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Mondav. March 27, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Accurate drug test needed for transportation safety
The Supreme Court Tuesday approved mandatory drug testing for workers entrusted with public safety or sensitive government jobs, a ruling that common sense tells us is needed.
The U.S. government should make public transportation safety measures its highest priority. The public has every reason to assume that safety is ensured. But a person's privacy should end only when his work involves the safety of the public.
Another priority is to control drug abuse, and drug testing would prove that the United States is serious about punishing drug users. Not only would drug testing identify those who use drugs and may need help, but it also would eliminate the risk of bribery or blackmail of U.S. Customs Service workers in key jobs.
Certain foods and over-the-counter drugs can make a drug test read positive. Anything containing ibuprofen, antihistamines or certain cough syrups can give a positive reading for drugs. Many innocent foods make people test positive for drugs. A sesame seed bun, for example, can give a positive reading for heroine.
jobs.
But there is a problem that accompanies this seemingly obvious measure. Drug tests are wrong 20 to 40 percent of the time. Although some sophisticated tests that are 100 percent accurate, the expense of these tests makes businesses opt for cheaper, unreliable methods.
That kind of unreliability is scary, to say the least, especially considering that an error could scar your record permanently. Your only recourse would be to have the sample retested, at an average cost of $80 that you likely would have to pay if the company would not foot the bill. Why should a company believe that you are not on drugs? And why pay $80 for a test that is already flawed?
Although it is common sense to test workers who are dealing with public safety, it also is common sense to provide the most accurate test possible. The government should be willing to pay for both. It's not too much to ask that workers are drug free, nor is it too much for workers to think that their jobs are not on the line because of a Big Mac.
Jennifer Hinkle for the editorial board
Army needs to re-evaluate future helicopter training
In the aftermath of three helicopter crashes and 38 resultant deaths, the U.S. Army needs to re-evaluate the effectiveness of its training program.
Training helicopter pilots presents a paradox for the Army. A delicate balance exists between realistic combat training and safety.
But the incidents of the last two weeks suggest that perhaps pilots are not receiving adequate instruction before performing military maneuvers.
A March 20 crash of a Marine Corps CH-53 helicopter in South Korea killed 19 Marines. On March 17, four Marines were killed when a CH-46 dropped into a rice paddy in South Korea. And on March 13, four members of the Air Force Reserve and 11 Special forces soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C., died on a low-level, night training flight in Arizona.
Historically, many helicopter accidents have been the result of pilot error in low-level flight at night or in bad whether as the pilot tried to land.
But flying maneuvers at low levels are essential for helicopters in order to practice avoiding anti-aircraft fire and detection by radar.
In addition, pilots飞到 night must wear goggles that gather and amplify surrounding light. The goggles, however, limit the pilot's peripheral vision to a range of about 40 degrees.
degrees. The Army has announced that it will inspect all of the night- vision goggles during a two-week period. More needs to be done, however.
Many new copters are so advanced technically that the operators easily can lose control. The Army needs to make certain that all of its helicopters, especially the new models, are reliable and that the operators receive sufficient training before flying groups of personnel on combat drills.
Jeff Euston for the editorial board
News staff
News staff
Julie Adam ... Editor
Karen Boring ... Managing editor
Jill Jess ... News editor
Deb Gruver ... Planning editor
James Farquhail ... Editorial editor
Elaine Sung ... Campus editor
Tom Stinson ... Sports editor
Janine Swialakowski ... Photo editor
Dave Eames ... Graphics editor
Noel Gerdes ... Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Debra Cole...Business manager
Pamela Noe...Retail sales manager
Kevin Martin...Campus sales manager
Scott Frager...National sales manager
Michelle Garland...Promotions manager
Braden Hart...Sales development manager
Linda Prokop...Production manager
Mebra Martin...Asst. production manager
Kim Coleman...Co-op sales manager
Cari Cressler...Classified manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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The plight of knowing too much
T the curse of the columnist is this: You are aware of the winds of change in society before the rest of humanity catches on. I'll give you one glaring
EXAMPLE — well get it. Just as springtime means the renewal of life, this is also the season for the renewal of love. Feelings thought to be dead and withered on the vine of human existence suddenly are jolted by a surge of new, more intense passion.
Sensing this, I decided to contact the first love of my life, my ex-girlfriend from high school, to see when she and I should meet for an appropriate first date of our re-relationship:
"But. Bill. we never went out together."
"That's not true, Cindy. We double-dated on prom night, senior year."
"Yeah, you took Karen, and I went with Phil."
"But I stared at you a lot more that evening than I stared at Karen."
"Tell me about it. She called my house 15 straight days afterward, crying her eyes out." about that."
about that.
"Cindy, that wasn't my fault. You made me go out with your best friend after you turned me down. Remember?"
Bill Kempin Staff columnist
"Honestly. I don't. But I get this feeling I'm about to be painfully reminded."
"I asked you after tennis practice one evening. You said you'd think about it and give me your answer the next day before classes. I knew then and there what you had decided."
"Give me a break. Kempiin. I was trying to let you down easy. As a matter of fact, I do remember now. The senior class meeting was breaking up the next morning, and I came over and suggested that you would have more fun with us. You know what about you at a Hostess foulmouth, as a peace offering."
"A big, fat zero with sugar all over it. What an appropriate gesture."
"Then you pulled the all-time champion dumb stunt in the history of prom dates."
"Cindy, from the time I was born, I'd always
neard that being forright and honest was the way to approach matters of the heart."
"So you went to Karen and, knowing how hung up she was on you, poured out your feelings of shame," she said.
"I didn't want to lead her on and let her think I was asking her out because my heart skipped beats every time she was in the vicinity."
"Look, Bill, there's no sense rehasing this. I handed an awkward situation the best way I know."
"You told me that, sometime after the prom, when all this blew over, we could go out. How was I supposed to know you and Phil would decide to start going steady?"
"And get married two years later "
"You're married?"
"That's right, Mr. Renewal of Love. Now get off the phone before my husband walks in on this conversation and decides to end any chance you have of renewing any past romances."
The curse of the columnist is this: You are away at work, and society before you starts, of humanity catches on.
Bill Kempin is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Editor's note: Because of an editing error, parts of the following letter, which was printed in Friday's Kansas, were deleted. It is being rerun today in its entirety.
Don't ignore history
acist, and anticipates the Apartheid ideology of South Africa. From Morgan's 'white' ethnocentric point of view, the nuclear family of Rochester, New York, exists as the icon of advanced human culture. In the formal, so-called 'objective' arena of 'white' 19th century American scholarship, racism is simply a matter of degree. Of course, the American scholarship of the 19th century merely reflects the pragmatic political and military hegemony of the 'white' cultural hegemony. Military action in the infamous 1917 battle at WWI has illustrated racial genocide articulated and grausomely expressed by 'white' Americans in America. Similarly, well into the 20th century, racism on the bus and at the voting booth were unnatural perogatives exercised by 'whites.' However it may be, there is a 'white' American tradition. In the face of such monolithic ignorance and self-conscious patterns of racism and genocide, how can any non-'white' American cultural tradition ignore 'white America? Tom Wilhelm exhibits an amazingly shallow grasp of racism that allows celebrities to cultural identity, ignoring actual historical and cultural undercurrents. By doing so, he perpetuates racism in 'white America in its 'mod,' willfully self-obfuscating 20th century manifestation.
Alan Hoffman Lawrence graduate student
Permission granted
Won Wilhelm, in his March 20 column, would like black Americans to ask for permission to recognize their God-given cultural heritage. To earn, he said black Americans should do for cultural identity, according to Webster means: 1) to receive as return for effort and especially for work done or services rendered. 2) to make worthy of or obtain for. My question is: To whom shall black Americans offer services? Who will decide when and if
black Americans are ready or worthy of a cultural identity? Should it be the descendants of people who subjected them to 200 years of legalized brutality, cruelty and degradation otherwise known as slavery? The same people who still impose legal, social and political limitations, and sophisticated humiliation upon black Americans? Considering that black Americans were here before the Mayflower and have fought in every war, made breakthroughs in medical and scientific technology, sports and politics, they can undoubtedly say that they have truly contributed to making America great.
African-Americans have various shades of skin tones ranging from white to black. It is then unfair for all of them to be lumped into the impersonal category of "black." They are more than a mere color. They have substance: a past, appreciated or not, from the beautiful, rich continent of Africa; and ancestors whom they are proud of and very much aware of. The fact that black Americans do not know as much about their culture as they do of white Americans is not their fault, but another example of the insulting, delegitimation of their existence that has been and is presently enacted educationally, legally and politically, which has been done again by the public expression of unfounded, uneducated opinions of a race that the opinionists have no knowledge of. I am very sorry it isn't approved of by non-African Americans that black Americans are taking something that belongs to them: recognition of a heritage and culture we should all be proud of and claiming something that belongs to them, an earned cultural identity that doesn't have to be earned. They are the ones who will decide when and if they are worthy of such recognition. The decision will be made without consultation, permission or approval from anyone. No one has control over the African-American race or its decisions. It's African-American to you, sir, from now on! Arda Tippett
St. Louis, Mo.. junior
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed