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Wednesday, June 8, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Opinion
The U.S. space program must get back in space
In the recent Moscow summit, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to Mars. President Reagan acknowledged the offer but did not comment further.
Now, this is an interesting state of affairs. The general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party has suggested what the Planetary Society and other U.S. groups have been urging for some time now.
NASA recently released its 1989 plans, which include launching the Hubble Space Telescope and probes to Venus, Jupiter and the Sun. Also announced was the intention of NASA and of the Defense Department to use unmanned rockets to launch many of the future science projects. This is a complete reversal of the former policy, which abandoned expendable rockets in favor of the reusable shuttles. But fear of failure has prompted a return to the past.
The House has just approved a NASA budget of $11.5 billion, a slight increase over last year, that includes nearly $1 billion to finance the initial costs of building a space station, but analysts say that the budget will surely be cut to pieces in the Senate. And the bill contains no provision for a free-flying, unmanned factory, which is vital to the survival of such a station
The space shuttle program is paramount to NASA and to the U.S. government and deserves a good deal of attention and funding, especially now. But this should not be at the expense of other vital programs. Congress has seen fit to encourage repairing the shuttle problems and, at the same time, cut NASA's budget. The shuttle Discovery awaits a launch that is planned for late August but might be delayed yet again. Recurring postponements weaken the prestige of the once proud program.
If the U.S. government wants to continue space exploration and to once again get the space shuttle off the ground, it must commit itself to the cause, as former President John F. Kennedy did more than 25 years ago. Congress must take the initiative and adopt many suggestions that it has denied in the past.
Americans must encourage these actions and foster the idea that dwelling on past mistakes leaves no room for future improvement.
David White, editorial editor
Other Voices
The recent thwarted attempts of some conservative groups to get publications that they find questionable removed from bookstores, convenience stores and schools is affirming once again that narrow-minded interest groups can't decide what everyone else can or can't read.
Again, banning books is banned
Linda Heath, the parent of a Linton, Ind., high school student, recently requested that J.D. Salinger's classic 1951 novel, "The Catcher in the Rye," not be used in the Linton-Stockton School Corp. because it is "blasphemous and a bad influence on students."
Heath said that incidents such as a suicide and an encounter with a prostitute were likely to undermine the moral conscience of students.
In a sound decision protecting other students' rights, the school's book reconsideration committee rejected Heath's request, saying, "No good purpose can come from banning a book.
"Limiting access to the book would constitute a serious infringement upon the rights of many other students," the committee said.
Heath and other parents with similar views should open their eyes. Keeping literature away from students just because the real-world situations it describes are unpleasant only stymies their education and leaves them unprepared for life outside the classroom.
In Warsaw, Ind., the availability of adult magazines and X-rated videotapes from newsstands, stores and rental centers has caused some residents to question community standards. Again, free speech was upheld as more important than the stilted, self-centered views of a minority. A grand jury concluded that the material "did not breach community standards."
Unfortunately, freedom of expression isn't protected everywhere.
In Westfield, Ind., 32 students marched last week with their teacher to a convenience store and persuaded the manager to remove a drug culture magazine from the shelves.
The United States based the Constitution on the concepts of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. For government to allow interest groups to limit the number of ideas in the public sphere, especially on religious grounds, would contradict the very freedoms it supposedly guarantees.
The Indiana.Daily Student
Planning Inst
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News staff
Laird MacGregor ... Editor
David White ... Managing editor
Brian Brenesch ... Campus editor
Jef Molberg ... Assistant campus editor
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Chriss Fialk ... General manager, news adviser
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MAY DAY 1988
Presidential race not what it used to be
BY MIKE ROYKO
Slats Grobnik slouched at the bar with a sad, faraway look in his eyes. His beer had gone flat. Every few moments, he sighed.
I asked him what his problem was. "Oh, I'm just feeling nostalgic, just think about the good old days, how much them they were, and how dull it is now."
What good old days have you in mind?
"Well, there was Gary Hart and Donna Rice, the Miami reporters hiding in the bushes, the trip to Bimini on the good ship Monkey Business. Ah, those were the days, my friend."
Yes, Gary and Donna livened up the primary campaign for awhile.
"You bet. And then there was Joe Biden. What a guy. He figures his background is a little dull, so he turns himself into a Welsh coal miner. You don't get caught, would have done good in the Pennsylvania primary."
Especially if he smeared some soot on his face.
"Those were the days. And you remember Pat Robertson better," he said, and all the
pundits running around screaming:
"The table thumpers are coming"
The Bible is up.
They can be impressionable at times.
"Oh, that was fun. And then there was Dan rather trying to ambush George Bush and Bush turning around and ambushing Rather. It was one of the greatest battles in the history of the fleaweight division."
Yes, as macho-man Bush would put it. Rather found himself in deep do-do.
"Ah, what fun times those were. You're shocking all the puns, but he lobbies Belle."
The pundits can be a shockable bunch at times.
"And do you remember Illinois and how at the last minute, all the headlines were screaming that Jesse was closing the gap and might even win? And the pundits were all saying: 'Jesse can do it. Jesse can do it.'"
Yes, that caused considerable trembling in many a blue-cool bun hair.
The pundits can be a flexible lot. "Then there was Michigan; and all
"Then he lost to a nerd in a bow tie, and they all said: 'Well, maybe he can't do it.' "
of a sudden, the pundits were saying 'Jesse can do it. Jesse can do it' again."
That just shows how amazingly flexible they are.
"And then Wisconsin, with Jesse standing shoulder-to-shoulder with all those white auto workers in Kenosha, saying he was one of them? And how they cheered and said they love him."
Yes, and as one of them told me: "He's the only candidate who says what I want to hear. Too bad he's black, or I'd vote for him."
"And all the while there was Mario lurking in the background. Would Mario finally jump in? Would he be drafted? Would the party turn to him in its hour of need?"
Well, the timing seemed right. The nation is still on a pasta craze.
"And then there was New York. What a great show that was. Can you ever forget Mayor Koch? I'll tell you something, I was sure Jackson was going to win in New York. I thought he'd get the Jewish vote."
What made you think that'
"Because Koch said that a Jew would have to be crazy to vote for Jackson."
"Well, the Jews always voted for
Koch. So I figured that if anything proved they were crazy, that did "wonder"
There is some logic their
"But where'd it all go?"
Where did what go?
"The thrills, the excitement, the craziness. It's like you had a wild party going on, with lots of laughs, but all of a sudden the fun people go home — Hart, Rice, Biden, Dole, Robertson, Cuomo, Koch. And all you got left is Dukakis. Hey, turn out the lights and go to bed."
"Nah, Dukapis has a wrap. Now Jackson's just along for the ride so he can hog cameras at the convention. He says Dukapis is nice; Dukapis says he's nice. That's as exciting as watching a knitting contest."
But we can still look forward to the conventions. And then the real campaign: Bush against Dukakis for it? Don't you think that will be exciting?
"Maybe. But it's going to be a long, dull summer. Hey, do you think there's any chance Gary Hart will get back into it one more time?" I doubt it.
"I think it is." Yeah, you're probably right. He
"Yeah, you're probably peaked too soon."
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist who works for the Chicago Tribune.
Many news events don't get the coverage that they deserve
By BRIAN BARESCH
Project Censored, a group based at Sonoma (Calif.) State University, has compiled its list of the 10 most under-reported news stories of the year. These stories are as important as the other "Top Ten" but have gotten almost no mention in the mainstream press. They are, in order, top to bottom:
The media enjoy thumping themselves on the back every year about what stories were covered best during the preceding 12 months. What they keep quiet about is that importers get little or no mention in the press.
The Contra-Drug Connection. The ties of the Reagan administration and the contras to drug networks has been getting more attention lately than it had been, but the media aren't pursuing the story as hard as they should. If the U.S. government is
■ The Information Monopoly. The media are hesitant to point out that just 29 corporations control half of the country's media outlets. The largest, Gannett, owns 91 daily newspapers, including two of the country's largest, USA Today and the Detroit News. It also owns weeklies, TV and radio stations, including one in Kansas City, and Gannett Outdoor, the country's largest billboard advertising company. NBC is owned by General Electric. The Kansas City Times is owned by Capital Cities Communications, which also owns ABC. And so on.
running drugs or just dealing with drug runners, then the Just Say No campaign is pure hypocrisy, as is our manian dictator Manuel Nortea.
Unreported Nuclear Accidents. A weekly in West Germany, Der Spiegel, published secret nuclear reactor accidents reports compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the reports were ignored by all the U.S. media except a small magazine, Earth Island Journal. Der Spiegel said that "a meltdown was a real possibility" and that human error was most prevalent in North America. Let us not forget that a large number of government officials, including the secretary of state and an assistant secretary in the Energy Department, are former officials of Bechtel Group, which made a lot of its fortune building nuclear plants. Conflict of interest?
- Reagan's Mania for Secrecy. A network of Reagan executive orders, secret directives and administrative edicts have institutionalized secrecy throughout the government and put unprecedented controls on information available to the public. This means that journalists have trouble doing their jobs and that freedom of information, essential in a democracy, is being severely threatened.
■ George Bush's Role in the Iran Arms Deal. Evidence has surfaced indicating that Vice President Bush, far more than President Reagan, promoted the Iran arms initiative, took part in secret negotiations, and
Biowarfare Research in University Laboratories. The push toward biowarfare has been one of the Reagan administration's best kept secrets. Although an international agreement bans the development of germ-warfare agents, the Pentagon's research budget for infectious diseases and toxins has increased tenfold since 1981, and most of the 1986 budget of $42 million went to 24 U.S. university campuses, including the University of Kansas.
conferred upon Lt. Col Oliver North the secret powers to carry it out. The evidence suggests that Bush supported the Iran arms sales because of an economic motive: the desire to stabilize dropping oil prices. He's from Texas, remember, and has a lot of friends in that oil state.
■ Biased Press Coverage of the Arias Peace Plan. A pair of studies monitoring U.S. coverage of the Arias peace plan found significant bias. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting concluded that "Reagan's obsession with Nicaragua has turned into a media obsession," and the Media Alliance concluded that most of the newspapers it studied followed the administration's direction, rather than deciding for itself, as to what deserved coverage in Central America.
- Dumping Our Toxic Waste on the Third World. A lot of hazardous waste, such as heavy metal residues, chemical-contaminated wastes, pharmaceutical refuse and municipal sewage sludge, is being shipped
- Torture in El Salvador. A 165-page report smuggled out of a prison in El Salvador documents the routine use of at least 40 kinds of torture on political prisoners by Salvadoran police forces, who are trained and occasionally supervised by U.S. military advisers.
to Third World countries. The receiving countries may be contaminating their groundwater and crops and risking birth defects and cancer; because we import food from some of these countries, we risk getting the poisons back on our own supper tables.
Project Galileo Shuttle to Carry Lhalut Plomon. Project Galileo is the name of the project planned to launch a space probe with 49 pounds of plutonium on it. One pound of plutonium is enough to give everyone on the planet a fatal case of lung cancer; if that payload had been on the Challenger when it exploded, it would have been distributed into the atmosphere, making Chernobyl's fallout seem like a spring shower.
That's the top ten. Most were reported in small-circulation magazines or special-interest or radical publications, but some were from large papers that didn't follow up on them. It's ironic that as journalists get more corporate money behind them, they are less inclined to spend money and time to dig up stories like the contra-drug connection. Do they know nobody cares? If that's the case, we're a sad excuse for a nation. Brian Barsech is a graduate student in journalism.
Thus, the principle of one person, one vote, is maintained.
How many dependents, Mam?