4
University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1986
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Another Haitian refugee
France doesn't want him.
Gabon, Cameroon, Morocco and Brazil have turned him away.
Clearly, U.S. officials have decided to cut their losses with Duvalier and cut him loose.
Jean-Claude Duvalier, the deposed president of Haiti, has had trouble finding a new home.
The United States, which was willing to shuttle Duvalier to France and has pressed other countries to open their doors, told Duvalier on Sunday that he would not be welcome here either.
The decision by the State Department apparently scuttled an attempt by French authorities to load him and his wife on a jetliner bound for New York.
his private Swiss bank accounts.
The Haitian economy suffered, U.S. credibility suffered and Duvalier grew fat at the foreign aid trough.
Among those who suffered under Duvalier were the thousands of Haitian refugees who have slipped into the United States illegally.
Like Duvalier, most of the refugees were not welcomed into the United States. They braved the Atlantic Ocean in small boats, escaping the turtures, beatings and killings by Duvalier's personal militia. Once here, many faced jail and deportation.
Baby Doc might consider following their lead.
He too could sail across the stormy Atlantic, risk capsizing and drowning and try to hide among the poorest of his immigrant countrymen.
Certainly they would be happy to see him.
Leaving time for change
But if a cooling-off period exists - and it should - the emotions of adoptive parents must also be considered.
People who sign a contract to buy goods from salesmen have 72 hours to change their minds.
A Wyandotte County district judge thinks the same cooling-off period should extend to parents who promise to give up their baby for adoption.
Although parents, giving up their child have many months to weigh the decision, feelings change dramatically once the baby is actually born.
In a recent case, the parents of a baby born last fall signed his adoption papers hours after his birth. The next day, his adoptive parents took him home.
His biological parents changed their minds about the adoption, and the Wyandotte County judge has ruled the baby must be returned to them.
In this case, the boy's adoptive parents have taken care of him for several months. They have considered him their child. They have spent money feeding, clothing and diapering him, as well as giving the biological parents $2,100 for living and medical costs.
Now they are told he's not really their son.
Some time to reconsider must be allowed for such heavy decisions as whether to raise a child. But don't give a baby to a family and then reserve the right to take him back.
Power where it belongs
The law provided for automatic budget cuts in the event that the country's elected representatives, including the president, could not agree on a budget that would hold the line on government spending.
If Congress and the president failed to meet annual budget targets, the comptroller general was to step in and execute across-the-board cuts. The federal court ruled that the procedure was unconstitutional because it depended on the comptroller general.
The founding fathers put the power to tax and spend in the hands of Congress and gave the president the right to veto. This deliberate separation of powers is to prevent the legislative branch from aggrandizing itself at the expense of the two other branches. The recent federal court
ruling upholds that principle.
Firing speeches is that principle. The problem is that neither Congress nor the president have been responsible in carrying out their duty and the deficit has grown out of hand in recent years.
Reagan's latest budget is a prime example of the irresponsibility. He meets the Gramm-Rudman targets in domestic expenditure, which bears the brunt of his machete hacking. But his proposal to increase defense expenditure flouts the spirit of the very law he engineered.
The federal court ruling does not reduce the commitment to make cuts in both domestic and defense budgets. What it does, is to take the ball out of the court of the Gramm-Rudman law, throwing it firmly back in the court of the legislature, where it always belonged.
In the impasses that have resulted, operations of the entire federal government have been threatened.
Now that it's back there, Congress should concentrate on reducing the deficit in line with humane priorities, not amoral automatic cuts.
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillon ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Cindy McCurry ... Campus editor
Tara Clinde ... Sports editor
Brisa Waddill ... Photo editor
Sucanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe ... Business manager
David Nixon ... Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson ... Campus manager
Lori Eckart ... Classified
Carolina Jones ... Production manager
Pellen Lee ... National manager
John Ohrzan ... Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words and should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
Guest shots should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The
writer will be able to reserve the right to reject or edit letters and guest shots. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Guest shots should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The University Daily Kansan (USP5 60-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer-First Flint, Law学院, Kanus, 60405, daily during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods, and on Wednesday during the summer session. Session Second-class postage paid at the U.S. Postal Service (Subscriptions are payable to the University in Douglas County and $18 for six months and $35 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee).
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118
Stuifter Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 68045.
Marcos tops Daley's election moves
Back in the '60s, I lost some of m) innocence about politics by covering some of the activities of the Richard J. Daley machine in Chicago. Many of the challengers of that regime thought they stood a chance until the graveyard votes came in. Dead people counted for a lot in those days in Chicago elections.
Tough as Daley and his minions were, they could have learned a thing or two from Ferdinand Marcos in the Philinines during the last few days.
For example, Daley lived in a Chicago neighborhood called Bridgeport. In any given election, Daley and his candidates could hope to come away from Bridgeport with 70 percent or 80 percent of the vote.
Marcos should have taken Dick Daley to school with him. When the votes were counted in Marcos' home province the other day, there was a result rare in the history of free elections. Out of 19,000 votes cast, Marcos received every single one of them. A 100 percent sweep.
It might have made a good entry for the Guinness Book of World Records, except for one nasty little wrinkle, a messy detail.
Hundreds of supporters of Corazon Aquino came forward to say they had voted for her. Therefore, the zero
Robert C.
Maynard
Oakland Tribune
score for Aquino meant just what you would have suspected if something of the sort had happened in Cook County.
That there was fraud in the most recent Philippine election should surprise no one. Similar charges have been made in the past; only the names were different. That is not what is significant about this election, nor why I think it will be remembered.
The enduring legacy of this election will be the momentum it is likely to provide for the radical enemies of Marcos and in the concept of democracy in the Philippines.
Guerrilla forces are positioning themselves throughout the islands. Some are Marxist-Leninist. Others belong to religious factions seeking autonomy from the Philippine government.
One of the pet arguments of the radicals, augmented when Marcos declared martial law in 1972, is that the notion of democracy in the Philippines is a fraud and a joke.
Because there is a national assembly, albeit staked heavily in his favor, Marcos has been able to counter with the claim that some semblance of democracy exists.
Not the first to blunder through arrogance, Marcos entered this campaign assuming he could easily beat
Leaving nothing to chance, they took a course of rampant and reckless fraud. In one precinct in Mindanao, where 90 percent of the residents are illiterate, 100 percent of the ballots were written in neat penmanship.
The enduring legacy of this election will be the momentum it is likely to provide for the radical enemies of Marcos and the concept of democracy in the Philippines.
the untested Aquino. Despite his seemingly poor health, he probably could have.
But near the end of the campaign, as the Aquino crowds in Manila and across the islands began to swell, Marcos and his men appeared to lose their poise.
Hooligans went on rampages that left 30 dead in three days. Some of those outbreaks can be traced to supporters of the Marcos empire. It was not just a fraudulent election. It was also a violent lesson to Marcos challengers.
For all the effort, he might be a victor with his own ballot boxes, but he is also an emperor with no clothes. He has set himself now in concrete as the living proof to the masses of his nation that his brand of democracy is a vicious fraud.
In Chicago, at least, reform movements were possible. In the Philippines, the recent elector serves to undermine the credibility of such democratic reformers as Cory Aquino. This event is likely to embolden the revolutionaries.
The longer Marcos remains in power with our support, the worse the case for democracy becomes in the Philippines. The more the pity because it was our idea in the first place.
Reagan is young by Celsius measure
Although I haven't checked this with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the severity of the weather apparently depends on such variables as age.
In these climes, the winter has been relatively mild. One reason may be that on his 75th birthday this month, Ronald Reagan, the oldest president we've ever had, quipped that he was "24 Celsius."
Applying a temperature calibration to age might have been good for a laugh but it failed to take into account the wind chill factor.
Some senior citizens may argue that the wind chill scale doesn't go as high as 75, but they would be wrong. I distinctly remember one summer when the thermometer hit 102 degrees, a colleague wrote that with the wind chill factor it seemed like 119.
Maybe that's why Reagan didn't
Dick West
United Press International
mention it. The wind chill factor, along with Moammar Khadafy, might have made him feel 93.
By my calculation, Reagan's Celsius age on his 75th Fahrenheit birthday would have been 23 years and some months.
To him, maybe, it seemed like 24,
but in reality he was a few days
younger than that. Or maybe he
figured 24 was close enough for
government work.
Either way, el presidente likewise failed to mention that the Celsius scale, invented in 1742 by Andres Celsius, a Swedish astronomer, is one of the metric measurements.
Nor did he impart the information
that the U.S. Metric Board went out of business at the end of 1982.
To refresh your memory, the board was created in 1975, when Reagan was a mere 65 Fahrenheit, or 18 Celsius, to coordinate voluntary switches to the metric system.
Again to refresh your memory, there weren't many voluntary switches, although weathermen continue to report metric thermometer readings, which are widely ignored.
Also to refresh your memory, you arrive at a Celsius reading by subtracting 32 from the Fahrenheit figure and multiplying by 5-9ths.
Thirty-two, incidentally, is the Fahrenheit temperature at which water freezes. The Celsius freezing point is zero. Add 100 degrees and you reach the Celsius boiling point, a gradient that got the scale included in the metric system.
Although scientists love scales with
100 gradients, why Swedish astronomers needed new temperature measurements is beyond me. For most of us American laymen, water continues to boil at 212 degrees.
As for astrology, I don't know how old Reagan is according to the Chinese calendar. However, a day or two after he turned 24 Celsius, the Chinese ushered in the Year of the Tiger. Let Khadafy make of what he will.
The wind chill factor did not come along until 1939. I don't know who invented it but reports that it was named for Sir Churchston Winchill, a British astronomer, appear to have been exaggerated.
Does Reagan give you advice like this? Not even on his birthday.
Mailbox
Pro-choice hypocrisy
I find it shameful that individuals who represent "higher" education are so often seemingly shallow in their intellectual and moral capacities.
A Kansan report of Feb.7 presented a representative of our own University as an opponent of the collection of state abortion statistics. The statement that she opposes such statistics because "It is simply another attempt to cause pain and suffering to the individuals and families who chose abortion" is a devaluation of all the individuals involved in abortion.
First, it devalues the woman seeking an abortion. For decades we have heard a call for the recognition and strength of women. Yet, today, when the practice of abortion is opposed, the abortion proponents cry out against the anti-abortionists saying that they are preying on the weakness of the woman. We need abortion, they say, to alleviate the
social, economical and emotional distress that women suffer as they look toward bearing a child.
The medical profession also suffers under the banner of "pro choice." The profile that they present when destroying the most innocent of life is belittling. When instruments of the healing arts are used to bring about the death of the defenseless, we suddenly find that those who were once protectors and defenders of life become its executioners.
The child, contrary to what some wish us to believe, suffers severely. Not simply because of the physical pain she suffers as her life is destroyed. But her life before her, her creativity, her growth intellectually and physically, are wrenched away from her. And she has no choice.
We are not people who are so intellectually naïve or ignorant that we should fail to see the gross contradiction and hypocrisy promoted by the pre-abortion position. Women in our society are not so "feeble minded"
Glenn Veach
Medicine and science are not at all lacking the capability to tell us that life has its beginning, ever so simply and purely, with the union of the sperm and ovum. Society is not so blind as to know that when we begin to debase and devalue the weak and innocent among us, we unleash a cancerous mentality that will spread far beyond its original intent.
that they cannot care for the function of their body and take preventative measures to insure that an unwanted pregnancy does not occur.
Home on the range
Glenn Veach Lawrence graduate student
History has shown us the foolishness of evaluating the worthiness of an individual on her color or race. Let us not be so foolish to now turn the same standards against the unborn, the handicapped or our elders.
Sitting around the shed last night after a hard day on the prairie, we
noticed this half-baked article on 3.2 beer by some city slicker from Madison, Wis. (Kansan, Feb. 12). He seems to have his wires a bit crossed.
We Kansans have been drinking "this charming cross between beer and water" for some time now. We don't need a "foreigner" from Wisconsin to tell us that 3.2 does not the champagne of cereal malt beverages make.
When the 21 drinking-age goes into effect, local "watering holes" such as Johnny's, the Wheel and the Hawk would not have to succumb to either the 3.2 or the club-serving format. There is a 21-bar format such as the Up and Under.
What will happen to the workhorse of cereal malt beverages? Well, we've got two years to go. Who knows, maybe a tornado will come along and put us all over the rainbow. Yes, Toto, we are in Kansas.
Kelly Jerrigan
Keny Korte
 Kevin Tracy
Overland Park sophomores