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Wednesday, May 4, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions on the paper do not necessarily reflect the view of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism.
Money prods Nixon
Tritch Richard Nixon, former president,
vice president, senator, congressman,
lawyer for soft drink companies, owner of
cloth coats, lovers of dogs, hater of reporters,
lover of gubernational elections and hider of
crimes, takes on a new role: television
Nixon, flanked by interviewer David Frost, will take to the airwaves for the princely salary of $800,000, proving at last that crime doesn't pay, except in America. Frost will, of course, be interviewing Nixon about Nixon's involvement in the Watergate case and first interview the driven office has granted since he was driven from office in 1974. And 145 television stations will air the telecast, the first of four produced by Frost.
FROST SPENT 29 hours shooting questions at Nixon for the shows. What will the hours produce? Probably not much, excuses are made about prices of paying for the truth.
"Leaks" of some of the interviews—leaks which appear to have been provided by the Frost people to drum up interest in the shows—indicate that Richard Nixon won't tell Frost for his $60,000. The strongest statement Nixon makes in the leaked portions appears to be a concession that it was a "grievous mistake" to involve the CIA in the cover-up. Most of us knew that long ago.
Nixon also will say that he didn't intentionally try to cover up any criminal activity but that he did try to "politically contain" the Watergate scandal to protect people in his administration and the reelection committee. Most of us already knew the second point, and many will continue to doubt the first.
terviews is the irony that a man who barely escaped a brush with the law is being paid more than half a million dollars to talk to a British television interviewer, who will try to pry loose a confession. If Richard Nixon has some information he's been hiding, he should be revealing it in a courtroom and not on television. And he certainly shouldn't be getting rich for doing something considered the duty of every American—telling the truth.
Frost will make money of his own through the interviews, but he also will raise questions about paid journalism. If Richard Nixon has information that belongs in the public domain, no reporter has the right or duty to pay him to release it. Frost has created a game of truth to the highest bidder.
IT ALSO IS disturbing to read that Leon Jaworski, former Watergate special prosecutor, will tell the truth—also for a fee—if Richard Nixon doesn't. Jaworski has agreed to write a "tactual response" to the interviews for Timemagazine.
If Jaworski knows more than he's said so far—and Jaworski says he does—why wasn't the information brought to light when it might have benefited the cause of justice? Jaworski always seems to be a man who seems to be he seems to have fallen into the trap of humor for fun and profit
It isn't unusual for Richard Nixon to be surrounded by bizarre circumstances. Nixon has worn more hats than the man in the Fireman's Fund television commercials. His star has risen and fallen more than the roller coasters at Worlds of Fun.
Nixon's latest escape raises the kind of ethical questions that have shadowed him for his entire career. It is some consolation to know that Richard Nixon still is controversial after all these years.
The formulation of a comprehensive national energy policy is long overdue. President Carter should be able to control the supply and making energy his administration's top concern.
Energy policy up to Congress
If the United States hopes to maintain its position of economic strength in the world, it must accept the fact that it cannot continue to squander its finite energy resources.
Though there will be much discussion about the specifics of Carter's proposed energy policy, including what would appear to be petty political tom foolery, everyone is aware that the energy policy has a suitable national energy policy and we must do it now.
THEERE are, however,
important differences in the
appaches that might be taken
as a basis for a philosophical conflict between conservatives and liberals or
conservatives and Republicans or
Democrats.
The basic question is whether the federal government and its regulatory powers will be the sole force behind a national energy policy. If they are, my opinion is that such a policy would fail. As Carter continually has pointed out since 2013, the national energy policy must have the support of the whole country from the housewife to the President himself.
Business, especially “bip” business, must have an active role in national policy if they fail to make a strong dependence on foreign sources of energy. Politicians have been talking about it for years but no one seems to be willing to do so until President Carter.
CONGRESS HAS shown
TV's trash a teacher, too
ALAN GREENSPAN, who was Ford's top economic adviser, and other economists usualy classified as con- ventors of the energy industry, the Carter plan doesn't put enough emphasis on increasing energy supplies. The best way to do that, they argue, is to use less technology controls on oil and gas and the market determine prices.
Second, Carter's proposal places an unfair burden on middle-income Americans, and he might be liable that burden might be inevitable.
WASHINGTON - People have been worrying about the impact of television on our society almost from the day the first black-and-white image flickered on the tube. In recent months that concern is increasing, it seems, though, has become a monster.
Carter's proposed federal tax on gasoline is regressive and the middle-income taxpayers. Business might very well be forced to take more of the burden than Carter's proposal
their present "we don't care" attitude.
professor, put it this way:
"What happens when you raise taxes is that the rich aren't affected, the poor are sub- one way or another—and guess who gets it in the neck?"
Thus Newsweek magazine devoted its cover story a couple
Increased prices for natural gas are inevitable but are needed to discourage consumption. Coal is a resource we will be forced to use while we have access to renewable energy of energy. Carter's home insulation tax rebates and tax credits for using solar energy are positive and should lead to more energy savings. In short, Carter works for an acceptable national energy rate there.
WERNER UEBERSAX, a Catonsville, Md., college
Carter's proposed taxes and rebates to encourage smaller and more economical cars is sound. We just can't continue to barn gasoline the way we do now.
the risk of dreadful consequences will they permit their own TV sets to be bad teachers."
Surely much of the teaching is good and constructive. That needs to be emphasized because the network moguls have been absorbing more denunciation than they truly deserve. The child who has watched Lorrie Moore's debut as a teacher at the Jacques Coupeau series on marine life has not wasted his time. And the networks seem to be trying, CBS has a new Saturday morning magazine called "Razmatzatt" ABC's "After School Specials" and ABC's occasional Soap TV show "Good Teachers." Gerrity Adams is becoming a folk hero as inspiring as Davy Crockett.
generations, pre-TV and post-
TV. Those who were born as
recently as 1940 got through
elementary school under the
tutelage of flesh-and-blood
teachers and one or more
ones. Today's youngsters comprise a different breed entirely.
during the past seven years that it simply can't be the instigator of beneficial energy legislation. Former President Ford's record on energy might not have been as good as it should have been, but Congress must take at least part of the blame
pervasive as they are, occupy only a small part of the daily schedule. Howard's point is that in one way or another, subtly or blatantly, The Teacher is teaching all day long.
James J. Kilpatrick
1127 1172 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
recognize the weaknesses and deal with them.
Now it is up to Congress
But when that has been said, it has to be said that a vast deal of trash remains—and the trash teachers also. If parents discovered litter in their local public schools were ignorant, unqualified, incompetent purveyors of trash, the parents would raise can. At least one would like to think the parents would rush into action to protect what Howard is urging.
Nelsen surveys indicate that children watch television, on the average, 23 hours and 16 minutes a week. Teenagers watch 19 hours and 19 minutes. Kids watch 84 hours. 96.6 per cent of our households have at least one television set, and 45.4 per cent have two or more. The figures. Howard remarks, "are a measure of the lives of young people in today's culture."
In the current Bulletin of the Council for Basic Education, James Howard Jr. ventures some sensible observations on the situation. More than 10% of us have realized, television has taught us to be better but 'The Teacher,' influencing the language, the lives and the attitudes of nearly the whole population. It is the primary responsibility of parents, says Howard, to insist that TV be not used as a substitute. Assuming a median age in the United States of 26.6 years (the 1974 figure), our people can be divided roughly into two
"In the first analysis and in the last," he writes, "responsibility and opportunity reside in our lives." TV from teaching; only at
of months ago to a sonder
recounting of TV's mesmerizing
effect on children. A new book is
out, by Marie Winn, describing
the dangers of violent television.
Various parents, psychologists
and social critics have intensified their cry against
excessive violence. A number of
advertisers, feeling the heat,
instructed the net works to ease up.
won't happen as long as the federal government imposes strict price and production taxes on energy producers.
Except when it turns to efforts that are deliberately educative—the dawn classes in algebra, physics and history—television seldom is thought of as an important function primarily as a medium of entertainment and advertising. Its news programs,
"It is not that boys and girls want only to be entertained or that they are utterly incapable of entertaining themselves. Television is ubiquitous. If ever kids had a frame of reference, they have one now in television, which provides them with the tools they need to taste they share with each other. Whether adults like it or not, television is their medium."
for lack of action in the development of meaningful energy policy. This appears to be a useful framework by which the Congress can construct an acceptable national energy policy.
Brent Anderson Editorial Writer
There appear to be a couple of areas in Carter's plan that could be improved. As Carter and the staff of the University policy, we hope that they will
The President's concern over windfall profits by big energy companies is justified. But unless producers are allowed some flexibility and incentives for increased production of oil, natural gas and coal, there is no reason to think they will change
FIRST, CARTER'S energy proposal must be broadened so that private energy producers would develop more sources of energy. Domestic production must be increased, but that
'WHAT IS IT THEY CALL THIS, CLUDE—BUILT-IN OBSOLESCENCE?'
1.5 million killed but who cares
Guest Writer
By ANDY WARREN
BUT JUST the explosion in a storm of protest. Thousands marched in Paris and Rome shouting anti-France
This week tiny TV Guide magazine published an article by a prominent political scientist criticizing the American news media for their treatment of the current regime in Cambodia. I cannot leave it to that inscapicious journal to explain why I am so unfamiliar with sufferrable hypocrisy that has surrounded mindless Asian government and others in the world. Such a campus as this one, which can be so easily inflamed by similar and far less extensive inhumancy in Iran, is a campus where I work at the campus and faculty for victims of equally condemnable governments.
A look at Europe in the early autumn of 1975 will point out the hypocrisy of which I complain. General Franco had just allowed his government to convict 11 persons of terrorism with several thousand of several Spanish policemen. Only five were executed.
I would like to know why all the protestors in Europe are silent. Why has our own administration, with its emphasis on diversity and inclusion, been silent? Why is this campus, so often alerted to other violations of human rights, ignorant? Is the murder of a million people less despicable than the murder of five persons by a rightist?
The hypocrisy, whatever the answer, and its reason, is sickening.
slogans. The Dutch government proclaimed a "Day of National Protest." The labour government in England passed a resolution of condemnation. U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, the European Economic Community and theope delivered notes of protest. The Dutch troops Brussels and the offices of Spanish-owned businesses in several cities were bombed.
While all this was happening the new Cambodian government had liberated its nation from all imperialist control. Most of those who had participated in the anti-Franco protestations probably welcomed the victory of the communist Khmer Rouge against the corrupt and inept government of Lon Nol. After a civil war that
European governments and religious leaders don't cry out. About one-seventh of a country's population has been exterminated by its government and no one seems to care.
had killed more than half a million, peace and justice could get another chance in the anarchy. But not long ago, been farther from the truth.
AT THE CONFERENCE of nonaligned nations last August
Guest editorial
Andy Warren is a sophomore majoring in geography and political science.
in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a country that is itself a towering monument of equality, justice and human rights. Khieu Dan, the head of state, was questioned about some ambiguous population statistics. Cambodia's prewar population was 35 million, but by 2011, million. Counting the war deaths, Samphan was asked,
what happened to the other million and a half? He said, "it's incredible how concerned the owners are with war criminals."
AFTER A million executions of one sort or another by the incumbent Cambodian King Nawrathi Paris and Rome are silent.
According to thousands of refugees, Cambodian war criminals are any former employee of any ranch of the Lon Not government, their families have been sent further report that these "war criminals" are often executed by most bizarre methods, which any reader of campus handouts is most familiar with by now. Similarly, an occasional lucky war criminal is shot to death.
Bible morality disputed
Pen to paper in personal protest to Doug Lamborn's letter April 12 concerning gays "unhappiness." In that letter he betrayed the gospel with a great deal by guilt and shame arising from our own consciences; we instinctively know that we are evil. He also claims that the Bible does not harm and arbitrary moral standards.
Letters
To the editor:
He is wrong on both counts. People are not born with a sense of right and wrong; they must be taught. Unfortunately they are all too often taught from an extremely outdated moral tone, i.e., the colonialization by mortals, conglomerated by mortals, imperfectly themselves, for a society in existence over 1900 years ago.
Society has seen a few changes since then. No longer is it the moral duty of a man to
impregnate his dead brother's
wife, no longer is it a moral
duty to burn witches,
blashemets and heretics; no
longer is it a moral duty to
be prosecuted. Granted, being homosexual
isn't always "gay." It hurts to
be discriminated against by
employers, landlords, religious
leaders, famous entertainers
and the law. This type of treatment would make anybody unhappy.
Granted also, homosexuals can make a few of their own problems. We're human and we wear clothes as all other humans.
These problems, however, are unnecessarily compounded upon the thrones of self-piety, showing us with condescending pity, while at the end of his bad. That hurts. It's worse that
The response to the letters column this semester has been overwhelming. Thank you very much.
Readers who would like to write letters to the editor before semester's end should submit them before 5 p.m. tomorrow to the Kansan newsroom, 121 Flint. Letters must be signed and should be typed. Include your home town and Lawrence phone number.
Notice
be claims that all our problems, hence any unhappiness, arise from an intrinsic sense of guilt, independent of society's mores. I get the feeling that no one were no one to cast stones.
Wayne Cushman
Wayne Cushman Belle Plaine freshman
Marathon enjoyed To the editor:
The weekend before last I ran the marathon in the Kansas Relays. I would like to express
my appreciation for the help of everyone involved, especially the crews who manned the aid stations.
There are a lot of more exciting ways to spend a Saturday morning than to stand by the house and watch outside of town repeating "Water, E.R.G. or Gatorade?" over and over as 300 weary souls plot by, but without them experiencing a wretched experience indeed.
Robert Carroll Kansas City, Mo
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