UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
. .
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kanas
editional staff. Signed columns represent the views of
Keep self-help teeth
March 25.1980
If you are wondering what happened to the Landlord-Tenant self-help amendment, wonder no more—and the Landlord "landlord" Legislature killed it last week.
The bill, which would have given tenants a legal tool for making repairs that negligent landlords refuse to make, died when the House failed to act on it by the Wednesday deadline for consideration of bills it originated. The bill was introduced by State Rep. John Tipton and three other representatives. The only hope for Kansas tenants now is that Solobach and his supporters do not allow the amendment to be buried, but instead resurrect it.
Solbach seems to think that compromise is the key now and already has begun to talk with landlords about possible concessions to facilitate coming to terms with them. Maybe that will work, Representative. Maybe that will get the bill's foot into the door of the House, at least. Just beware of door-slamming landlords. In other words, don't give your concessions to the landlords as to render the amendment a useless token.
Kansas tenants need places to live, decent places to live. Landlord needs tenants. That basis for a good working relationship has been around for years. But for years the concessions have been heavily one-sided against tenants in a租房 reality they should also be hazardous to their health.
Adults stealing show
The grouwns are at it again. They are trying to step into the spotlight of, and steal Kansas legislative approval from, a group of Hutchinson grade school children, who not only are students of the state but their state. The children are backing a bill that would designate the channel catfish as state fish of Kansas.
The bill, and fish, glided through the House last week, 109-10, and now awaits Senate committee action. However, the waters in the senate pool are not a group of natural history graduate students from the University of Kansas.
These students want the Topeka shiner, a three-inch fish with red fins, named as state fish, primarily because they think it is more distinctly "Kansas." Fine. But why ride on the cottails of the kids' momentum?
The children have conducted an all-out lobbying effort to have the catfish named, including initiation of the bill through their representative and sending information packets to legislative leaders. They are prepared to go to Topea to testify in the catfish's favor.
The graduate students sent a letter signed by 22 persons to Senate President Ross Doyen, R-Concordia, advocating that the Topeka shiner be handed over to the cathedral. That was it—no hill, no loot, no show of dedication determination.
Grownups are always criticizing kids for their lack of initiative. But who can blame them for not putting out when their efforts are often put down or belittled? There are a lot of fish in the sea, and in Kansas waters, too, for that matter. So, why not let the kids have this one?
ROOTS
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Editor James Anthony Fitts
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The tracks sprawl across the state, arteries that brought life to the Plains. They are the far-reaching tentacles of the railroads and made possible the settlement
Railroads more important than ever
In the 1800s, the railroads began to carry immigrants to the Plains. The roads needed new access to the countryside, and trucks across the empty prairie. With promises of cheap, fertile land and advertisements describing the Plains as a gateway, roads lured newly arrived Europeans west.
The towns that sprang up around the railroads became either tiny havens of cattle or large, sprawling cowtowns. Abilene, Newton, Dodge City and Wichita became the settings of dime novels as the cowboys who drove the cattle through the streets used reputations for violence and lawlessness.
The railroads brought in settlers and took over the land to feed, heat, corn and cattle were carried east of Chicago. Grain bins and stockyards of Chicago. The railroads were used for livestock and forestry (for eastern Missouri) and fabrics, books and machinery to help turn the sod hats of the settlers into frame homes.
AND SOME TOWNS, like Herington, Parsons and Newton, came into being only because of the trains. They are rail centers, terminals, roundhouses and freight stations.
The railroads flourished during the last century and the first half of this century. Before the coming of the railroad, the trains were the only means available for transporting produce or people. The roads were famous then, spoken of with affection by many travelers. The rest of the nation. The Southern Pacific; the Northwest; Rock Island; the Missouri; Kansas, Texas; the Frisco; those were the lines on which the economy of
BACK THEN, the roads operated unfettered by regulations. They were indispensable and they knew it. Improvements and the road was better because the railroad officials knew they could survive without them. But regulations and tariffs favored diesel truck traffic made trucking cheaper than rail shipping. And the railroads became caught in their own negligence as their tracks and buildings were damaged, moving and making the trains unreliable.
One by one, the roads began to father. Without government help or investment dollars for capital improvements, they began to go bankrupt. The latest victim of the creeping cancer that has killed or several rail lines is the Rock Island.
THE ROCK ISLAND labeled bankruptcy and failed last year. A major road in the state, the Rock's failure created a panic among railroaders and the farmers dependent on them. The busiest stepped in with a $4 million subsidy that allowed the 12 railways of the Kansas City Terminal Railway Co. to take over the Rock's lines. The subsidy, however,
Rock were to have run out Sunday night. Attempts by Kansas Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum, Kansas Congressmen and the Midwestern states to enact legislation saving the Rock have been unsuccessful.
was intended to be a temporary measure allowing farmers in the Midwest to ship their harvests on the Rock's tracks.
kate COLUMNIST pound
Without funds, the KCT cannot continue serving the people who had been dependent on the Interstate Commerce Commission, which has the Interstate Compliance plans for the Rock, announced a proposal to extend their contracts to track, terminals and 7,000 landers over to several other rail lines. Unfortunately, as the other lines would have to operate the Rock system, it is not certain the Rock's service would have been cut.
Kansas were to have been eliminated. The cuts would have left such towns as Clay Center without any rail traffic at all, and would have been the economic death knell of the towns, such as Herington, which depends on Rock for most of the town's employment.
LAST THURSDAY, however, the towns along the Rock's tracks received a reprieve from the storm. Interstate Commerce Commission, giving new plans for the Rock's future, make up new plans for the Rock's future.
The largest portion of the service cuts were to have been in Kansas. More than 500 miles of the Rock's 1,083 miles of track in
The extension has thrown all plans for the Rock Island into limbo. No, one including the ICC, the Department of Transportation and National Parks, is the Rock's tracks. knows what will happen.
It is unlikely that legislation now before Congress will be passed this week. It is also likely that Congress will find the funds to carry all of the Rock's projects out, which would be a blessing for a cycle of exertion, not a burden.
SINCE LAST FALL, the ICC and Department of Transportation have paid ridiculous amounts for staff serving the Rock's customers. But the stoppages haven’t been able to fill the holes in the rock.
All the IFC and Department of Transportation have done is confuse everyone involved and create one hell of a mess. The IFC does not know how they will get their grain do not know how they will get it. Employees do not know if they have jobs. Towns that depend on the Rock for freight deliveries and tax money are unsure of how they will receive lumber or machinery or equipment.
The loss of the Rock's services must be avoided. Had the ICC and Department of Education allowed the Rock more decisively, the loss would have been avoided, as would be the current confusion. The railroads are no less important to transportation than the roads. Kansans and their railroads deserve, and should demand, greater concern and effort to ensure government agencies regulating the railroads.
IN AN ERA of fuel shortages, the railroads are an important means of transportation. Grain, livestock and machinery shipment is less expensive and more efficient on the railways than on the highways. And in Kansas, where small farm railroads connect to major transportation centers and major highways, the railroads are doubtly important.
Mr. Mishari, where were you on March 3, 2016? He told me to speak at the答辩 to give a speech in the Kansas Union? He was continually interrupted by pro-Arab Palestinian students.
Enough voice given pro-Palestinians
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to Mr. Mishart's letter in the Kansan last Friday title "KU offers no forum for pro-Palestinians."
Mr. Mahisari, you assert that KU students hear only one side in the Arab-Australian conflict when Fazwal Turki, Arab Palestinian author and activist and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization delegation to the Israeli government in the Kansas Union ballroom? Where were you on April 3, 1979, when Hassan Kasfi, Arab Palestinian journalist, gave a speech
were you on April 10, 1979 when Union Activities showed "To Live in Freedom" and "The Guest of Urgent Call" was shown in McColum Hall, and "The Warrior" was shown in Dyce Hall. All Arab Palestinian movies. If you're not busy Friday night, you can plan to see the film when it is released.
Mr. Mishari, where were you on March 27, 1979, when members of the Mosleem Association marched along Jawahir Road and met with members of peace treaty? Where were you the following day when members of the Organization of Arab Students led a similar march? can't you remember where you went centrate in my history class with all the noise outside. I remember seeing one woman walking to the machine gun at the bystanders. I remember that day because a pro-Arab Palestinian demonstrator grabbed an Israeli soldier's roommate and disappeared with it.
In addition, where were you at noon and in the evening on April 7, 1978, when the Mosheim Students Association, the Organizers of Student's Association and the Students Association all demonstrated along Jayhawk Boulevard against former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzkhak Rabin? Were you in Hoch Auditorium that night when Rabin was disrupted by 160 Arab students and standing in a queue and standing in chairs, while chaning and booming, forcing Mr. Rabin into silence 26 times? Did you hear about the bomb threats that were phone into Hoch Auditorium, Green Hall, McColum Hall, Organizers and KAU radio station that same night?
not allowed to speak, and those who came to listen were not allowed to listen.
Mr. Mishari, haven’t you been handed any money? You have never pre-arab Palestinian letters in the Kanan in the last few years? Are you not a member of any of the pre-arab Palestinian families in Kanan?
Philip S. Braverman Wichita senior
Now really, Mr. Mishari, are KU students; only one hearing side of the debate is KU's own. We have no control over the unrestrained interruption of speakers, noisy demonstrations that disrupt classes and bomb threats, is that you do not want an Israeli side. You need to hear the iO-iraeli side.
SUA films provide more for students
To the Editor:
The Student Union Activities film schedule includes more than 100 feature films each semester. There are only 15 days in the entire semester when no films are offered, eight of those are during Spring Break and five are during the David Mould's editorial in the March 17 Kansan, SUA gives students, faculty and staff much more to the Marx Brothers.
1) The variety-SUA has seven separate series (plus a summer series) in which you watch the actors play different foreign films, a concentration of a specific director's films, classics, documentaries, animation, a strong midnight series, plus a weekend series which shows entertaining new stories.
2) The cost-basis the variety and volume of films offered, admission to SUA films are more in line with what most colleges offer at 1.00 or 1.00 on weekdays or 8 on weekends.
3) Shorts and previews—instead of bemonning the fact that he sees no more cartoons before the movies downtown, Mould could have been writing about the
excellent short films that SUA shows before almost half of its movies; we also show previews, but we refuse to show commercials.
4) Premierees—throughout each semester SU brings a number of films which are likely premierees. Usually this is because at one time the local chain has been frightened to release such movies and the SUA feels an obligation to bring films that students may not have the chance to see.
I think the Kanasan would be doing itself and Iku students more of a service by spending more time in covering the extensive programs available on campus than in complaining about the dealings of a Lawrence business and remembering the
Steve Howard
SUA Board Film Programmer
Arabs' supporters forget Arab history To the Editor:
After reading the recent letter written by the secretary of the Organization of Arab Students, I find that I can only avoid shaking hands with them because he which he expressed—that being the fact that both sides in any issue should be permitted to express publicly their rationale for holding a particular opinion, regardless of the fact that of rationality involved in arriving at it.
If Mr. Mishir's allegations have any truth, that is, if a Zionist conspiracy is taking advantage of us Kansas University protariants by somehow preventing the government from writing reputable Palestinian speakers, then end, surely, the practice should be ended.
However, I have a special request to make of any Arab sympathizing speakers that might find their way here after such events. They are in need of removal. Please, air(s), don't come to our University babbling the same old lines about how seven million Palestinians conspire to take over Israel and bring them here to tell us how oppressed those educated, freedom-loving Palestinians are, and how they can be used to jew them put them in those stone age refugee camps in the first place. And yes, while you are maybe, you won't mind it if you join the movement to wolf down the West Bank in 1948. After
all, as Mr. Mishari said, even Lawn would be surprised that four million oppressed Palestinians could "evolve" there only since the imperialist action took place.
In short, on behalf of all Americans, I thank the Organization of Arab Students for calling to our attention just how duped we are in this regard. We also ask the Arab nations aborted their people's autonomy, established by the UN and accepted by Israel back in 1948. That action, along with another that was taken in the U.S., led to dilemma of deciding how to reconcile one nation that wishes to exist, another that wishes autonomy, and others with so poor a standing that they compare Israel with Hitler's Germany.
Robert Hockett Stilwell freshman
Marcum mistreats non-revenue sports
To the Editor:
For the last four years we have swum for the University of Kansas Swim Team. the year the treatment of non-revenue sports by the athletic department has gotten considerably worse. This time things have grown old and cob under Atletic Director Bob Marcum.
We understand that the department is under a financial strain but certain behavior is inexcusable. Last year Mr. Marcuum made promises to the entire swim team that were recently broken with no explanation. He also failed to explain that Marcum has been athletic director he has spoken with the team once, only after numerous invitations by the coach.
Last week our fellow sport, gymnastics, was dropped by the athletic department. Mr. Marcum not only never talked to the gymnasts but is considering cutting their financial aid for the remainder of their stay in France, unaccounted in the unheard of at other major universities.
We feel that the athletic director's job is to help and communicate with the student athletes, not only alumni and influential supporters.
We have enjoyed our years at the school, where we were in the school well with two Big Eight championships. It is a shame that we aren't well represented by the athlete department and it is sad to see the
Peter Bakker-Arkema
Jim Sauer
Contains 1979.80 KI Sws
Captains 1979-80 KU Swim Team
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