THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
JULY 9,1979
Climbing student fees
Students at the University of Kansas can look forward to another increase in the cost of a college education. The Kansas Board of Regents recently approved KU's 1981 budget for $122,643,189 while at the same time boosting costs to students. The governor and legislature will doubtless make modifications, but the final outcome will still cost students.
Although our campus seems to be blossoming with building projects, money is scarce. The KU administration has, with the board, supposedly studied the situation and come up with what they feel is a fair budget for Kansas universities.
Although funding to most new
programs was eliminated, a student who is struggling to pay tuition might question the yearly habit of pushing student fees higher. The Regents cited numerous financial aid sources students may turn to for help. The truth of the matter is that few students actually qualify for such funds and the competition often eliminates prospective, qualified students.
But KU students should attempt receiving educational assistance whenever possible. And as students scramble for what few dollars are available, KU administrators should be more carefully examining the University's existing programs to cut those whose benefits cannot be justified with their costs.
Mandatory helmet laws still needed
A phone rang. On the other end of the line was my father, calling to tell me there had been an accident. As I listened to the woman's voice, I realized that another lie dying in a hospital 300 miles away.
By BARB KOENIG Editorial Writer
Hours earlier he had taken his BMW motorcycle out for a "quick drive" around his apartment complex. Within minutes of getting home, he lay sprawled on the concrete, bleeding.
The cause: hitting a head treehead about 15 miles an hour—with no helmet.
The diagnosis: three severe skull fractures and a bruised brain.
Miraculously, my brother survived. The doctors said that if he lived, he would be nothing more than a vegetable. They also said that if my brother had been wearing a motorcycle helmet, he could have come out and run with just a concussion and a few more bruises.
Instead, he lay in a coma for four months. This case is just one example that illustrates the necessity for mandatory motorcycle helmet laws. There are countless others.
Despite opposition to mandatory helmet laws, evidence in favor of helmet usage is strong.
A federal study just completed in Los Angeles County showed that "The use of a single, 10-foot fence" is not effective.
factor in the prevention or reduction of head injury."
Results from five other federal studies showed that "Motorcycleclips, who do not wear helmets and are involved in crashes, have twice as many head injuries as those wearing helmets, and from three to nine times as many fatalities."
Many motorcycle riders say 'oh it won't happen to me, I know how to handle my bike,' or 'it's no one else' business what I do with my life.' Wrong.
While it might be a person's "own business," it certainly affects others. Relatives and friends are put through the agony of dealing with the trauma, which can be very time consuming, costly and emotionally draining.
Friends of my brother would come to the hospital once and never return. They couldn't bear to see him with tubes and monitors on his head and body.
His girlfriend postponed a promising singing career to be with him day and night. But after a year and a half of waiting and learning, he finally had a walk away and陪 with her life.
the state also assumes some responsibility for severely injured persons. A Supreme Court decision upholiding the law in 1972, said that from the moment of injury, society picked the person up off the highway, took him to a municipal hospital with municipal doctors, provided him with unemployment compensation if he could not return to his lost job and assumed responsibility for his recovery if the injury caused permanent disability.
creased insurance rates for motorcycle ownership as well as increased rates for motorbike ownership.
It is obvious that the implications of头 trauma not from wearing a helmet are far greater than those from using a head harness.
There has been an ongoing struggle within state legislatures on what to do about their rights.
Motorcycleists and manufacturers have gone before legislatures for the last several years, trying to get mandatory helmet laws issued. These opponents have used arguments in court against cyclist's hearing and peripheral vision, the weight of helmets increases rider fatigue which can cause accidents, and wearing helmets increases the incidence of neck injuries.
The American Medical Association and other proponents have countered these restrictions by offering coverage helmets provide only minor restrictions in peripheral vision and that sounds loud enough to be heard over the car seat or bicycle itself can be heard inside a helmet.
In 1973, all but three states, California, Illinois and Nebraska, had mandatory helmet laws. As of April 16, 1979, 22 states still had those laws and 27 states had repealed their helmet laws. California never has had a helmet law.
The AMA also said that no documented evidence was available to support the argument of helmet weight causing fatigue or that it does not contribute to or worm a knee injury.
After Kansas' law was repealed in 1976, head trauma to Kansas motorcyclists in
Other costs to society that might result from a motorcycle accident include increased by 70 percent. The incidence for those not wearing a helmet was 81 percent greater, the severity of head injury was 56 percent, and the crude death rate was 310 percent greater.
Most of the states, such as Kansas, that have already repaired their helmet laws, do however have some kind of age specification for helmet usage. Almost all of them are older persons under the age of 18 to wear a helmet while riding on or driving a motorcycle.
Ironically, the age group most often in-
vaded in aerbo motorcycles crashes is 20 to
34 years.
While mandatory helmet law opponents continue to argue against government interference, state legislators ought to seriously consider the multitude of statistics and medical opinions on the subject. They need to be heard by those who are comatose or brain damaged from severe head injuries, to understand the danger of riding without head protection.
What is a political advertisement?
Motorcylists who become victims often do not have to take care of themselves. The family or the state does, and that can be a lot of long-lasting responsibility. Sure, the rider is the one who directly risks injury by not wearing a helmet. But in the long run, the public bears the brunt of these consequences for drivers' insurance rates. Retaining and reinstating mandatory helmet laws can offer protection for everyone.
To the editor:
After all, is a motorcycle helmet really worth more than a person's life?
Like a tubercular old man roused from a dugged and dreamless sleep, the University of Kansas Judiciary has awoken him with an oath. "I will uphold his decision, which surprised no one, asserts the KU police (and by implication, their superiors) acted properly when they arrested me for holding a banner saying 'South Africa' at Commencement.
To sustain this violation of the first amendment, the KU administration dug out a vague Kansas Board of Regent's regulation which prohibits "political ads" in public schools. The board devoted primarily to instruction, or in other enclosed areas during non-political events."
THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN letters
And, dear brother, is that on risk you took three years age still to wilt it to you?
The question of course, is one of defining political advertising. The University has never done so. However, when the words "political advertising" are mentioned in publications, they appear in conjunction with regulations concerning candidates running for public office, not in conjunction with regulations regarding protest. Further, with regulations regarding not generally regarded as "advertising."
For example, if this were 1942 and someone said "Stop the Killing of Jews in Nazi Concentration Camps," it is doubt that this person would be arrested for admittance. If he had admitted that he has admitted that the regulation was designed to prevent advertising for candidates running for office and to prevent advertising for or against issues that the University regularly petitioned the Kansas University as faculty raises and other apperitions.
If that is not enough, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled in (Lovell v. Griffin, Schneider v. Ivrington, Cantwell, Conover, Fulton) that a judge must be a member of the Struthers, Follett v. McCormick, March
v. Alabama, Tucker v. Texas, et al.) that First Amendment activities cannot be regulated as "economic" endeavors. No matter, Hammert McNish, the head of the judiciary, decided to obey a higher authority than law or fact.
But let us say, just for argument, that the term "political advertising" should be construed very broadly. For example, one KU professor defined "politics" as "the science of who gets to do what to whom." The university doesn't take care of the word "advertising," because they present "advocacy" (after all they are not English professors).
Therefore, even under a broad definition, the University was still wrong in having me arrested. I was engaged in a political act at a political event, something which I had a political advertising” is defined narrowly, but I also had a right to do what I was doing.
Under this definition, I certainly was engaged in a political act. But so was the Chancellor and so were the police. Dykes who are interested in the an "altruistic interest in the world of high finance" certainly are political. Commencement is an annual stage ranged for the benefit of those who have generously supported the University coffers. That is also political.
Certainly, this must have been a sticky problem for the Judiciary. Their solution, ingenuous in its simplicity, was to offer no more than three weeks of concurred with the administration's opinion
that "the relevant code sections leave a variety of judgments to the enforcement officials, including what is political and what is advertising.
In other words, the police (the KU police, no less) can determine when someone is violating this regulation which has no definition. So if you are arrested, you are automatically guilty, because the police enforce and make the law.
Of course, the police are not really to blame. They are only "hired guns," in the most literal sense, of an administration that is far more concerned with decorum than with the First Amendment. The fault lay not with the police but with Dykes himself. Incidentally, our $70,000 per year millstone made an interesting comment the other day.
Dykes was discussing this case with the university counsel, Mike Davis, and was quoted in the summer session Kansem to say that his trusted interest is to make the right decision.
And don't we know what that "vested interest" is. The same can be said of the judiciary, and it servile pandersings, almost like a kind of its superior. "Vested interest" indeed.
Well, only very silly or frightened people can think that such a ridiculous argument will hold up in a real judicial system, where the judge is paid by the Chancellor. You see in Court.
Ronald Kuby
Ronald Kuby 345 Michigan St.
Man, not God, chooses evil ways
To the editor:
I am writing this in response to Shaafie Abdul-Walil's letter. She suggests that racial and sexual discrimination is a plot created by Jesus and perpetuated by our existing culture, and the woman and, therefore, one of the supposed victims. Yet I could not disagree with her more.
Discrimination, murder and violence are all part of this world, but so are truth. Evil is not a human trait; humanity, he gave them a "free will," that is, a chance to chose their actions and attitudes. Evil results when man works totally wrong, but good results when he accepts God's will.
Prejudice is mankind's conscious decision and creation, not an act of God. When man decides otherwise, discrimination will cease.
I do not worship, as Abdul-Wali suggests, a "white man on a cross" symbol hung up in my church. I worship the Son of God who came to earth with the message of God and who did die on a cross as atonement for humanity's sins.
Jesus was an oppressed person
For further references to Christ's indiscriminate position, see Mark 16:15, Luke 10:11-14, Luke 11:10, John 3:16, Romans 3:21-23 and Romans 10:12. I know many who pick up the Bible with an eye who picks up the Bible with an open mind will find Christ's love for all humanity
The fact that He was a "white male" is not a factor. The message Christ brought to earth included admonitions to love all humanity. He preached the Golden Rule, a rule that would end sexual and racial prejudice if applied.
Abdul-Wahli questions the miraculous nature of Christ's birth and life. She warns against "fairy tales" to go against all laws of nature. She asks us to use our reason. Contrarily, I ask her to use her reason. If one accepts a God who created a
I find it puzzling that Shaafie Abdul-Wali ("To the Editor," July 2) believes that reasons for discrimination against women are shared, and their society can be traced to worship of Jesus.
The Jesus of the New Testament was by no means allied with his society's power structures. Although he was white, he was a Jew, a member of an ethnic group that through much of its history has been an object of discrimination. He came, too, from a subgroup that was generally looked down on by commercial social giants. Gaulleans. He joined the social class to collect tax collectors and prostitutes—and was constantly at odds with the Establishment.
To the editor:
In conclusion, I wish to say that my greatest freedoms have not come from a social or political system, but from a degree of experience and of Christ, the Son of God.
As to the question of his divinity, in the first century A.D. there were many who, like Abdul-Wali, believed that it would be beneath God's dignity to come to earth in order to find love and happiness lowly and corrupt a substance to house the almighty and eternal creative spirit. Yet Christians countered that, in taking on a human body, God was affirming his love for mankind, and this created. That means that Jesus, a white Jewish man, loves me, a white Gentile woman (as well as my black women friends), and offers me great personal gifts, so that my body as well as in my soul (can then be separated?—as I meet God in him.
Doubtless oppression has been perpetuated in the name of Jesus, but the blame for it must be placed upon the oppressors, not on their supposed worship of Jesus. He himself consistently identified with oppressed peoples.
universe of a million suns or who gave the impetus that created life and then added a soul with self will, why is it difficult to imagine that so powerful a God could not manage one simple virgin birth. The one who wields the laws of nature can also uncreate them.
Sandra Dylene Friend Wichita senior
It's a postoperative, beautiful scheme for human redemption—one that I could never have.
Ruth Goring Stewart 178 Pinecone Dr.
Wage increase six months late
As of July 1, 1979, the students working for the University of Kansas were given a pay increase. They are now being paid federal minimum wage. Thank you. Kansas Legislature, Kansas Board of Regents, and Kansas Department of Education. Thank you for allowing us to be paid minimum wage went into effect for most of the United States in January. You are only 6 months behind.
To the editor:
And I understand that you will pull the same thing next year when federal minimum wages go up to 10 an hour in 1980 and 100 in 2000. We will not付 this until July of 1980, if at all.
It is funny how it it takes months of deliberations and convincing to get these decisions made. The many of which have rent and tuition to pay, a wage increase. Yet it does not take much time at all to give our Chancellor his 6.1 million dollars in highest paid official in a Kansas institution.
It is obvious where these decision makers priorities are, and that is not with seeing to it that Kansas University students can pay for them, as well as of which our Cancellor does not have to pay.
Joleen M. James Lawrence senior
Inflation leaves a mark
By EUGENER R. JACKSON
N. Y. Times Feature
DALLAS, Texas-Think about this:
Today a $100,000 home can be purchased for 20,000 silver dollars. Ten years age a silver dollar and a silver dollar were equal in value.
Today, of course, silver dollars command a bit of a premium over junk silver coins—the worn diamets, quarters and halves. But you can buy that $100,000 home with $25,000 face value of those junk silver coins.
Has the value of silver gone up that much? Or does it reflect a trillion dollars of Washington deficit spending and unpaid promises over the past 10 years? If you want another definition of inflation, try this one: Gold is going up. Silver is going down. European currencies and the Japanese yen are going up. Are all of these really going up? Or is the dollar simply going down?
There is much heated discussion of late as to whether gold or silver is the best buy—billion or future. If you back to the first of 1978, gold has gained $60 an ounce this year ($6,000 per futures contract), while silver has gained 75 cents an ounce 3,750 per futures. On that basis, silver is not keeping up.
If we go back a bit further, to the lows for both gold and silver during 1976, we get this picture: Silver has gained $1.30 an ounce, or $8,000 in futures contract. Gold has gained $110 an ounce or $1,000 a futures. That is a bit more of a horse than it looks, too bad if you had your $750 to $1,000 margin on either one of them.
FROM THE RECENT record, conclusions are drawn. Gold is a monetary metal and silver is not in much of the world. Silver has more industrial uses than gold and will have its run when we expect greater industrial activity.
We might go back some years to silver's low of $1.28 an ounce on Nov. 3, 1971, and gold's low of $73.39 on Jan. 7, 1971. The first good run was to $197.50 for gold during December 1974 and a February 74 high for silver of $7.00. On January 26, the base basis that was an increase of $20 for silver and 28 percent for gold.
WHAT WILL YOU have: gold, silver,
or a bit of both?
Which reminds me of a phone call the other day—before I had opened my morning mail. The gentleman wanted to know if I could tell him where his son was in gold and silver each month. The only answer knew at a coin store.
But in my unopened mail was McKeever's Strategy Letter for late August. In it, he told about a new coinauction; he said the coins ordered one or more gold Murgrårans sent to you each month, and/or one or more rolls of silver quarters. You will pay at 10 percent over wholesale prices on these coins, plus insurance, postage and handling.
THE RECENT average cost of a 40-coin roll of quarters with all the extra added in was $45.5 for one roll a month and $26.1 for two rolls. Krugerand was a bit over $220. And you can have it charged to your bank credit or payroll deductions for government bonds.
If you would like a copy of Jim's Strategy Letter, and a brochure on this silver and gold every month plan, drop a note to the following: P.O. Box 4130, Medford, Oregon 97501.
Meantime, if you like to use more leverage in your investments—leverage, that means more risk to get higher returns; there is always the futures markets.
Eugene R. Jackson is associated with the Dallas Office of ConfiCommodity Services.
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The Summer Session Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, the date of publication, and the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position.
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THE SUMMER SESSION
KANSAN
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