University Daily Kansan, April 5, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan (USP5 60-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Fint Hall, Lawen, Kanan 6045, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawen, Kanan 6004 Subscriptions by mail are $12 for students aged 72 a year in Hughes County and $9 for students aged 72 a year in Johnson County. Student accounts are paid through the student activity fee **POSTMASTER** Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118 StauFFER Fint Hall, Lawen, Kanan 6045
MATT DEGALAN Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
DUNCAN CALHOUN MARY BERNICA
Retail Sales National Sales
Manager Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
DAVID NIXON Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Easter and hope
Easter is a time of resurrection and hope.
Easter was a pagan goddess of springtime renewal long before Christ arrived the first time.
Indeed, Easter eggs were borrowed from the pagan world, too. The egg is an ancient symbol of resurrection.
Easter baskets and bunnies are symbols from Fifth Avenue.
And the three-day Easter vacation is a symbol of congressional mercy.
Yet regardless of who or what you worship, Easter is a time of resurrection and hope.
It's not too hard to feel hope in Lawrence. Take, for instance, that moment after you turn in your term paper or walk out of a final. You know you have survived yet another semester.
But for others, survival itself is their greatest hope. And resurrection isn't even in the picture.
In Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants slaughter each other in the name of the same God. There is plenty of fodder for resurrection there.
In Iran and Iraq, people fight over a different god but get the same results as they do in Dublin.
Bullets and blood spray in the name of gods and politics all across Central America, Southeast Asia, South Africa and Afghanistan. In the United States, fanatics bomb abortion clinics in the name of their God.
In Ethiopia and Appalachia, people struggle for survival in a different way. Hunger is the supreme ruler and hope is just as scarce.
So as you sit down to your Easter ham this Sunday, try to hope for more than an A on your term paper. Give a little to the people around the world who suffer.
Even the slightest thing can be a message of hope, of resurrection.
No consistency
The nation has, over the past four years, grown accustomed to the direct, uncompromising rhetoric of President Reagan and other members of his administration. It was Reagan who called the Soviet Union the "evil empire." He also was the president who predicted that Marxism was destined to wind up in the "dust bin of history."
The resulting public outcry was mixed. Some thought Reagan was needlessly exacerbating the growing rift between the United States and the Soviet Union. Others rejoiced that we finally had a leader who was not afraid to speak the truth.
In either case, Reagan was speaking his mind. So why, one might ask, was Reagan so strained in commenting on the shooting in East Germany last week of Maj. Arthur Nicholson?
Fully uniformed and walking in broad daylight with a camera in hand, Nicholson was shot and allowed to slowly bleed to death as Soviet guards denied him medical attention.
The nation was united in common revulsion to the atrocity. In times such as this, the president, the only elected representative of all the people, has a duty to voice the moral indignation and outrage felt by all.
Reagan was given a stage upon which he could wax "Reaganesque" but he failed. He failed not only himself but the country as well. Where's the consistency?
Game 1: Play ball
For millions of Americans the return of spring is marked by neither blooming flowers nor new-found love but by the opening day of baseball season.
For one day, at least, fans and players for every team in both leagues can dream of a pennant in October. Hope, a scarce commodity, for a moment springs to life. Although it may pass quickly and disappear into the drudgery of everyday life, this hope will lift spirits as it passes.
Across the country the season is about to begin. Spring training is drawing to a close and teams are tuning up for the first of 162 games. In theory, the opening game is no more important than any of the others. But symbolically it carries a special meaning. Win this one, and a team can win it all.
In every stadium — even in Cleveland and Seattle — crowds will be large. In Detroit and Chicago, games have been sold out for days as fans hope for continued success after last year's memorable seasons. For the Royals, too, there is hope.
More than any sport, baseball stirs the imagination of the country. Its heroes and shortcomings are reported each day on sports pages and on television broadcasts by armies of journalists. For fans, baseball blends excitement and relaxation in a masterful manner.
Sipping beer in the bleachers on a warm afternoon is one of life's great pleasures. After a long winter, baseball's return is as welcome and refreshing as a spring breeze.
Might as well put White House in Oz
From Andrew Jackson's inaugural with public partygoers trampling the front lawn to
President Reagan is invoking old heroes of the American Revolution to make his case for American aid to Nicaragua "freedom fighters," and no patriot did so much as the Marquis de Lafayette, the French soldier whose timely financial and military aid helped defeat the British at Yorktown.
But under a plan studied by the Secret Service, Lafayette's monument in Washington — the grassy square block across the street from the White House that is home to chess players, protesters of every stripe and the homeless in a tent city — could disappear.
The Secret Service last week told Congress it was considering a plan to close off the two blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue on the north side of the White House to traffic to improve security at the one building that draws travelers from around the world to gape in awe at what has been called "the people's house."
Eugene McCarthy's, 1968 campaign promise to tear down the wrought iron bars separating the mansion from the "Avenue of the Presidents," the north face of the White House has been one of the more important symbols of American democracy.
It must be the most accessible view of any world leader's residence, and for that reason you can count cars from all 50 states slowly
IRA R. ALLEN
United Press International
cruising past on a daily basis, with windows rolled down for snapshot takers Children and their parents stand mute, grasping the bars and staring at one of the world's more famous buildings, just a stone's throw away.
And that stone's throw, presumably, is what has the Secret Service concerned.
Reagan often says he doesn't interfere in security recommendations made by the Secret
Service, to whom, of course, he owes his life.
But this is one case for a direct presidential order to stop the silly, grandiose scheme to annex the Middle East and secure it in the name of fight against terrorists.
The grounds are well guarded — as witness to the prompt apprehension of fence jumpers on a weekly basis — with police, dogs, floodlights, electronic sensing devices and snipers on the rooftop allegedly in possession of shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles. If the security gurus are that concerned about tourists or worse, they might just as well move the Executive Mansion to Kansas, centrally located and home of the Great Oz.
There is some hope, however, of keeping Pennsylvania Avenue intact because any plan would require years of study and appraisal. It is in federal agencies, including the Fine Arts Commission.
If there were any thought that barring traffic would lead to
creation of a true pedestrian mall or European-style garden in front of the White House, perhaps the plan would make sense.
But given the Secret Service sense of esthetics in erecting concrete traffic barriers and cement flowerpots at every access point to the grounds, any expansion would more likely result in a barren no-man's landakin, a common feature of Korean or a Korean demilitarized zone.
Forget the local traffic disruptions such a plan would entail. Forget that the White House grounds could creep northward to the door of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters. Forget the positive value of requiring students to use its window and see dissenters and the wretched poor camped out across the street.
President Reagan should put his foot down now and tell the Secret Service to do its fine job of fixing the Iraq mess with American history.
He owes it to General Lafayette.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Perfect solution
To the editor
in response to the Lawrence residents who dislike fraternity street parties in their neighborhoods; I sympathize, but quit your whining.
The next time some drunken idiot climbs your fences, bothers your children or pets, litters your yard, or in short, trespasses on your property, thereby infringing on your rights, ask him nicely to leave. And if he ignores you, take a baseball bat and break his ribs.
Doug Humphreys Great Bend senior
Keeping it clean
On a recent bike ride to Clinton Lake, I was appalled by the amount of trash and broken glass that had been thoughtlessly thrown out. As an avid cyclist, I consider glass on the roads and bike paths to be a serious concern. It not only takes time to patch a flat tire; it costs money.
A frequent response I get when confronting someone who has just littered is: “It will get cleaned up.” True, it might be picked up. how, upon being pickup, and it is apparent that not much, if any, of the trash ever gets picked up.
To the editor:
Mark Porter
Pittsburg junior
I am sure that most of the litter is not thrown out by KU students or faculty, but we need to do our part in keeping our area clean.
With the weather getting nice again, all of us will be outdoors more frequently. If we all do our part, we can keep Lawrence and the surrounding area clean and beautiful for everyone to enjoy.
That plastic grass
To the editor:
Kansas is a school rich in tradition. KU symbolically has shown its desire and respect for tradition by changing its football and basketball uniforms back to the traditional style. Now it's time to bring this training to life. It will be forming Memorial Stadium's Aktetraum carpet into a grass field.
Playing football on Astroturf is like:
- Having a picnic on a subway.
- Having a backyard cookout using a microwave.
- Fishing in a concrete swimming pool.
I am happy for the great alumni and fans who witnessed the great like Gale Sayers and John Riggis play on a natural surface. And I am sadden
knowing that my memories will be marred by watching KU's finest play on a large piece of plastic.
I am unaware of the costs of maintaining a grass field, but I am sure that these costs would be more than covered by the additional fans and amenities, the fine football atmosphere being portrayed on a beautiful grass field.
Bob Hoffman St. Louis senior
ruling classes supported the arts financially. Today it's not so different. Donations and foundations of the wealthy pay to support the arts.
Not Senate's job
To the editor:
Let me make it clear from the start that I am not against supporting the arts. Cultural activity plays an important role at this University, and it should. I personally support the arts. I spent a year on Student Senate's Cultural Affairs Committee, and I attend as many "cultural" performances and exhibits as anyone I know. However, Senate shouldn't be in the business of financing paintings.
At a meeting on March 27, Student Senate voted to donate $10,000 to the Spencer Museum of Art to help purchase a self-portrait by John Steuart Curry. This was a poor decision.
The wealthy always have paid for the arts. Students don't count as the wealthy. Hundreds of years ago, the
As students, the best way we can support the arts is by attending and learning, by exposing ourselves to them. Financial support is still the responsibility of the rich. The art museum has a vast collection that haven't helped pay for. I don't see why all of a sudden it's our responsibility to do so.
The bill was hardly debated at all. We spend hours quibbling over a few hundred dollars to student organizations at budget hearings, but in less than 30 minutes, we allocated $10,000. It seems like the decision wasn't given the thoughtful consideration that a $10,000 issue deserves.
Someone might say, "Well, $10.00 isn't that much." Perhaps, relative to some other things, it's not. However, Senate allocate about $60.00 to all the student organizations, except revenue code groups. Should we spend $10,000 to buy one painting? Does it serve the students as well as putting the money somewhere else would?
Let us remember that Senate exists to serve the students. The arts should be supported, but this is a lousy way to do it.
Woody Browne
Woody Browne Interfraternity Council senator and Shawnee junior