UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan
only the writers. Signed column represent the views of
January 29,1980
Sign need questioned
Signs of the '80s also are taking on an appearance distinct from those of the previous year. What they will cost, however, has not been publicized.
Trendy traffic signs now used on the University of Kansas campus are to be replaced today by signs like the more conventional, traditional ones found throughout Lawrence. The switch is the culmination of a judge's complaints, a young man's court hearing and a university's capitalization.
Although he later said his decision was not based upon the signs, Municipal Judge George Catt dismissed a speeding charge Thursday against a 21-year-old man accused of driving 38 mph on Jayhawk Boulevard, where the posted speed limit is only 20 mph.
Judge Catt, who said he had questioned the signs before, declared the man was not accountable for the speeding charge because KU's traffic signs do not conform to the federal standards set forth in the "Manual of Uniform Traffic Control." Presumably, the man did not recognize the graphically pleasing, pacesetting signs as traffic control signals.
An informal poll of students who were attending the University when the new traffic signs were installed says that the signs' lack of identity as speed limit
indicators is a valid, if somewhat flimsy, complaint. It is hard to imagine that bright college students would not be able to identify a sign with "20 mph" written on it as a posted speed limit.
Nevertheless, KU officials agreed to change the signs to sage "a needless hassle," despite the fact that (Judge) Catt did not declare the signs to be illegal or formally request that the change be made.
Certainly, if installing the traditional, and apparently more recognizable signs will do a better job of keeping KU traffic under control, the switch is warranted. But there has no indication that this will be the case.
Also not mentioned by officials is how much their cooperative capitation will cost the University. Perhaps the amount is almost negligible compared to other expenses, but the vigorous vying for funds now makes it difficult for researchers to consider hardies makes that possibility likely or reasonable to assume.
The "hassle" KU officials now are trying to avert need never have threatened to materialize if a little more thought had been given to the trendy road traffic signs before they had been designed, made and installed.
Winter is here at last
The snow fell softly Friday night, silently dissolving the illusion of second autumn that had veiled Lawrence and the University of Kansas since Dec. 21. Winter has arrived.
Even so, the arrival was as calm as it was cool. Unlike the blizzards blasting Colorado and other points east and west of here, winter baptized Lawrence with only a couple inches of snow and only slightly numbing winds. In fact, most cars are sithering up and down-to-be insurmountable hills.
There were the usual number of fender benders following Friday's snowfall, but no one was seriously hurt when they was undyed by tangles of traffic.
The thin blanket of powdery precipitation was quickly rumpled by rubbunctious children with new sleds eager to make test runs and by goodnatured revengeful college students who rewrapped snowball beetle to settle a score.
Undoubtedly, the onset of belowfreezing temperatures will catalyze the onset of above average sniffles, sneezes, colds and flu. Classrooms already are permeated with the unmistakable scent of mentholated cough drogs and medicated mouthwashes.
The snow really was not unexpected. After all, it is nearly February and clearly the middle of winter. The unexpected occurrence was the prolonged postponement of the area's first snowfall. Last year there was a ground before the Christmas holiday break and a good deal more afterward.
The winter weather had to arrive sooner or later. Now that it has, local residents can stop holding their collective breath and start settling into the winter landscape by accompanying this season of delightful landscapes and chilling shivers.
The icicles, snowdrops and winds probably are here now to stay for a few months, but one can always cling to the warmship hope that winter's frosty fingers will not reach too far into the approaching spring.
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kansan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 46045
Editor James Anthony Fitts
(SU6464) Published at the University of Kansas daily August 14th May and Thursday July during June and July except Sunday, September 2nd. Second-class postcard paid at Lawrence. Subscription by my $1 for$ 15 month or $27 in Douglas County and$ 15 in Kearney county or an oxide cardion. Student submission is a $12 semester, through the student activity fee.
Managing Editor James Anthony Fitts
Dam Miller Brendan Walton
Camp Editor Amanda Campbell Edwards
Associate Campus Editor Amy Hollowell, Ellen Tawnda
Assistant Campus Editors Army Hollowell, Ellen Tawnda
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Editorial Writers David Lanceau, Bob Pattini
Brenton R. Schander, Edilana Williams III
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Administrator Manager Check Out
On this, the 113th anniversary of the fitting that someone dimple sine of their myths that abound at Kansas and defend from its hopeless visions delicaters.
Dying in Kansas is not redundant
For years, Kansans and Kansans have been the butts of hundreds of jokes and have been depicted as dull, fat and tasteless as a can of Coors Light opened six days ago. Undoubtedly, who insist on joking about the richness of Richard Nixon supporters is u192.
It is not true, as some would have you believe, that Kansas is flat. To be sure, we have no Rocky Mountains, but who needs them? The mountains that you know, you'll have skiers everywhere, leaving broken skies and empty beer bottles all over the place. What we do have the Flint Hills, a range that rolls south of us through most of the state from Nebraska to Oklahoma.
Most people who joke about flat Kansas
kate
COLUMNIST pound
have never seriously looked at the Flintis. A prehistoric of a marine island, the hills are limestone, covered with rich, dark soil. From the soil grows the tallgrass, the low grasses, the reeds, before the white men came and now feed over two million pounds of beef every year.
BUT THE hills are more than just cattle. They are the primate prarie, one of the oldest and most beautiful mountains. They are green, greener than most people can imagine in the spring, and in the summer, the green fades to gold under the sun. It shines on the rust and touched with soft, soft gray.
The hills roll deeply, sending drivers on county roads plunging and then rising, like the rider of a rodeo bronc. They are silent,
undisturbed, save for the quiet of pick-ups as ranchers tend their stock. They are unbothered by the anynnies of modernism; they are illiterate, and litter is notable only by its absence.
But it cannot be denied that much of Kansas is flatland. Any self-sacred Kansan should point proull to the miles and miles of land that stretches from west of Salina into Colorado. For this is the most arid region in the country, eccoempy depends upon these empty acres.
WHEAT LAND. Great, growing fields of living gold, Acres and acres and acres of wheat, and food for the world. Kansas produces more wheat than any other state—more wheat than any other region in the country. Being a world leader in grain production,
Kansas farmers took land and that once was called the Great American Desert and transformed it into a hungry world's salvation. That is no small job.
And the plains have made Kansas a leader in the aircraft industry. With no mountains to get in the way or create dangerous wind patterns, Kansas is ideal for testing new aircraft and it has established his first aircraft factory in Wichita. The Boeing and Beechcraft companies also knew it. From tiny factories in the 1920s, its aircraft complex has grown to become the world's largest, with 75 percent of the United States planes.
KANSAS IS among the nations' leaders in the production of milled flour, popcorn and beans. Remember that the next time you visit Kansas, you will be at the local theater or savor baked ham. Remember also, that Kansas has the potential of providing all its fuel needs. The state is the nation's eighth largest producer of oil and gas. And as better ways of oil drilling are discovered, more oil is produced. Coal, don't forget coal. The south eastern corner of Kansas is a major strip mining region, and it produces one-third of the oil to be used as game preserves and pastures.
Remember also, that despite its image as home of the die-hard conservatives, Kansas was the first state to give women the right to vote in municipal and state elections. The internationally known Meninger Foundation is in Toperka, the state capital, and has made innovations in treatment of prisoners and juvenile offenders.
IT WOULD BE untrue, however, to claim that Kansas is the home of flaming liberalism or has a wild life to offer. The climate is the same in New York City or Los Angeles in excitement. But who needs all of that excitement? Who needs the problems of the cities, the crime, the pollution, the overcrowding, the incidence on other states for fuel and food?
Kansans do just fine, even though they are forced to live on a Disneyland nearby, especially after the opening of the college team, or the number-one ranked college basketball team. We do all right without the Rocky Mountains, the Empire State Nationals, and the rest of the world go on and leave us.
Sign-up signals readiness, not panic
FOR KANSAS has more important things to do. The old and shortsided story, "Dying in Kansas is redundant," is the mark of a person too wrapped in the allure of big cities and fancy ways of existing. In Kansas, you can live on your own or be living and keeping others alice by our work.
One last note, on this birthday of our state, Kansas is not the nation's leader in tornados or tornado caused deaths. Take that. Take that. Take that. and stuff it up your wicked witch.
Reversing his previous policy, President Jimmy Carter is going to ask Congress to reinstate peacetime draft registration. He made the announcement Wednesday night in his fourth State of the Union address and was joined by other Democratic congressional consideration within a month.
The president's announcement predictably met with choreums of boars and hisses. The president's statement is justifiably viewed as a concrete step toward a very unpopular and unpleasant reality.
Presumably, only those persons 18-26 years old will be required to register. No physical examinations will be given or availability to serve schedles set up. Under present laws, however, failure to register is not punishable of five years in prison or a $10,000 fee.
Despite its unpopularity, the announcement should not be viewed as a cause for unrestrained panic among Americans
EDITORIAL brenda
EDITOR watson
but rather as a move designed to strengthen further the United States' stand against the Soviet Union's deplorable aggressive actions.
The Soviets admire military organization and might, evident by their frequent interactions with the Russians, making for a reinstatement of selective draft registration. Carter has chosen a demonstration of displeasure that the Soviets are likely to take seriously, privately if not publicly.
THE FIRST peacetime draft was approved Sept. 14, 1940, during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a little more than 75 years old, in December 1941. In 1973 Mervin R. Laird,
then Secretary of Defense, announced the end of the military draft on Jan. 27, and President Gerald R. Ford ended registration in 1975.
Carter's announcement comes almost exactly seven years later. It also comes from the fact that a branch of the U.S. military fell short of their quotas for the so-called "volunteer
Instead of criticizing Carver for the move, Americans perhaps should wonder whether the president waited too long to ask that registration be started again.
INSTEAD OF irrationally fearing that fathers, brothers, husbands and lovers are going to be shipped out to war, the Americans perhaps should fear that their loved ones may be victims of a military program that has been allowed to deteriorate too far to be efferate have been proposed or attempted but have not been very successful. The most frequent suggestion is to raise the interest rate on savings. That won't succeed now any more because it will be too unrealistic. A quarter point, a half point, or a full point would not address the basic problem. Such a small increase would not amount to much when inflation is taken into account. Nor would it be very competitive, especially not when securities are paying 10 percent and more.
Soviet aggression has never been acceptable to the United States. In his address,
Carter enumerated the many times the United States stepped in and was successful in repelling Soviet advances in other countries, including Cuba and South Korea.
The one most obvious exception to his list of victories is Vietnam. There the fight to overcome Soviet aggression failed and the war ended in part of the world have been disastrous.
NOW THE TIE's greedy hands have touched Afghanistan. The flow of refugees in the country has grown by thousands a day. The fear of Soviet communist domination surges through the heart of Afghanistan.
Carter is not asking Americans to forget Vietnam, nor is he asking them to tooheartedly follow him into the first battle of World War III.
Carter is asking Americans to carry in their pockets tangible evidence of their preparedness to show the Soviet Union that truly believe freedom is an inalienable right.
Tax exemption for interest cure for low savings rate
N. Y. Times Special Features
By JOHN WILLIAM HENNESSY
KINGS PARK, N.Y.-The United States has one of the lowest rates of personal savings of all of the industrialized nations. The level of the savings rate must be raised.
To be very attractive, savings must be reasonably competitive with other types of investments, as well as be able to account for the effects of inflation. The solution is to exempt personal savings accounts from the tax burden. There is a number of advantages to this approach.
The significant benefit for the customers would be that the effective rate of return on investment will increase as the tax-free status. In some cases, depending on the tax bracket, it might even double. Savings-acquired owners would have access to a much higher rate to the inflation rate and far more competitive than now. A reduced money supply would help to ease pressure on the inflation rate.
Financial institutions also would benefit. Because they could continue to pay the same rate of interest on savings as they now do, borrowers will be able. Therefore, their loan rates would not have to increase. Yet the incentive of tax-free interest means that their deposits and the overall savings rate.
THAT COMBINATION would benefit the business and the bank's financial market management, the capital-investment means. Meanwhile, another of the main forces driving the inflationary spiral upward are lower interest rates.
Other methods of increasing the savings
IN ADDITION, after that money is taxed at the current income tax rates, the effect of an increase in income becomes negligible. Also, the cost of that extra interest, however small, becomes an additional expense for forcing them to raise their loan rates ever higher. That only serves an increase upward trend.
A policy of higher interest rates on savings accounts is not the answer.
Exempting savings interest from all taxes overcomes all of the objections inherent in the tax system, and it also saves cash in combination with other forms of investments. It provides more than enough incentive to put money back into savings accounts or other investment assets attached to it. It has the double effect of allowing the account holder to keep closerpace with inflation, while it helps to reduce taxes.
Tax-exempt status for savings account interest is the only realistic solution available for raising the rate of personal savings.
John William Hennessy teaches English in
high school high in Smithtown, N.Y.
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
Speakers, students deserve more space
To the Editor:
Molly Kirk Lawrence graduate student
The University Lecture Series deserves praise and thanks for inviting Ambassador McHeney to our campus, but why did they reserve such a small auditorium? The university had no broadcasting the speech live; but I doubt that many of the hundreds who were turned away had the foresight to bring radios to campus. The ambassador was no doubt the one to watch as students crowd in the University Theatre; I was intrigued by the arrangements, because Hoc Auditorium remained unused on Friday afternoon. The next time a high caliber speaker comes to KU, let us hope for a concert for both the visitor and the audience.
To the editor:
Bicycle trails need adequate city funds
I believe that I has * to make my position clear in light of the quotation ascribed to me in the Kanaan's story on bikeways (J. Jan. 24). Perhaps in the course of talking with the
reporter I didn't state my position on funding for bikeways clearly enough, or I may have reversed the order of some of my requests. The amount of money the city needs to spend on implementing bike lanes and routes is small compared to the money that is spent for automotive transport. It is truly miniscule compared to the money that has been spent
Lawrence is a dangerous place to ride a bicycle, and it shouldn't be. Usage of bicycles is discouraged by many things, including a lack of safe route in the city and an absence of service services so far away from where people live. However, the city is making efforts to improve the situation. On campus new bike racks that don't damage bike wheels are appearing, but the status of the proposed racks in town hasn't given have been removed is still mysteries.
Stan Pittman
Touring chairman of the Mount Oread Bicycle Club
Exxon wants you
To the Editor
In regard to the President's firm call for draft registration of America's youth: I only regret that I have but one life to give for my Exxon.
Karl Gridley
Lawrence freshman