. Industries are few. Ancient cities, Xhosa people are illiterate. But by Third World standards,
It doesn't have to be that way.
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which rationally should apply, Transkei is doing remarkably well. Other newborn African nations are poorer still, less industrialized and far less literate.
ITS charged that Transkis's independence is phony—that Transkis will remain under the political and economic dominance of South Africa, that independence is a trick, a sham, an abuse of power. The Xhosa people did not ask for independence, and that the 1.7 million Xhosans who live and work outside the new territorial boundaries will become aliens in their own land. The Washington Post, in an interview described the newborn state as a "monstrosity" whose survival is "indefensible."
Well, it is a curious thing. Independence comes to Transkei not through revolution, but through evolution. The transition is marked not by terrorism, guerrilla savagery and bollwerk training of a native civil service and by the peaceful processes of ordered change. Our doctrinaire procedure find any such rational procedure intolerable.
THE INDEPENDENCE is real. As of midnight yesterday, Transkei has its own flag, its
own legislature, its own sovereignty. The day of independence has been coming since at least 1863, the time of the Civil War, when running elections were in 1868 and 1973. They were not exercises in perfect democracy, in the fashion of, say, Cook County. The Xhosa have to learn that they have come a long way.
Industrialization is growing. The South African government has contributed heavily to developmental programs. Public education steadily expands. Health services improve. The future -if the future is a quietly-promises great rewards in agriculture, forestry, mining and industry.
THE TRANSKETS trouble, perhaps, is that it has been so lacking in trouble. Mou Mau Man. No Cuban mercenaries. Norture, no burning, no strutting Communist tyrann. As it is truly to be supposed that independence was the model of Madagascar, better? Is the bloody chaos of Angola a better model for a simple and ill-educated people struggling toward the 20th century?
Surely, objections can be raised to the circumstances of independence in the Transkei. This is an experiment, but in a sense, it is an irreversible experiment. As of midnight, when we begin our work with its clayed, white and green isohed, the old flag of South Africa comes down. A new constitution, a new parliament, an able prime minister—all these carry a meaning worthy of our friendly support and understanding. It is undergoing a new birth freedom. That phrase once counted for something in America. How can we reit it now?
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily August 27, 2013 Subscription price $4.95; June and July except Saturday, Sunday and Holiday. 66044 Subscriptions by mail are $9 a semester or $18 a year. A yearly subscription is a year outside the county. State subscriptions are a year outside the county.
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