University Dally Kansan, January 29, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan (USPK 605-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kanuck 6054, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods. Second class payment帖写 at Lawrence, Kanuck 6044 Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or more and $25 for seventeen months. Subscription fees are $1 and are paid through the student activity fee **POSTMASTER:** Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan 118 StauFFER Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kanuck 6044.
MATT DEGALAN Editor
DIANE LUBER SUSAN WORTMAN Managing Editor Editorial Editor
LYNNE STARK Business Manager
ROB KARWATH Campus Editor
DUNCAN CALHOUN MARY BERNICA
Retail Sales National Sales
Manager Manager
DAVID NIXON Campus Sales Manager
SUSANNE SHAW General Manager and News Adviser
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Retiring Hoch
When it was first built in 1927, Hoch Auditorium served as a center both for the performing arts and the basketball team.
Today, students hearing that the old auditorium was once the site of basketball games seem surprised. Collegiate basketball has changed greatly since 1955, the year that the team moved to Allen Field House. The performing arts have changed just as much, but Hoch still remains the University's largest performing arts center.
The time has come to change that. A new performing arts center is needed. Hoch is a stately old building, and the University should continue to use it for classes and other purposes. But as a performing arts center, it is so outdated that some top performers refuse to play there.
Dressing rooms are too small. Seats are battered. And worst of all, the acoustics are terrible. The Kansas City Lyric Opera refuses to play in Hoch because of the poor acoustics.
Nearly everyone agrees on the need for a new building, from officials in the School of Fine Arts to Chancellor Gene A. Budig. Last week Budig said he hoped to have a "Plan of action" for building a new performing arts center by next year. The problem — as is so often the case — comes in finding the money. A new performing arts center would cost $20 million to $30 million.
Unfortunately, it's a political fact of life that the state won't pay for such an expensive building. In past years, money for capital improvements has been scarce. Therefore, private funds must be sought.
When money was sought for an alumni center and for an indoor athletic complex, KU alumni came through with millions of dollars. The Adams Alumni Center, completed in 1983, cost about $5 million. The Anschutz Sports Pavilion, completed last fall, cost more than $3 million. Both were built with private funds.
KU alumni should be equally willing to give money for a performing arts center.
The University has a good fine arts program. Interest in the arts on campus and in Lawrence is great. The only thing lacking is a high-quality performing arts center to show off University productions and attract top-name performers.
The administration should push for a new performing arts center. Obtaining the money won't be easy. It never is. But in 30 years it would be nice to watch a great opera company perform in a yet unnamed complex and wonder how the University ever got along with Hoch as a performing arts center.
The University Daily Kansas editorial board meets at 7 p.m. Sundays to discuss the editorial policy of the paper.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the board are Bryan Dunel, columnist; Matt DeGalan, editor; Dong Farah, columnist; Virce Heas, columnist; Dan Howell, assistant editorial editor; Sara Furkan, columnist; Susan Wortman, editorial editor.
The board invites anyone who wants to discuss editorial concerns to attend a board meeting.
and the Susan Wortman at 564-810 to make arrangements.
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 class and hometown, or faculty or staff information. The Kansan reserves facilities for individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office. 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
A paper chase in the City of Congress
It is now I.D.C. one year ago this week, I arrived in Washington, D.C., for a spring internship on a congressional staff.
A congressional internship permits a student to go beyond the typical news and editorial coverage of Congress. For example, many people probably have heard of the seniority system and the Conservative Opportunity Society. These are important topics, yes, but also important are the conditions under which Congress operates.
Paper turned out to be both gold and dirt. It was gold in that it was the lifeblood of a congressional staffer. It was dirt in that it was everywhere, and it did not go away no matter how many buckets or out boxes were available.
Paper and the City of Congress were two of the most important aspects of life as I experienced it on a congressional staff.
Into congressional offices came letters from constituents, notices from other congressional offices on schedules and pending legislation, assorted pamphlets and memos from lobbying groups and research files from the Congressional Research Service (a.k.a. CRS - a branch of the Library of Congress). Out of congressional offices went newsletters, speeches, letters to constituents, notices to other offices and so on.
Indeed, one of the first things I saw in the capital — wordsmith will note which spelling refers to the city and not the town. It seems that stacks of waste paper in the basement of a House office building. Much has been made about drug abuse in the capital; perhaps the concerned parties heard about something wasted and thought of people, not paper.
Something just had to be done with all this paper; thus, filing cabinets and shelves surrounded copiers and desks everywhere. Mailbags were
As the rabbits do, so did paper; a copying machine seemed to be around every corner in every congressional building. A congressional staffer could copy one sheet or an entire book in a few minutes on an
huge and plentiful, all the better in which to get paper out of the office. Congressional mailing centers support that mail — that's right — paper.
Then there was the City of Congress. A common term in news coverage of Congress is the "Hill," a word that refers both to the Capitol and to office buildings in which congressmen, their staffs, their copying machines and their files live happily ever after.
However, hidden deep within the bowels of the Hill I found a city unto itself, a City solely for congressmen and their staffs.
The City was in a huge basement area under the Capitol and its accompanying office buildings. The City provided food services that ranged from cafeterias to carry-out sandwich counters to formal dining rooms. The City also had barbershop and bookstores. It had its own reference rooms full of paper magazines, newspapers and CRS reports. Copying and mailing centers also qualified as part of the City.
The City even had its own mass transportation system. Far beneath the grass and concrete of the Hill ran tracks between congressional office buildings and the Capitol. Congressmen and their staffs rode trolley cars
between buildings. The cars were especially busy when congressmen rushed to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote.
The City had its own support staff; its members included janitors, cooks, technicians who oversaw all the copying machines and conductors who operated the underground trolley.
Congressional staffers who did not already have enough on their minds could ride the trolley and try to guess who their fellow passengers were — maybe a farm lobbyist from Iowa, maybe a famous senator!
Ah, those fond memories of yesteryear! A semester in Washington is definitely worthwhile.
That semester certainly helped inform my perspective on current events. Whenever I read about congressman who criticize welfare mothers or fat-cat generals at the Pentagon, I wonder whether those congressmen had enjoyed that same day a fine cut of prime rib at a taxpayer-subsidized restaurant in the City.
Best of all about my semester in Washington. I made lots of contacts in the City of Congress. You see, I was preparing for the day when I open my own paper mill.
Grain reserve-KU's answer to famine
The pictures we receive on television these days are not pretty. Skin-covered skeletons of children not yet dead, with bloated belies and hollow eyes, stare helplessly at emaciated mothers in agonizing pain. Old men with vacant faces look as if they are waiting for the dust to reclaim them.
A Red Cross bulletin estimated that they are among the 40,000 victims of starvation in Ethiopia and 26 other African countries dying every month. That adds up to half a million a year. They are innocent men, women and children caught in the worst famine of the century, which is the result of a killer drought sweeping across Africa and endangering 128 million people.
While the problem of famine may always surround us, the means to alleviate it substantially can be found right here at the University of Kansas. Ron Francisco and Roy Laird, professors of political science, have been instrumental in pushing the idea of
an internationalized grain reserve specifically designed for responding to widespread disaster.
Their investigations conclude that many of the problems of the American farmer and the farm
DAVE
MORRISON
Staff Columns
economy result from self-serving political pressures related to grain reserves. If those pressures were taken away, food production would probably increase, they concluded.
"One Congress does one thing and then another does something else." Laird said. These changes which affect crop profitability also impinge mightily upon the farmer's ability to plan future crops.
"Farmers will not and cannot
produce grain without a profit to feed, clothe and house their families," he said. Thus without adequate food prices, production cannot meet projected future world requirements.
Under their proposal, farmers would put grain into reserves located throughout the world. This would be done through an internationally financed loan program under which the farmers would be guaranteed a minimum price for their crop before they harvest them. After harvest, each farmer would retain the option of keeping his loan as payment and giving the grain to the reserve or repaying the loan and selling his grain on the open market.
This would maximize the farmer's profit and provide him with an incentive to increase his production the following year. Moreover, a significant stockpile of grain would build up over time and serve as an insurance policy against widespread famine.
Another goal of the proposed reserve is to help bring some
stability to the farmer so that he can make long-range plans. Such a reserve, whether made up of direct donations of grain from surplus-producing countries like the United States or grain bought in rescue would be held in escrow by an international relief or disaster group.
The beauty of the plan lies in the international character of the group, whether it be the United Nation's Food & Agricultural Organization or some other type of agency that administers it. While you can't entirely divorce food and agriculture from the internationalization of the reserve would somewhat insulate it from external political pressures.
An analysis of the present world hunger situation shows clearly that neither the developing nations nor the United States will meet future world demand for food unless governments are willing to make significant changes in their agricultural policies. Implementation of this kind of world grain reserve would be a great first step.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Freedom to choose
To the editor:
I feel compelled to reply to the abortion rally article that appeared in the Jan 23. University Daily Kansan.
I am a wife, too, and we have a daughter we wanted very much. But I once had an abortion as well. I also had a child in the room counselor in an abortion clinic.
Using innocent little Patrick as a focal point for their irrational views was a cheap trick on the part of the New Life Student Fellowship. And the story of his birth makes really sensational copy.
But most of all, I resent this mail-order minister's attack on pro-choice (not pro-abortion, sir) advocates. He seems to be postu-
lating that we have all kinds of absurd murderous ambitions.
After all, he's the one with the suicidal wife. Any woman who would consciously choose to desert four — and now five — children and leave them motherless is a depraved human of the worst sort in my book
Pro-choice advocates see education and birth control as the means to end abortion. That would make us all happy, I suggest that had Robert Mauk left his impressionable student flock long enough to take a short review of birth control himself, he'd still have a wife.
Even so, Jan Mauk had the freedom to make her choice, and all we ask is the same right for every other pregnant woman.
Dick Powers is right, and if I'd happened to be on campus Tuesday, I would have been right there beside him.
Drawing the line
Pam Richardson Overland Park, juni
To the editor:
What is wrong with the American press? First, almost a month ago, I saw that the military had a "top secret" space shuttle mission planned. Second, a week ago, I knew that the "secret" mission had a satellite. Finally, last night, I saw that the satellite was a radio intercept satellite when they showed a picture of it.
Where do the media draw the line?
What is the point of going to the
trouble of hiding anything from the Soviets? All they have to do is read the University Daily Kansas! I could live without all the news about the satellite, but I guess the press saw some candy labeled "Don't touch" and couldn't keep its hands off. Where are the press 'scruples?'
Ted O'Connor
Universal respect
To the editor:
In January 1984, I visited Nicaragua as part of a national delegation of university faculty and chaplains. During this visit, we had broad contact with members of higher education, political life, the church and the U.S. Embassy.
Among other insights, we found an
almost universal respect and admiration for the person and work of Mariano Fallo, rector of the National University of Nicaragua at León, the most distinguished institution of higher education in Nicaragua.
His long dedication to excellence in education and academic freedom is widely acknowledged throughout Central America. He is one of the very few leaders of national visibility who served under both the Somoza and Sandinista governments. He is known as one of great courage,rittility and compassion. It is very understandable that he was selected as president of Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council, which planned and gave oversight to the recent national elections in Nicaragua.
Also, it is significant that the doctorate in political science that he earned at the University of Kansas in 1968 helped prepare him for the important leadership he has given higher education in Central America.
Because of his impressive academic credentials, extensive knowledge of the events in Central America and personal qualities; I think the University of Kansas is honored by his presence as a visiting faculty member. We can and should learn much from him. Those who managed to secure his appointment Visiting Professor of political science in the Center for Latin American Studies are to be strongly commended.
campus pastor
Jack Bremer
Ecumenical Christian Ministries