4 Monday, February 23. 1987 / University Daily Kansan THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN The University of Kansas and other Regents schools should treat all students who graduated from a Kansas high school equally. Unfortunately, this is not the case when it comes to paying resident or non-resident fees. But the Kansas Legislature is considering a bill that would lower fee requirements at state universities. The House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would allow the Board of Regents to exempt some individuals from paying non-resident tuition and fees. The bill, now in the Senate, has received tentative approval. If the bill becomes a law, anyone who entered a state school within one year of graduation from an accredited Kansas high school would be eligible for resident tuition and fees. Undergraduates from Kansas enrolled in more than six hours pay $645, while those from out-of-state pay $1,600. Some students graduate from a Kansas high school, but their parents leave the state before the student enters a state university. In such cases, the student is forced to pay non-resident tuition. The bill is designed to help residents in these situations and a variety of other situations, including military personnel who often relocate. Those who have lived in Kansas for a period of time have contributed to the state, especially through taxes. They deserve the same benefits, even if their parents don't live here during their college years. Message not missing The side of the milk carton carries a picture of a child including information about him or her, such as height, weight, age and date last seen. The messages, which have been displayed on millions of milk cartons for the past two years, have helped solve only six missing children cases. As a result, one large dairy company in the Northeast, H.P. Hood Inc., is considering terminating its participation in the project. The company is considering replacing the pictures with other public service messages or advertisements. Also, the identification project has drawn criticism. A recent Associated Press story quoted baby doctor Benjamin Spock as saying the milk carton pictures were "frightening children needlessly by bringing their attention to the world of crime at too young an age." Apparently, the milk company thinks the success rate of the program doesn't merit its continuation. If those pictures even helped to identify only one child, then the program served its purpose. The price of a human life, no matter how young or how small, is worth more than all the money the company could raise through advertising. The abduction of thousands of children each year is a serious enough problem to warrant the attention of adults and children alike. Being aware of the problem, no matter how frightening for a child, will help educate children so they may not become other victims. Finally, the company said it thought that withdrawing its campaign was not going to erase the issue from the public's mind. But, people will forget if they are not reminded constantly of the severity of the problem. H. P. Hood Inc., initiated a good program. It should not lose interest now just because some in the company think the rate of success has not been as big as the problem itself. Following Darwin's law Although both sides still are gearing up for the battle, the war already has been lost by the music industry. It is shaping up as a battle between the U.S. music industry and the makers of a new digital audio tape that is due to hit U.S. stores later this year. The music industry has enlisted the help of the Reagan administration to try to have restrictions put on the sale of the digital audio tape, saying it would seriously damage its business. The music industry wants to Digital audio tape works on the same principle of digital recording that is employed by compact disc players. The advantage is that the tapes are much smaller, about two-thirds the size of a cassette tape, and can be used to record as well as play. block the sale of the tape in the United States unless players are programmed not to record. They are afraid of large-scale home recording that would hurt business. The same claim was made with the introduction of tape recorders, cassette recorders and videocassette recorders, yet the music and movie industries still survive. The business world must follow Darwin's laws. Only the strongest and those who can adapt to change will survive. Technology cannot be suppressed to protect the old order. The music industry, and U.S. industry in general, needs to refocus the energy spent on trying to defend old technology to adapting to the new if it is to prosper. News staff News staff Frank Hansel Editor Jennifer Benjamin Managing editor Juli Warren News editor Brian Kaberline Editorial editor Sandra Engelland Campus editor Mark Scherent Sports editor Diane Dullmeier Photo editor Bill Skeet Graphics editor Tom Eblen General manager, news adviser Business staff Lisa Weems Business manager Bonnie Hardy Ad director Denise Stephens Retail sales manager Kelly Scherer Campus sales manager Duncan Callhoun Marketing manager Lori Coppel Classified manager Jennifer Lumianski Production manager David Nixon National sales manager Jeanne Hines 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 Guest shots should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed. The Kansan reserves the right reject or edit letters and guest shots. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Fint Hall The University Daily Kansan (USPS 560-640) is published at the University of Kansas, Kansan 181 Staffer-Fint Hall, Lawan. Kanan 66045, daily during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods, and on Wednesday during the summer session. Second-class postage paid in Lawrence, Kanan 66044. Subscriptions by mail are $40 per year in Douglas County. County. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee. Opinions POSTMASTER. Send address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Fint Hall, Lawrence, KA 66045. Politics put some students in 'left' field the prolific author, Walter Laqueur, has said that "the mind and outlook of a political generation are dominated by events that have happened in its own time or shortly before." This applies particularly to Mike Chapman Columnist college students who consider themselves politically aware. It is a sad truism, however, that many college students are prone to draw the wrong conclusions from those events that shape their political philosophy. Vietnam and the present U.S.policy toward Nicaragua are two events that can be said to have shaped the minds of the current political generation. Since the 1960s, the most vocal students on college campuses have been those political beliefs are decidedly left of center. As a means to display their discontent with the "establishment" and its policies, they have developed a natural inclination to incite public demonstrations. Given the fact that left-wing college students quite often suffer from political amnesia, it is not surprising that they are trying to force the wrong conclusions about the situation in Nicaragua by comparing it to Vietnam. Our experience in Vietnam was indeed a mistake. It was a mistake because domestic opponents and our military policy did not allow us to achieve our political goal. Despite the value of this policy, leftists have opted to emphasize the military fiasco and ignore the other results of our departure from Vietnam. As predicted by those who supported our policies in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is now one of the world's most repressive societies, even by communist standards. Once the forces from North Vietnam "liberated" the rest of the country, Orwellian "re-education" camps were established and the Vietnamese government quickly became a Kremlin pupet. But the most appalling consequence of the communist takeover in Vietnam was the mass exodus of boat people who fled tyranny and deprivation. One wonders why anti-war figures such as George McGovern, "Hanoi Jane" Fonda and many college students of that era failed to demonstrate against the totalitarian system that drove those people from their homeland. The Vietnam experience broke the neck of U.S. foreign policy and paralyzed it for nearly a decade. Leftists rejoiced with glee as the United States withdrew into a guilt complex that, among other things, provided the Soviet Union to expand its influence in the Third World almost at will. Although we have made some gains in overcoming the "Vietnam syndrome," its symptoms still can be felt from opponents of U.S. policy in Nicaragua. At present, the Reagan administration is attempting to prevent the solidification of a repressive, Marxist, Soviet-backed regime in Managua. Not content with Fidel Castro, his Caribbean gulag and the Cuban boat people, the U.S. leftists demand that we make room for the Sandinistas and the oppression they are inflicting on the Nicaraguan people. If left-wing college students are to learn anything from history, they first must open their eyes to it. It is not at all difficult to predict the eventual outcome for Nicaragua if the present regime is allowed to continue unabated. The Sandistas are following the path of their Vietnamese and Cuban predecessors and the eventual victims will be the Nicaraguan people. And how will the U.S. leftists respond when they see the Nicaraguan boat people leaving their country in droves? Will they rush to college campuses with posters and chants, protesting against communist oppression by the Sandinistas? Hardly. They will concoct a reason to blame the United States and, as they did after Vietnam, turn their backs on the Nicaraguan people. Then they will look for another "liberation movement" with which to identify themselves — perhaps in Chile or North Korea — and this sad process will begin again. 'Amerika' stirs controversy from all sides Any television series that can rile both Reed Irvine and Jeff Cohen can't be all bad. Reed Irvine is chairman, inspiration and feisty voice of AIM, Accuracy in Media. That organization, like a one-eyed watchdog, is alert to every danger in the U.S. media on only one Paul Greenberg Columnist Columnist side, the left. So long as a network or a newspaper errs in favor of the right, it need fear little criticism from Irvine's skewed aim. Jeff Cohen aspires to be the Reed Irvine of the left. The very name of his outfit seems a reflection of Accuracy in Media: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which numbers among its backers such exemplars of impartiality as Noam Chomsky and Helen Caldicott. To Reed Irvine, “Amerika” is much too soft on the Russians. His verdict: “It stinks. It is profoundly boring, and I think it may well be a disaster for ABC. If all we have to worry about (from a Soviet takeover) is soy cakes instead of Aunt Jimina, and lining up in the spring for tomatoes, well, that’s a whole lot better than being nuked. As a stockholder, I might sue the company for damages. I don’t think poor, beleaguered ABC can afford to squander $25 million on a bomb like this." To Jeff Cohen, "Amerika" is beastly to the Russians. "This is a commercial for Star Wars," he complains. " Its message is one that Reagantites will find delightful, which is that we have to build up our nuclear defenses because the Soviets are just itching to conquer us. This is much more sophisticated than a 'Red Dawn.' This is 'Red Dawn' with characters you can identify with. It's very manipulative. I found myself cheering for the troops to get massacred. That's what makes it so evil." If the mark of accuracy in media, or fairness and accuracy in reporting, is that it offends partisans on both sides, then "Amerika" has at least that much going for it. Of course the plot is a bit on the sci-fi side (let's hope) but there are communist countries where the oppression is only medium unbeatable, Hungary, sav. No other television series has been able to open up the spigot of Newspeak on the left like this one. For example, listen to Robert Karl Manoff of the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, discoursing on the subject of "Amerika": "This is a form of psychological warfare on the American people. You don't have to be on the left to take offense at this. You simply have to be a thinking American. I am not responding to this from a political perspective (he could have fooled me) but from the standpoint of someone who spends every waking hour looking at how the mass media affect the debate about foreign policy. And this hairstrained scenario, apparently hatched for no other reason than corporate profit, stands a fair chance of poisoning American debate about some of the most important issues on the agenda. What the script does is take a distorted version of the progressive view of American history and show it serves Soviet purposes. It's a view of the American present that sees the country as being destroyed by a conspiracy of feminists, progressives, and liberals of all sorts operating to destroy culture, sap national will, and cripple national defense Wow. You just don't find that kind of vocabulary any more. Some of us had assumed it had disappeared with the '60s and kneejerk liberalism. A TV epic has got to have something going for it to be worth all this hackneyed invective. Maybe it's the pictures; the printed version of "Amerika" now on the newstands reads as though it had been written for Cosmopolitan. But at least the first segment of this epic was art, even if Reed Irvine can't see how much better it makes his point than he can. When the subject is the United States or Israel, the free market or the free press, it's not always easy to distinguish the diplates at the United Nations from a lynch mob. There was a time when the United Nations had ceased to be a force for peace and was neutral between good and evil in the world, something like those damned souls assigned a special circle in Kante's vision of hell. Perhaps it is only natural that the United Nations should not endorse censorship under the title to a New World Information Order, should try to censor a U.S. television network and call it fairness. The Who's Who of moral wimpdom now jumping on "Amerika" was nowhere to be seen or heard when silly scenarios (like "The Day After") were on the tube. But in the case of "Amerika," a large advertiser has withdrawn and a list of respectables is protesting. Amerika "deserves a look if only she is older than" "Amerika" a hearing assures on the basis of its first two hours, which come closer to truth, pravda, than anything in Pravda. This is not another "Red Dawn." It is "Amerika." The sulliest rumor attending the premiere of "Amerika" was that the Soviet television was bidding for rights to air it. If such a program were shown in the Soviet Union, there would be a revolution. Because Soviets, deprived of their freedom, would understand it far better than we Americans who think slavery is something that happens only to others. Mailbox Senseless remarks In regard to the letter which appeared Feb. 16 titled "Fail to make point," concerning the 55 mph speed limit, I find many of the remarks appalling and absurd. It never ceases to amaze me when people comment on topics they are not well versed in. Time and time again. I have read letters written by college students who consider themselves authorities on the issue of the 55 mph law. It is very irritating to read articles written by individuals who have no realistic grasp on the lives that have been saved by the law. Having been born and raised in a law enforcement environment, my father being a sergeant in the Kansas Highway Patrol with more than 20 years of service, I have been told time and time again of the lives saved by the 55 mph speed limit. My information comes from someone who has had first-hand experience with both the 70 mph and 55 mph laws. Where do you get your information? It is my sincere belief that if the 55 mph law saves one life per day, week or year, it is well worth preserving. I also believe that the cause of many of the accidents and fatalities on our highways today can be attributed to people being in a big hurry and driving speeds at which they cannot safely control their vehicles. It is true that better roads, safer cars and seat belt laws have all contributed to a decrease in the number of fatalities on our highways. However, the 55 mph speed limit is the fastest rate at which the average driver can safely control his or her vehicle. This seemingly slow rate also provides the driver with more reaction time which is crucial when unanticipated situations occur. It may take us a little longer to get where we're going with the 55 mph speed limit, but getting there in one piece is what really matter. Mark A. Bruce Ellsworth sophomore Careless headline I would like to mention that the headline of the Kansan issue on Monday, Feb. 9, "Muslims release videotape of U.S. hostage, demand" was out of context It is very dangerous to use this kind of generalization, which is very common in the media and lacks accuracy Using the term "Muslims" to point out the kidnapper is misleading and will affect and damage the image of the Muslim students on this campus. M. EI Tabba Alexandria, Egypt graduate student katz k. l. thormar BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Breathed