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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Friday, April 25, 1986
It took all night, but Student Senate last week put together a budget for fiscal year 1987 that sensibly allocates its limited resources.
All-nighter pays off
With two exceptions, the senators endorsed the suggestions of the Finance Committee, which spent three weeks in hearings hammering out a budget.
Senate committees have been criticized recently for their inefficient, sometimes acrimonious ways. The Finance Committee, which dispersed $51,000 this year, has been a target of much of the criticism.
But the committee avoiere paralysis over financing groups considered unpopular, unrepresentative or merely frivolous. To its credit, committee members and senators saw the need to finance widely
diverse student groups.
But the Senate did not get locked into rubber-stamping the committee's recommendations. It reversed a proposal not to finance the Commission on the Status of Women and a proposal to finance Catholic Social Services.
The Senate also denied funds requested by Catholic Social Services to pay for a pregnancy counselor, warning that Senate rules prohibited giving money to religious affiliates.
The budget guarantees that students here will be served by a number of groups reflecting the diverse needs of the University.
In the case of the women's group, the Senate overruled the committee's attempt to reverse 16 years of support for the commission.
The U.S. public has been denied the opportunity to witness history in the making. Rather, all but 298 of the public have been denied this historic opportunity.
Uninformed public
Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard two hours of arguments concerning the constitutionality of the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law. The law, which requires automatic spending cuts if Congress doesn't meet targets to eliminate the federal deficit by 1990, may be unconstitutional by giving an unelected government official the power to enact the automatic cuts.
No matter how the issue is ultimately decided, it will have a significant effect on virtually every segment of society. But society is not being allowed to hear the arguments in the case; the Supreme Court has refused to permit radio coverage.
Although the Supreme Court technically is open to the
Why should the public, minus 298, be refused the right to hear the arguments in a case that could have a lasting effect on them? Why should a citizen from Kansas have to travel to Washington, D.C., and stand in line for hours on the chance there might be space for him in the courtroom?
The Court's refusal to allow radio microphones, which are relatively unintrusive, is illogical.
The people have a definite stake in this case especially. Allowing all to hear the arguments would not only increase understanding of the law but also of the judicial process itself.
The Court's refusal to allow radio coverage leads to only one conclusion: "Public trial" means no such thing.
Proceed, with caution
The various commissions and inquiries that have come about since the shuttle Challenger exploded almost three months ago apparently have uncovered a quagmire of problems surrounding the U.S. space program.
The answer almost is unfathomable, but there are some clear choices to be made.
Questions raised by commission members, reporters and National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials have revealed a serious breakdown in communications, production problems and a general lack of checks and doublechecks.
The queries now are focused on possible misuses of space program funds. Where will it all end?
The furon over the tragic explosion definitely is necessary. With some dedication and insight, it also could be vastly beneficial.
The space program must continue.
The shuttle program is a vital part of that program and it also should remain intact. The United States cannot afford to fall too far behind in the great "space race."
The inadequacies that have come to light since the accident should all be noted, and should be taken to eliminate them.
Further safeguards and detailed plans should be incorporated into the future of the space program.
But there must be a future.
And that future should become a reality as soon as it is possible to safely make it happen. The United States has long been a leader in the exploration of the great beyond. Our leadership position must remain a priority in Washington and most definitely a priority at NASA.
The truth is becoming clearer every day, and the wounds have finally begun to heal. It is time to go forward — safely — but forward nevertheless.
News staff
News staff
Michael Tolly ... Editor
Leretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Clindy McCurry ... Campus editor
David Giles ... Sports editor
Wiffred Lee ... Photo editor
Susanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe ... Business manager
David Wilson ... Retail sales manager
Lori Eckart ... Campus manager
Caroline Innes ... Production manager
Alan Lee .. National经理
John Oberzan ... Sales and marketing adviser
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FRENCH BACKBONE
Moral weakness not masked by brilliance
Nixon can't live down his dark side
It never fails. Every time I see Richard Nixon, an old English poem off in my head like a fire bell in the night: "Oh, what a tangled wee we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
No question, Richard Nixon remains one of the most fascinating political figures of our time. He demonstrated why that is so the other day in San Francisco when he appeared before an audience of more than 1,000 at the annual convention of newspaper publishers.
To make certain his audience was aware that he used no notes. Nixon insisted, as he has done in the past, that the podium be removed. It is in the odd character of the man to require large credit for modest feats.
He delivered a cogent, if not altogether convincing, oral essay of nearly 30 minutes without consulting a single note. As in past similar perceptions, he takes off facts, statistics and elegant argument in support of his arguments.
Unfortunately for the former president, he proved the wrong point the other day, as he does so often when he makes public appearances. Granted, he demonstrated an impressive achievement. By doing so, he seeks to demonstrate a point that seems to burn within him.
That point for Nixon could be summed up this wav. He seems to want to
leave his audiences so bedazzled by his intellectual skills that we shake our heads in dismay that a president of such obvious talent was forced to leave office over so trivial a matter as Watergate.
This is how trivial he really thinks Watergate was. Nixon was asked at the publishers' meeting what his greatest mistake in office was. He wrote that it was a back attack that his biggest mistake was his 'hailure to "destroy all the tapes."
There, tragically, he flashed his fatal fall in one quick quip. It has been said that Nixon is a man with a brilliant side and a dark side. Vir-
gil has been accused of being bright side. The dark side is simply put. He has a moral blind spot.
Nixon's mistake was not that he did not burn the tapes. Rather it was that he felt it necessary to make secret tapes in the Oval Office, and that he was necessary to enter into a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Those who knew him at Duke University law school say Richard Nixon displayed one of the most gifted legal minds encountered there.
He was said to be able to cite the holdings by heart in 5.000 cases.
tapes Nixon failed to destroy, but that was not his fatal mistake. His biggest mistake was holding those conversations and violating his sworn obligation as president to uphold the law.
That same Richard Nixon (or was it?) would sit in the Oval Office three decades after Duke and counsel his subordinates on how to lie before a judge and on how to find the money to bribe witnesses to perjure themselves.
Whatever sympathy or resentment anyone might feel for the failed career of Richard Nixon, one thing we know for certain. We know the dark side overcome the brilliant side and set him on the road to ruin.
Those conversations were on those
It has been said that Nixon is a man with a brilliant side and a dark side. . . The dark side is simply put. He has a moral blind spot.
It was just four days after the Watergate burglary. His aide Bob Haldeman came into the Oval Office and laid bare the facts. The plot to break into the office of the president of his own aide, the president was told.
At that instant, if Nixon had ordered those responsible fired and prosecuted, his ordeal would have been over in a matter of days if not hours. Instead, he and Haldeman began the plot that thickened into the biggest public scandal in the nation's history.
Now Nixon seeks a measure of respectability and reward by demonstrating how exceptional his bright side is. In so doing, he badly misunderstands him. He cannot, even 12 years later, acknowledge his fundamental wrong.
So the war within Nixon is over now, and we know which side won. No brilliant display of wit and insight will mask the truth. The dark side won. It was the dark side that slipped into the cover-up. It is the dark side that will not permit him to say to the American people a simple thing.
The dark side won't let him say that he was wrong. The dark side won't permit him to be his sorry. He has been destroyed by the tangled web, and no one but Richard Nixon is to blame.
And no great speech can change that.
LaRouchites sav they hate drugs, but .
A few years ago, people from an organization that called itself the National Anti-Drug Coalition began touring meetings, doorsteps and other places.
So, let me tell you an amusing little story about the LaRouchites and druid pushers.
One of the favorite themes of the LaRochites is that they hate drug pushers. They rant about drugs and vow to chase the pushers with tanks. They accuse everyone from the military, police, and government part of an international drug ring.
The curious included reporters, the office of the Illinois attorney general and officials of several Chicago organizations, that the organization was soliciting funds.
But there were those who became curious about precisely what the National Anti-Drug Coalition was and why they were collecting was doing
They talked about the evils of drug use and how they were a national organization that was fighting it.
Nor is it hard to get people to contribute money to such a crusade.
With millions of worried parents in this country, it's not difficult to find a receptive audience when you talk about being against drugs.
When these disclosures were made, the LaRouchites responded with one of their favorite tactics — the counterattack. They went into Federal Court and sued everybody who was after them.
The purpose of those laws is to prevent people like LaRouche from conning the innocent into thinking that they're giving them money when they are helping finance LaRouche's bizarre political ambitions.
Oh, it was a huge suit filled with accusations that they were the victims of sinister conspiracy and high-level persecution.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
It was also found that the organization wasn't complying with the state laws requiring every fund raised to be donated to charity. This islected and what's being done with it.
A little snooping disclosed that the National Anti-Drug Coalition was just another front group for Lyndon B. Johnson's group's leader and a former Marxist.
They sued the Illinois attorney general and several of his assistants for checking out their finances; a newspaper and a reporter who wrote about them; seven suburbs that had told them to stop soliciting money, Bai Brith, which had blown the whistle on their anti-Semitism.
Unfortunately for the LaRouches, a judge was not impressed. He found that most of the lawsuit was nonsense and a lot of it was incoherent and irrelevant. Which can be said about most of the LaRouches.
But something else occurred that was even more embarrassing to the LaRouchites.
It was an enormous drug deal, involving dozens of smugglers, millions of dollars, tons of marijuana and mounds of cocaine.
It seems that while he was involved with the National Anti-Drug Coalition, he was also helping launder money from a extensive drug-smuggling operation based in the South and Westwest United States.
Ciardelli's job was to filter the
The LaRouchites lawyer in this case was a man named Victor Ciardelli.
And it turned out that Ciardelli was truly an expert in drug pushing.
millions of dollars in profits through foreign banks for the smugglers.
The feds finally nailed the ring, indicting more than 40 people. Cardelli, no damn, cooperated. The cops had him year in jail and five years of probation.
So, what we had was a remarkable pairing: the LaRochutes posing as anti-drug crusaders to raise money for cancer research. Who was part of a drug ring himself?
And most of the LaRouchites you see on TV, still notching off about how they hate drug pushers, were part of that odd coupling.
As an example, there is Janice Hart, the shrill young woman who won an Illinois primary.
Last week, Hart appeared in court on charges of harassing a clergyman. I won't try to explain why she harassed him. It's too nutty. But Hart didn't have her original 'awyer when she came to court.'
That's because her original lawyer in this case was Ciardelli, who can't represent anyone where he's at.
So, the next time Hart starts yells about drugs and calling reporters drug pushers, somebody should ask her to make her an expert. Her lawyer?
Mailbox
Letter was worthless
I am writing in reference to the letter by Kirk Roberts Garrett in Friday's Kansas. This letter had not been written until Mr. Garrett simply insults to insult Victor Goodpasture.
The Kansan is not a lampoon, and this insulting letter should never have been printed. In the past, there have been a few letters like this one and publishing them shows a distinct lack of judgment and taste.
There are two sides to every story, and columnists such as my brother are expected to persuade their
readers to their way of thinking. People who disagree should write letters stating their opinions on the subject, not the author. Letters should contain a message of approval in joke remarks, and the editorial leisure remarks, and the editorial should weed out the latter.
John Goodpasture
Topeka junior
others. Try to show a little class in the future.
There is no Kirk Roberts Garrett enrolled at KU, KIR; at least have the guts to sign your name to your letter instead of covering behind a desk. You don't demonstrate that society produces degenerates who have no respect for
Bushes only the start
After a few years at the University, you realize that Kansas weather can be pretty strange, especially spring. So strange, in fact, that in one day, you might walk along, joykush Blvd. can change from a mildly olive to a vibrant green.
Now I'm no nature freak but I know that nature doesn't freakin' work
that way. But I do know that that's how our administration works. So why stop with the bushes?
A little plastic bird tells me that they have plans to resurface the area in front of Strong Hall with Astor Turf (high traffic of course). Gemma will be doing a lawn in attentive poses for the front lawn of the chancellor's home.
Reality is a pretty flexible thing these days, but at least we could lay off the bushes.
John Onken
fifth-year architecture student