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Monday, May 2, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions 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 led to wars, such as the Iraq war, 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 antibotyc legislation, and it appears that any final resolution will be watered down considerably. But, regardless of its form, any antibotyc legislation raises some serious questions about the right of Congress to middle 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 antibiocott lesionage.
Big business has argued that antiboycotty legislation will cost half a million U.S. jobs and billions of dollars in national income. Businessmen also say that antiboycotty 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 antiboycott legislation like to argue that the legislation is an attempt to bring the Arab nations to heel. This move has been criticized by United States stands no chance of crippling
ne ott-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 to 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 global trade. That is a stand that should be used, not catcalls, from businessmen.
By choosing to boycott Israeli firms, the Arab countries have taken a logical step in making the movement more viable.
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 would 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 staff 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 doing their own job well, while another read a easier to sell ads for and more ads lead to a bigger paper and, thus, more extensive news coverage, a better-read paper and so on.
Business critiques 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 seems to be covered. Sometimes these purposes conflict.
In the recreation section of last month's Kansas Relays edition, there were a series of reviews of local restaurants and a series of reviews of views slide point of view, this was a legitimate thing to do.
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 reviews (with some sort of headings) than concept was well within accepted journalistic limits.
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 ads, we are also making sure it is just cutting the paper's throat and making the ad staff's job more difficult.
I sympatize with the business staff and mourn with them when an advertiser is offended. Space is always nice. When someone says 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 considered overly negative. I am sorry the were written that way. But the vast majority
Editor's Note
Jim Better
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 responsible use of information are "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. That will allow more advertisers than any other 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
Rv. Janice Clements
Two articles in the Kansan's relays edition have caused some confusion and disagreement among panama residents 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 merchants. I will the advertise things. I will have the intention of controlling the editorial matter of the Kansan.
However, my own journalistic principles dictate that all reporting should be conducted with equity, reasonableness, and discretion. Even a review, with its inherece, should not 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 discuss the merits of a subject. Note: not just faults, and not just faults.
THE TWO articles then, were not reviews, as they certainly didn't make an attempt to both meritals and faults
of the establishments. As such, advertisers, readers, and myself interpreted the article as a subjective and random set of recommendations 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 conscious 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 your own decision. Certainly you will need to know the terms of atmosphere, expense, decor, taste, and flavor may be aberrant to someone else.
I apologize for the lack of foresight and discretion that resulted in printing misleading information properly presented opinions.
Literacy is old-fashioned
It used to be that the "college years" were the most important of our lives. To undergo what is referred to as the college experience, and to get a college education, was considered the right road for anyone who could afford it.
But somewhere along the way, the essential ingredient toward attaining higher education was left out, meaning the loss of properly motivated and prepared students.
The educational trend during the past two decades has been to abandon the more traditional approach, and to teach, and to embark on
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
Paul Jefferson
Editorial Writer
turned around, and our progressive educational methods are leading to a regression in achievement.
teaching methods of the times.
Using open classrooms,
dramatic personalized instruction, formal specialization, it attempts to instill information and motivate the student towards continued learning.
One can wonder at a study conducted by the American Institute of Research in Palo Alto, Calif., of two professors' work on the formation of construction actually made little difference in student progress.
The their fears were prompted by a sentence in the 1977 Labor-Hebal Education and Welfare (HEW) budget. The sentence, Section 269 of the budget, calls for Henry J. Hydle of Illinois and states that he is be used for abortion reimbursements.
Abortion funds still endangered
© 1977 NYT Special Features
MOREOVER, HHEW Secretary Joseph Califano has said that although he will abide by any federal abortion law, he is personally opposed to federal funding for the health care system. He might carry some weight in favor of advocates for the amendment's reintroduction.
The House Appropriations Committee is holding hearings on its 1972 fiscal budgets and women's groups fear that Medicaid funding for abortions will be
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.
Perhaps this is what Hyde had in mind when he proposed the amendment. Hyde has gone on record as being a right-to-age advocate, and at least two anti-abortion bills to the
abortion. But by refusing Medicaid reimbursement it would actively discriminate against poor women.
is the spooling out of "functional illiterates," from both high school and college systems, into a society in which the need for understanding of complex issues is paramount.
Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is Rep. Daniel Flood. He can be in to care of the House of Congress, Attorneys, Washington, D.C., 20515.
The Hyde amendment is not a moral, right-to life issue; it wouldn't prohibit
NINE FEDERAL courts have ruled so far that denying Medicaid reimbursements for abortions is a contradiction to the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution in the suits were ordered to provide abortion service reimbursement.
Because the government remains neutral on the question of abortion, each woman now has the right to choose whether she wants Denying Medicaid funds to poor women would place the government in a position of imposing a controversial morality only on those who have little monetary or financial resources and whose hearings are in now session, and proabortion women's organizations are encouraging persons to write their congressmen or the Appropriations Committee to continue Medicaid funding for abortions.
House. Those adamantly against abortion never give up their cause. If Hyde isn't an exception, he will at least attempt to govern government from paying for abortions.
BESIDES denying poor women's their constitutional right (yes, abortion is now a right according to law), such an amendment would have other impacts.
Diane Wolkow
Editorial Writer
Medicaid reimbursement for abortion doesn't waste federal funds.
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 unwanted child that has his childhood exposed to unnecessary illnesses. Then add to each successive year of unwanted children.
One professor, in an effort to make his students more attentive and to increase attendance, hired a professional writer to interperease his daily lectures with the material. Another professor did him one better, by doning 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.
Hyde Committee chairmen are Rep. Robert McClary, 3482 Airyburn Bldg, and Rep. Robert Kastenmeier, 2232 Burnibm Bldg, Washington, D.C., 2015.
In 1978, in an official statement on the Hyde amendment, Dr. Louis Hellman of HEW reported that the added cost to the
government for unwanted children by poor women would be between $450 and $65 million if the Hydhe amendment were passed. This would include medical care and public assistance in only the first year after birth. The current cost of maternity enhancements for abortion is about $50 million for 200,000 to 800,000 cases.
To insure that every citizen of the United States receives equal protection and opportunity under the law, please write.
Although these innovative techniques make education, if not fun, at least bearable, the negative effect of these new methods are beginning to show. Reports frequently list the growing number of students who need the educator they need because they virtually are unable 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.
To be sure, to function in this highly technological society, a good education is essential. Logically, with progressive education techniques, the teacher can help students to progress—to get better.
A sense of practicality must pervade any new educational practice—something that the teacher should use—for it to be of any value.
Many colleges, including the University of Kansas, have increased the number of additional courses in reading and writing.
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 spell and use proper directions. And this unfortunate syndrome in students is showing no signs of stopping.
Teachers who base their efforts on these "advanced" 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 every certified pundit be present for a 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 remains the new boy on the bank. "Mr. President," indeed "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, when he arrived in Elba and before Waterloo. In our own political experience, we look back to Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration on January 26, and we still marvel at FDR's record with the 73rd Congress.
That was some record. On March 5 came the bank holiday, on March 9 the Emergency Banking Relief Act, on March 20 came the national veterans' pensions and reduced federal salaries by 15 per cent. Then followed the Beer and Wine Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Standard. In May Roosevelt signed acts providing emergency relief, establishing farm subsidies, creating the VA and regulating sequestration in Nationally Recovery Administration, the Banking Act, the Home Owners
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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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James J. Kilpatrick
(c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc
Carter's balance sheet reflects none of these assets. The gentleman from Georgia ran as the anti-Washington candidate, and he remains an alien presence. Much of Washington looks upon Carter as the Japanese looked upon a Korean president as a procoach government by right of conquest. Ours is a city of good ole boys, of back-scratchers, wheeler-dealers, fellows you can have a drink with. Carter isn't a good ole boy.
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IN OTHER contexts, these may be admirable traits. In the case of Carter, they produce an astounding amount of machines, have no idea of how the Washington machinery works, how it is uided and greased, how it is kept in tune. This inexactness can cause problems ways and in small ways also.
Carter's hundred days have been devoted largely to cultivating popular support in the country. This was a hard decision considering narrow victory last November, and he deserves great credit for his success in this field. He also scores high marks for his leadership and commitment of 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 election in 1984 that appears in time. It hasn't appeared in the first 100 days.
For a large example: Carter grievesly offended a dozen Big Mules on Capitol Hill by his maladaptory abandonment of the $50 tax rebate plan. In months to come, he will need the enthusiastic support of such men as David Almanor and Al Ullman in the House. He will have a hard time getting them heavily back in harness now
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Business Manager Janice Clements