University Daily Kansan, February 12, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The Universitv Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan (USPK 60-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Fint Hall. Lancaster, Kan. 60041, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second-class postage paid at Lancaster, Kan. 60044 Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student registration fees are free. Postage not required and address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118 StauFFER Fint Hall. Lancaster, Kan. 60041.
MATT DEGALAN
Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
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
A lurking beast
Crisises come, crises go. But, then, some crises are always out there, lurking around the corner. The so-called energy crisis of the 1970s is such a beast. Gas and oil prices have dropped more than 20 percent since a year ago, and they don't look like they will bottom out in the near future.
After a recent gathering of oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, there were even intimations of a possible international price war.
For the U.S. consumer, this means inflation will continue at its present low level. Consumer purchasing power will not erode as quickly as it has in the past decade. This is especially good news for the poor and for those on fixed incomes.
The reason for all this good news is that the world is experiencing an oil glut. A lot of oil is being produced, and demand can't keep up with supply. This has led to increased price competition among oil-exporting countries as they vie to maintain their share in a diminishing world market.
We join in the celebration. But the nation should remember and understand why the future looks so bright. The lessons of the past were learned at no little cost. Only through a national effort of resource conservation were we able to decrease our dependence on imported petroleum.
The nation learned that if it wants to avoid winters with no heat, summers with no cooling and long gas lines, it must practice conservation. The wisdom of that lesson holds true whether gasoline is $2.50 or 75 cents a gallon. So with that in mind we would like to offer, as a reminder, a selection of those little energy-saving tips that we should not forget.
For instance: Always let your fingers do the walking; arrive alive, and drive 55; vacation in Kansas; keep that small car in tune, and do not forget to air the tires; keep your home at 68 degrees in the winter, 78 in the summer; meet new friends, and join a car pool; lay off the jack rabbit starts; and do not let the car warm up for too long.
Of course there are innumerable other energy-saving strategems with which we have become familiar during the past few years. By using these ideas we have managed to give ourselves some breathing room. But we must be wary lest we revert back to our wasteful habits of yesteryear.
Remember, somewhere out there lurks another energy crisis, just waiting for us to slip up again. And we would not be surprised if his old friend, gas rationing, is with him.
Enlivening arts
The arts picture for Kansas could be a prettier one if Gov. John Carlin had his way.
The governor has offered to increase state financing of the Kansas Arts Commission from $490,000 to $640,000.
This increase of almost 31 percent would still leave Kansas near the bottom in per capita spending for the arts. The state is in 49th place now and would move up to 43rd place with the increase.
One-third of the increase would help local agencies qualify for additional funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Some people argue that there are more pressing concerns in the state budget than the arts. The mood of the Legislature suggests that few recommendations for large budget increases will stand.
Kansas lawmakers are often preoccupied with education matters, funding for roads and salaries for state employees.
In the midst of such issues, a concert by a renowned orchestra or a visit by a leading ballet company may seem unimportant.
'But as State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-Lawrence, said, an increase in the state's aid to the arts would enhance the quality of life for all Kansans.
The items that are necessities for the state will get their share of the money.
But too often, in the past, the arts were given whatever the Legislature seemed to be able to squeeze out after the necessities had been taken care of.
The legislators need to understand what Gov. Carlin at last has realized.
Giving more money to the arts in Kansas could bring more color into the lives of the people. The representatives should support the arts by supporting the governor on this issue.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his/her home town, faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flink Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
Reagan's aid to college students
Many people are angered and confused because President Reagan wants to whack 25 percent of the population by bringing more and on the military:
Reagan's cabinet, his political advisers and his budget director, David Stockman, all suggested that he trim fat from the defense budget.
He listened instead to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and proposed a $30 billion dollar increase with only token reductions.
Weinberger convinced the president that slowing Pentagon spending would transmit the "wrong signal" to the Soviets.
Having promised during his campaign that there would be no tax increases or Social Security cuts, he also wanted to teach him federal programs to slash.
That amounts to a $2.4 billion decrease out of a $7.9 billion budget. Reagan's proposals include placing a $4,000-academic-year lid on financial aid, cutting off high aid to students and mandating the $2,500 and mandatory classification of all students under 22 as dependents if either of their parents are alive.
He found financial aid bloated and decided that one-fourth of its budget should go.
"The proposed cuts would eliminate one-third of the GLM money now available in Weinberg's account by paying the tuition will feel the cuts the most.
anteed student loans canceled, said Jeff Weinberg, associate director of financial aid.
if the proposed budget cuts took effect immediately, almost 1.700 KU students would have their guar-
Students at the University of Kansas now receive $4 million in GSLs. Only half of that goes to the University for tuition and fees. The
DAN
CROCKETT
Staff Columnist
rest covers costs of living and flows directly into the Lawrence and Kansas economy.
Everyone stands to lose by Reagan's proposed budget, but it faces some pruning of its own.
Trading educational opportunities for missiles appeals to neither conservatives nor liberals, and public outrage is mounting.
Terrel Bell, Reagan's former secretary of education whose political leanings place him far enough in right field to rub elbows with Jerry
Fatwell, recently blasted Reagan's proposals, saying they would "clobber students."
And Stockman has been denouncing Reagan's proposals vehemently.
Meanwhile, the president, stumping hard for his plan, claims the guidance of "Dive Providence" to news about analogy for fighting defense cuts.
He has repeated his illicit that he must increase our military so that we can bring "bargaining chips" to the table when we talk about decreasing
Does Reagan think that the Russians are afraid of military pensions?
Under his proposal, $18.5 billion of next year's budget will go for military pensions. These flaccid programs, which are a primary entitlement for enlistment and reenlistment pay three times the benefits provided to pensions to officers after only 20 years of service.
Since Reagan召成 to write an unrealistic budget, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole is drafting what he calls a plan for most congressmen to agree.
Granted, our national defense is separate from all other programs in its needs, but here is an area that can truly afford to be cut.
Dole's plan hinges on a one-year budget freeze that would leave all government agencies, including the Pentagon, at this year's level and cancel next year's cost-of-living allowances.
We now spend 30 cents out of every dollar on our military. And the percentage grows each year. If we continue to add to our trillion-dollar budget for defense, fortification, we will see a time when there is little worth defending.
While a freeze is hardly a miracle cure for financial aid programs, it beats having a quarter of your budget terminated.
Students have a right to be angry over Reagan's proposals. But for those who remain confused, here is his reasoning.
Students have shown, right here at KU and in the not-so-distant past, that when they get fed up with government meddling, they will demonstrate their discontent by rioting.
Well, Reagan figures that if there's going to be widespread roiting in this country again, we've got to have a strong military to crush it quickly.
Maybe not to all of us getting our loans cut, but it seems to be clear to Reagan.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Crimes vs. crime
To the editor:
As a pacifist, I find it reassuring that there are people like Margaret Safranek around, people who can overcome their own fears and frustrations and realize that violence is not a solution to anything. (Feb. 1 issue of the University Daily Kansan.)
Admittedly, in a life-or-death situation, non-violent options are sometimes scarce, and the average person would do what he must to survive, and justifiably so. But how can civilized people think that violence, especially the sort of potentially deadly violence that guns create, be desirable in anything less than a life-or-death situation, let alone a crime where all you stand to lose is money?
How can anyone see justice in shooting ptie thieves in the back? What if Bernhard Goetz had been a better shot and killed someone, or a worse shot and hit an innocent bystander? What if it had only been a pickocket? Imagine the public outey then, if you can.
There are ways of removing criminals from society, ever permanently, without killing them, but if you aren't satisfied with the criminal justice system, there are better ways to change that than by breaking the law. You can't be an injustice never justify commitning even greater injustices.
What Bernard Goetz did was wrong in every sense, and to admire him is even worse, for that point out just how many people there are who would have done the same bloody thing. That really worries me. There is no comfort living in a society where violence, though against the law, is considered acceptable behavior by "honest" citizens.
No religion, no government, no society has ever encouraged people to kill, or attempt to kill, other people simply on the basis of their own
judgment; acts of war and capital punishment, inthinkable as they are, are by mandate, and they should stay that way, until the day — if the human race lives to see it — when we outgrown all forms of aggression.
Douglas Yanega New York graduate student
Attacking head on
To the editor:
Where have all the political moderates gone? These days, defending one's self-proclaimed ideology, conservative or liberal, is more important than finding solutions to common problems.
For example, Bryan Daniel ("A peace proposal we can live without." Feb. 6 University Daily Kansan opposes the foundation of a National Peace Academy because, he fears, it would serve only as a venue for political liberals. He also contends that an emphasis on peace is and what should be done to resolve conflicts, research should be left to the "private sector."
This is a perversion of the issue for the sake of promoting an ideology. Whatever peace is, it is not nuclear war. And the possibility of nuclear war is a real problem we all share. The "private sector," with its massive defense industry and sales to the Pentagon ($640 for a toilet seat cover), would have supported on the other hand, the bipartisan Peace Academy could make some progress, and at a bargain — $38 million, the academy's founding cost, equals .001 of the proposed 1985 military budget.
Can we afford to insanely distort issues to suit our ideological argument? Or can we begin to view issues in terms of problems and solutions, attacking them not necessarily from the right or left but head on?
Tim Doolittle
Tim Bontine
graduate teaching assistant,
English department
Not so opportune
I've read the Kansan for many years, and I've learned a valuable lesson from it: Some people just aren't very smart. I first began to suspect this last semester when I read that some moron in the College Young Republicans had claimed that "It's not the government's job to legislate equality." (Chorus of cheers from the Ku Klux Klan, as Abe Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson turn somersaults in their graves.)
That's probably the most loathsome and just plain wrong statement I've ever read in the Kanans, but for sheer insanity, you can't just beat Vince Hess. In his column of Feb. 5 in the Kanas, Hess assured us that Ronald Reagan is on the verge of transforming America into an "opportunity society," whatever that means.
To the editor
Opportunity for whom, Hess? Opportunity for anyone who believes in voluntary (i.e. mandatory) prayer in the schools. Opportunity for anyone who can get through college without having to rely on grants or loans. Opportunity for anyone who benefits from opportunities for any balf-wil in a uniform.
Jordan Stump Lawrence senior
Views misstated
To the editor:
What I have said publicly is this: I condemn the pattern of physical violence, harassment, intimidation and threats that surrounded the
Although I have never stated publicly a position on the specific issue discussed in Tim Williams' guest column in the Feb. 4 University Daily Kansan刊 "Homophobia - A new social disease." Williams proceeds to invent and attribute to me opinions that are not my own.
debate over financing for GLSOK several weeks ago. I applaud the joint statement of Steve Imber and Ruth Lichwald "condemning" any further harassments and prejudices on both 'sides' on these issues."
Williams attributes to me a position on the "legitimacy of GLSOK" and on "pre-empting student pre-operative in deciding how Student Senate funds are to be spent." Had Williams taken the time to speak to me about my views, I would have told him the following:
I also think that any official student organization has the right to apply to the Student Senate for financing, and that it is the prerogative of the Student Senate, within the limits imposed on it by federal and state law and any applicable University regulations, to decide for itself whether or not it wishes to finance an organization.
I agree with the recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Gay Student Services vs. Texas A& M University (Aug. 3, 1984), where a public university was required to recognize a homosexual student group as an official on-campus organization. I agree with the Fifth Circuit that such groups have a First Amendment right to exist on a state-supported campus.
Robert H. Jerry II associate professor of law
Correction
Because of a columnist's error Bryan Daniel's Feb. 6 column on the National Peace Academy inaccurately implied that the Peace Academy proposal was still pending before Congress. In fact the proposal was passed and signed into law this past fall. However, financing for the Peace Institute, as it is now called, has been held up, and it is uncertain whether funds will be provided in the next budget year or not.