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Monday, May 2, 1977
University Daily Kansan
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Options on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism
Bovcott bill needed
America's long internal struggle to determine right and wrong in the Middle East has taken myriad forms. The effort has included efforts to define military arms, detente, energy and foreign policy.
Now Congress is considering a measure that will drop the Middle East problem smack in the middle of another sector: the business community. In this session, the House and Senate have each considered versions of legislation to stop U.S. firms from participating in the Arab boycott against Israel.
The House approved its version of the legislation last week. The House bill, which passed by a wide margin, will prevent American firms, their foreign subsidiaries and individuals from refusing to do business with Israel or Israeli firms because of the Arab boycott. The measure also prevents firms from providing the Arabs with information about the race or religion of their employees.
THE SENATE is considering a weaker brand of antibycott legislation, and it appears that any final resolution will be watered down considerably. But, regardless of its form, any antibycott legislation raises some serious questions about the right of Congress to meddle in the trading policies of U.S. businessmen.
The questions are good ones. In this case, however, Congress is answering in the proper form by molding antiboycott legislation.
Big business has argued that antibiocyt
legislation will cost half a million U.S. jobs
and billions of dollars in national income.
Businessmen also say that antibiocyt
legislation, which would upset Arab nations,
will endanger the flow of oil from Arab
nations and corrode American influence in
Middle East peace negotiations.
OPPONENTS OF antibocytid legislation like to argue that the legislation is an attempt to bring the Arab nations to heel. This opposition is one of the United States stands no chance of crippling
the oil-rich Arab countries by refusing to trade with them.
They're right about America's inability to cripple the Arabs, of course, but they've missed the point. Arab nations obviously hold all the winning cards now, and the United States is powerless to take those cards away. The antibody tests an attack on the country's displeasure with discrimination in world trade.
CONGRESS IS attempting to demonstrate that this country wants to keep the channels of world trade open in spite of political differences and that coercion won't work in total trade. That is a stand that should bring business, not catcalls, from businessmen.
By choosing to boycott Israeli firms, the Arab countries have taken a logical step toward democracy.
IT IS AN obvious attempt to bring Israel to its knees by manipulating world powers. Religious and ethical questions aside, America has to prove its willingness and ability to stand by its allies in the face of such an attempt.
At the negotiating table, America's position can only be strengthened by an antiboycott bill. Some firm antiboycott legislation would add an air of authority to the American voice. Buckling under to the Arab boycott could be a sign of weakness that would serve to boost Arab confidence and influence.
NO ONE HAS ever accused American businessmen who honor the Arab boycott of anti-Semitism. Of 50,000 requests for boycott compliance made public recently by the Commerce Department, only 26 were found to be based on religious grounds. American businessmen aren't concerned with ethics; they are concerned with profits.
If its allies desert her, Israel will topple under Arab pressure. On this issue, like so many others, America must grit its teeth and show that it won't let its allies be dragged to the ground for a promise of a few gallons of oil.
The news and business staffs of a newspaper are, theoretically, a team working toward a common goal: a better, more successful newspaper. Much of the time the theory holds true. Both departments help each other by being the goel job well, so the better-read paper is easier to sell ads for and more ads lead to a bigger paper and, thus, more extensive news coverage, a better-read paper and on so.
Business critiaues get criticized
UNFORTUNATELY, there are times when the two departments disagree. This usually occurs because of the fundamental differences in the roles of the two departments. One is out to make money. The other is out to cover what it needs to be covered. Sometimes these purposes conflict.
The synopses were intended to be fair and were researched by the writers through short interviews with managers or employees and through personal experience. Ideally, they could have been more clearly labeled as managers or employees (logo or something) but the concept was well within accepted journalistic limits.
in the recreation section of last month's Kansas Relays edition, there were a series of reviews of local restaurants and taverns. From the news side, however, it was a legitimate thing to do.
From the ad side point of view, however, it can be a different matter. These are advertisers and potential advertisers we are talking about. And advertisers are notoriously easy to offend. By writing such content, side is just cutting the paper's throat and making the ad staff's job more difficult.
I sympathez with the business staff and mourn when them when an advertisiser is told that someone else has died. But I still think that one of the worst things a newspaper can do is become overly concerned
with offending its advertisers. It is true that many American newspapers have bowed before advertising pressure in their
found only two that might be covered overly negative. I am sorry they were written that wav. But the vast majority
Editor's Note
Un Butter
Jim Bates
time. But not the ones that have become good or great newspapers.
NEWSPAPERS do not exist on advertising alone. There is a big difference between daily newspapers and the advertising supplements people find stuck under their door some afternoons. Such things as the public's right to know and the right to have an opinion do exist. A "real newspaper" works to earn and keep respect as a dependable source of information and opinion.
In the long run, a paper that readers don't really respect won't be read. And that will increase the number of stories than any offensive story.
In reading over the more than two dozen summaries, I have
seem, to me at least, fair and often very favorable.
I realize that the people in the office next to ours will probably disagree, and that is why the rest of this column will be given over to Business Manager Janice Clements.
BUSINESS MANAGER'S
NOTE
Bv Janice Clements
Two articles in the Kanan's relays edition have caused some confusion and disagreement on the part of the company and advertisers. Because the advertising staff and I deal with the local advertisers on a daily basis, explanations must be made.
restaurants and taverns discussed individual businesses in what was meant to be the context of a review. The entertainment staff certainly has their prerogative to print reviews, even unfavorable ones, about local marketplaces. Another word for not I will dispute that. We certainly don't have the intention of controlling the editorial matter of the Kansan.
The articles on area
However, my own journalistic principles dictate that all reporting should be conducted with equity, reasonableness, and discretion. Even a review, criticism, or even a criticism, must be handled responsibly in due respect to the subject and to the readers.
A synonym for a review is a critique, which involves, by definition, criticizing. To criticize is to assess the merit of a subject. Note: not just merits and not just faults.
THE TWO articles then, were not reviews, as they certainly didn't make an attempt to present both merits and faults
of the establishments. As such, advertisers, readers, and myself interpreted the article as a subjective and random recommendation or warnings about area merchants.
On behalf of the advertisers and, I would hope, the news staff, I encourage Kansan readers to take the articles for what they were: the opinions of one or two persons. They were not all alike in their views of any consensus and certainly not based on objective facts.
Because so little information was provided on each restaurant and bar, even the article's use as guides to Lawrence dining and entertainment is severely limited. I urge everyone to try each of the places mentioned and make own decision. Certainly what we want in terms of atmosphere, expense, decor, taste, and flavor may be aberrent to someone else.
Literacy is old-fashioned
I apologize for the lack of foresight and discretion that resulted in printing misleading information properly presented opinions.
It used to be that the "college years" were the most important of our lives. To undergo what referred to as the college experience, and to get a college education, was considered the right road for anyone who could afford it.
The educational trend during the past two decades has been to abandon the more traditional methods of teaching, and to embark on teaching, and to embark on
But somewhere along the way, the essential ingredient toward attaining higher education was left out, meaning the loss of properly motivated and prepared students.
what collectively has been called "progressive education." PROGRESSIVE education is the catchall phrase for the
latest technological know-how are bypassing the more fundamental aspects of the educational process. The result
teaching methods of the times.
Using open classrooms,
dramatic, personalized instruction methods and specialization, it attempts to instill information and motivate the student towards continued academic interest on his own.
Paul Jefferson Editorial Writer
turned around, and our progressive educational methods are leading to a regression in achievement.
One can wonder at a study conducted by the American Institute of Research in Palo Alto, Calif., of two professors' construction actually made little difference in student progress.
Abortion funds still endangered
The their fears were prompted by a sentence in the 1977 Labor-Hebrew, Education and Welfare (HEW) budget. The sentence, Section 209 of the budget, requires that Medicaid be used in Illinois and states that Medicaid could be used for abortion reimbursements.
1977 NYT Special Features
The House Appropriations Committee is holding hearings on its 1978 fiscal budgets and women's groups fear that a funding fund for abortions will be cut.
MOREOVER, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano has said that although he will abide by any federal abortion law, he is personally opposed to federal funding for the abortion procedure. He might carry some weight in favor of advocates for the amendment's reintroduction.
The Hyde amendment was defeated.
But because it remains on the books with
only a narrow line drawn through it, and
because old budgets are reviewed while
making new ones, women fear that the
amendment will be reintroduced.
is the sweeping out of "functional illiterates," from both high school and college systems, into a society in which the need for literacy and the need for more complex issues is paramount.
Medicaid reimbursement for abortion doesn't waste federal funds.
Perhaps this is what Hyde had in mind when he proposed the amendment. Hyde has gone on record as being a right-to-choose woman, and at least two anti-abortion bills to the
NINE FEDERAL courts have ruled so far that denying Medicare reimbursements for abortions is a contradiction to the equal protection clause of the constitution, and instead been imposed in the suits were ordered to provide abortion service reimbursement.
Moreover, up to 250 deaths and 25,000 more hospitalizations would result because of self-induced abortions. Hospital care for victims of self-induced abortions could cost the government as much as $50 million. Add to this the cost of welfare and Medicaid for each unintended pregnancy and teenage years. Then add on the cost of each successive year of unwanted children.
abortion. But by refusing Medicaid reimbursement it would actively discriminate against poor women.
Because the government remains neutral on the question of abortion, each woman now has the right to choose whether she would give her Denying Medicaid funds to poor women would place the government in a position of imposing a controversial moral only on those who have little monetary or parental support. Because bearings are now in session, and proabortion women's organizations are encouraging persons to write their congressmen or the Appropriations Committee to continue Medicaid funding for abortions.
The Hyde amendment is not a moral, right-to life issue; it wouldn't prohibit
Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is Rep. Daniel Flood. He can be written to in care of the House of Congress for restatives, Washington, D.C. 2015.
House. Those adamantly against abortion never give up their cause. If Hyde isn't an exception, he will at least try to stop the government from paying
BESIDES denying poor women their constitutional right (yes, abortion is now a right according to law), such an amendment would have other impacts.
Diane Wolkow Editorial Writer
One professor, in an effort to make his students more attentive and to increase attendance, hired a professional writer with jokes relevant to the material. Another professor did him one better, by denoting the appropriate period costumes and effects for the historical presentations in his undergraduate zoology class. His repertoire include Louis Pasteur, William Harvey and Charles Darwin.
In 1978, in an official statement on the Hyde amendment, Dr. Louis Hellman of HEW reported that the added cost to the
Although these innovative techniques make education, if not fun, at least bearable, the methods are beginning to show.
Hyde Committee chairmen are Rep. Robert McClary, 3429 Rayburn Bldg. and Rep. Robert Kastenmeier, 2232 Rayburn Bldd., Washington, D.C., 2015.
government for unwanted children by poor women would be between $450 and $65 million if the Hydde amendment were passed. This would include medical care and public assistance in only the first year after birth. The current cost of Medical reimbursements for abortion is over 120,000 million, or $200,000 to 300,000 dollars.
To insure that every citizen of the United States receives equal protection and opportunity under the law, please write.
Many colleges, including the University of Kansas, have increased the number of initial courses in reading and writing.
LITERACY IS one problem that we thought was licked once and for all until the latest revelations about students declining test scores, diminishing writing ability and lack of interest in reading. Like dipheria, which we also thought we had wiped out, our task is making a comeback.
To be sure, to function in this highly technological society, a good education is essential. Logically, with progressive education techniques, the teacher must progress to progress—to get better.
growing number of students who aren't getting the ecuation they need because they vir-
tually need to master basic fundamentals.
THE TWO INSTANCES might be extreme cases, but they highlight the falsity of innovative teaching methods that have more entertainment value than instructional.
A sense of practicality must pervade any new educational practice—something that the teacher can use—wear-us-for it to be of any value.
Progressive education involves more than cosmetic changes just for the sake of change. It means a back-to-basics movement for educators and students alike.
FOR EXAMPLE businessmen are turning away an increasing number of otherwise qualified applicants because they cannot follow relatively simple directions. And this unfortunate syndrome in students is showing no signs of stopping. Teachers who base their efforts on teaching skills and use the
SOMEWHERE ALONG the line,the values of education got
Carter still adapting
WASHINGTON-Jimmy Carter winds up his first hundred days this weekend. Under Section 11(b) of the Regulations Governing the Practice of the Trade of Pundity, it is required that an appellant certify his deliver his appraisal of the period. My own appraisal of Carter's beginning: Not good, not bad.
That is a nice ambivalent, wishy-wishy appraisal for you, but the passing years persuade me that things are seldom all black or all white. A hundred days after he hit town, Carter reappraised his new boy on the book. In fact president "Mr. President," but the title still falls on the ear like an off-key note.
RAYMOND MOLEY once speculated that the tradition of a "hundred days" goes back to Napoleon in the spring of 1815, and he attended Waterloo after Elba and before Waterloo. In our own political experience, we look back to Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration on April 20, and we still marvel at FDR's record with the 73rd Congress.
That was some record. On March 6 came the bank holiday, on March 9 the Emergency Banking Relief Act, on March 20 cuts in veterans' pensions and reduced federal salaries by 15 per cent. Then followed the Beer and Wine Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Parks Standard. In May Roosevelt signed acts providing emergency relief, establishing farm subsidies, creating the TVA and regulating securities. In October Recovery Administration, the Banking Act, the Home Owners
Loan Corporation and another Farm Credit Act. The exhausted Congress adjourned on June 15.
CARTER CAN offer nothing to compare with that impressive string of political fish, but no other president since Roosevelt has approached that record. FDR had things going for him that Carter hasn't had. By the time he took office,
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(c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Carter's balance sheet reflects none of these assets. The gentleman from Georgia and a candidate, and he remains an alien presence. Much of Washington looks upon Carter as the Japanese looked upon Italy. It is the proconsul governing by right of conquest. Ours is a city of good ole boys, of back-scratchers, wheeler-dealers, fellows you know, Carter isn't a good ole boy.
Roosevelt had been in and out of Washington for 20 years; he was intimately acquainted with the leaders of Congress; he had won election by a landslide; he had a true national emergency on his hands, and he had some badd and brilliant fellows around him.
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IN OTHER contexts, these may be admirable traits. In the case of Carter, they produce an invention that has no idea of how the Washington machinery works, how it is oiled and greased, how it is kept in tune. This inexactness is one of the ways and in small ways also.
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For a large example: Carter grievously offended a dozen Big Mules on Capitol Hill by his maladapt abandond of the $50 tax rebate plan. In months to come, he will need the enthusiastic support of such men as Mr. Eddie Al Ullman in the House. He will have a hard time getting them happily back in harness now
Carter's hundred days have been devoted largely to cultivating popular support in the country, where he was a star. Considering his narrow victory last November, and he deserves great credit for his success in this field. He also scores high marks for his leadership and for purpose, and his sheer industry on the job.
What we perceive, I suppose, and what contributes to an ambivalent view of his record, is the absence of a presidential candidate. He does not appear in time. It hasn't appeared in the first 100 days.
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PUBLIC MUSEUM at the University of Kansas daily August 14th from 10am to 3pm, June and July except Saturday, and Holiday and June and July except Saturday. Subscriptions by mail are $1 a semester or $25 for a year. A welcome outside the county. Student subscriptions are $7 a semester. Admission is free.
Editor Business Manager Jim Rates Jamie Clements.