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Friday, February 17, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unsigned editorial represent the opinion of the Kanan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
Legis 50 ideas poor
A non-profit Denver-based legislature analysis group, Legis 50, recommended this week that Kansas legislators' salaries be almost doubled and that the Legislature adopt a split session to replace its traditional three-month session.
A superficial case probably can be made for both suggestions, which presumably were designed to improve legislative efficiency. But neither suggestion merits more than a cursory glance from legislators, who whose interests are closely related to the restructure their internal organization and catapult themselves into a higher tax bracket.
The salary recommendation should be immediately discarded. This is, after all, an election year. Taxpayers are weary enough as it is of their heavy tax burden, which is coupled with a ballooning surplus in the state treasury.
same treasury.
REP. WENDELL Lady, R-Overland Park, succinctly dismissed the pay increase scheme.
sure that "the salary increase is incidental," Lady said Wednesday. He added that although some legislators thought they were underpaid, the salary issue would have to be shelved until another year. The management of time, a scarce commodity in Topeka, appears to be the more reasonable Legis 50 concern.
A blizzard of bills annually inundates the legislative calendar. Many of the bills are not only redundant but also whimsical and capricious.
Rather than give themselves more time by means of a split session, legislators might well concentrate on the truly pressing issues that confront the state. A Hutchinson legislator recently introduced a bill that would prohibit managers of the Sunflower
State Exposition, held in Topela, from using the word "state" in the exposition title. He apparently was overwrought about the confusion that Kansans might encounter if the exposition and the Kansas State Fair, held in Hutchinson, both shared the word "state." Such petty parochialism has no place at the Capitol.
CHANGING TO a split session would hamper, rather than improve, the quality of legislative decision-making. Most legislators are part-time lawyers, ranchers, farmers, professionals and businessmen. They have accustomed their team to seasonal demands of marketing and their demands of management. For farmers, it should be nearly impossible to serve in the Legislature, given the fact that they must begin their planting at specific times.
The Legislature simply must streamline its workload and cut down on superfluous squandering of time. The Denver group ranked Kansas as having one of the most improved state legislatures in the nation during the last decade, an encouraging opinion. But it still is baffling why legislators frettered away their valuable hours last month debating the merits of a resolution to commend Anita Bryant.
Resolution 102 suggests that Kansas lawmakers vote themselves a hefty raise should be placed on the back burner, to be thoroughly burnt. Similarly, splitting the session would be detrimental at a time when the Legislature is seemingly improving in comparison to other legislatures.
The Denver group's judgment about the progress of the Legislature is heartening. But it is highly paradoxical, as well as disturbing, that Legis 50 has proposed steps that would dissolve the recent gains it has reported.
Douglas County's system of counting noses has become a pain in the neck for its tax-payers.
Annual county census wasteful
Because the county takes an annual census, according to Edward Flentje, state director of planning and research, it lost more than one-third of other Kansas counties, he says, even larger amounts.
State law requires all counties to make an annual census and forward the information to the state board of agriculture. The board companies and are then used to determine how much money the counties get from the state.
Counties get shared revenue from state cigarette taxes, sales taxes and liquor enforcement taxes, among others. The amount of each county's population figures. And there, Flenje says, is where Douglas County not beklud.
Last week Flintie's office released figures indicating that Douglas County would have received more than $36,000 in additional state money if it had used the federal population estimates. The office also stated that Douglas County apparently had take the census. Thus, the total loss—the reduction in state aid and the manpower expense—came to about $45,000.
THE FEDERAL Bureau of the Census makes a population estimate for Kansas, as well as for other states. Comparing the federal figures with the state's, Florence said the majority of residents would have recoded more money using the federal estimates.
On the other hand, Flentje said, it would cost only $5,000 a year to prepare the federal census estimates for Kansas.
In an interview Tuesday,
Flenje said, "The state census was instituted in 1859. By now, it's become something of a joke to say that the state has have a state census.
FLENTJE SAID the individual counties conducted their own counts with their own methods. The methods differed, were sloppy and often inaccurate.
"There are no clear standards across the state," he said. Flentje proposes that the state census be abolished. A bill to do just that is before the Senate Governmental Organization Committee to transfer the responsibility for providing annual population figures to Flentje's office.
The state census, however,
has its defenders. One of the
staunchest is Willard Stockwell,
chief of the advanced planning
section for Sedgwick County's
planning department. Staten-
landie's statement that the counties are losing state money.
"That may be true for a given year, for the year in which he compiled the figures," he said Wednesday. "But (the state census) is gaining some counties some money, too."
STOCKWELL questioned the accuracy of the federal estimates, saying that they probably were debatable.
"I've had to obtain those estimates in the past," he said. "We have always doubled their veracity." Stockwell thinks it counts, "actually enumerate in some way" the residents.
census system needs some work. Stockwell wants a state agency to assist the counties in getting happiness that sometimes occurs.
According to Stockwell, the census is probably very accurate in rural counties. But in some of the urban areas—"like Douglas County or his own Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita"—they take the census just because they have to "go."
Stockwell also disputes the contention that counties would save money by not having to do more than they could might be true for the cities, but “the rural county would have no reduction in personnel at all.” (The census) is a normal part of property appraising system.
He thinks, however, that the
The federal population figures are not guaranteed to be
higher than state figures. There is no promise that Douglas County would receive more, not less, money from the census were abolished. Indeed, some counties would have received considerably less last year if they had used the census estimates. That is not the issue.
ONE EXPENSE that Kansas counties would now have to pay next year, or any year after that, is taking a public census. Regardless of the guessing game of how much more the feds can be taken for, the real dollars are still the dollars a year can do no harm.
The main opponent of the move to abolish the census is inertia. A 119-year-old practice tends to be repeated almost without thought. The oak of the county appraiser's 'offices also
are being gored, especially the ones that mean large salaries to county officers. These employees can be used, though, along with the money freed by the census' abolition, to help in the appraisal effort or to co-ordinate on other areas of planning.
one federal government makes a complete enumeration every 10 years. Soon, according to Flintje, it will make one million more people who no sense to continue duplicating the efforts of Washington.
U.S. blind to rights
To the editor:
KANSAN Letters
There are some actions going on locally, prompted by events of international importance, that once again must lead us to action. The advance of President Jimmy Carter's "campaign" for human rights around the world. On Feb. 9, in Kansas City, more than 300 Americans marched to protest the harshness of the Shah's U.S.-supplied military regime that recently killed 200 and wounded 300-500 people out of afar at a demonstration in Illinois.
This particular massacre occurred in January and has yet to receive much press coverage or condemnation by the gallant human-rights crusaders in Washington. To further protest this flagrant violation, 26 officers of them KU students) began an unlimited hunger strike last Thursday.
This issue is complex and certainly emotional for the Iranians. Yet their struggle exemplifies the not uncommon prostrate position of the majority of the people in any one
of the many phenomenal U.S.-sustained military dictatorships (take your pick: Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua). Billions and billions of the very bullets used to quiet the human-rights advocates, as well as the technical "advice" about how to keep the troops and equipment in lip-top ship for the commanders on land. Rights. As protests abound, Carter can no longer hope for meek approval of his one-sided, hypocritical position as chief defender of the rights he claims will he clears himself (and the American people) of supplying, whether through loans, gifts or protected investments, the military "aid" necessary for the dramatic subjugation of the people.
Rhonda Neugebauer Lawrence senior
KU smugness is unwarranted To the editor:
After the banana peels are cleared away and everyone has finished heaping mud in the pit, a crowd of University basketball fans for their taste in confetti, it seems to me that the media have been
a little unjust in their virtuous indignation. Not that I sympathize with some K-State fans' show of sportsmanship, but I really don't see a great deal of difference between the mentality of throwing wieners and that of throwing bananas. Granted, the bananas were more difficult to clean off of the court, but the hazards there are same for the no matter what the source. It's just as easy to break your head on wienies as it is on banana muck.
I had a good laugh, I must admit, at the hot dog delicat, but I had the fortune (?) to be jogging in Allen Field House the morning that the building maintenance crew was cleaning up the now-stained athletic surface beneath the bleachers. As the day went on, end up with the wafting fragrance of 300 squ狼ed, rancid hot dogs came to the nostrils of anyone and everyone in the vicinity. Needless to say, the clean-up crew was not smiling.
I don't want to douse anybody's school spirit, but just remember, when we point a finger at someone else, there are still three fingers pointing back at us.
Judy Wendland
Non-smokers should stop silent fuming
It is time for a true revolution. For too long, University of Kansas students, Kansasans and other Americans have been denied the rights to vote or be elected. For too long, non-smokers sat back and said nothing while smokers have exercised their own indefinable rights to introduce harmful foreign substances and the bodies of those around them.
Perhaps the American Cancer Society took the wrong approach with its well-intended advertising campaigns to discourage smoking. Their ads plied, "If you smoke too often, you should not findings, non-smokers should do better to be little more militant today."
Maybe a non-smoker doesn't care when a perfect stranger lights up. Why should he care? He doesn't know the man and won't worm his pending cancer. But recent information is proving that the sidestream smoke from a cigarette is every bit as harmful to a non-smoker as it is to a smoker.
EVERY NONSMOKER is familiar with the irritation that cigarette smoke causes. The smoke stinks up freshly shamwood hair, fops up eyes, hangs on the clothes, etc. A smoker might say, "Touch, it's my right to smoke."
Yes, complaining about a personal habit is delicate business that often hurts feelings. More than feelings are hurt, however, when the same cancer-causing agents and gases are passed to someone from the end of a burning cigarette.
This smoke, called sidestream smoke.
Pat Allen Editorial writer
it is not filtered and is not burnt by the tobacco, as is the mainstream smoke the smoker inhales. Because of this fact, smokejones zaporize the health of people around them by causing smoke that has twice as much tar and nicotine, three times as much carbon monoxide, and 3-4 times as suspected to be the cancer-causer), five times as much carbon monoxide and 50 times as ammonia.
THE HAIR can be washed, the eyes will clear and the clothes can be washed, but how are the other physiological effects of smoking to be completely erased?
It cannot be stressed enough how unfair smoking is to the other people who just happen to be around when a smoker flicks his Bic.
In a classroom, for instance, studies have shown that non-smokers are immediately and physically irritated by the same cigarette smoke that is suppressed by tobacco. In a result of their discomfort, non-smokers with the same ability as smokers score lower on tests. If the tests are taken in a room free of the tests, the smoker has an advantage just well. In other words, the smokers have a distinct advantage when they smoke during tests.
ITS ALSO not fair when students walk
ins with non-smoking signs and
are then environmentally assaulted by
the drivers to smoke led by the
driver buses themselves.
Non-smokers sometimes say they feel "paranoid" when they want to object to smokers' filling their fire with smoke. But paranoia is an irrational fear. A non-smoker has every reason to oppose a person's smoking, the smoke being energetically to oppose so emphatically tossing knives at his body.
This thoughtless knife-hurting is a widespread problem. In spite of University policy and in spite of those red and black signs posted on campus, students continue to smoke, oblivious to the health concerns of others.
ELBERT D. GLOVER, associate professor of health, is a kind of crusader against these violations. Last semester he and his class, "Special Course of Study in Smoking and Health," wrote about the violations. In January 2014, the Kanser. Glover's class asked the student body to report any violations by students or professors.
The letter appeared in late November. By the end of the semester, the health, physical education and recreation office reported that 56 reports of smoking violations.
Glover said this week, "Professors live by the rules. You have to have in the assignment or else. But as they use it, you must agree to Retrofit and breaking a University rule."
NON-SMOKERS are afraid to voice their wishes to the smokers and their fellow classmates. More importantly, the students are mindful of how a request that a professor stop smoking might affect their grade, Glover said.
National figures indicate that in every age group but that of teenage girls, few people are smoking now than in the last two decades. So it seems that the fragrant violations of University policy are harassing a silent majority.
Glover's class collected the violation information only to satisfy its own curiosity. If a student wants to officially report a violation and accomplish something, his only recourse is to make a phone call to the dean of men or the office of the dean of women. Easily intimidated students are not likely to do this. But easily intimidated students are vulnerable to the cigarette cancer-causing agents. Why does the University form a special department to anonymously investigate this problem?
THE IDEAL solution to the problem, of course, is to help everyone kick the habit. Glover is offering a free quit-smoking program for students who wish to have 10 smokers wished they could stop; he wants to provide the opportunity for smokers to do so. And student smokers who want to repent their evil ways have mounts of reading material open to them.
Smokers should be forewarmed. It is only a matter of time before non-smokers and smokers engage in a major conflict, when the non-smokers will emerge victorious.
Fans' pranks prompt calls for better game behavior
The rivalry that exists between KU and K-State can lay claim to national noteworthiness, something that adds a
To the editor:
prior to the state of Kansas. This rivalty stimulates *amusing* trust that add value to the UK-State settlements. The painting of the KS letters on the P
Hill in Manhattan and the throwing of red and blue chicken into KSL State games become part of traditional pranks. But
"LOOKS LIKE WE PICKED A GOOD WEEK TO VISIT YOUR BROTHER IN THE BROWN."
Granted, this letter cannot compensate for the actions of a number of K-Staters. It can, at least, extend to KU a message of apology from one K-Stater fan. And it is hoped that in the future, K-State fans will K-Stater fans can serve as better representatives of a state institution than they did this past Saturday.
Both KU and K-State possess many fine qualities; it is exciting to be part of the traditional KU-K-State rivalry. With tradition comes pride, as with Mike Evans, K-State's standout guard and a respected figure at K-State said.
sometimes, these pranks do not amuse. Instead, they injure. And what happened at the KU-KState game on Saturday did not amuse very many spectators. Rather, the actions of a number of K-State fans applauded both KU and K-State fans.
"... pride centers around dignity.
Senior Phillips
Senior in electrical engineering
Kansas State University
KSU backers sorry but loyal To the editor:
to basketball.
To the KU basketball squad,
Ted Owens and the KU student body:
We sincerely regret the unfortunate incident that occurred near the close of the K-State-KU game this past Saturday. Speaking for ourselves, we probably had no witnesses, the atrocious, unsportsmanlike behavior displayed by many people in the stands that afternoon and wish that we could outcue these recklesss from their fans. Naturally, the loss was disheartening, but because of this group, the defeat was also ignominious.
As loyal and proud Kansas state basketball fans, we intend to take the tournament, but nevertheless, good luck. And if there is a slim chance that you do win, we hope that you'll be the final victor of the season.
Your victory was well-earned; your team played very well.
Barbara Johnson
Senior in Biochemistry
Rich Johnson
direct student, K-State
graduate
To the editor:
Selling planes won't stop war
not only the Congress will question the new arms deal to the Middle East, I also question it! My simple logic tells me that it is not an area that negates arms and that it negates peace. I just don't understand this. Is selling more arms to both sides going to bring peace faster? Neither Israel nor Iran are on the same side. What is Saudi Arabia going to do with 60 F-15s that they can't even fly?
It's been only four years since the October 1973 war. We can't forget that before that war Libya transferred her jet fighters to Egypt in order to fight against Israel. The Saudis are going to do the same thing. So when we compare the Arabs'
air forces to Israel's with this sale, the balance is, of course, in favor of the Arabs.
Nobody needs more war planes in the Middle East. The F-15 can't bring peace!
Raphael Goldman Tel Aviv Senior
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KANSAN
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