UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of the editors.
March 7,1980
Bill treated unjustly
A house of cards is collapsing under the heavy hand and bias of House Majority Leader, Robert Frey, R-Liberal, and his fellow landlords.
Frey, who along with Speaker of the House Wendell Lady, R-Overland Park, will decide which bills will be brought to the floor of the Kansas House of Representatives, said Tuesday he was against bringing up for debate any bill passed by the 1978 Landlord-Tenant Act. The bill is designed to give tenants a legal tool for making repairs when negligent landlords refuse to do so.
The bill was first proposed last year by State Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, and will die if the full house does not act on it by March 12, the last day the House can consider its own motion. The bill may be he has stated in so many words—that his "personal intention" is that the bill will not be brought to the floor and will not be debated; i.e., Frey's "personal intention" is that the bill will wither and die without benefit of at least a weakest in a democratic voting process.
Frey's "personal intention" is not at all surprising in light of the fact that he is a landlord. But if he is so confident that the bill is unnecessary and that the Landlord-tenant act is "fine" the way it ought to be, then to the test by letting the full House debate and vote on the bill? What is he afraid of?
He couldn't be concerned that some representatives in the House, perhaps even a majority of representatives, had been heard more, less biased hearing than he could?
Although there are other ways that proponents of the bill could get it to the House floor, including making a motion to bring it to debate or tacking the amendment onto a bill already scheduled for debate, their chances of succeeding against the "personal intention" of Frey are poor.
The landlord lobby assault on the amendment has been loud and forceful. And Frey, who owns apartments in Seward County, is among those who contend that the amendment would give an unfair advantage to tenants.
If there were time one could suggest that Frey try living for 10 months to a year in a $735—a month, two bedroom, four-bathroom apartment and window saisons let rain in; where the ceiling sprinkles plaster over breakfast, lunch and dinner; where the toilet backs up every other time it flushed; where cracks in the walls are wide enough for mice to crawl through. She would ultimately assess the balance of fairness.
But there isn't time. The only hope at this point is that Frey's conscience will open his eyes to the unmitigated misery and continued helplessness his wife will perpetuate among a group of people who want only a decent place to live.
Quiet, winter sounds make house a home
Winter is best for this because the world keeps its distance. Inside is everything. You know, a house can be a creaky door and loose floorboards that tell you a house is alive, breathing, recycling its materials.
New York Times Special Features
RYE, N.Y.—One way you know a house is
by the sounds it makes.
In their curious way, other things entertained. Among the marvels of our house was a china cabinet that vibrated when you moved it. We demonstrated this magic to visitors.
THE MYSTIFYING, furtive sighs we dare at night were different from the ones we might see in the walls, to the secrets of closets. I don't think we know where half of these sounds came from, but I know they should silence them. Perhaps they belonged to the previous owners and should not be taken.
By DIVIN DEM SET
New York Times Special Features
The house I grew up in tapped out a steady flow of these messages. The shudder of pipes in the morning, steps springing back into motion, was the one that When the curtains whispered we knew the wind was blowing hard, and at times the whole place seemed to lean against it, beams and risers straining in unison. Even the light that all was well, that action was being taken.
This "body language" of a house gives predictability. My mother lived alone for the last seven years of her life and rarely did anything to me. The house, she claimed, kept time for her.
The modern family has become deserved to the inner voice of dwellings. The touch of a processor and vacuum cleaner, the dishwasher and garbage disposal, from which we vainly seek escape by turning up the TV and opening the door. We tend toention to this problem. They confuse acoustics with what its worth hearing. The sound of a well-healthily will use sonic additives as sparingly as they use food containing sugars that house shoulder reverberate to its own rhythm.
OLD FRAME structures are best for this.
The music of their loose parts is what we put together in our minds. It follows that to
By DAVID DEMPSEY
restore a neglected house you should not make too many improvements. Let the timbers creek and floor grease. Let the wind blow across the walls. Let the errant handwork of some long-gone artisan. If the kitchen must be modernized, make it a vault, separated from the rest of the house by a steel door. Give the field mice access to all areas of the house invite the neighbors in to listen. The nuclear family above all needs evidence that frailty as well as robustness, however disembodied, is present in structures. An apart-ment-generated environment cannot know these things.
**THIS IS THE PROBLEM with suburban developments, retirement colonies and the like. They are too new, too carefully built, to survive. The problem is that both mothers they lack of their individual inflection. If you've seen one you've heard another. Your outage is disastrous in such houses, not because light go off and the machines stop running but because we are left with the hollow rooms they have. There has nothing to say. Rather it stands mute before the occupant's eager strain to catch some suppressed complaint, someurrence of time passing and things unsaid.
AN OLD HOUSE should tell you when winter is coming to an end. It will let the seasons rub against each other for attention. The walls became less brittle, more distant. The mice had fled the walls and the fluttering of birds barely carried from the eaves in which they were sleeping. The dampness the dampness and there came a day when the china cabinet no longer rattled on command. It was time to open the windows and let the street sounds mingle with our neighbors.
Gee, it's great to know our legislators have done such a wonderful appreciation of humor and comic performance by bouncing into Osawatime Slate State on Monday for a surprise event.
Editor's note: Kate Pound cared for retarded persons during the summers of 1978 and 1979. She was employed as a co-tutor in the Hospital and Training Center in Parsons.
Real estate agents don't understand these things. Looking at houses to buy I've asked them if I may listen to the place for an hour or so. This draws a blank. "You'll find this a very quiet neighborhood," the agent says, and you see in the furnace nausey, I can assure you.
But that is not what I mean, and there is no way to explain.
They did a wonderful impersonation of three comic legends. Their attempt to ferret out abuse and mismanagement was a great impersonation of Larry, Merry and Curly Joe.
David Dempsey, a writer who lives in a frame house, says that he lets his wife investigate all sounds after midnight.
Demands for an investigation state mental institutions begin late last year to review records and drug use at Owasawatne were made public and cries to cries that something be done about the reports, the Legislature formed a committee to look into conditions at the in-patient facility.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
103864664656 Published at University of Newcastle daily August through May and November and now available online. The first book is for six months and the second book for eight months or more. Books are £9 for six months or £12 a year in December and £6 for six months or £8 a year in January. For further details please contact us on 0800 745 6300.
Postmaster: Send changes address to the University Daily Kanaan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas.
Lawrence. KA6005
If Monday's inspection of Osawatomi was any indication, God help the patients of the Kansas mental hospital system, because the Legislature isn't going to.
Editorial Edito Brenda Watson
Editor James Anthony Fitts
Elaine Strahler
. Dean Troxel
Mike Panthere
Managing Editor Dana Miller
Business Manager Vincent Coultis
Inspection a Three Stooges comedy
Retail Sales Manager ...
Campus Sales Manager ...
Advertising Makeup Manager ...
THE INSECTION, by state senators Mike Johnston, D-Darsons, Robert Talkington, R-Iola and Rep. Joe Haggand, R-Overland Park, just proved that the game found a scandal in the Watergate Hotel, much less a case of abuse in a state institution.
Advertising Manager Chuck Chowins
The committee's method of inspection was to pop in unannounced with a lock of reporters. According to Talkington, the police had hoped to catch hospital personnel off-guard.
Come now, gentlemen, surely you aren't so naive as to believe it is possible to sneak up on a hospital staff of more than twenty
General Manage Rick Musser
Supplies are stolen from hospitals—one paper, hand clothing, food and food intended for patients. Small potatoes, butters, may be donated from all the state hospitals are added.
people, many of whom were carrying cameras. Silly boys?
Of course, the committee and its entourage were discovered. However they were undaunted and pressed on with their search for crime and corruption. They learned from the experience questions about the amount of illicit and illegal drugs available in the hospital.
THEE ARE other abuses-perhaps less sensational than sex with patients and supplying them with drugs.
IF YOU gentlemen are truly concerned with activities inside institution walls and if you want to find and eliminate abuses, you should ask for the records, notice the turnover rates and the understaffing. hiring practice, see how inadequate they are. Most of all talk, or request that someone else be patients, employees, former patients and former employees. But the talk has to be done individually, unobtrusively. Bouncing off only get your plattudes and half the picture.
YOU DID NOT see, most likely, staff shortages, particularly among the direct care staff, the aides who are responsible for providing care and making sure aides turn rate is high, because of low pay, poor benefits and administrative indifference. Male aides, desperately needed in several institutions, are in short supply—it really make more money doing factory work.
Aides are usually under-trained, under-educated and under-supervised. Almost anyone can be bined to be an aide; there are no special training requirements. If an applicant can complete aid training courses, they can work, whether or not darn about providing good, effective care.
There is emotional abuse and neglect, particularly of children in the institutions. The staff would not spot it spotted—but it does exist. Patient is punched, pulled, jerked and dragged. It's faster to pin a patient into walking than to convince him to go willingly.
THE INSTITUTIONS have other problems. Paperwork drows staff members. Nurses at some institutions do little more of their time is spent filling out forms.
kate COLUMNIST pound
Administrators, psychologists, physicians and teachers are too removed from the day-to-day experience of teaching to integrate treatment and education programs conducted in classrooms with life experience.
ONE COMMITTEE member was heard to have nailed one staff member with "Hi. I'm from the Legislature, do you have anything to say to me?"
Not all aids are abusive or neglectful. Most are careful with their charges. Some even care about them. But the abuses exist.
Most of all, there is too little concern from the Legislature. Despite your lark on Sunday, gentlemen, the Legislature has not been involved with the state mental institutions.
What courage our fearless lawmakers demonstrated!
And what stupidity they displaced.
It used to be said that Kansas was a forerunner in the development of effective mental health treatment. The statement is rarely heard now. The support for our mental hospitals is lacking and the care provided is substandard.
This is not to say that the reports of criminal acts at Osawatome are accurate. But if they are, your inspection wouldn't be complete unless you have abuses in the mental institution system.
The Legislature can improve the Kansas mental institutions. The forerunner status of some states is necessary, and it is needed is some time and some concern. None of these stoope arrests are necessary.
Gentlemen, did you actually believe that staff members of the hospital, and its administrators, would bare their souls and reveal negligence, mismanagement and felonious acts? Did you believe that patients must admit to having access to illegal drugs?
Of course you did. You trust those people. After all, they are employees of the state. You believed them so much that your boss asked you to work with the hospital but "blowing acclaim" for the医院.
It's nice to see trust in government—unsettling to see idiocy.
IF THERE are abuses in state mental institutions, your sneak attack approach is less likely to waste of time. Five minutes after you entered the hospital grounds, probably every employee there knew about your arrival. What would you do? "structured to 'act normally,'" the word passed
to be friendly and answer questions in a positive manner. Your committee could not have received an accurate view of the hospital,
Care center offers valuable service
The Women's Transitional Care Center has recently come under attack by the Kaw Valley Pro-Family Forum. As a concerned member of the community, we would like to take issue on this matter. The WTCS has been providing a valuable service in this community that must not be in any way delayed. We also want women working long hours without pay to help other women who are in desperate need of help, and support. The majority of the women in our community measure of their dedication to the project.
Many of their clients are referred to them by the police. This is a measure of their effectiveness, and provides services. Finally, many women in need use it, and that is a measure of their effectiveness.
WTCS is one of the many new services that have spring up all over the country, such as Rape Victim Support Services and the Women's Coalition. Their common theme is to help women in this leoparded patriarchal society, where women are second-class classes. As a concerned male, and there are a lot of us, I applaud their efforts and I believe that they success the world will be a lot lot more as well, and as a man, I am thankful.
Barbara Hanna tells us that she does not think it is the type of lifestyle that Lawrence citizens would promote. Well, I'm a Lawrence citizen and it doesn't bother me a lot. I know it takes a house is an important service but that it could be handled better in someone else's hands. Surely the problem of battered women should be addressed, why don't they. Why didn't those "battered hands" start the project? Why they probably didn't even think about it. After all, the father is the head of the family. It says so in the book. That's the first time the Bible has been missed.
The Pro-Family Forum is one of the man-
groups that have risen to oppose change,
and to resist its influence on the
mainly of women. They are anti-choice,
anti-ERA, anti-'forcing' and anti-bom-
All and all, to meet me the Pro-
Family Forum prized its righteous ears at
the word lesbians and is goosestetting
them. Another step backward for society.
Costas Orountiotis Lawrence resident
Compared to the existing Robinson Center weight area, it will be six times as large. Compared to the Allen Field House lift ing area, it will be three times the square 'odage.'
To the Editor:
Please tell Brian Boyer his worries is over and that he need not consider giving up his first born child for a weight room.
The new addition to Robinson Center will include a new weight facility. This new fitness center will be more than 2,500 square meters and will feature an Olympic lift machine and weights.
The Universal equipment will be the
newest on the market. There will be a total of 34 individual stations designed for both pre-school and elementary school programs. Each station is in accommodation, therefore, will accommodate a personal desk.
New York Olympic equipment is also being ordered, and an area has been selected in this new faculty that should more than meet Mr. Bover's needs.
We thank you for your concern. However, if you are to feel sorry for anyone, it should be the graduating seniors who will never realize this new area.
Tom Wilkerson
Director of Recreation Services
To the Editor:
Coach encourages better weight room
This is a reply to the letter written by Brian Boyer of Topeka.
I Brian would like to direct my comments to Brian's concern about the workout facility provided by the University of Kansas at KU. I have been working with Brian's concern for a decent and adequate workout facility. Presently, the weight room that is provided is no doubt less than average. I have given a guest lecture at KU and will be presenting that Brian's concern is truly a legitimate one.
I would encourage Brian and others who share his feelings to look into what is being done to correct this particular situation. With the new addition that is now been completed at Robinson I would have to advise him not to alleviate this problem. I have talked with several instructors at Robinson and their comments have indicated that the weight
facility is, in part, one of their areas of improvement.
To verify this report, I would again encourage Brian and fellow students to pursue this concern with Wayne Osness, charisman of the school. Students are happy to update anyone with such an interest on what is in fact being done. Should I be able to of any assistance to Ossens or the students at the University of Krasna in developing this facility, I I'd be happy to do so.
Keith Kephart Strength coach
End of 60s class lamented by student
To the Editor:
I really enjoyed Amn Shields' story on Alan Milsenhurst's class. I was, however, impressed by the level of work he did his last class. I consider his 56s and 96s classes as two of the more enjoyable classes at AIS. He was also a great student at KU. It is indeed a shame that future students might miss Alan Milsenhurst's class.
Lee Reynolds Overland Park senior
Editorial prompts bus system praise To the Editor
To the Editor:
Steve Leben's editorial on the many accomplishments of the Student Senate has encouraged me to write a comment. Thanks for the bus system.
John McLeese
Lawrence junior
---