UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Karsan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of
MARCH 30, 1979
Pot bill approval wise
The Kansas House took one small step out of the dark ages earlier this week with the approval of a bill allowing some cancer chemotherapy and glaucoma patients to be treated with mariuana.
The House wisely ignored the tired, hysterical arguments used against the bill and took the opportunity to ease human suffering by allowing those patients who are not responding to conventional therapies to participate in a therapeutic research program involving marijuana.
STILL, ONE opponent of the bill argued that it would open a Pandaora's box and eventually lead to drug abuse and addiction. Opposition to the bill also called for an argument that there was not enough about marijuana to allow its use.
That has been a favorite argument by marijuana opponents for years, but one wonders when there ever would be enough research to satisfy their appetite. Apparently there won't be
enough until they find conclusive evidence that marrijuana is harmful, an occurrence which might leave them a long wait.
THE HOUSE is to be commended for approving the bill over those faulty and exaggerated arguments. As the bill's sponsor, State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence, said, marijuana treatments are not caused by glaucoma and also could relieve the nausea that is often induced by chemotherapy.
No matter how one feels about the recreational use of marijuana, benefits like that are hard to ignore and leave little room for rational argument against the medicinal use of marijuana.
Marijuana treatments are useful and necessary for those patients who find little relief in conventional therapies. The Kansas Senate and Gov. John Carlin would be doing those patients a disservice by not allowing the use of marijuana for therapy in Kansas.
Was Pfc. Robert Garwood captured and held as a prisoner of war or did he desert from the Marine Corps more than 13 years ago in Vietnam?
If Marine investigators looking into the matter knew the answer, they might try to
Marine deserves calm investigation
Garwood negotiated recently with the United States to leave Vietnam, appeared in Bangkok, Thailand, and was whisked to a prison camp. Okinawa for debriefing and investigation
DETAILS OF his capture or desertion are unclear and are the pivot factor in determining what the Martines will do with him.
He is charged with desertion in time of war; soliciting American combat forces to throw down their weapons and to refuse to fight; attempting to cause instubordination; being disloyal; dealing unlawfully with the enemy; and misbehaving while a prisoner of war.
Garwood said he was captured. The Marines said he deserted.
If Garwood is convicted of desertion and sentenced to die, he will become the first American executed for that crime since 1944. Capt. Bob Bowen, a Pentagon spokesman, said the lesser penalties for Garwood would be a prison sentence or a dishonorable discharge.
Garwood had been living in Vietnam, apparently by choice, since 1967. He disappeared in 1985 while based in Vietnam, and former POWs have said Garwood was seen collaborating with the enemy two years later in prison camps.
EXECUTION FOR Garwood is too severe a punishment unless the Marines can invocably prove that he murdered, or collaborated to murder, an American
There are many things people take for granted, and Americans, it seems, by and large continue to ignore warnings
Power loss can teach conservation
Greg Ramirez and his family had been without use of electricity for about 24 hours because the power line from the nearby electric plant to his home on the outskirts of Horton had been downed by the next weekend's winter snow storm.
But I, for one, realized in just a few minutes how dependent we still are on conventional forms of energy, which a recent Associated Press-NBC poll indicates are still being taken for granted by the American people.
The absence of electricity and the subsequent halt in activities chilled me, as did the cold of the house when I first entered.
The clock on the kitchen wall had stopped. It was now Saturday afternoon, the time read about 9:20, indicating the start of a week.
ALTHOUGH there was a small gas heater in use, the main electric heating system offered no warmth.
If not for the light from the sun, the house would have been dim; only a kerosene lamp was available to provide light.
A college basketball game hundreds of miles away was being played, but there was no elephant flip of a switch and a front knee to hit.
No meals were cooked. There was no old, open stove where coal or wood could fuel a fire for cooking. Just an electric stove
Indeed, the night before the family had listened to the radio for evening entertainment. They listened until bedtime. Sounds
AND FOR A few hours this family and many others had to go without any of our modern conveniences, living like most Americans during the '20s and '30s. This shortage of power seemed to serve as a reminder of our dependence on conveniences. If we expect to continue to live in relative comfort, we must take better care of our energy sources.
Nature seemed to be speaking to Kanaans. The snow storm cut off力士 650 per cent of Kansas, closing highways, schools and railroads. Electric Cooperative stations were blacked out; 20 Kansas Power and Light Co. transmission lines were torn down under the blast.
If Americans-Kansans—are not going to listen to the cry for energy conservation, maybe we can at least remember this past week.
Jake
A PROLIFERATION of unanswered questions must be answered in the Garwood investigation. One important one is why Garwood wants to return to the U.S. if he is sent there, and how much charges. So far he has not said why, and why by his lawyer must demonstrate that point.
ERA frees men from society's rules
To the editor:
As the Marines investigate Garwood, you should weigh all the available facts with the psychological circumstances of a soldier in Vietnam during that time.
This letter is to men and women, particularly men. While many of us enjoy some aspects of traditional men's roles, no man is ever comfortable with all the rules and rules encapsulated in the masculine code remains a given. Governments restrictions on our choices of jobs and lifestyle. Men who might choose nontraditional work, such as elementary or preschool teachers, nutritionists, nurses, secretaries or men who wish to be fulltime workers are less likely to be one of the labels awaiting them if they should attempt to break the code and make that choice their reality. Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment will afford us an important, practical opportunity to reconsider gender equality placed on all of us, women and men alike.
Inasmuch as women are paid equally and have equal access to trade union members, they can be more comfortable when men become free to experiment with our lives—to escape from the straitjacket of spending our lives getting the approval of the person above us at work so we can get to know them better. In order to get the next highest salary to support the next highest mortgage—a path that discourages men from asking ourselves, "Is there man that I really want to do with my life?"
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
Here are just some of the reasons why men need the ERA, and if you stop and think about it, they will.
1) Freedom from being a success object-As men, we do not want to spend our lives supporting not only ourselves, but women, children, a mortgage and an image of ourselves. Until women share that support, we, as men, do not have the freedom to choose. We are in taking those risks, for fear that if we do fall our family will end up in the noor house.
means of survival. And for some that might mean to appear to be on the enemy side,
But unless they prove Garwood attempted to kill or torture American soldiers, he should not be executed, regardless of what they find. No other crime, considering the pressures and circumstances of the Vietnamese War, warranted execution of Pfc. Garwood.
Thompson
(2) Child nurturing—As the ERA allows the woman option of really sharing in the responsibilities of earning the income, it often more time to nurture our children.
5) Prostitute and security objects—Women who hang onto relationships with men because society gives us the easier road to providing financial security makes women selfish, so they themselves into prostitutes. When women must keep their misgivings about these relationships to themselves for fear of losing the financial security, men often find ours "shocked" when what we thought was a good relationship "suddenly" blows up.
3) Child custody and child support—The ERA will prevent states from depriving men of child custody merely because we are men. It will prevent us from being forced to declare our wifes unfighters in order to gain equal access to custody. To be used in a case of abuse, we are in contact with the people we are financing our reforces of an unfeelable provider.
4) "Divorce training"—When legal inequities push men into working outside the home and women into working inside the home, this division of labor leads to a division of interests. The opposite interests the sexes apart, (e.g., the "opposite sex") and the training men and women to be opposite other is, in essence, divorce training.
6) Inheritance—Many common law states require a husband to have
would release him," Foley said. "He decided to make the deal and then they
CONFLICTING REPORTS from other POWs further cloud the issue. One claimed Guevara, who helped a prisoner in de-indentification with the Vietnamese for a while to show his sincerity toward their cause. Foley said that that may have been a different man, who later was killed.
child born of the marriage prior to receiving inheritance of his wife's reality. This is not required of the women. Women are hurt by such children because they force an enforced of these provisions.
David Harker, another former POW who knew Garwood, said, "Bob was a criminal." He pointed out the violence he faced. But at no time did I feel he did personal harm to American prisoners . . . I am totally opposed to his being held accountable, and that it might try to get us to come over to his side."
Why do I address men in particular? The vast majority of the legislators blocking the ratification of the ERA are men. The leaders of business and industry who could add to the effect of the boycott of states where the ERA is not ratified are men. More importantly, the ERA represents a human rights issue. Men have a personal stake in equality as well. We have seen the flowering of strength and confidence of our sisters, daughters, mothers, lovers and friends. We have learned that in order for us to respect ourselves we need to grow among equals, not servants who prop up our egos. Above all, the ERA represents freedom for men and women to choose lives independent of the rigid roles society thirsts upon us.
Harker said that if what he had seen was the whole case, then Garwood should not be tried. Harker, in defense of Garwood, said he would have to defend himself with tense that every soldier sought his own
soldier. They also should prove beyond doubt that he deserted, and establish a motive, before they further consider execution.
More collaboration with the enemy, considering the treatment of POWs during World War II and the subsequent loss.
One hopes for a thorough, rational,
marines in this potentially emotional situ-
ation.
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According to Dermot G. Foley, a lawyer who has represented families of POWs and has been retained by Garwood's family, 1985-47 was a period of harsh treatment of Japanese prisoners. Garwood may have collaborated in various ways with assurance he would be freed if he did.
Send changes of address to the University Daily Kansan, Flint Hall. The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 60455
"There is reason to suspect that the Vietnamese abused Bobby for a while and that he was underage," she said.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Editor
Barry Massey
Business Manager
Karen Wendergott
Tom Dougherty
Garnett special student
Advertising Adviser Chuck Chowins
Angel Flight groups vital in eastern U.S.
General Manager Rick Musser
To the editor
In am writing in regards to the article that appeared in the Kansan March 23 concerning the disbayment of Angel Flight. In the article, the commander cited public apathy as the cause for declining interest in the group. This is just not true.
As a past member of Angel Flight in the East, I can say that Angel Flight was a highly regarded group on our campus. We were able to achieve a high status by having students showing true concern for the group that showed real concern. This hasn't been the case on this campus.
As the major in the article pointed out, Angel Flight is not a military organization—so how was it so determinally affected by what I grasped from the article that the folded because of poor leadership and an inability on behalf of the commander to really understand the role this group had to play in C and school as well. Yes, it looks as if the Angels have lost their wings. They've baken led astray, as if by the devil himself.
Ann Elke
Ann Elke Syracuse, N.Y. junior
Convention threat jeopardizes liberty
BvHARRIET F. PILPEI.
N. Y. Times Feature
NEW YORK—It’s 1973–do you know where your Constitution is? You probably do know that Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. of Georgia has signed the 2015 convention to adopt an amendment to the federal Constitution requiring a balanced federal budget. You probably also know that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, has opposed this suggestion. Senator John Conyers Union says has already been acted upon by more than 20 states.
But did you know that a number of states also have called on Congress to convene a constitutional convention on a variety of other issues and that 13 states—10 states within the last two years—have already asked Congress to hold such a convention on their abortion? Or that in other states, including New York, such a regulation on abortion has already passed one house of the legislature?
THE UNITED States Constitution, adopted in 1787, has stood up well. But if the constitutional convention resolutes that increasingly threaten it are not stopped, it may not survive to reach its 200th birthday.
Although proponents of a convention on a particular subject appear to be calling for a convention concerned just with that subject, almost all of the lawyers and historians who have studied the question say that no one can predict with any certainty that if a convention were held on any one subject, it might not decide to change the Constitution in other respects as well.
If delegates are so inclined, they might try to amend the Constitution to permit segregation, to change the one-man-one-vote rule, to end the constitutional mandate of separation of church and state, to prevent the abolition of religious exemptions, to repeal the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
THE FIRST and only Constitutional Convention was called for the purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation.
Few people are aware that Article 5 provides that the Constitution can be amended in either of two ways, because only one of them is a legal act.
Finding those articles a woefully inadequate document to govern our new nation, the founding fathers disregarded the purpose for which they were assembled and proceeded to draft our Constitution, which subsequently was adopted by the states. That Constitution has weathered the almost 200 years of its existence and provides proving to be a model for constitutions adopted by other countries.
ments have been adopted has been an evolutionary one; two-thirds of Congress has proposed them and three-quarters of the states
THE ALTERNATIVE method—never used—and referred to by Sen. Kennedy as "a darker side to the amendment process"—empowers two-thirds of the states to pass resolutions asking Congress to call a constitutional convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. If two-thirds of the state legislatures pass such a resolution (it is not clear whether the governor has to approve the resolution. Congress must call a convention, and the outcome of the convention must be ratified by three-quarters of the state.
Although many questions immediately arise in connection with the possibility of such a convention, there is no definitive answer to any of them. Of the more important ones are: Would the courts have the right to decide what issue they called? Would the courts have the right to decide any issues that may arise? What would be the method of selecting delegates? What would they vote on and what vote would carry—a majority? Twothirds? Three-quarters? Unanimous? What if the delegates vote on and what vote would carry with other parts of the Constitution that are not being amended?
ON COCAISION, individual senators and congressmen have proposed a set of rules to govern a possible constitutional convention. The most recently proposed rules would divest the courts of any right to decide anything with respect to the convention or its outcome. The rules specify also that a governor's signature would not be necessary if a state legislature asked Congress to call a law on the governor to be signed neither the courts nor the executive departments—the president and governors—would have anything to say.
Moreover, no set of rules presented by one Congress necessarily would be binding on either the convention or the next Congress.
The jeopardy to all our basic liberties that a constitutional convention would entail is great. One of the frightening things about these pressures for a convention is that so few people know it, are capable, it is not a subject the public discusses, studies or even notices.
Surely all Americans who value our hard-won basic freedoms and who recognize the evolutionary process by which they have developed will not want to put them at the mercy of an uncharted nation. They may not understand what their views on abortion or a balanced federal budget may be.
Harriet F. Pilpel is a New York attorney.
STATE U.
BY T. M. ASLA