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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Monday, March 17, 1986
There's a fungus among us. Many of Watson Library's valuable books are being threatened by mold.
A growing problem
A combination of water leaks and an unreliable heating system has created a perfect environment for mold growth in the library, threatening to damage or ruin many books.
The problem was noted last week at a meeting of library staff members and representatives of the department of facilities operations.
A library official recently described the situation as epidemic.
The library has had problems with temperature fluctuations since its most recent renovation in 1982. Unstable temperatures coupled with water leaks in the roof, foundations and around the windows provide the mold with a healthy environment.
The library's problems need to be thoroughly checked out, then remedied.
Watson library houses more than just good reading. Students and faculty alike depend on the library's thousands of valuable documents, books, magazines and reference materials countless times each day.
The necessary funds and time commitments should be offered to the library now, before the problem creeps farther into the stacks.
Bob Porter, associate director of plant maintenance, said that besides repairing the leaks and the heating system, a better line of communication was needed between library personnel and facilities operations.
A solution is already overdue. In this case, dry reading is preferable.
But more and more employers, some of them in Lawrence, are requesting that job applicants submit to the tests. The tests are usually voluntary. However, a refusal clearly handicaps the applicant.
According to a recent poll, almost three-quarters of Americans support the use of lie detector tests in courtrooms but about the same proportion object to the use of such tests by businesses in general.
Eliminate lie detectors
Lie detector tests are not now allowed as evidence in court and for good reason. Most psychologists consider the validity of these tests to be so low it makes them useless. If the results from the tests cannot be considered valid, they should not be used in courts or anywhere else.
One local convenience store sends applicants to Topeka at the applicant's expense where the testing is handled by an independent testing company.
Merely driving to Topeka to take the test, knowing full well what the test is designed to do, is a threatening experience in itself, but the questions are so broad that even the most honest applicant is made to feel guilty.
For example, the questioner asks if the applicant ever did or said anything to hurt another family member. Who hasn't? Or the applicant is asked whether he has ever stolen anything from an employer? The theft of a pen or a french wry would probably be enough to evoke a reaction.
The tests should not be used at all. They make the honest feel guilty while the dishonest find ways to get around them.
If these methods are so unreliable that they have been rejected by the courts for use with criminals and witnesses alike, they should not be used by businesses on prospective employees.
Exile not so bad
Poor Ferdinand Marcos.
Poor rich Ferdinand Marcos.
Oh, the sad and burdened life of an exile. Fleeing his home country with naught but the barest necessities, taking refuge in a distant land, leaving behind the comforts and memories of a long and profitable dictatorship.
This ousted dictator and his disadvantaged wife were forced to abandon their giant palace in the Philippines, taking with them only what they could fit into a suitcase or a hundred.
Ferdinand Marcos could carry only a few suitcases stuffed with only a few million pesos. So many gold coins and Swiss bank documents were left.
But the Marcoses needn't worry. In true American spirit, the United States has come to the aid of the poor and homeless.
Poor Imela Marcos could only take a few of her boxes of jewels. Thousands of shoes and hundreds of garments had to be left behind.
We supplied an Air Force jet to hurry them out of the country before rebels could hurry them into their graves.
We are supplying living arrangements for the Marcos clan while they search for a home of their own. No matter that thousands of American citizens sleep on the streets each night. A thieving, murdering, deposed dictator deserves special privileges.
Of course, such a dictator would have many enemies and therefore require the constant companionship of taxpayer-supported guards.
But the American people have done more than simply see to the necessities. American officials, a generous bunch, even have allowed the Marcoses unlimited telephone privileges to keep in touch with loved ones back home.
In those lengthy phone calls back home, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos may be praising the American spirit of generosity. More likely they're calling us suckers.
News staff
Michael Totty...Editor
Lauretta McMillan...Managing editor
Chris Barber...Editorial editor
Cindy McCurry...Campus editor
David Giles...Sports editor
Brice Waddill...Photo editor
Susanne Shaw...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Bret MacCabe...Business manager
David Nixon...Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson...Campus manager
Lori Eckart...Classified manager
Caroline Innes...Production manager
Pallen Lee...National manager
John Oberzan...Sales and marketing adviser
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Objectivity often impossible in press
My camp and I (the media) are suffering from a credibility problem. In the past few years, many people have doubted the accuracy of what we tell them. I am impressed. I didn't think the world was that smart.
If the media in general are having credibility problems, how much more our beloved Kansan? The question seems to be whether we at Stauffer-Flint Hall are more in touch with facts or ego? Unfortunately, I think the answer is the latter.
I have been looking at complaints from Kansan readers from the past two years. A curious phenomenon emerges. People with many different backgrounds are all saying we have slanted coverage.
Either there is a huge conspiracy against us defenders of truth and freedom, or there is some basis for the complaints I've heard. I have to rely on my own experience to judge the validity of these complaints.
We don't seem to think in those terms at the Kansan. Maybe it is
I have worked for three newspapers — real newspapers, mind you, not the kind where people think of themselves as mixtures of Bob Woodward and Lou Grant. But newspapers where people worry about health insurance and how they are going to pay the bills. They worry about families and dogs and all the things that make the world go round.
Tim Erickson Staff columnist
because our parents are still footing the bill for many of us. We worry about where we are going for spring break. We worry about how many articles we can churn out before graduation. We worry about summer internships.
In our student's cocoon, grandiose idealism clouds concrete reality. We are taught to be fair and impartial in our reporting.
We are taught there is no place for personal opinion in stories. So we pretend that our opinions never enters the stories. But in reality, a lot of what you read is biased. And not just in the Kansan, but in the real media.
If you want opinion, read my column. I make no pretense of being fair and unbiased. That's the way it should be on the editorial page.
Ideally, that opinion should never enter the news space. Paradoxically, it is impossible for people to report without a viewpoint. The very nature of experiential reality demands that things be interpreted. And that interpretation comes from experience. Reporters look at a scene and interpret it. They congeal their observations and then serve them up.
Video operators show you things, but they disallow the other 290 degrees to the sides of and behind the camera. Still photographers snap the shutter and freeze a moment. But it is only a 1/400th-second slice of reality. What happened before and after that instant is anybody's guess.
But we don't stop there. We set the agenda. We decide what is important and what isn't. We make the news. If we don't think something is significant, you will never hear about it. We wield a mighty sword. Something as insignificant as residence hall food can shake the campus world if we deem it to be news.
Two months ago I was at an abortion rally in Lawrence. More than 240 people marched down Massachusetts Street. It was a big event by Lawrence standards. It certainly pailed the campus anti-parteid marches that constantly cover page one.
Yet the local media ignored the event. The Lawrence Daily Journal-World doesn't cover this type of rally as a matter of standard policy, and the Kansen chose to ignore it.
What the Kansan chose to cover was the small student protest the following week. And what coverage.
The reporter said the anti-abortionists were screaming at the pro-choice marchers. Actually, it was the opposite. It reminded me of the time I murdered the concept of industrial revenue bonds in a cutlime at the Chanute Tribute eight years ago.
I don't think the inaccuracy was intentional. We are taught from the outset to present both sides of an issue. But I think many times our idea of balance is a false one. We define the problem and present arguments for both sides. But I am not convinced we know how to set up the scales accurately.
We in the media want credibility, yet we seldom achieve it. Maybe it is because we just can't seem to get all the facts straight. If you want an example, try this test for yourself. Take a tape recorder to a speech that a newspaper is covering. Try matching real quotes with newspaper quotes. They seldom match.
Do yourself a favor. Realize that opinion doesn't always stop on the opinion page. Sometimes it is woven into the very fabric of the story. Like fine silk, the weave is difficult to see without close examination.
Believe a fourth of what you read and a half of what you see or 1/500th, and you'll do all right.
U.S. has conflicting interests in Angola
The United States has stumbled into a dilemma between two conflicting interests, one the founding principle of U.S. domestic policy, and the other an extension on the main foreign policy the United States has pursued since Truman's time.
The U.S. Constitution promises to protect the rights of freedom and safety to its constituents and their procedures, without government intervention favoring or disfavoring any, the founding domestic principle.
Until Reagan took office, the United States followed the doctrine of containing organized communism to
The other interest is an effort to fight communist growth by supporting freedom fighter rebels. In Angola, the United States supports the freedom fighting UNITA group under Jonas Savimbi, battling the oppressive Marxist government.
Evan Walter
Savimbi, however, shows little mercy for the safety of American businesses and lives in Angola, not to mention what this reveals about his compassion for other people in general.
Staff columnist
the countries already contaminated and preventing further spread.
Communism has spread nonetheless, and the new policy, dubbed the Reagan Doctrine, supports rebels in countries where communism is still fresh and opposition lively.
Savimbi's true motives are unclear. He fights an oppressive puppet regime of the Soviet Union, supposedly for the goal of freedom. His fighting also endangers Gulf Oil, a chief trading partner with the Marxist regime.
Marxist headquarters aren't stationed in the Gulf plants, yet this sanguinary rebel has threatened to bomb the company if it remains in Angola.
Savimbi's fighting the United States condones and will help finance. The United States also is supposed to protect the company and its freedom to trade with whom it decides. Here lies the paradox.
Gulf hasn't been accused of any unlawful trade procedures. Gulf conducts business with Angola for financial reasons, not for moral support of the Marxists. Moving Gulf out of Angola at Savimibi's request would inconvenience the company and cost them money, a partner, and jobs. It also would represent economic procedures handled for political motives.
Gulf most likely won't leave Angola. So, if Savimbi bombs Gulf plants and buildings, will the United States support its civilians whom it protects or the rebel whom it finances?
According to dominant U. S. principles, people working toward their own ends by lawful means of their choices (there's nothing unlawful about international trade, even with Marxists) is desirable. So is fighting
an oppressive government and Soviet expansionism
But, attacking civilians and civilian companies isn't. So far, Savimbi has demonstrated two unfavorable traits in his character.
One, he wants to save his people from oppression while showing indifference towards bystanders whom he might kill accidently if they stand in his way.
Second, his attempt at pursuing economic change for political ends doesn't indicate an understanding of democratic freedom in the terms of Adam Smith or the U.S. Constitution.
The most attractive thing about Savimbi from the American perspective is that he can do the dirty work of fighting communism.
Freedom fighters seek freedom from Soviet regimes. That's the only established fact about them. We can not credit their motives as freedom from this. We'd be unwise to think by an anti-Soviet stand that a rebel desires democratic freedom.
Mailbox
Clarifying a quote
Sister Constance, Susan Barker and I want to express our appreciation for the article (Kansan, March 5) about our research on community support. We would, however, like to clear up some possible confusion about the comparison between the lives of vowed religious and those of career women.
It is unfortunate that I was misquoted in the article as having said that "most career women... have to worry only about their jobs." In fact, most career women face the heavy double duty of family responsibilities as well as career obligations
I was trying to point out that female religious also have a dual commitment to their religious community and their work assignments. One of the important goals of our
research is to examine what we believe to be the considerable similarities among women of different lifestyles.
Sharon Brehm
professor of psychology
Playing by the rules
You claim that while any church may "legitimately play a role" in guiding members toward the truth, it does not have the right to reprimand persons who disagree with official teaching. The point of belonging to any religious body is the sharing of
I am concerned with the lack of logic presented in the March 5 editorial dealing with the "institutional" Roman Catholic Church. Besides being worded in an obviously blased way, your points are incorrect and your conclusion illogical.
I agree that all Catholics have the right to free speech. However, priests and laity who are adamant in their refusal to submit to Catholic teaching are in no way useful to the establishment. It is no business of yours or anyone else's how the church deals with its dissenters.
common religious truths. Persons who dissent are free to leave, but are not legitimate in their public declarations against the church, particularly within the classroom. The bishops of the church are the shepherds of the church. According to the Catholic faith, what they say goes. Thus, truth is established.
So anyone who publicly speaks out against the leaders of the church are in effect speaking against the teaching of Christ.
Furthermore, the issue of abortion is nowhere on the same level as truly
"moral choices" such as mixed marriages, masturbation and whether to continue honoring St. Christopher Abortion is a grave moral sin, to paraphrase Catholic teaching.
Look at it this way: if there is a certain member of a men's club who believes in breaking the rule regarding the secret handshake, chances are he will not be selected to be the club disciplinarian. In like manner, those who are given the responsibility to teach Catholic doctrine do not have the right to present their own personal views which conflict with the "divinely inspired teaching of Christ," as the church would call it.
He who plays not by the rules, should learn to play by those rules as long as they exist ... or he should take up another game.
Michael Podrebaras Emporia freshman