KANSAN Comment
Editor in Chief, Ron Yates
Business Manager, Pam Flayton
Editorial Editor Alan T. Jones
Edition Editor Don, Westerhaus
News Editor Joanna Wiebe
Sports Editor Bob Kearney
Ad Manager Kathy Sanders
Raising smoke
Once again, citizens, the federal government has shown its tremendous ability to contradict itself. While some parts of the government are trying to ban cigarette commercials from television, another department has renewed a $210,000 subsidy to the tobacco industry for advertising.
But, don't fear, the money won't be spent to corrupt your lungs with talk of smoking on your television set. This money is earmarked for the overseas market, notably in Japan, Thailand and Austria.
The money is actually a one-year extension of a previously approved subsidy to help pay for cigarette advertising programs in the three foreign countries. According to a United Press International story, no official announcement of the extension was made. It's little wonder.
The advertising payment, according to UPI, is a small part of a broader program under which Agriculture Department cooperates with U.S. trade groups in promoting expanding overseas markets for
a large number of American farm products.
In an effort to personalize his relationship with the federal government, this reporter has chosen to identify the area where his tax dollar is spent. This year the 10 per cent surcharge (not the whole tax) will go to destroy the lungs of the Austrians, the Japanese l the Thailanders.
It's nice to know one's tax dollar is spent so well in the interest of world peace and understanding. After all, if the government withdrew its foreign aid to Virginia it could end up in another war in the Chickahominy River Delta causing more draft dodgers, peace demonstrations and all those other unpleasantries that plague the government these days.
Maybe someone in the FCC should talk to someone in the Agriculture Department. It seems if it's unhealthy to advertise cigarettes in America, it would be equally unhealthy in another country.
We wonder how you write "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health" in Japanese. (ATJ)
Autos Explode Like Population
ST. LOUIS (UPI) - British economist Thomas Malthus, one of the first Western men to worry about the population explosion, lived about 1800, too early to worry about an automobile explosion.
But Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton, D-Mo. thinks Malthus would be shaken, indeed, after observing traffic patterns in American cities.
"If Malthus were alive today, he might well be calculating the rapid increase in automobiles and commuters, while noting with great alarm the failure of roadways, despite the addition of many new limited-access highways, to meet their transportation needs," Eagleton said. "It takes no Malthusian scholar to predict the cataclysmic consequences of these trends."
Eagleton, a freshmen senator from St. Louis, said: "We are still building to fill the needs of the 50s rather than to meet the needs of the 90s."
He suggested, improved public
surface transportation and better utilization of existing railroad facilities with their valuable rights of way, as well as subterranean transportation, monorails, trackair-cushion vehicles and a myriad of air shuttle systems.
"Although the automobile offers the motorist many conveniences such as independence in scheduling, protection from the weather, a handy place to carry bundles and perhaps the largest mobile radio cabinet in production, it is becoming less practical as a means of rapid urban transportation."
"The problems have been exacerbated by the traditional American aversion to planning -- a tradition with historical roots in our pioneer impatience and exhibited in the growth of our
cities and now extended to suburbia as well." Eagleton said.
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Editorial Writers Alison Steimel, Judi K. Diebio
Sports Editor Bob Kearney
Assistant Sports Editor Jay Thomas
Feature New Editor Marilyn Brimacone
Assistant Feature and Society Editor Susan Brimacone
Photo and Graphics Editor Linda McCreery
Arts and Reviews Editor Bob Butler
Copy Chiefs Ruth Rademacher, Judy Dague, Linda Locke
Ruth Rademacher, Judy Dague, Linda Locke
Donna Schrader, John Gillle
Advertising Manager Kathy Sanders
National Advertising John Rheinfrank
Promotional Advertising Jerry Bottentfield
Discounted Admission Alison Kearney
Readers' write
To the Editor:
It is high time that America and the world took a somewhat different perspective of the space-race. It is indeed a way of retaining and building national prestige. It also could well provide advances in human civilization comparable to the invention of the airplane or the discovery of America. But more than either of these, the basic research involved in getting a rocket into space and maintaining human life in such a hostile environment is absolutely necessary if we propose to maintain human life on this tiny globe for much longer.
The only insurance man can hope for against a very grim future is the expansion of our knowledge and the growth of our technological capabilities. It is here that the space-race is indispensable. The problem of space travel provides unique problems in maintaining man in a hostile environment. Our probing of space obtains information in areas where our knowledge is possibly shakiest. In addition, the very scale of the operation provides a broad base of scientific activity and spurs the scientific imagination to greater accomplishments. The vast number of patents to come out of our space program alone should provide ample evidence of its power in producing technological advance.
The fact is that we are outgrowing our small planet. Our rapidly expanding world population and our industrial society with its accelerated rates of production, use and waste threaten to make our situation critical. OUR air is not just becoming somewhat dirtier, our water somewhat more polluted, our stores of fossil fuels somewhat more depleted. Within a few generations, there is a real danger that some necessary resources will be simply used up. A report submitted to Congress by a presidential commission under the last administration estimated that in fifty years America will need more water than nature can provide.
Our supplies of fossil fuels are expected to be depleted in 100 to 200 years. Other serious shortages are bound to show up as our massive, production-minded Western economies continue to expand and the population all over the world continues to swell. The fact is that man's interaction with the world is no longer so small that it can be neglected.
Our populations are now of such magnitude and our industries of such massive capabilities that our continued growth, even our continued existence, on this small planet cannot be taken for granted. Man has reached a stage in development that necessitates maintenance of life on earth becoming increasingly artificial. It was technological advance that permitted man to back himself into this position, and it is technological advance alone that can extricate him without the aid of a world calamity of a magnitude never before witnessed.
To withdraw our interest and support from our space ventures now would be not only foolish, but quite possibly suicidal, yet NASA could have a good deal of difficulty obtaining the funds it needs from Congress in order to carry out programs beyond Apollo. It can only be hoped that Congress will display the good sense and far-sightedness to supply the necessary appropriations. A landing on the moon is no small feat, but it would be tragic to let our efforts die there. A lone flag flying in the emptiness of space would indeed be a bitter marker for the hopes of mankind lost.
Unfortunately, we do not as yet possess the knowledge or technical capabilities we will need to face the problems that will confront us. Nuclear power production is still an infant technology and there are grave difficulties to be overcome before it can be heavily relied upon. The same can be said of various processes for producing fresh water and supplying food for vast populations. Moreover, undoubtedly not all the effects that man will have on his environment are even suspected as yet. It is quite possible that very serious difficulties will arise in quite unexpected areas.
Terry Howard Kansas City senior