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Fridav. April 14, 1978
University Daily Kansan
Comment
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Unaged editorial represent the opinion of the Kaman editorial staff. Stigned columns represent the views of only the writers.
The wrecking ball is finally coming to the Bowersock Mill area, future site of the new city hall.
After months of planning and anticipation, the city of Lawrence is ready to open bids for the demolition contract and spur the destruction of buildings that have been nothing but eyesores for years. It's about time.
time.
The Bowersock buildings should have been torn down long ago, with or without a city hall to replace them. At least the city found the excuse it apparently thought it needed to improve the appearance of the area directly northeast of the Sixth and Massachusetts intersection.
The demolition bids will be opened Tuesday, and the actual razing is expected to begin within a month. The first structure to go will be the old Closeout Carpet building. According to Mike Wilden, assistant city manager, the razing will start there because it is the specific site of the city hall.
ONCE THE Closeout area is cleared, construction can begin. Demolition contractors will work their way east, leveling the dilapidated buildings and towering elevators.
The people of Lawrence have reason to rejoice, or at least breathe a sigh of relief. The entire conglomeration of ancient and battered structures that stare downtown Lawrence directly in the face soon will be no more. By October the demolition should be completed, and the ugly corner will have a lower, cleaner profile.
The city hall is expected to be completed by December 1979.
What all this means is that the northern part of downtown Lawrence is about to undergo a drastic change. By 1980, it will have two new bridges over the Kansas River and a modern work of architecture.
THESE ARE long overdue changes for a part of Lawrence that has been the aesthetic armpit of an otherwise good-looking city.
The riverfront renovation is particularly urgent and necessary because a tremendous amount of traffic funnels by the Bowersock property and over the Kansas River bridge. It is a major focal point of the city.
To speed up construction of the new city hall, an unconventional method of construction management and supervision will be used. The method is unconventional because the architectural firm chosen last year to design the building will be given the added responsibility of supervising construction.
The architectural firm would be given a small additional fee for its extra duties, but in the long run the city would save money because a general contractor would not have to be hired. The state of Kansas, which has been plagued by shoddy construction practices, might profit from the efficiency the city at least promises to deliver.
The city has bungled certain of its redevelopment plans, most notably the unsuccessful Haskell Loop attempt. But the Bowersock redevelopment is on target. Soon the concrete monsters guarding the river will at last be gone.
If he is willing to part with a little time now and a little freedom later, surprisingly easy.
Columnist found eligible for dole
How easy is it for an ordinary college student to qualify for welfare payments?
I find myself applying for welfare. Why not? Graduation is little more than a month away, and I am still without a job. My income from editorial writing is $10,000. What can the state do for me?
To find out, I head over to Social and Rehabilitation Services of Dougain County. It is a building looking slightly bewildered in the midst of a slowly deteriorating floor in Lawrence.
The woman behind the counter is smiling and helpful as she asks me what program I want to apply for.
"I don't know," I reply
"Then you'd better have all of them: general assistance, medical and food stamps," she says. I end up with an 11-page form. I also am handed an interview schedule.
THE DOUGLAS County office employs more than 35 case workers, but only one worker interviews new applicants. This "intake" worker can handle only four persons a day. The case officer off at 8 a.m. and the first two line in at 1 p.m. are the lucky ones. I leave to out my form and recheck my resources.
Poring over the form, I find my task is easier than I thought it would be. I am single (no need for Aid to Dependent Children), young (no income from Social Security), Supplemental Security, Railroad Retirement, or black lung disease) and relatively possessionless.
The form asks whether I have owned trailers, livestock, campers or boats. I speed through it.
There are two pages at the end telling me I have the right to ask for welfare no matter how well off I am. They also tell me I had better not lie about how well off I am not.
John Mitchell Editorial writer
Again, several days later,
I show up at the office. I come in
at 7:40 to beat the 8 a.m.
line. I will be second in line.
The person ahead of me is ushered into the interview at 8:10. I settle back to wait, but, restless, I find myself storking up a conversation with the counter attendant.
WHY DO they only interview four persons a day? Even one worker should be able to handle more.
"There's always too much of it." She gestures at my 11-page form.
Not so, says the attendant "She has to do the paperwork." Is there a lot of it?
"That's the least of it, there."
"That's the least of it, there."
How many people are on some kind of assistance, whether it be in a hospital or General Assistance, medical coverage or food stamps?
She can't give me exact figures, but her hand points at her desk.
"See that drawer?" The drawer is about 18 inches wide. "Well, we have two of those drawers just filled with three knives," she is receiving assistance. "We'll have one on you, too."
These are current cases?
Yes, she says. "The ones who get off welfare, we send to the back room and let them take
some leaflets from the attendant. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I can get food stamps if my mother is employed. If I were married, my wife and I could make up to $344 together and get stamps. The figures indicate that many ever surprised at reports of college students' receiving stamps. Many full-time students have no jobs, putting them out below the eligibility level.
no leaflets do not mention all of the criteria used to determine who is eligible for cash payments, or "income maintenance," as they call it. But one leaflet does state that eligibility is based on two genera: "my incomes and my circumstances (potentially great, currently few) and my situation and circumstances (subject to change in less than two months)."
TIME DRAGS. 8:30 passes, then 8:45. I settle back with
Other people, people already on the rolls, come in for visits to case workers. The attendant must be there when them because her worker is late.
While waiting, the visitor tells me that she was originally from New York, and that "the people here in Kansas are so much more populous, can't be like the office in New York."
Thinking of the three-by-five cards, I agree—with an involuntary shudder.
Finally, at 9:40, it is my turn for the interview. I respond to questions about my background, telling my in-school life, live in a University scholarship hall and will be graduating next month. There are more forms, job availability forms. I find myself declaring my university program. The interviewer assures me that the state will try to find a job on campus.
"But we might not find anything in your area. Is that OK?"
THAT'S OK.
In less than 60 minutes, I am told that if I turn in several other forms, I get $185 a month. That's enough to pay scholarship hall room and board and leave some money for "personal needs." Also, the program is free of any program, I can get a welfare raise to $178 a month in addition to wages from the job.
With that, I am urged to keep in touch,and dismissed.
I had expected a tougher time of it. I am young, healthy and able-bodied. There is really no problem. I support me after I leave school.
No one can say there are too many people on the welfare rolls without examining the files carefully. But if the welfare workers accept people who are able to work, and if
they subdue them in addition to keeping them busy on jobs, that is going too far. If more money is needed, come through the jobs themselves, and limit "income" at the same time as times of unemployment.
THE WELFARE system is criticized for many supposed faults. The faults are not with the people who administer it—at least not in Douglas County—but with the people who set it up. A payment of $165 a month is a pittance, but multiplied by the number of people you can become a large expense, especially if it is paid unnecessarily to people who already are receiving wages.
on me, I don't want to burden the system with another child. I'll just send. I will have my three-by-five card put where many other probably should be—in the people in the back room.
Rabin protest sparks flood of comments
-KANSAN-
To the editor:
We are neither Jews nor Arabs. We went as interested persons to the Vickers Lecture on April 6 at Hoch Auditorium to hear former Prime Minister Klaus Schwab in the lecture series, as described in the program distributed at the door, was established to enable the University to bring to the campus prominent citizens "to debate or discuss subjects vital to our society and be political and market society."
Letters
The event became a travesty of its declared purpose and of the right to speak and listen. Rabin was interrupted during an organized shouting, chanting, stamping and processes around the auditorium, staged by claques of his political opponents. The result paradoxical. The result may be tolerated in a nursery school.
Because of the mob hooliganism of Palestinian sympathizers (mostly Middle Eastern foreign students), there occurred a flagrant abuse of the speaker to speak and a listener to hear. Those who disturb audiences are ordinarily warned to be quiet, or asked to leave, or forcibly removed, depending upon the persistence of interruption. The same policy governs spectators at sporting events, with the exception of technical fouls being awarded, or, in extreme cases, forfeiture of victory.
The University Events Committee is to be uphold for permitting peaceful demonstrations outside buildings. This is licit in a democracy, but it is not appropriate for presenting all points of view. This is an important function of a university. But when an interest group attempts to deny the rights of an audience to see and hear a program, the university, not to mention that of a democracy.
It seems strange that the University abdicated its responsibility to the audience; strange to make an intervention of the Vickers family as quoted above; strange to offer an invited speaker such gross discourtesy; strange to give a serious presence may simply have been a thoughtless and rather stupid error, as University administrators had ample prior knowledge that disturbances were likely to give rise to a given give rise, also, to a suspicion that anti-Semitism prevailed once again and that officials permitted this revolting display of injustice
through inaction. (Shades of the days of the British Mandate in Palestine!) If 150 or so lawmen can be summoned to conduct a drug raid in this city, as has happened, then certify enough police aid could be obtained to keep order at Hoch
Walter D. Braun
Elizabeth V. Braun
1116 Indiana
considering the identity of the demonstrators, let not the much-bandied term "intransigent" hereafter be applied so consistently to the Israelis.
By the surrender of its responsibility, the University of Kansas deprived an audience from hearing a program, dishonored a speaker and allowed a hoodwink minority to prevalve while insufficient police personnel stood by helplessly.
Regard issues behind protests
Regarding Tuesday's edition, it is disturbing that the basic issue of the protesters was never gratefully acknowledged, seemed deeply concerned about the jeopardy that the First Amendment was in, no one bothered to search for the real cause of the protesters' acts of violence for violating such a highly esteemed American value, then we should wholeheartedly support an equally esteemed American ideology, self-confirmation of a Palestinian state.
I do not support the protesters' tactics. As a person raised in the United States, I find their actions unpolite and unfair. However, I do consider them responsible and deserve behind them. When emotions run as high as they did during Rabin's visit, it leads me to believe that there is some possibility of political allegations. Arab and Iranian students who participated in the demonstration have exposure to the Palestinian-Irakiie conflict, whereas most American students have none. Their opinions should not be taken.
contains such partisan language that I was almost convinced it was satire. If the backbone of journalism is objectivity, shouldn't the cause be objectively reported? A fictitious fact be reported objectively, rather than verbally abusing Palestinian protesters?
The content of the Kansan letters almost indicates a purported attempt at annihilating the attacker with the letter Each letter attacks the behavior of the protesters. One such letter
Michael Bernard
Michael Bernard Creve Coeur, Mo., junior
Mideast issues misunderstood
To the editor:
I should like to reply to the letters of Professor Clifford Ketzel and others in the Kansan. The only reason I can see for interpreting the hecklers' action as being harmful is that the students need to be political sophistication needed to understand the two sides of the Midest question. Most of these people seem too young to remember that when I was drafted for the Vietnam War, along with others of my peers, I would have been making pleas for rational discourse. I assumed that they lacked the courage to take a stand. It is difficult to refrain from "emotional and disruptive tactics" when one is so close to losing one's life for it.
May I remind these students that the people who werehecking the pro-PLO with me noon had no permit to assem-
One, not sure they need one, the hecklers in both cases had a right to speak out or shout out. The reasoning of some of the letters to the editor defies credibility. To the editorial, I reply that the rights of the hecklers did not end when they "began to infringe on the rights of the 1,000 people"—we did not end when they did. Heckling is legal, if impolite, and it has a long, if somewhat checkeded, history in the United States.
Finally, to those of you who think, as the person who wrote the editorial should be taken more action, I should like to remind you that Richard Nixon left office prematurely because of his misuse of power. In the same issue of the Kansan, I read that a former FBI director was indicted for his use of tactics. Obviously, all of this means little to the students of this campus in their secure, smug little world.
Iranians ignore speech freedom
Roger Bradshaw Lawrence senior
It is great hypocrisy that those Iranian students who for years have protested the lack of civil rights in their own country should as students in Kansas attempt to interfere with freedom of speech in the workplace to prevent Rabin from speaking. I do not refer to the demonstrations outside that had been
To the editor :
authorized, but to those who came inside the auditorium in an attempt to drown out the speaker's voice. Apparently freedom of speech is one civil liberty that some Iranians do not respect. Those who participated in a protest against us gave a good idea what a society run by them would be like.
Des grindereng Brooklyn graduate student Speech freedom a vague ideal
To the editor:
1, too, was appalled,
disgusted and dismayed by the festivities that went on in Hoch Auditorium. But I believe my voice might be a little different from that of most of the commentators.
Free speech, like most human ideals, is believed in religiously, with little or no thought of what it means. What "free speech" really means in our society is the chance that people want to hear. No doubt, this is the point with which people will disagree. A cursory examination of American history should prove my point to anyone who is willing to think about it. The Kansan's claim of '187 for First Amendment' implying that of truly free speech is, to put it mildly, bullish.
Undeniably, the dissident students hurt their cause—but this, let me emphasize again, was not entirely their fault. Amid a predominantly Jewish audience and a police atmosphere, as well as Rabin's practiced abilities to be wishy-washy on critical matters, there was little realistic chance of the opposing viewpoint being heard. The question-and-answer made sense into a joine by Mr. Rubin and Chancelor Dykes. This is very fortunate, because the dissidents have a valid cause.
"SO VANESSA REDGRAVE WON THE SCARA! WHY DO YOU GET SO UPSET MENAGHER?"
Freedom of speech is a nebulous absolute of American thought. Although I hate being an iconoclast, human dignity at times demands that we attack him. It has been misunderstood, let me state that I abhorred the disruption of Rabin as much as I abhorned anything. Yet the vittorian communication upon the Arab dissidents are clearly undeserved. Racism exists on both sides, and that is the real problem. I think that almost everyone I meet deserves to be deeply ashamed of his conduct.
Bernard Johnston Wichita senior
Protests violate listeners' rights To the educla.
The action of those protesting former Prime Minister Rabin's speech has destroyed any sympathy that the protesters might have gained with Lawrence residents. We realize the political power of the opposition for a Palestinian state on the West Bank. We also support the rights of Arab student associations to make their views known through peaceful protest. However, Rabin's speech was a disturbing abuse of those rights.
The purpose of their disruptions was not to make their views known, but to prevent his views from being heard. We are sure that these protesters are aware about the abuse of their rights to free speech, yet their irresponsible actions violated the right of everyone in Hoch Aulertudium to hear Rabin. These well-planned disruptions angered the majority of the students to the demonstrators' credibility as representatives of the Palestinian interests. A humane settlement in the Middle East will be achieved through a free dialogue of ideas, and will be fulfilled by refusal to listen displayed by the Arab students.
Their actions did nothing for the Palestinian cause or for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. They succeeded
Dave Merritt
Dave Merritt
Wichita freshman
Byron Rob
Omaha, Neb., sophomore
Israel to blame for stalled talks
only in violating the rights of and outraging the vast majority of those present.
To the editor:
Israel is costing the United States big backs, and I see no reason to continue support of a country that refuses to cooperate (including the United States), that has broken an arms agreement with us by using cluster bombs and bombs civilians with napalm, a fire-type blast that was the cause of in Vietnam.
Reading the letters in the Kansas recently, I found it interesting that not one letter focused on the real issues in the war. I was interested in the behavior of a handful of unruly demonstrators. I, too, took exception to the methods used by the demonstrators and decided not to participate in this reason. However, this does not change my opinion that Israel continues to expand its borders with the use of U.S. weapons and fails to take action in settlements in illegally occupied lands. The Isrealis are refusing to negotiate in good faith (for example, making even one concession) with the Palestinians. In response to the Palestinians (who isn't these days)? What Rabin had to say was nothing new, so why should anyone bother to listen? He appeared to listen to them, and if he does, it apparently never heard.
w
Israel continues to flaunt the
religious issue to cover up the real issue, which is a political one. Blood is red no matter who it comes from, and the only way to stop all the killing is for Israel to come to terms with ISIS if it takes financial pressure from the United States, I'm for it.
Unfortunately, the anti-Rabin demonstrators around KU have maybe cost the Palestinians some support. They should accept the issues and not go around shouting rhetoric at everyone. Still, I can't help but wonder what would happen if the Nazi jumped up on the tables. Suddenly the tables might turn? At least I'd be out there, and I doubt it would be to listen.
Nicholas Sharp
Lawrence junior
To the editor:
PLO protests childish display
Whoever is the tactician for the Palestinian supporters must be foolish indeed to think that knee-jerk slogueering and denial of another person's free speech would bring supporters to him learned, since the Nuremberg rallies, that a mob-like display of passion is not evidence of righteousness. A reasonable person must regard fanaticism as one thing only—over compensation for doubt; left the auditorium; or made it motivating the protestors in their childish display.
I was impressed by Rabin and the forbearance of the audience in the face of tiresome shouting from PLO-supporters
Ace Allen Topeka special student
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