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University Daily Kansan, April 1, 1981
Opinion
Yet another reminder
"Aw, gees," the gun proponent mutters,
"just because some nutso tries to shoot the president, those bleeding-heart idiots will be calling for gun controls again. Gees!"
Well, that gun proponent is right (for once). There is a renewed call in the nation for gun control legislation, spurred on by the attempted assassination Monday of President Reagan.
It disturbs a lot of law-abiding people that someone can carry around a 22 caliber revolver in public and shoot down people at random. It proves that the existing statutes and practices are not adequate. It should show that the only reasonable way to deter such crimes in the future is to make mere possession of a handgun a severe federal crime.
Look at the facts. All the so-called "safeguards" in current gun laws failed to prevent a lunatic from obtaining or carrying a gun. John W. Hincley Jr., charged with the shootings of the president and three others, had a history of psychiatric problems; he still obtained guns. He was caught last fall tryling to smuggle guns on board an airplane; he was fired the grand sum of $50 and released.
If fines are intended to be a measure of how serious a wrong is supposed to be, then illegally parking on campus a few times
would add up to a greater crime than smuggling firearms and ammunition aboard planes.
You can shoot a president.
Any why are guns legal for possession in the first place? They're not just used for hunting, except maybe hunting people. They don't do much of anything except kill and maim people. Look at all the useful and wonderful things you can do with your gun: You can shoot your spouse. You can shoot your kids. You can shoot your neighbor or your neighbor's kids.
Clearly, the only thing blocking strict handgun control in this country is a powerful gun lobby. But if the majority of the American people, which indeed does favor handgun controls, were to speak up and say, "Enough!" then their legislators would be faced with an angry, vocal majority as opposed to a paranoid, bullying minority. And come ballot-counting time, which counts more toward a legislator's re-election—a major or a minority?
Now, true, even if private handgun possession were totally outlawed, and violators were punished with severe prison sentences, there's always the chance that the president might be killed. But such handgun abolition would make that act a lot harder; it's far too easy now.
When Legislature meddles University's bound to suffer
Last week Acting Chancellor Del Shankel told the university that the problems it has faced this year are not insurmountable, that they are not insurmountable, that they can be brushed away with a little work.
That is, all but the small pebbles that make up the Kansas Legislature and have begun to scatter themselves under the shoes of the University.
Those shoes are wearing thin; they are beginning to show the wear and tear of the repeated cuts, slashes and rocky roads that have crossed their path.
CYNTHIA
CURRIE
1.
It is a path that has been frequented by the Legislature more often than usual and at the expense of the University and the other six under the apsices of the Kansas Board of Regents.
The Legislature has taken it into its duties to right what it sees are the apparent wrongs in Kansas' educational institutions. The representatives in Topeka have seen problems, universities could not handle solving them on their own and have attempted to do the work for them.
He thought the University had a problem with its tenure policy. Hoagland decided he knew how to solve the problem of having to keep faculty members who he thought had not fulfilled their duties, and created a bill that would have given the university of Regents the power to make tenure decisions.
For example, when state Rep. Joseph Hoagland, R-Overland Park, saw that Nerman Forer, the KU professor of social welfare who went to Iran to try to solve the hostage crisis, was on tenure and could not be fired, he was dismayed and appalled.
Instead of keeping those decisions within the University, where professors and administrators know the most about tenure matters, the p would have given outsiders the p武器 to make decisions concerning who would serve as tenured University faculty.
Rep. William Bunten, R-Topeka was Sashburn University in TopekaFinancing dying and decided to save it by adding the school to KU as an extension—a Topeka campus. Luckily, and reasonably, the idea was scrapped and the House never did get to connect KU to Topeka.
The University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., came within a month of losing dollars allocated to it from the Legislature. A tour of the Med Center that revealed unsantany conditions and housewives in the community gave Stuart Ways and Means committee Chairmen Pat Farris, R-Wichita, ammunition to demand improvements or else.
That visit, which was a surprise to KU administrators at the University and the Med Center, prompted State Sen. Jane Eldridge to charge former Lawrence Senator Arnold Berman and Former Chancellor Archie R. Dykes with "a carefully orchestrated assault" against
the university to "diminish the reputation of Kansas University."
Eldredge, R-Lawrence, the visit was an attempt to justify deep cuts that the Senate made in the Board of Regents budget. The Senate last week passed cuts totaling more than $9 million from the budget, the largest cut being in faculty increases and university operating expenses.
Those cuts will severely cripple the universities in Kansas and KU will be hit hard. KU has a continual problem with faculty members who have been paid too much to cover costs too much for an engineering professor to work at one-third the salary he could be making as a professional. Last semester, KU lacked five top administrators who had decided to leave to pursue their own professional fields in more highly paid positions.
And the coup de grace, an amendment to the Senate's budget bill, is the final stroke of the Legislature's wand—the legislative view of what the University should demand from its faculty.
Three hours of classitine a week—not too much to ask of a professor to teach, according to the amendment's sponsor, Edward Roitz, a Pittsburg Republican.
There is nothing wrong with the University being accountable for its faculty and for the quality of students produced from the teaching of that faculty. But with someone who is not closely familiar with the situation, involvement is a bhindrance, not a help.
If there are problems that the Legislature should look into, such as the possible mismanagement of state funds between the University of Kansas and Parsons State Hospital, the Legislature has the right to investigate them.
However, when the Legislature thinks it is in the public interest to delve into the academic workings of the University, to take care of the students and staff, to deal with a problem according to its wishes, there is a danger.
When the state begins to limit what the university can do, whether it be by requiring faculty to teach a certain number of hours and perhaps destroying the research base of the school or involving those outside the university with personnel decisions that should be handled within the university system, it is encroaching on areas it shouldn't.
There is a danger because the atmosphere of a university does not necessarily reflect the atmosphere of the state. What is right and good for the state, and is pushed on the universities by the Legislature, may not be right and good for the schools. What the corporate headquarters wants the small franchise to do may be the most cost effective way to manage.
KANSAN
The Legislature may oversee the University to guarantee it is responsible to the public for spent money, but the relationship between the two should be carefully guarded. When the Legislature begins to creep into the internal workings of the university, to use laws and the power of government to run the institutions where free knowledge and thought should be able to grow freely, the freedom and benefits of the University are muddled.
(USFS 405-640) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Tuesday and Thursday. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 60455. Mail by mail is $18 or $13 on credit or $25 if registered. Subscriptions to USFS 405-640. Subscriptions by mail are $18 or $13 on credit or $25 if registered. Student subscriptions are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee. Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kankan, Plint Hall, The University of Kansas.
As is the complaint of businesses to federal agencies, too much regulation and intervention can soon become overly cumbersome, expensive and costly. Of the business, So, too, is it, with the University.
Editor David Lewis
Managing Editor.
Ellen Iwarnoto
business Manager
Terri Fry
Retail Sales Manager
Larry Leibengood
ENQUIRER April 7, 1981 LARGEST CIRCULATION OF AMY PAPER IN AMERICA
NATIONAL
CAROL BURNETT WINS SUIT, FLEES IN UFO AFTER RUINING FREEDOM OF PRESS
Jerry Ford: 'I think I'm in love with a giraffe'
@1981 Miami News
Burnett did the seemingly impossible
Carol Burnett last week did what people said could not be done. She won a $1.6 million judgment against the National Enquirer, the most infamous of the infamous scandal sheets.
You've seen the Enquirer before as you check out from the grocery store. There, in its tabloid size and glossy pages, run this week's cancer and all the latest about the latest stars.
The National Enquirer is also an affront to the rest of the media, which try to act responsibly. The Enquirer does nothing to help the public's perception of the media.
Usually, celebrities and public figures have accepted the notion that negative press, and even false press, is a price to pay for stardom. They wear a dark eye, and they have to weather some a bause.
The Enquirer and all the other gossip publications have flourished because of this. But rightly, Burnett drew the line in front of a publication that has gone unchecked for too long.
She filed her suit after a March 1976 article described her behavior in a Washington restaurant. She had quite a night, according to the article. She "traipsed" around the restaurant, "giggling" and offering her dessert to everyone. She insulted Henry Kissinger, who was eating there. And finally, an upset patron splashed a glass of water on her.
She sued, and five years later, she has won.
She feels vindicated.
The article was loaded with buzz words, and Burnett contended that it made her appear drunk, though the article never directly came out and said that.
She found the intimation offensive because her parents were alcoholics, and her daughter has had a well-publicized drug problem. Burnett has crushed against drugs and alcohol, and she felt that the article undermined her credibility.
Now other stars, including Dolly Parton, Ed McMahon and Shirley Jones are ready with suits against the Enquirer for articles written about them.
The day of the verdict, Elizabeth Taylor and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., threatened to sue if an article about their supposed marriage problems was not retracted.
Good for all of them, but also good luck to it. It is a long road to get damages. Buried somewhere away.
DAN
TORCHIA
though it has been covered extensively. The verdict in her favor is not going to make other people laugh.
The case did not create any new law. This was a basic libel case. As a public figure, Burnett had to prove actual malice, that the truth was misleading and disregard for the truth by printing the article.
The jury agreed with Burnett's arguments, and it awarded her damages. That's all. The case is notable only because Burnett is famous, and it generally have not attempted to sue the Enquirer.
And just because Burnett has initially won, there is no guarantee that she will collect the damages. The Enquirer is appealing the case, and it depends on the chance that the decision could be overturned.
The main point is that the Enquirer was rued a magazine, not a newspaper, and did not get retraction protection afforded newspapers in California.
In California, a newspaper is not liable for damages if a retraction is printed within 21 days of the demand for one. Magazines do not have that protection.
So it is entirely conceivable that the Enquirer could still win the case, because the law
discriminates against magazines. It did print a retraction, although it was after the 21-day
One important point to remember about this case, and the subsequent libl cases that will come from it, is the time factor involved. The libl cases are years. With the appeal, it is going to go on longer.
Shirley Jones' case, which was brought forth by an Enquirer article claiming she was too drunk to work, is the next case expected to come up. Yet it won't go to trial for at least another two years, according to Hollywood agent Marty Ingels, her husband.
Libel cases take a long time to come to trial, and many celebrities may find that a suit may not be worth the time and money. It would interfere with their careers and a lot of money because—all over an article that is forgotten by the public by the time the case reaches court.
There has been some concern by the mainstream press over the case, but there has not been a rush to defend the Enquirer. There is not concern to the legitimate press, and it isn't concerned.
Public figures should expect the bad with the status they achieve, but they are right in that. Public figures do not have the status they achieve.
As long as the press reports the news ethically and accurately, there won't be any problems. Idle gossip that has no basis is not the same thing as news. The case won't discourage papers from publishing sensitive stories.
For instance, an investigative story that unfavorably reflects upon a person in a bad position won't be suppressed. News is news, and the reports are accurate, there is no need for fear.
The National Enquirer is a long way from the New York Times. The Enquirer has printed shady stories in the past, despite its claims that it checks every story.
Carol Burnett took a courageous stand. And she won on the principle that the Enquirer asked her to do.
Letters to the Editor
Stouffer can't stand another hot summer
To the editor:
"Bad luck years seem to run in threes," the western Kansas wheat farmer muses. "Three years of drought before rain, three years of blizzard winters. Why, let me tell you about the snow in the early 1985." "But let's not digress with the farmer. Let me tell you about the drought in 1979, the heat wave in 1980, the what in 1981!
Imagine with me, if you will, that McColll or Jayhawker Towers decided one summer to save money in building maintenance by turning off lights and water to students in advance of sultry July and August. "Gquess what, folks, no air conditioning. Like it or leave it. But we will make available without charge hammers and screwdrivers to any student who wants to install their own window."
Many people, like myself, chose to live in married housing because we have taken some years out of our life to come to school. Study is the big priority of life. We want to live on campus, so we don't have to spend either money or time attending a quantitative time that we feel is better spent in study.
Some students would no doubt run to K-Mart or Gibson's and plunk down money they had cached for education expenses on air conditioners or big fans; some others might just suffer; some might decide to move into private apartments with all the contender hassles just to keep cool. Such a problem is not about to happen; it is happening. Where? In Stouffer Place, the dormitories for married students and students with families.
This is a time in our life for accruing education, not fine homes and furniture; therefore we need to be ready to accept them.
inexpensive furnished apartments. Even the expense of drapes to be used for the two or three years we're here and then sold for a fraction of the cost at a garagealley yard sale is sidestepped because the shade will be grateful that the apartments are furnished—but wait, they have no air conditioners.
The baby lived and the couple has since returned to their country where climate is dryer and houses more ventilated; and the rest of us at Stouffor Place look forward to no change. We survey a survey of maintenance needs around through our Neighborhood Association. Air conditioning was ranked the number one concern. Nothing was done.
This forced countless numbers of us over the years to buy small window air conditioners for our little Home Sweet Homes. Like drapes, it's an expense many of us are to do pay. I put it off myself until the second week of the heat wave last summer, but then the aggy began to affect my kids and even me. We had to build the building next to mine who didn't. Like 75 percent of Stouffer residents, she and her husband are foreign students. They could not justify the expense of an air conditioner on their limited scholarships, knowing they would be leaving the country in one semester, Stalwart, who was a graduate daughter was admitted to Lawrence Memorial Hospital with heat prostration and dehydration.
Housing offices, are you there? Are you listening? Do you care? I proposed that KU housing offices in their air-conditioned offices get on the job and remedy this problem now—before the third summer. Make some air conditioners available for us to rent, at the very least. Buy at some equitable mark-down the window units we have bought when we pack up
and go, and make them available to the future.
Please help us, this is not a small problem! A great way to thank you.
I. inda J. Donan
Kansas City, Kan., graduate student
Derail the subsidies
To the editor:
Mean Old Reagan is at it again. When he's not threatening to blow up the world or snatching food from starving children, he's upping Peter Somerville's spring break. In his March 28 editorial, Peter tells us of his spring-break trip to California. Half of his Amtrak transportation cost was paid by a federal subsidy. Reagan has proposed cutting this subsidy.
I spent spring break here in Lawrence—working. And I paid income tax on the money I made. And part of that tax went to subsidize Peter's trip. Perhaps next year, if Reagan's economic proposals are enacted, I can take the savings saved because of my tax reduction and travel.
And what of Peter's trip next year? I couldn't care less. Because it's like this, like Peter: Taxpayers (such as I) don't owe you a thing—least of all a subsidized灸疗. (What will you be next—subsidized灸疗 concerts?) Subtitled blow-dry humblying? These are as "essential" as spring-break trips.)
This is the very essence of free-market economics. Pay as you go! You haven't the right, in a free society, to expect someone else to pick up the tab.
Ron Morris Lawrence junior