Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of
APRIL4,1979
Budget merits approval
The Kansas Legislature has the opportunity this session to advance higher education in the state.
This week the Kansas Senate will consider a budget bill that would give the University of Kansas more than $109 million, which is about $500,000 more than the House-approved budget.
If the Senate approves the budget bill, it will be sent to a conference committee of both houses for a compromise. It is here that advances can be made.
THE EXTRA MONEY from the Senate version would allow for 11 additional teaching and civil service jobs. It also would provide $95,703 to buy instructional equipment and $40,000 to hire more student help at Watson Library—both of which are badly needed.
The Senate bill also would give KU slightly more than $4.5 million during the next two years for the renovation of Lindley and Marvin halls.
One of the most important and
perhaps most controversial aspects of the budget is a proposed faculty salary increase. While there is no argument about the need for an increase, the House budget bill calls for a 6 percent increase and the Senate version would provide for a 7 percent increase.
IT SHOULD BE clear, considering the effects of inflation on the buying power of a dollar, that faculty members must have the 7 percent increase. Do to do something would be an insult to students and to citizens of the state.
Although legislators may be tempted to attack higher education budgets with a frenzy brought on by Proposition 13, they must resist.
At a time when enrollments are expected to begin to decline, it is all the more important for universities to develop programs that ensure quality of their educational programs.
The Legislature must realize that this will be possible only through increases in state funding. With such an awareness it is hoped legislators act accordingly.
Diet of coach not safe for any period of time
To the editor:
As a nutrition teacher at KU, I am concerned about some information put forth in the article, "Coach Pumps Iron, Weight Train" in the March 26 issue of the Kansas.
Obviously, from the photo, our new coach is in fine shape and I am sure he knows his weaknesses. We should meet them. However, I am concerned that a weight-lifting reader who decides to start a weight-lifting program might use this diet expecting it to give the nutrient support that he or she need.
The reported diet is not a safe and ef- fect dietary additive or any other activity for any period of time.
It is a false belief that athletes need a lot of protein. They have more muscle tissue to support their physical activity, so increased need for protein is in the magnitude of an extra one to three ounces of protein.
The athlete's real need is for more energy-supplying nutrients plus the vitamins and minerals to release this energy. The use of these nutrients is physiologically inefficient and expensive and puts a strain on organs such as the kidneys, must dispose of the nitrogen waste products.
A much better way to go is to get vitamins and minerals from foods which also provide the carbohydrates, fats and proteins for the vitamins and minerals to work with and
Taking vitamin and mineral pills is of no use unless the other nutrients with which they must functionly interact are present, and there is no evidence that article does not provide these other nutrients.
Business Manager
Person Worked With
Brandon Wendertt Bri Almason
Retail Sales Manager Advertising Mo. Bret Miller
Sales Manager Accounting Aisst. Clauded Adver Mer. Donnuth Butts
General Mer. Rick Muscat
General Mer.
Eighty afailla pills a day over even a short period of time will probably produce carotenemia, visible as an orange-yellow skin color. It is not a desired condition.
thus have a more efficient system without any dangers of nutrient imbalance or ealth.
For the athlete, either of the full time or weekend variety, I recommend the book "Nutrition for Athletes-Handbook for Coaches," published by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Exercise and Recreation in association with the American Dietetics Association and the Nutrition Foundation.
Associate professor of human development
KU should not aid human exploitation To the editor.
The Endowment Association, alumni, students and faculty at the University of Kansas must make certain its investments in U.S. corporations are not being used to pay for university programs in South Africa, Chile, Nicaragua, Iran, Vietnam; in the past we called the people of these nations backward, underdeveloped, less developed. Today, we use a term such as Third World. What does this transition in the global economy mean to every human being in the world must be taught?
In practical terms, the business manager no longer has the sole right and peregative power just what kind of corporate behavior he must also actively participate. Thus, the KU Endowment Association as a stockholder may influence the effect of its investments upon the lives of people.
What are the proper roles of businesses, public interest groups, universities and the government in defining the social conduct of unions and social priorities in general?
Environmental protection, opportunities for minority group members, participation in community affairs, foreign investments—the preoccupation with social issues by U.S. corporations has become a large topic of the community at large.
The Republic of South Africa is a legally enforced segregated, racist society that explodes blacks; the Endowment Association should provide no support of such operations should provide no support of such
Edward P. Dutton
Associate professor of social welfare
Laws won't slow teen-age alcoholism
The Massachusetts Legislature last month moved to raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 19, and there are indications that it may soon raise the age limit to 21. The Massachusetts is the state since 1976 to change mind about lowering the drinking age to 18.
And they probably won't be the last to do so, because 11 other state legislatures are considering raising the age to 19, 20, 21 and even higher.
The reaction on college campuses in those states is as would be expected—strong jobs.
Older teens in the early 1970s had campaigned to be treated as adults if they were to be expected to fight in wars like adults. Indeed, those teens not only got the right to vote, but they also succeeded in lowering the legal drinking age to 18 in many states.
Now the trend is in the other direction, and a startling set of statistics is the im-
**PAGE 147**
Since 1972, the number of 16- to 18-year-old drinking drivers involved in fatal accidents has tripled. Also, the Department of Health, with its new teenage health program, teenage "problem drinkers" at 3.5 million,
nearly one in five—and the number is growing. Alcohol is as much a threat as American teenage sex.
Many opponents of the lower drinking age say that raising the drinking age will cut off "the connection" between 18-year-olds and younger teenagers they supply with alcohol.
Indeed, the connection will likely be slowed but it will never be severed completely. Many people have realized that the base is more than 18-year-old drinking.
The problem is a society, and especially an advertising industry, which glamorizes alcohol. The ultimate conclusion of such glamorization is alcoholism.
Slick liquor advertisements help convince teens that drinking will make them more likely to drink.
excess, show the teen that consumption of alcohol is all right, if not socially necessary. Television programs show that guzzling the one real joy to be gotten out of college.
These and other hype jobs on liquor only serve to increase the peer pressure to drink alcohol. And a large part of the problem is that we have to have just a drink or two, but to get drunk
Tom Wurster, a college student in Michigan, which recently changed its legal drinking age to 21, is one of many who think that by taking away the opportunity for the single drinker to buy liquor by the single drink, states are encouraging teams to drink in quantity.
"You buy it," he said. "What are you going to do with it? You can't bring it into your house."
There is a good deal of sense in that argument. There also is a good deal of sense in the fact that people considered old enough to die in combat like adults then they also must be considered old enough to die in combat.
But "the connection" with the younger teens is what worries legislators most.
There is, however, a way to treat 18-years-old adults and to cut off part of the brain.
Kansas, despite its archaic laws for 21-year-olds, has established a system in which the 18-year-old may drink by the single bottle, but the 20-year-old and other 21 states have similar laws permitting the sale and consumption of beer or wine by the several of all 11 states are considering binge drinking.
Just blocking the sale of ice to 18-year-olds will not stop the teenage alcohol problem. Neither will the sale of only 3.2 beer to 18-year-olds solve the problem. The Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms is developing a program to help educate the about the dangers of alcohol abuse. That is not likely to solve the problem, either.
But after acknowledging that 18-year-olds are expected to be adults, both by voting and being eligible for combat duty, state governments should accept the fact that 18-year-olds are in fact, adults. They should understand their own plans to examine more closely their plans to put a new prohibition on the books this time only for 18-19 and 20-year-olds.
Nuclear accident stirs memories
By L.M. JENDRZEJCZYB
N. Y. Times Feature
NYACK, N.Y.—As I read of the accident at a nuclear power plant that sent radiation into the central Pennsylvania countryside, I recalled a factory tour on the outskirts of Denver in 1978.
But things are different now, one public relations man said. The old plutonium fabrication plant had been rebuilt and Building 707 contains the most modern radiation-monitoring and fire-fighting equipment. Still, he ad-hocly invented it inevitably continue to happen, exposing workers to plutonium and killing them. Through mishaps and what are called "routine
The complex of more than 90 buildings there was established in secrecy by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1952. At one structure, known as Building 707, my group worked with skimming ants and elastically-taped boots to wear on our shoes.
Respirators were placed around our necks. Our hosts, employees of Rockwell International, manager of the Rocky Flats plant under contract with the government, told us what to do if an alarm sounded while we were walking through the pressure-sealed corridors and air locks.
We were immediately to bring the respirators up over our faces to prevent inhalation of plutonium. A particle the size of a grain of pollen, inhaled or otherwise taken into the body can cause lung or cancer leukemia or genetic defects.
Enough plutonium to build 77 Nagasaki-sized bombs was destroyed, at a cost to taxpayers of $80 million. An unknown amount of plutonium leaked into the atmosphere.
Before we moved down the corridor to view selected portions of the "component manufacturing facility" we were checked for radiation. I recalled that in 1969 some plutonium chips had spontaneously ignited, setting off the worst of more than 200 fires that have occurred at Rocky Flats.
emissions*, *plutonium* and other radioactive elements get into their bodies and into the air and water outside.
It was the view through that window I will never forget.
Along the wall on one side of a corridor were windows; I stopped at one, transfixed. Between two layers of clear plexiglass more than six inches thick was an insulated space filled with water. I stared into a large, brightly illuminated room through which a mechanical arm moved, operated by a man standing behind a similar window on the opposite wall, between us, in rows of canisters, were tons of platinum awaiting fabrication to "trigger" for nuclear warheads.
The United States currently has approximately 9,000 strategic nuclear warheads in its arsenal, plus some 20,000 tactical weapons. The plutonium in these weapons is periodically removed and recycled. Though plutonium remains radioactive for thousands of years, the bomb parts must be rejuvenated if they are to be potent enough.
Plutonium is potentially the most lethal substance in the world. A pound of it, carefully distributed around the country, would be more than enough to give everyone lung cancer.
A few minutes later, I stood beside a lead-lined, protective-glove box and watched a piece of plutonium move down a conveyer belt. Only about 10 pounds of plutonium fell onto the floor. The piece must have weighed at least that much. Plutonium is also one of the most expensive materials in the world. This material must be manufactured as a man-made substance, produced in fission reactors.
I never completed the tour. After the view through that window, I had seen enough. The public tours of Rocky Flats were begun by Rockwell International as a way to help visitors see the mountains to clear up the mystery about the work done at the plant.
Though the tours continue, the public no longer is in building 707. The public relations people don't say why.
to trigger a thermonuclear explosion. But it seems that there is a platinum shortage.
The warheads for the new generation of weapons systems need even more plutonium than those in the stockpile. The government says that if America is to go ahead with plans to manufacture thousands of more powerful warheads like the Mark 12-A, we will need more bomb-bgrade plutonium.
Later this spring, Congress will vote on the Department of Energy budget authorization for nuclear weapons for fiscal year 1980. The proposed budget increases funding for nuclear weapons activity and "special nuclear materials,""plutonium-production by 12 percent to more than $2 billion.
The most important discussions and decisions regarding warfare production, research and development go
Most of the hearings are held in executive session to protect classified information. They are conducted in a lead-lined room in the Capitol. Not even congressional staff and with security excepted, are allowed in. A security guard is required at all times. (Do not print)
Of course I'm aware of the reasons given to explain why the hearings must be in secret. I've also heard the Pence tell us that Mr. Trump's new, more sophisticated nuclear weapons to keep up with the Soviet Union—even if the SALT II agreement is overdue.
I'm concerned about more plutonium and more bombs being produced in a world that is already so dangerous, I'm concerned about the possibility of further radioactive production, and research, production and testing at places like Rockets Flats.
And I think again for that window through which we are now forbidden to peer.
L. M. Jendrieczky is co-director of the nuclear weapons facilities, project a joint undertaking of the Fellowship of Reconcilation, an inter-religious pacifist organization, and the American Friends Service Committee.
STATE U.
BY T. M. ASLA
No glory in Rock Chalk
To the editor:
Jeff Mount felt betrayed by the Kansan because of poor Rock Chalk coverage. His complaint is valid, but his argument is futile. There simply is no glory in the performing arts. The only thanks come from others in the show (most important) and from an audience. Usually applause is given to journalists who change. newspapers merely serve history by noting participants and plots; it's a pity that few papers can manage thgt.
This is the crux of the matter: What
obstructs me most is that Michael
wrote "you can't write to" in his
Robert F. Heschmeyer
Prairie Village freshman
Shouldn't KU students concern themselves with more pressing issues?
As a lighting technician for the show, I must say that the entire endeavor is a force—a frivolous waste of time and money. But . . . That's Entertainment.
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