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Thursday, July 27, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unagged editorial represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Stigned columns represent the views of only the writers
City hall needed
Lawrence needs its own city hall.
Lawrence needs its own city hall. The city staff now occupies crowded quarters on the third and fourth floors of the First National Bank Building at Ninth and Massachusetts streets. Steadily increasing space demands have forced many of the staff to double up in offices designed for single occupancy. An office for the city manager's assistant had to be fashioned by partitioning off a corner of the reception area.
ing on a corner. The proposed city hall at Sixth and Massachusetts streets would almost double available space for local government offices. Financing for the project will come from funds already available and revenue bonds to be paid off by federal revenue sharing money as it becomes available. There is no local tax money involved.
THE CITY will soon outgrow its office space in the current location in the First National Building. City Manager Buford Watson has said that if the city is thwarted in its attempts to acquire more spacious quarters, it will have to rent additional office space elsewhere—an unneeded expense and an inconvenience to users of city officers.
Users of City Arguments against the project are that local government already is too big, that the money should be spent for people programs and that the City Commission circumvented the public in making its decision by using a Public Building Commission to finance the project.
Municipal government can grow no faster than the city itself. In fact, it usually lags somewhat behind. In a recent study, Lawrence was listed as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.
An argument can be made that the new city hall, in providing a link between downtown and the river and eliminating the eyesore of the old Bowersock Mill site, is as much a people project as are band concerts in the city park.
THE CITY COMMISSION, although a little quick to criticize opponents of the city hall plan, has conducted all its deliberations or the project openly and has solicited public opinion on several occasions. The city's use of a Public Building Commission to finance the project was the result of a desire to speed implementation of the project while keeping costs at a minimum.
If the referendum question is voted down Tuesday, it could very well mean that Lawrence will lose an opportunity to acquire a city hall, which because of political considerations might not come again for several years.
The antigovernment spending fever generated by California's Proposition 13 should not be allowed to stop a project that could not only spark revitalization of the downtown area but also could provide a source of civic pride for years to come.
Lessons of Vietnam war lost
To my 15-year-old brother, the Vietnam War, the war I grew up with, is ancient history.
Although we are only 7 years apart, we are a generation apart that dominated my life and spawned my political values.
He remembers the war, he says, only because of the way in which it affected our family. He remembers the evenings we spent watching the news, in silence, sometimes in teams where we were reported and the latest developments detailed.
In 1968, he was 6 years old—too young to read the newspapers and too young to
INSTEAD, he recalls his fear that, somehow, the war would creep into his neigh-
understand. At 15, Kent State meant nothing to him.
Kerry Barsotti
Editorial Writer
Editorial Writer
borhood. He remembers that, at 6, he was afraid to play Army with the neighborhood children for fear the government would seize him as a future soldier and be, too, would become a casualty figure on the evening news.
I, at 15, had lost my political virginity. Two years earlier, the junior high school I was at attended a memorial service in 1989 moribrium by canceling classes for the day to listen to a series of speakers discussing the war. We wrote letters to our loved ones, and we saw the color photographs of the My Lai victims in Life magazine. We were aware of the impact the war had on the ground us and later, on ourselves.
My brother is still politically virgin. His disgust for politics comes from missing the parade of hippies, riot squads and veterans marching across the front pages of the newspapers.
His political concern are those that affect him directly—the decriminalization of marijuana and liquor laws.
WHEN I WAS 15, being politically aware was fashionable. In high school, we discussed the presidential campaign, the defense budget and unconditional amnesty. Those who couldn't hold their such discussions were shunned.
Now, at the dawn of his adolescence, my brother is growing up in a generation that does not have an umpiring political position against one force as they were seven years ago. My brother
and his peers are as carefree as teen-agers were in the 1950s. Their chief concerns are in setting jobs, cars and dates.
I can't tell my brother what it was like to be on a college campus in the early 1970s, nor can I tell him what it was like to read about the deaths of thousands of persons every day.
Being a part of the Vietnam era is something he missed and will only read about in the detached tone of history books. Although it was a turbulent time, my generation will live through it and may prevent another Vietnam war but lessons that won't be easily taught to those who did not live through that era.
Vietnam moves to unify economy
By ROBERTS. BROWNE
An American who returns to Vietnam in 1978 finds his excitement tinged with apprehension. What changes will have been wrought in the three years since the United States' expulsion? What is the nature of the new Vietnam?
Perhaps the most noticeable changes that have taken place in Saigon—now named Ho Chi Minh City—are the marked reduction in the police and military personnel that had been a standard fixture of the city since the late 1960s and the disappearance of the hundreds of shops and street merchants.
ALTHOUGH THE government readily admits that many people have not yet embraced its philosophy, it is quite evident that the failure of resistance exists is not viewed as a serious threat. The "re-
education centers" through which several hundred thousand persons have passed during the past three years, are now reportedly phased out—and with little evidence of the brutality and bloodletting that had been so widely predicted.
WE ARRIVED in Vietnam at a particularly propitious moment to observe economic changes and just taken steps to bring the freewheeling, consumer-oriented economy of the South into some equilibrium with the developing controlled economy of the North.
Two decades of U.S. aid had accustomed South Vietnam to a degree of luxury in its economy and culture, which helped to sustain. Its abrupt termination of the U.S. subsidy had dealt the southern economy with severe stress under the indirect disruption of rice production, plus a current
drought, had brought extensive hardships to the southerners.
We did not see starvation.
Instead, we saw government-
operated shops, rationing of
communal goods deemed
inappropriate and price-limited.
UNTIL RECENTLY, the free market had been allowed to operate alongside the controlled market. Private trading had survived much as before. In 1950s and 1960s, apparently fed as much by boarding and speculation as by free-market forces.
When we arrived, Vietnam was still absorbing the effects of the actions the government had taken to bring the South's economy under control. On March 23, a "national day" was begun and on May 6 a new currency was issued.
Vast hordes of rice and other food supplies, as well as consumer goods, were discovered.
The government effectively confiscated such goods, paying the owners at the state-suggested price but obliging them to place the proceeds on deposit in the national bank.
The combined effect of those two actions was to break the inflation, put the spending power of the people on a fairly equalitarian basis, mobilize the country's savings for the purpose of economic development and improve access and replace the private marketplace with a state-controlled system.
will require some time yet before the economies of the two areas will be fully in equilibrium with one another.
Thus, the basic for the economic unification of Vietnam was at last achieved, although it was apparent that it
BECAUSE THE Chinese were disproportionately involved in commerce in Vietnam, many were economically squeezed in this process, giving rise to a new wave of refugees and to cries of discrimination from both Peking and Taiwan.
There appears to be little justification for such charges, however. An explanation of Peking's recent spate of provocative verbal attacks on Vietnam clearly lies elsewhere than in its concern for Vietnam's Chinese capitalists.
CSHE's past lobbying efforts not that effective
To the editor:
-KANSAN-
A few comments are in order concerning your sceptical remarks about the wisdom of Mike Harper's perspective, which allow KU membership in the Associated Students of Kansas at a bargain rate ("Approach ASKwarly," July 20, 1978). Central to the argument you make is that you join ASK is the assumption that we already have an effective lobbying group in the Concerned Students for Higher Education. You ask, we request an effective lobbying group,吗 join another? But perhaps a better service could have been provided KU students by their newspaper if they had taken up the responsibility really do have an effective lobbying group in CSHE.
Letters
Last fail the Student Senate chose three issues on which it would work to influence the Kansas Legislature in their spring debate. Wilson Library, state funding for women's athletics and a fee waiver for graduate assistants. The Senate chose these issues of CSHE, which was then given the responsibility for carrying out the lobbying effort. Of these three issues legislative approval was given for full funding only at Wilson Library. As students will discover when they return to
campus in August, despite the insistence of the Student Senate that we would not bear the cost of the women's athletic program any longer, an act that was never terminally specified for this purpose. As for the fee waiver for graduate assistants, only 60 percent of what the Regents requested for this program was funded, only for teaching assistants and assistant instructors and not for research assistants as was originally hoped. Just considering them, to accomplish last spring and what was actually achieved, it is somewhat questionable how really effective the group's efforts were. Yet even more significant, it is clear that the efforts of CSHE in even these partial successes.
Clearly CSHE can be given little credit in the area of securing funding for women's athletics--for students will still be bearing the heaviest burden for these programs and what additional money the university must provide, probably had a great deal more to do with the existence of Title IX than with CSHE. Moreover, most reasonable observers probably would agree that the
efforts of the women involved in the athletic program themselves and the strong stand by the Student Senate—not any efforts on the part of CSHE. There was at least raising this issue. Admittedly, CSHE leaders had attempt to disdause the mailing of a mass form letter to legislators halway through the year. Very rarely by our patrons in Topeka. But even at that time KU administrators were saying that the legislators had been so scorned with mad on that side that they didn't even want to talk about it.
Then what about the renovation of Watson Library? Perhaps CSHE deserves some credit here? Perhaps so—and Ed Bighs, in particular, will provide efforts to provide information and encourage students to write letters at several CSHE meetings. However, all things considered, it is Chancellor Archae Dale who administers the administration who really deserve most of the credit for securing funds for this project. After all, it was the first priority item by the KU administration for legislative funding per year.
Finally, how crucial was the
CSHE role in procuring funds for a graduated fee waiver for graduate assistants with instructional responsibilities at KU? Should CSHE deserve the credit here, or should it go to Teddie Tasheff, Steve Schwartz and of the Graduate Student Council Executive Committee who spent years in getting this proposal before the Regents Coordinating Council—not to mention the faculty and administration who spent hours of committee work compiling information as to the need for graduate assistant fee waivers at KU? CSHE, to my recollection, played a vital role inining the very crucial recommendation given by Gov. Robert F. Bennett on this issue. The credit should go, instead, to the efforts of Steve Leben, Lynn Reitz, Dr. Jeffrey Coordinator of the Graduate Student Council, the KU administration and the fortuitous circumstances of an upcoming election year. When, in fact, chances for the approval of the fee waiver were March, CSHE members were instrumental in contacting some members of the Legislature—and Mike Harper deserves much of the credit for initiating these contacts. Yet CSHE members had short of information about the fee waiver proposal with which to provide legislators and had to
come to the Graduate Student Council office for information that had been available for months. Moreover, CSHE concentrated its contacts in the Senate Ways and Means Committee upon Suze Paul Hess, R-Wichita, whose level of concern for the salaries given student employees at Kansas universities was aptly indicated by the sharp, public reprimand he gave John Command, the Representative for education, a committee session for raising student hourly wages in accordance with the federal minimum wage law without the previous approval of the legislature. It was, as a matter of course, the deliberate D-Lawrence, and certainly not CSHE's favored Paul Hess, who offered the necessary committee compromise to secure funding for this program at 60 percent of the request rather than matter of fact, former ASK director Deb Harrison, and not CSHE, who was able to provide myself and members of GradEx with the information we need to keep track of this issue. With Legacy, I said, it was probably the last-minute efforts by the KU administration in support of this program that really made the crucial difference. Not only on this issue, but on all the issues, because responsibility by the Student Senate last year, CSHE's efforts hardly proved crucial.
The business of dealing with a state Legislature is not a matter to be left for a few students with spare time to devote to a serious undertaking that requires the professional efforts of a full-time lobbying staff. Whether ASK has resulted in a change, or might say might still be a matter for the Student Senate to consider in September, but the argument that we don't need to join ASK as an effective lobbying group is entirely indefensible.
For all these reasons I think that Mike Harper deserves your support and not your criticism on this issue and is to be commended for the efforts that he has recently made to secure provisional membership for KU in ASK.
KJHK studios plagued by heat To the editor:
Mark Mikkeisen Lawrence graduate student
In response to the story on air conditioning in the July 18
Kansas, I would love to invite the reporter, Tom Zind, to spend a week at Sutter Amnesia Mesa Studios. Since the summer heat has set in, our air conditioning has broken down an average of every other day. The unit that is often totally inadequate. It shuts itself off continually. This is not only an inconvenience for those of us who spend several hours a week in a ridiculous waste of energy.
During the day, the temperatures will rise to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, while the Facilities Operations team is busy preparing them promptly, they inform us that the unit is fixed only temporarily and that a repairman will be out the next day. The repairman, however, never agrees to permanently fix the unit.
If the unit were permanently fixed, it would not only make the working conditions of this laboratory more pleasant, but it would also increase the eyeses of Facilities Operations four weeks weekly to our station.
Rick Wrigley Station manager KJHK-FM
Friends' death grieves student
Editor's note:
Susan Mundinger, 22, Shawnee Mission senior, and Kathryn Dawson, 25, Lawrence senior, and Jennifer, an accident victim lawrence July 17.
Ode to Kathy S. Dawson
and Susan T. Muminger.
There are many times in our lives that test our faith and cause to doubt. The tragic fate of our friends, Kathy and Susan, but we must not lose faith. We must believe that it was meant to be. There are many questions why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why Kathy and Susan? Who so tragic? Our never-failing faith will help us answer these at least within ourselves. I knew them such a short time, yet still grew to enjoy their friendship. Many people will feel a great loss because of this tragedy, but faith will tell us that they are both with their savior, and still together
in death
as they were in life.
Being in physical education,
it's hard to go to class,
and not see you in the locker room
in the halls.
It's hard to enter the racquetball court
with a new opponent.
We must remember
that good life and we are happy.
Our friends have departed.
We have given them
one last expression of friendship and love,
a softball, or a poem,
such a small token
that we can communicate with
what they gave to us,
their friendship and love.
It's difficult to know
what to say or do
at times like these.
We witness the services,
shelters res给 grief,
and still relax
the friendship we shared
with them.
Our faith is once again restored, for we
can rest assured
that they will together
and that their souls
have spoken to the angels.
Goodbye, dear friends,
please, rest in peace,
and know that you are loved
Nancy Hopkins Lawrence graduate student
To the editor:
Illogical bylaws rule FO, others
As a person who has worked for the University as seasonal help for the past couple of years, I'd like to provide advice. The new students seeking to work for the University. The following are informal and "unwritten" bylaws and taken from one or more sources, and are applicable to all working positions at the University.
University of Kansas Facilities Operations Department rules of etiquette and conduct:
- Never send two people to do a one-man job when you can send 10.
- Always do a job right the first time so that when you have to do it again you will have had practice.
- Don't think.
- practice
· When in doubt, take a break and think about it.
- Don Clark.
* Goofing off isn't everything; it's the only thing.
- If it seems right, it is wrong.
- If you don't know what something is, paint it blue and it will fit somewhere.
Wrong.
• Only four-letter words
spoken here. (Remember: practice makes perfect.)
- Always pass the buck. The administration has broad shoulders; it's good for the staff, but it won't assume responsibility.
- Logic has no place in anything in whatever we are involved.
To the editor:
O. J. Anderson 4-15 Stouffer Palce
I would like to respond to Sarah lies' July 19 release, Kansan of the Theatre production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. After seeing the x23 performance, I wrote a book with most of the pointless lies makes.
Life's pleasures unappreciated
In Iles' opinion, the play is too mundane or ordinary to be of interest to the Lawrence viewer. It is a small-down life. None of the events of the play seem unusual to Iles, and they do not gain remarkableness "ight feet up" in her eyes. They found her eyes and mind wandering of intrigue or scenery, and the only lines she seems to stare at are "hour and "help our母养 chord the wood."
Because I come from a community of 800, Lawrence hardly seems to me the epitome of small-town beauty. Also, did the reviewer ever stop to consider that Wilder's point may have been how we take for granted the ordering of objects with the same woman?" I also wonder how Iles could have found eyes or mind wandering in the face of Charles Oldfath's rich voice and humor. The author contributed by Amanda Sarick's performance.
As for Ies' report that nothing unusual takes place in the country, Ies's third act was given to dialogue among the corpse in the local cemetery—hardly what one considers to be an everyday event.
I was somewhat relieved by the play—to see people who were not having nervous breakdowns, illegitimate children, affairs or the other things that seem to characterize today's society. I would advise lies to see the play again, because it is moreensive; attitude may be more effective; she will appreciate some of the contributions of the people in our town.
Max Frazier Quinter senior