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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Thursday, Jan. 23, 1986
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Mourning must wait
The day of mourning will have to be put off.
During a visit to Kansas City, Mo., earlier this month, the Rev. Jesse Jackson declared Jan. 23 a national "day of mourning." Today was to be the day the Farmers Home Administration sent "pay up" letters to more than 65,000 farmers who owe the FHA money.
The action, following the end of a two-year moratorium on foreclosures, may put more than 2,000 farmers out of business.
But yesterday the head of the agency changed his target date to Feb. 10, at which time the agency will begin staggered mailings of the notices, starting with those most
seriously in debt to the FHA.
Although the angel of death has passed by for now, indebted U.S. farmers were by no means given a reprieve.
The two-year moratorium was supposed to give the farm industry time to begin to get back on its feet.
The letters will give farmers 30 days to respond and will outline options for staying in business, including delaying loan payments, lowering interest rates and consolidating loans at new rates and terms. Officials have said foreclosure is the last resort.
But if the FmHA is serious about collecting its loans, the current state of the farming industry will probably make the last resort a necessity.
Worth consideration
Just as the United States and the Soviets began the fourth round in the latest series' of nuclear arms reduction talks at Geneva, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev "upped the ante" with a plan to eliminate nuclear weapons by the turn of the century.
A past stumbling block has been Soviet insistence that British and French nuclear arsenals be counted with U.S. weapons when considering reductions, but as a concession, Gorbachev has proposed only that British and French arsenals be frozen at their present levels.
The first phase of his plan involves the complete elimination of U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.
The plan to reduce and, in stages two and three, to eventually eliminate nuclear weapons in Europe, would win some European friends who have objected to the idea that their nations be used as a nuclear theater.
Gorbachev's proposal included the extension of the three-month Soviet moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons that was to have expired Dec. 31, 1985. The U.S. has refused to take part in the moratorium based on the
suspicion that the Soviets may be breaking their own test ban.
Soviet negotiators might try to draw a line between research and development at Geneva. If so this would be a face-saving opportunity for Reagan who has maintained all along that his Star Wars program is solely research aimed at determining the feasibility of space-based defenses.
As long as the United States can hold in its deck the possibility of a defensive system, we still can play that card if we need to. What have we got to lose?
But this suspicion has led to an unwillingness to take risks that has impeded progress so far. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy risked a moratorium on above-ground testing that paid off. Now is as good a time as any to make such bold moves again.
The administration should jump at any realistic chance to eliminate nuclear weapons.
The Soviet arms proposal hinges on the inevitable call for a ban on the development, testing and deployment of space-based defenses. But in an apparent concession, there was no mention of a ban on research.
Let them rest in peace
For many moons, the spirits of Indian warriors have inhabited the Indian burial pit near Salina.
In their cries, they also raised a debate over whether scientists should be allowed to continue digging up bones and pots in the name of science or whether the spiritual inhabitants of sacred grounds should remain undisturbed.
The Indian leaders also decided to ask Robert Stephen, Kansas attorney general, whether state laws against
Last week, representatives from seven Indian tribes met at Haskell Indian Junior College to shed tears for their ancestors whose bones have been stripped of their resting places.
And for 50 years, anthropologists, archaeologists and tourists have invaded those sacred grounds to look upon the exposed bones.
disturbing cemeteries applied to Indian burial pits.
There should be no question as to whether that law applies. Those burial grounds are no different from cemeteries. Both contain spirits and remains of the dead and both should be respected.
In the early 1800s, a curious entrepreneur robbed the grave of American revolutionary Thomas Paine, stripped the grave of his bones and paraded them around Europe. Now, no one knows where Paine lies.
Some scientists have said that digging up prehistoric grounds offers evidence to help explain man's history.
Imagine the public outcry if a scientist were interested in extracting the remains of Benjamin Franklin.
But disturbing sacred burial sites is aborrent no matter how well the bones serve to feed science.
News staff
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Chrity McCurry ... Campus editor
David Giles ... Sports editor
Brice Waddill ... Photo editor
Susanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe ... Business manager
David Niven ... 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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Words, actions of chancellor at odds
Monday was the official national observance of Martin Luther King's birthday, and in honor of this great spirit, a large group of people marched across campus and filed into Smith Hall to participate in a program.
One of the keynote speakers for the program was Chancellor Gene A. Budig. As I listened to the chancellor eulogize King, I couldn't help feeling ashamed that I attend the university that he administers.
The chancellor said all the right things; he was almost eloquent.
Budig is committed to the principle that people should be judged, and policies devised, solely on the basis of whether they will bring money into university coffers. That is why he has been unwilling to exert any influence at all on the Kansas University Endowment Association to divert their
but King spoke of a committed life, a life dedicated to the principle that people should not be judged by the color of their skins but by the content of their characters.
Chris Bunker Staff columnist
holdings in companies doing business in South Africa.
He must realize that his reluctance does injury to the dream of Martin Luther King which he so lavishly endorsed in his speech. He must realize there is no freedom in a world where people are oppressed on the basis of skin color.
He must realize that the Endowment Association is not animated by any benevolent feelings of good will toward the University of Kansas, but rather by the ugly racism that King worked so long and hard to change. But he is unwilling to change his policies to conform with the dream.
King left a lasting legacy to this nation and to this planet. This weekend, another man mounted his pulpit and
moral principles and act on those principles.
spoke the words of his dream. That man was also a man of the cloth, a leader of his people, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
This man is still laboring to see King's dream become reality in his home, South Africa. Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu dreams the same dreams and hopes the same hopes that King did.
Tutu is living the dedicated life How can Budig honor the dream of Martin Luther King while refusing to endorse the dream of King's disciple and natural successor.
He acts as a poor educator.
The word I'm striving for is hypocrysis. Nothing could be clearer than this case. Budig mouths the words but refuses to do the deeds.
By doing this, Budig becomes a miserable example to the students of this university. He teaches them that form is more important than substance. He teaches them that people in high places need not believe in
I know that if Martin Luther King were still alive today he would be leading the struggle against apartheid. He would be standing side by side with Tutu. He would still be living the dedicated life. He would still know a hypocrite when he saw one. And if he came to this university he would condemn the chancellor's lack of action and pray for the chancellor's reform.
I refuse to believe that the chancellor is incapable of appreciating his hypocrisy. He is, after all, an educated man. I also refuse to believe that he is incapable of changing his actions.
But I wish he would do one thing or the other; either renounce King's dream or act in accordance with its tenets. When his actions speak in unison with his voice, he will feel the special pride that comes from not selling out.
HOW STAR WARS WILL WORK
Front runners likely to be first to fall
Barely had Gary Hart hinted he was running for president than he became the lightning rod for the Democrats. The pundits immediately said he had no really new ideas. Others said he had new ideas but they were no better than his ideas in 1984 — that is, his old new ideas.
George Bush has not promised any new ideas. He is content for the moment to support Ronald Reagan's old ideas on his own. That was not always so. Once, Reagan's ideas were no more than "voodoo economics" to Bush. He said that six years ago, but the half-life of a foot-and-mouth incident is agonizing in length for a politician.
This is especially so for that most tempting morsel of our political circus, the front-runner.
In Hart and Bush we have two good examples of the sacrificial nature of being first in the age of presidential television politics.
Robert C.
Maynard
Oakland Tribune
Oakland Tribune
Indeed, I would go further and say that by the time the media and others have finished carving on these two careasses, little of either is likely to be left by 1988.
The biggest peril facing Bush and Hart is not being a front-runner, but in trying to transcend the extremes of their respective parties.
Each is aware of the challenge of being nominated by a party whose extremes have a great deal to say about who is chosen as the standard-bearer. Once nominated, each must shed the burdens of the extremes and try to find the heart of mainstream America.
Hart knows he cannot be elected on
the fairness platform on which Walter Mondale sank in 1984. He can accept his party's present posture, or he can opt to try to reformulate the party's posture in ways more acceptable to middle America.
If he has a new idea to accomplish that, he's so far kept it a secret. He will be dancing on that hot tin roof for the next two years.
George Bush has a tin roof no less sizzling. His great burden is the right wing of the Republican Party. The apparatus of the party in 1980 and 1984 was firmly in the hands of ideologues far to the right of Bush or the country. To be nominated, Bush must polish his image on the right. To be elected, he must attract the centrist, pragmatic American voter. Accepting Ronald Reagan is different from accepting wholesale the philosophy of the far right.
once again. Bush has the choice of trying to reposition his party, but it is
hard to imagine his trying, let alone
his succeeding.
Not too long ago, the vice president paid tribute to the late William Loeb at a dinner in Loeb's honor. He did so despite the fact Loeb excoriated Bush at every opportunity during the 1980 New Hampshire primary. Loeb had been publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader for many years. He was about as right-wing as any publisher in America.
The news media, especially television, love the spectacle of discomfort the way dogs love shinbones. The news is often about people tripping on hot tin roofs in the political arena.
Gary and George, tall and lanky, are going to be tested on how well they can stay on their feet in a hostile atmosphere in the councils of their parties and in the news media. If neither lasts until November 1988, it in large measure will be due to being a front-runner.
Mailbox
Tim Erickson had some interesting comments about current trends in food and advertising (Kansan, Jan. 20), but in my opinion, he missed some obvious points.
For one thing, I don't see McDonald's as hyping it to "new" McD.L.T. at all, but rather, as promoting the Styrofoam box that the hamburger comes in. The only plus about the McD.L.T is that the lettuce (which we once told them to hold) now remains grease-free a bit longer.
And Ronald's place isn't the only one that can't think of anything else to say about its food, for while McDonald's tots Styfoam, Burger King is bragging that some guy named Herb won't eat at their place!
Missed the point
Now Herb may, in fact, have some taste after all, and takes his meals at Trader Vic's, or Bo Ling's in Kansas City, but I'd hardly think that his abstinence is a positive image for casa del burger. I think Herb knows something they don't want him to know, and the hunt for Herb is the nation's first nationally televised hit-contract.
So the ad agencies can't think of anything nice to say about junk food. Does that give Erickson license to attack "All-Star Wrestling," where "grown men fought fake, fixed contexts in front of sell-out crowds?" Is
Violence is clean, neat and relatively acceptable, especially to people who think Herb's abstinence and McD's Styrofoam really say something positive about their food. And that's the point, right, Tim?
that any different from Magnum or "The A-Team," winning their fixed, equally choreographed weekly bouts against the forces of villainy?
Robert George Sprackland Overland Park graduate student
So, I think Erickson missed the boat here. "All-Star Wrestling" shows that even after a no-holds-barred brawl, retiring to the lockers will make everything normal. "The A-Team" shows that a bunch of guys, loaded with automatic weapons, firing pounds of rounds at other guys with automatic weapons, really will do no harm, that nobody really can get hurt.
Lack of common sense
They and their colleagues in the Senate have chosen to spend $2,000 of
Well, KU students, the Student Senate is up to its old tricks again. The coalition candidates who won a vast majority of the Senate and Presidential vote by making us believe that they had "Common Sense" have already abandoned both their name and everything it stood for.
President David Epstein said the retreat would help the senators learn about what needed to be accomplished in Student Senate. Why does there need to be more talk? You were given a majority by the voters so you wouldn't have to talk and bicker any more!
our money foolishly by taking a weekend vacation at the Double Tree Hotel. They hide their true intentions by calling their excursion to Kansas City a "conference." I'm sure they'll get a lot of effective work done while splashing in the indoor pool and dancing in the dark.
Truth is relative
Brett Frazier Pratt freshman
Wake up, student senators. You weren't voted into office to spend KU money for a party that only serves to separate itself from the rest of the students. Start addressing the needs and concerns of the students of KU that you are supposed to be representing. In your own infamous words, use your common sense!
Victor Goodpasture's justification of Accuracy in Academia's goals for "accuracy and truth" in the
classroom is worrisome.
How responsible and competent is this "watchdog?" Barking in defense of frightened, grade-minded students who "may not be knowledgeable enough on the subject to question a professor's statement," the AIA watchdog assumes to have omniscient intelligence in its favor. Or does it?
Isn't the AIA really a network of students taught a narrow brand of AIO goodthink? Are these watchpuppies really knowledgeable and competent enough themselves to judge accuracy and be engaged in the responsibilities of blacklisting?
Even if their accusation of bias were made by competitors, AIA's self-righteous claims of "truth" are disturbing. "Truth" is highly subjective word. How many "truths" are claimed concerning the situation in South Africa? The effectiveness of capital punishment? The relationship between academics and athletics? The ventilation system in Wescoe Hall? The Ventilation? The Karavan? Quite simply, the truth is what you want to believe. One can arrange, choose and discard a set of facts to fictitious, and behold, the "truth" emerges. Shuffle 'em again, another truth emerges. A professor's reputation should not be subject to AIA's self-righteous "truth."
Las Cruces, N.M. senior