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Thursday, April 21, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions on this page do not necessarily reflect the view of the Universities of Kansas or the School of Journalism.
Postal woes to stay
The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 was intended to boost the U.S. Postal System out of the red. The intentions of the act were to numberers of each class of mail pay their own way.
Seven years hence, the postal system has been given to continually raise postal rates in Iowa.
Recent news stories have assured many Americans that there won't be a hike in rates this year. Indeed, there won't be a rate hike for first-class users this year. But what these stories have failed to mention is that a hike setting second-class users is scheduled for July.
In 1971, the postal service's first year of operation, second-class users paid $128 million for postage. It has been estimated that by 1979, that total will more than triple, and that's excluding the possibility of its year's raising second-class rates again before
ONE NATIONAL journal—The New Republic—has estimated that the hike in July will cost it 25 per cent more than what it'saving now, or about $1,000 a week.
To protect itself from financial disaster, the postal service has come out with a new report. The report is nothing but a request for more rate hikes and more appropriations from Congress to keep the service in line with the service can, in turn, keep itself out of the red.
Nothing in this new report increases the efficiency of service Americans might expect to receive. The report is, in effect, the service's own "sky is falling" plea.
THE REPORT, which was prepared by the Commission on Postal Service, indicates that the cost of a first-class postage stamp will be 28 cents by 1965 if the service continues to operate at its present financial pace. The commission says this increase can be offset by an additional five days a week instead of six—and higher taxpayer subsidies are adopted.
In other words, to keep the cost of a stamp
six cents lower, the postal service will need a higher subsidy from Congress, which will have to raise taxes to meet the subsidy.
A recommendation to consider using electronic message services to replace mail also were made by the commission. It would seem that the postal service would only be adding to its budget woes by adopting such a program. Electronic equipment costs a lot of money, and installing such equipment would cost even more.
ONE FAVORABLE recommendation has come out of the commission report. That proposal is to place stricter limits on when the postal service can close rural post offices. These offices are the only contact that many rural Americans have with the federal government. Closing the offices would be nothing but a disservice to rural taxpayers, and it would leave some with rules as those who get doorstep service in the nation's cities.
Over-all, the chance that the postal service will escape its financial problems is bleak.
Last year alone, the federal government had to provide an additional $1 billion to keep the mail moving. Under the plans of the 1970 act, second-class users were given a "phasing-in" period—which was nine years after the attack—they could adjust to the act's higher rates.
THIS PHASING-IN period depended on Congress to appropriate funds each year to pay the difference. Former President Gerald Ford failed to include the phasing-in period in his last budget for this year; and so far, Bert Lance, director of the Office of Management and Budget, also has failed to do so.
What the postal service is recommending is more tax money to keep itself in operation. Based on its increasing financial difficulty over the last seven years, it would seem the service could do something better than that—abolishing the postal service as a whole, perhaps, and starting again from scratch.
Everyone knows the real truth about the downfall of Richard M. Nixon, 38th president of the United States.
Psychobiistories of little value
You see, Watergate, the cause of Dick's downfall, was a result of his boyhood sexual yearning for his mother. The forbidden Oedipal urge required punishments he has been ashamed himself by "arranging his own failures" and became his own executor."
The April 18 issues of Time and Newsweek both have articles on psychhistory and psychobiography, as their proponents call them. It is questionable whether the field suddenly became so important that its readers had to bring it in. I mention in the same week, but my guess is that there is a reasonable explanation for that occurrence.
There is no reasonable explanation, however, for the multisyllable junk that has started invading bookstore shelves under the placard "psychohistory" in the past few years. To think that psychohistory is a form of explaining a person's behavior and even predicting future behavior is ridiculous.
AND, MORE often than not, the authors of such "books" are wards of the state posing as university professors.
In the preceding analysis, psychoanalyst David Abrahamsen once again demonstrates that fields continue to be invented and books continue to be written that have shaped or redefining social, political, literary or scientific value.
THE FIELD is certainly worthy of study, and in fact, has been growing as a social science faculty at the KU, for example, a psychohistory course is offered in the American studies department.
To consider psychohistory as
anything more than a theory of social science is, I think, a serious mistake.
novel, "My Life on Alpha Centauri."
NO MATTER what Nixon has ever done or ever will do, we
My first brush with
Mazish draws on obscure details; his own creativity; and his book's touch. Creo to the most creatively scenic since Timothy Leary's
Brent Anderson Editorial Writer
psychohistory came in 1973, when I read "In Search of Nixon," written by M.I.T. historian Bruce Mazlish, considered by many in his field to be a leader in psychohistory.
can be certain that Mazill will can be able to explain it according to the wonders of psychohistory. Other works that might be categorized as psychohistorical include James Barber's "The Presidential Character"; a much more obvious example is the problem to explain the behavior of, in this case, past American presidents.
But generally, most attempts to explain individual behavior via the use of psychohistory have failed miserably. Usually books written under the label "psychohistory" deal with famous men whose names are popular in bookstores.
ALREADY, SEVERAL books explaining President Jimmy Carter's rise to power and his influence on the market, and there is little doubt that, considering the excellent publicity psychohistory and psychopharmacy have hundreds more will be published.
Before fall, we all will know the story of how John Jimmy Carter's mother abandoned him during the war. Billy's gas station, which
caused him to hate Plains and desire to live in Washington.
In many instances, the authors of psychobiographies have never even met their subjects. And, as the Newsweek article above may be tripped by their best friend, Sigmund Freud.
WHAT MIGHT happen is that they will be the victims of what Freud called "counter-transference" in his own unconscious prejudices onto historical data or people.
Though it mightn't be as popular as the Freud explanation, my guess is that the authors of psychohistory books are laughing all the way to the bank.
YOU BET VOTED
AGAINST ERA.
GOOD BUDDY!
IVE BEEN A STATE SENATOR
LONG ENOUGH TO KNOW, LIKE IT
OR NOT, THE LORD MADE IT A
MANS WORLD!
IT TAKES A MAN TO WAGE A WAR! IT TAKES A MAN TO THROW A FOOTBALL!
BESIDES, THERE'S A
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A
MAN AND A WOMAN! AMEN
TO THAT, EH, GOOD BUDDY??!
That the administration of this session of the Kansas legislature, and the legislature's issues, is not the issues of marijuana (no smoking) and liquor by the drink (no drinking), the thrill of having a state-sanctioned vice president has been denied once more.
Kansas as "the conscience of the nation," serving as one of the last models of deference in the history of decaying society. His fight
Liquor battle still going
The Rev. Richard Taylor Jr., leader of the Kansas United Dry Forces has reason to rejoice once more for a job annoyingly well done. Every bill containing alcoholic spirits introduced during this legislative session was killed.
It has been said that Taylor is out to make and maintain
SO TAYLOR has once more managed to consign the free flow of drinks to "private" clubs. They do serve drinks on demand (supposedly to members only), but are not the saloons that Taylor absores to them. There is something else altogether.
of other Midwestern states having the lowest rates of alcohol abuse in the nation. The number of alcohol abuse the number of alcohol abuse
programs they offer, which makes them eligible for more federal funds to combat the addiction.
against alcoholic consumption has been noble, if nothing else. But Taylor apparently has been slipped in his fight to stop the intoxicated flow of liquor in the state and the state the festetual leader
Paul Jefferson
Editorial Writer
TAYLOR SAYS he ignores reports by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) that say restrictive liquor laws confining private clubs have no definitive effect on the amount of alcohol consumed in the state.
States with the lowest number of rehabilitation programs, or the soberest states in the Union, are Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. The Midwest would seem to provide some insulation against the flooding that would cover overindulge, Kansas' absence in the upper echelons of the soberest states seems, in light of Taylor's actions in recent years, inexplicable.
IT COULD BE that Taylor has only increased the interest in social drinking by his adamant stand against alcohol as a recreational drug. The "forbidden fruit" atmosphere has been known to increase interest. Also, Taylor's parental pressure against drinking have turned people off to the point that many oppose him for personal rather than ideological reasons.
Kansas still is a far cry from ranking among the top states for alcoholic consumption. The "drunkest" states are, accordingly, Washington, Hawaii, California, Washington and the District of Columbia.
Economic pressures probably will dictate that Kansans will have liquor by the drink by the Rev. Taylor has been right in trying to protect us from being seen as the "evils of alcohol."
Drug ban freedom issue
WASHINGTON—More than a year has passed since I last reported on the Great Apricot Kernel Gang. It's time for an update. There's good news and bad news.
The good news is that the federal courts increasingly are getting to the heart of the issue. Drug Administration and Drug Administration continues to exhibit an obstiny embedded in steel and concrete. Meanwhile, the gang from several state legislatures.
For those who came in late, the great Apricot Kernel Gang is composed of several thousand men and women, including quite a few certified doctors of medicine, who cling to the medical system in some therapeutic value for cancer patients in a substance identified as amygdalin. Chemically speaking,
amygdalin is a member of the class of substances known as cyanogenetic glycosides. Amygdalin occurs widely in nature, but can be extracted most readily from apricot kernels, peach pits and bitter apples. A purified and purified form, amygdalin is marketed under the trade name of Laetrile.
BUT IT IS not marketed
James J. Kilpatrick
c) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
legally in the United States. It can be obtained in a dozen other countries, notably Mexico, but the FDA regards LaTeule as an unlawful drug and the Bureau of Customs regards it as contraband. In the FDA's view, the drugs are harmless, which it may well be, though the testimonial evidence is getting to be impressive.
Our government's position is unbelievably pompous, dictatorial and holy-to-tya. Imagine, if you will, a patient who fails victim to cancer. The doctor receives the treatment recommended by the medical establishment: radical surgery, radium therapy, chemo-therapy. Nothing works. His patient is dying. His body is riddled with cancer. In desperation he says, "I have heard of other cancer victims in my village, and sometimes remission, from Laetrile. Please, may I now try that?"
OUR GOVERNMENT's response, to put the matter plainly, is precisely: Go to hell. Die! We say Laatrie is worthless, therefore you can't have it, and we will prosecute any doctor or supplier who tries to make it available to you.
This is the government's stuffy rationalization, from the Federal Register of Feb. 18: "The availability and use of drugs demonstrated to have objective value make no contribution to cancer management. Such use can, in fact, interfere with the measures that are known to promote appropriate diagnosis and prompt effective treatment are delayed. The consequence of delay may be needless and unintentional this reason, Commissioner opinion that a drug intended for use in cancer which lacks
scientific evidence of effectiveness cannot be regarded as safe."
U. S. DISTRICT Judge Luther Bohan, in Oklahoma City, has fatally rejected this specious reasoning. He has ordered Laetrile made available to petitioning patients. Judge Bohan has company. On April 7, Federal Judge Mark Conklin was appointed in New York with "decidely" in favor of providing Laetrile for a 69-year-old retired carpenter, Joseph Rizzos, who is suffering from inoperable cancer of the pancreas.
the name of freedom of choice leave the government unmoved.
In response to such court orders, the FDA has scheduled a hearing for May 2 in Kansas City, but it is a stacked and rigged proceeding. The FDA's findings are resentful, sulky affirmation of its fixed position, Plainly, the FDA will not budge. Appeals in
STATE LEGISLATURES are demonstrating better sense. Indiana just the other day passed a bill defying the FDA's autocratic rule. Alaska adopted such an act last year. Efforts to legalize Louisiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Washington. The efforts may be futile, for the FDA's Commerce Clause may be supreme, but the movement has meaning all the same.
The gut issue here is freedom. By every rational indication anygdal is harmless. Members of the Apricot Kernel Gang eat it all the time. This being so, in the name of a free society, why can't a free people have it if they want it?
A]
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