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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, April 8, 1986
The good news is that gas prices have dropped so far that filling up even the biggest guzzler no longer requires a second mortgage.
Riding the oil cycles
But while motorists are gleefully pocketing the savings, Kansas is facing a different kind of oil crisis.
Thousands of workers who depend on a prospering oil industry are out of work, tax revenues keyed to oil profits are plummetting and banks with large oil company loans are holding a lot of worthless notes.
New drilling has dropped by 50 percent, and old wells are being sealed, making a return to production expensive. The state, as a result, could lose $25 million in severance tax revenues
Lawmakers who scrambled to cope with the rapid climb in the price of oil now face problems caused by its rapid fall. As a result, they appear to be suffering from a kind of vertigo.
Their choices are not pleasant. They can do nothing and watch revenues drop as producers dry up and blow away. They can increase the number of wells that would be exempt from the tax and lose about
But even increasing the exemptions might not stop the disappearance of the drillers and refiners who can't compete with more cheaply produced oil.
$4-8 million.
Now, instead of panicking at the loss of revenue, lawmakers need to take a deep breath and recognize that their other constituents — notably farmers — will benefit from lower gas prices.
Boom-and-bust cycles have characterized oil since at least the 1920s, when large fields near El Dorado opened and closed in a matter of years, leaving capped wells and ghost towns.
Lots of money can be made during the boom cycle, and the state was right in trying to get its share with the severance tax. But oil booms are short-lived, and the state was wrong to rely too heavily on income from the tax.
The lawmakers' mistake is in thinking that they can do anything at all to handle the always volatile oil industry.
Deterrence. Punishment. The terms dominate the debate on capital punishment.
Any improvement in their economic conditions is bound to help the state as much or more than a premium price for oil.
But another issue lurked in the shadows as the Kansas Legislature this session argued the merits of the death penalty.
Distasteful politics
Election year.
When the death penalty passed the House on March 28, its supporters ignored Gov. John Carlin's promise that he would veto any death penalty bill, as he has done four times since 1979.
Death penalty advocates have no better chance of overriding a veto this year. But they have a chance in an election year to go on record in favor of a measure that remains popular among voters.
Speaker of the House Mike Hayden, R-Atwood, promoted the death penalty with enthusiasm this session. He amended the original bill, which would apply the death penalty only to those who kill corrections or law enforcement officers, to cover those convicted of any premeditated murder.
This is of no small importance. If Hayden grabs the Republican nomination for governor, then he's quite likely to face Lt. Gov. Tom Docking in November. Docking has said that he too would veto every death penalty measure that came across his desk.
Hayden's aggressive support of the bill does nothing to ensure enough votes to override a veto. But it does publicly link his name in support of the death penalty.
With a stroke of thickly disguised brilliance, the Kansas House managed to kill the only hope the state had of solving its revenue problems when it killed the 1-cent sales tax bill, only to resurrect it five hours later.
State's woes no game
In the meantime, these saviors of Kansas managed to cut $13 million out of the budgets of state universities and $17 million in aid to public schools. It's difficult to appreciate the wisdom of slashing education budgets in a state where the flow of young people out of Kansas is a growing problem.
they would control the way the monev raised would be spent.
But as it turns out, the killing of the Senate-passed sales tax bill actually was an act of rebellion by House Democrats whose intent was to make sure
So the bill has been revived for Democrats hopeful that their spending priorities will take precedence. These priorities include financing for social service programs, education, pay increases for teachers and other state employees, highway construction, water programs and economically distressed farmers.
In light of the dramatic decline in the state economy during the last year, it is hard to understand the games they play in Topeka. With the current legislative session rapidly coming to a close, let's hope our elected representatives will get serious and do something positive for this state.
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Craig McCurry ... Compiler editor
David Gliese ... Sport editor
Wilfredo Lee ... Photo editor
Susanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Brett McCabe...Business manager
David Nixon...Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson...Campus manager
Lori Eckart...Classified manager
Caroline Innes...Production manager
Pallen Lee...National manager
Sales manager
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Reagan takes out frustrations on Libya
Not in Nicaragua, but it's almost as
He had wanted to give $100 million to the Nicaraguan contrast so they could revive their sagging war with the Sandinistas.
But that was two weeks ago. And in only a few days, a new window has opened for President Reagan.
The late Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago used to say that after he career an election early in his career, his mother boosted his gloomy spirits with these words: "The good Lord never closes one window without opening another."
Despite the President's pleas, Congress turned him down. So, President Reagan found that the window had slammed shut on one of his most cherished goals — getting the action perking again in Nicaragua.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
Now we see another example of how dramatically fortunes can be reversed. Only two weeks ago, Presi-
    mand was forced and himself frustrated and angry.
And how true that was. After failing to be elected sheriff, Daleky pegging along and eventually mayor and a legend in his own time.
B O O O
We're not at war, of course. As Larry Speakes cautioned reporters, this is only a confrontation. But based on the early confrontation casualty lists, we are winning hands down.
And just as we had promised, we didn't take Khadady's guff. Several of Libya's patrol boats and an undetermined number of Libyan sailors are now sleeping with the Mediterranean fishes.
good. We're getting to blow up some Libvans.
Not that we could expect anything less than victory. If we couldn't win a mere confrontation with a little country like Libya, what kind of world power would we be? Even Khadafy must have known that when he sent dinky patrol boats out to challenge our huge fleet. But being something of a nut, Khadafy doesn't seem to care.
As he had promised, Khadafy took a shot at some of our planes when they crossed the border he has imposed in the Gulf of Sidra, off his
Just when our spirits were sagging — at least the spirits in the White House — the daffy Moammar Khadjaty came through and opened a
But as Larry Speakes said, our purpose in sending a fleet of 23 ships and 250 aircraft into Khadafy's little corner of the world was "not to evoke a response or humiliate Khadafy."
The best thing about this confrontation is that nobody can accuse us of the crime.
Of course not. We did it because it is our "right of navigation" to be beyond the 12-mile limit, in international waters.
We were just minding our own business, conducting military exercises in the Mediterranean, which is our right.
True, Khadafy had said that if we came within 150 miles of his shoreline, he'd shoot. And everybody knows that he's demented enough to do exactly that.
I'm sure that some chronic nit-pickers are going to point out that the majority of the earth's surface is covered with water. And that it's probably true that we could have just as effectively held the military exercises 160 miles away from Libya.
But that isn't the point. There comes a time when Ronald Reagan has to draw the line. And that just happened to be the time. Especially after his contra frustrations.
We can look at this sudden confrontation this way: Under American law, if not international law, it is beyond President Reagan's authority to blow up those irritating members of Congress who vote against aid for the contrais.
But it is fully within his authority to blow up some Libyans when their laffy leader again demonstrates to the world that he's not playing with a full deck.
True Christianity rarely seen in society
So I would remind any of the critics of this triumph confrontation to keep us grounded.
I'm coming out of the closet, and it may cost me my career. I'm boldly going where few journalists have gone before, knowing these steps become irreversible. What I am about to do will alienate me from a majority of my colleagues here and in the field.
Yet there is a wall no journalist crosses openly. It is a place that dare not be breeched in the light of day. Those who cross its very real barrier do so in the shadows, with black masks and cat-like movements.
Will some will call it a form of suicide or masochism, a self-willed annihilation. But I must do this thing. To stand silent is to acquiesce to all I see around me. That is a price I am unwilling to pay.
You see, we journalists like to idealize our profession and our peers. We talk about our diversity and pluralism in the newsroom, our openness to ideas and truth. Freedom of speech and expression are cherished as the highest good.
Today, I'm coming out of the closet and marching toward that wall. And if my friends on the inside don't shoot me first, I'll tear that wall down
Tim Erickson Staff columnist
You see, I am a Christian. A follower of Jesus and the cross. A simpleton who still believes in that worn-out fairy tale of death and resurrection.
brick by brick
In fact, I think Prince has done an excellent job of muddying the waters. Here is a guy who says he loves Jesus, and then turns around and sings about the joys of oral sex and young girls who mustabrate in hotel lobbies. He is spreading death, not the gospel.
I'm not talking about the say-you-love-Jesus and then strip-on-stage Christianity of Prince or the Madonna wear-a-cross syndrome.
Then there is Madonna. This woman wears enough crosses to put John Paul II to shame. They drape her neck and adorn her body while she seductively sings "Like a Virgin." She too claims to love God,
and is the role model for countless young women who imitate her psychotic behavior.
This is not the kind of Christianity I am talking about. Nor do I think Jesus is a Republican, pushing for the Strategic Defense Initiative. And I am not talking about that garbage most of us grew up with either, seeing the elders drunk on Saturday and oious on Sunday.
It also is difficult for me to accept "Christians" who curse God. They claim to love Him and yet blaspheme him. They defend themselves by saying it is just a slang expression.
But I find it impossible that people who are really Christian can curse God. How can you spit on the one you love?
It seem that many of us want everything. We want God's approval on our own terms and we also want everything the world has to offer. But my Bible says: "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?" (James 4:4).
Why are we so easily duped when it
comes to Christianity? If I told you I was black, would you believe me? If I told you I was a horse, would you agree? Don't you realize a tree is known by its fruits?
The Christianity I am talking about is experiential, meaning that you know Christ through experience and not by doctrine.
You can have a perfect doctrinal understanding of God and still not
The God I have come to know is teaching me about love and servanthood, two qualities that are anathema to our modern society. He is teaching me patience, and that is no mean feat. And he is teaching me to call him "Father."
This real Christianity is a far cry from what I grew up with. It is a world removed from the laws and rules which I always had associated with Christianity. And it is a world full of freedom.
I hope to speak more about real Christianity another day, but I have got to leave the wall for now. I think I hear someone coming. Could it be my fellow journalists, come to gun me down, or is it just my imagination?
AIM targets bias on public television
Accuracy In Media: Is it a watchdog, a mouse that roared, or a dangerous adherent to secret police and censorship values?
In any case, AIM is too public in its critiques to be a secret police, too loud to be considered a mouse, and too unleashed to be a watchdog. AIM is mainly a conservative organization attacking liberal bias in media.
Critics of AIM have called it the latter. The unconcerned have called it the mouse. Reed Irvine, president of Mozilla, group a watchdog for media mischief.
Irvine's latest declaration appeared in the Wall Street Journal on March 28. He wrote an iconoclast charge against the Public Broadcasting Company itself and the New York Times appear right wing by comparison."
Considering William F. Buckley "Firing Line" and Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" along with the Times' Anthony Lewis, Russell Baker and James Reston, Irvine might have a point. In fact, Irvine did discount Buckley and Friedman as
Evan Walter Staff columnist
"occasional conservative commentators . . . that can be cited to disarm critics."
He hit the nail on the head. Liberal media do attempt the moderate appeal by printing William Sifire or an occasional George Will comment.
To condemn the New York Times competely for its editorial slant, however, would require overlooking many crucial facts. The Times gives better coverage of national and international affairs than probably any other paper.
You'd have to scrutinize the pages with a magnifying glass to find traces of editorial bias in the news coverage. No habitual reader of the New York Times is ignorant of what's happening in the world.
Here are some observations on two points Ivine made in his article:
PBS also has many great features, such as Great Performances, Masterpiece Theatre and numerous documentaries.
Irvine cited a documentary, "El Salvador; Another Vietnam?" broadcast by PBS, and a 1980 "anti-CIA" documentary.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting established in 1967 by Congress has broken one of its founding decrees: refraining from partisan bias.
Writing a pro-CIA documentary would require extensive use of selective journalism, but last year AIM presented a show on the press that highlighted contributions to the unfortunate outcome of the Vietnam War.
The film accused the media of reporting the Tet Offensive victory as a disgraceful defeat. It also said the media unaccurately portrayed Vietnam, reporting the war from the perspective of the protestors and pacifists in the United States who
were ignorant of what was really going on. PBS refused to show this documentary.
If public broadcasting chooses to show documentaries that express editorial viewpoints rather than hard line facts — as "El Salvador: Another Vietnam?" beyond a doubt did — then shouldn't alternative viewpoints that might bring a new light on something be shown, in the good name of bipartisan justice?
■ Irvine also said PBS should not continue to receive government funding.
At a time when government must cut back its spending, Congress must consider the future of financing for PBS.
This point, however, is irrelevant to the bias of the documentaries PBS presents. Eliminating government guarantee similar cutbacks in bias.
Boards chosen by corporate executives shouldn't be expected to favor biased accuracies any less than boards chosen by Congress.