4
Wednesday, July 8, 1992
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FROM THE EDITORS
Politician's mailings waste trees and time
Waste not want not.
Everyone has heard the old cliche. Parents perennially use it to influence children into cleaning their plates or turning off the lights in an empty room. Maybe someone should tell it to a number of the politicians in Topeka and Washington.
It seems they are constantly wanting to get noticed because they are wanting to get re-elected. To accomplish this goal they seem to be constantly wasting things: taxpayers' money, time, effort and lots and lots of paper.
Since the beginning of the summer the number of letters, press releases, announcements and other self-aggrandizements that the Kansan has received from Topeka and Washington has grown too much to keep an accurate count. If memory serves, the count stands at about 75-80 individual mailings, with each mailing consisting of at least two pages. This adds up to more than 150 pieces of paper plus envelopes for each mailing. An impressive number, and I could understand the numbers if the mailings contained a high percentage of important information. Sadly, they don't.
For the most part the mailings are nothing more than self-advertisements and self-promotion at the expense of the state, meaning the taxavers. Nearly all of these mailings go straight into the recycling box.
One of the best examples was a press release the Kansan received from a representative detailing how he had spent the previous week-end. It took three pieces of paper, an envelope, postage and the time of postal workers to notify the public that he had spent the weekend with his family and attended a 30-minute meeting. What's the point?
In the grand scheme of things, how many people care about what their elected officials do on their holidays? If it were not such a great waste of paper, maybe the voters should write their representatives and tell them what they did on the Fourth of July.
But that is the point; it is all an incredible waste of paper, time and money.
Maybe if the government would stop wasting time, money and natural resources on junk mail, the representatives wouldn't find themselves wanting for the time and money to use for legitimate reasons.
Justin Knupp
People who do not vote waive the right to gripe
Election time spurs many emotions. People all over the country begin to explore their views about politicians' personal lives, personal wealth and many other things. Judging by all the complaints and praises from millions of concerned U.S. citizens, there are few people in the country who have absolutely no interest or feelings regarding the presidential election or its three potential candidates.
Unfortunately, of these millions of emotionally charged potential voters, fewer than half will actually take the time to vote.
ers, fewer than the numbers in midterm elections. The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate estimated, only 36 percent, or 67.7 million of the 186 million eligible voters bothered to participate. Well, everyone knows that voter turnout is depressingly low; the numbers are no surprise.
But what is baffling is that when the election is over, people who never even bothered to register undoubtedly are going to complain about who was elected president.
Candidates spend years and millions of dollars to allow people to form opinions of them. People have years to make up their minds about these candidates, and they have more than enough time to fill out their voter registration cards. There is no excuse for not taking part in deciding the future of the country.
Although it would be nice if everyone would take part in this decision, nobody in the country is forced to exercise this right. And people who have absolutely no clue about what any candidate stands for maybe should not exercise it. But in the end, when the votes are tallied and a new leader is elected, people who gave up their chance to vote and are unhappy with the choice have no right to complain.
Jennifer Bach
I am writing to you to intercede on behalf the people of the former country of Yugoslavia. I will not take sides for either the Serbs or the Croats, but I am siding with both against the mighty United States of America.
TO THE EDITORS
I believe that the United States must take some form of action to stop the bombing of food lines and maternity wards. I'm sure you are well briefed on these events, therefore I will not bore you with the gory details Mr. Brokaw shares with me each evening.
The United States has made it a point to get involved in the business of the world. We have become the world's police force. With Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Panama and Kuwait as precedents, we must act, not with violence or state-of-the-art killing machines, but with tact. The government of this country must lead the way by advocating peacekeeping forces and peace talks between the Serbs and Croats.
I'm urging you to act. In addition to this letter, I am sending letters to Bob Dole, Nancy Kassbeau, Janice Lee, Joan Finney, the University of Kansas, The Lawrence Journal-World, The Topeka Capital-Journal and Smith County Pioneer.
Juanita Jackson is a Lawrence junior.
KANSAN STAFF
JUSTIN KNUPP
Editor
KIM CLAXTON Business manage
JENNIFER BACH Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
Business manager
BRIAN WOLF Director of Client Services
Editors
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Campus    Gayle Osterberg
Ast. Campus  Doug Flackback
Copy Cheff    Alex Bloemhof
Contributing  David Mitchell
Photo     Derek Nolan
Graphics   Almee Brainard
Business Staff
Business Manager
Special Promotions mgt. Melissa Teresa
Production mgrt. Brad Brone
Retail Support mgrs. Ashley Lengford
Hillary Wilcox
Regional Support mgrt. Jane Henderson
Classified mgrt. Kate Kuvreys
**Letters** should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and homework, or faculty or staff position.
**Guest columns** should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be
The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
photographed. The Korean reserves the right to reject or edit letters, most columns and cartoons. These can
Taking time out to read, Michelle York, Louisburg senior, finds some shade near the fountain behind Miller and Watkins Scholarship Halls. Yesterday's temperature and humidity drive York to find a place on the sun to read her book.
Stephen Pingry / KANSAN
Break time
Consumers should stop recycling and require businesses to research degradable packaging
Don't recycle!
This is not some devious, reverse-psychology commentary designed to cause you to run and immediately search out some recycling bin so that the world will be safe from this issue of the Kansan. The best place for your Kansan is a regular trash can.
There are several legitimate reasons why recycling efforts should be stopped besides the fact that it is a hassle and can lead to nuclear war.
Consider your average business executives. They earn their salaries by wring profits from their products, by concentrating on making a product as cheaply as possible and selling it for as much as possible.
This system leaves little room for the business executive to contemplate cutting profit margins for the sake of, say, saving the rain forests. Driven by their need for a paycheck, manufacturers will not opt to pour money into research to develop products and containers that are biodegradable.
Sean Tevis
Guest
Columnist
They will produce aluminum cans, milk cartons, newspapers, and Ford Escorts that will be around forever because they can sell them, make a profit and have no incentive to stop producing them. The manufacturers instead rely on the consumer to recycle their products. This unfairly places the burden of making the plan at a better place on the consumer.
If the Gordian Knot of waste dispos
al is to ever be untied by our society and prevent the Earth from becoming the armpit of humanity then we must not rely on consumers to be conscientious enough to recycle. The only hope is that we can create products that are not only biodegradable but also cultivate growth.
This means that cola would not have to come in aluminum cans; our newspaper would not have to come from trees, and Ford Escorts would not be made at all. I advocate a boycott of all items that are now being recycled. This will force manufacturers to develop materials that are more Earth-friendly because it will eliminate the profit incentive to continue our reliance on recycling.
So, don't buy items that must be recycled.
Recycling has yet to manifest itself as a solution to the problem and may be a medicine worse than the disease. The fuel consumed, products generated and effort expended to recycle the goods of the world has been enormous.
I don't know how big, but enormous seems to apply to the hoopla associated with Earth Day, the Earth Summit and the effort of my local grocery store to create a recycling center.
If we continue our recycling efforts we will at best be only marginally successful, which would result in the planet looking a little like Bagdad—lots of people, piles of useless trash and rubble, and generally not a place to visit. This will cause unrest among students during spring break. Students, being socially active and not very smart, may seize the world's nuclear arsenals and ultimately precipitate a nuclear holocaust.
So,don't recycle
Sean Tevis is a Lenexa senior majoring in journalism
Wacky tabloids offer humor and relieve from depressing reality of mainstream newspapers
When the news becomes too grim and depressing, as it is now, and public voices are quivering with gloom and doom. I look for a haven of harmless nuttiness.
I do this by asking someone who isn't easily embarrassed to go to a supermarket and get me the latest copy of the tabloid Weekly World News, one of my favorite newspapers.
You won't find anything in it about riots, poverty, famine, disease or civil war.
What makes the other stories so much fun to read are the headlines. You won't see any yawners like, "Arms Reduction Talks Scheduled To Resume," or "New Economic Data Report Promised."
Instead, you get stories gathered from all over the world that you won't read in any of today's somber, sober, responsible mainstream publications.
At first glance, the stories appear to have been made up by some drunken night-shift reporter. But most appear to be true, except for the regular sightings of a living Elvis.
Their headlines are grabbers. There's one that says: "Dandruff Sets Man's Hair on Fire!"
As it turns out, it wasn't really the dandruff that turned Timothy Tibrook's hair
into "a raging inferno," but funes from a dandruff lotion he had been rubbing into his scalp. Mr Tilbrook, a male nurse in Glusbum, England, said the lotion seemed to have worked. His dandruff is gone, as is all of his hair.
Mike Royko
Syndicated
Columnist
By the time his back improved, they decided that there was no reason to
It's about a man and woman in Savannah, Ga. Years ago, he had a back problem and was stuck at home for a while. The two bought a TV set and watched it for most of the day.
A few pages over, another headline says "Couch Potato Couple — They got their first TV set in 1953 and haven't set foot out the door in 39 years."
change their lifestyle, except to buy bigger and better TV sets. They have others do their shopping, and they haven't left the house since.
And there was a headline about another unusual couple: "Wife shot hubby in head. And he didn't know it for four days!"
Yes, it happened in Phoenix. It seems that the man was napping him and went out. He awoke with a throbbing headache, and it wasn't until he went to a doctor four days later that he realized he'd been plugged.
But it was his own fault, really. His wife had left a note. As the story said: "He hadn't seen his wife's note, which read, 'Bill, you've been shot. Call 911.'"
There's another headline that says,
"Famed Swami will show you how to
FLY LIKE A BIRD in 10 easy steps."
The 10 steps are to lengthy for me to repeat here, but by the time you get to step nine, the swami, who looks like an ancient old bird himself, says: "Gradually increase distance and speed and challenge yourself with more and more difficult destinations.
Try for tops of houses, treetops, mountain slopes. Do not allow setbacks to discourage you." By setbacks, I guess he means being sucked into an airplane engine.
And there was this story out of Scotland: "Heartbreaking Shocker in the North Sea.
"Fisherman nets his dead brother...five months after he was lost overboard!"
For any fisherman, that would be a shocking catch. And as the headline said: "There is one thing we're thankful for. Now we can give him a proper Christian burial."
And in the next page we have two animal stories: "Love hungry hippo puts the bite on lady elephant."
(That was in the Frankfurt, Germany, zoo, where a passionate hippo gave a hickey to a lady elephant. Hippos are such rascals.)
And: "One-legged man steals three-legged dog." (This happened in the 4 H Fair.)
There's much more. But now I must return to Bush and Clinton and Perot. I wonder — did someone make them up?
Loco Locals
ACCORDING TO MY 'PEPSI'
GOTTA HAVE IT 'CARD! I, M
ENTITLED TO MANY BEHAVIFS
ONE OF THOSE, I WISH TO HAVE
IS TO DRIVE THIS BUS...
by Tom Michaud
---
OU OUNA HA UIN ICH
OU INY KAWFA I UUNNA
AKE IH WUJF DEPI! */*
*TASKSATION· YOU WOULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS TOY CRAFTER CRAWFORD. . . IM FUNNELLY TAKE THEM UP WITH PENS!
Michelle Smith