4
University Daily Kansan/Friday, March 27, 1992
OPINION
Car's booming voice yanks sleepers awake
I was awakened early this morning by the booming sound of a man's voice—again.
No, it wasn't my stereo or a roommate's temper tantrum. It was the world's loudest, most obnoxious and easily set off car alarm.
Thanks. neighbor.
Thanks, neighbor.
I would have a car alarm myself if I owned a really nice car or lived in an apartment in a high-crime area. Unfortunately, my neighbor has neither
His car is typical of the college crowd that inhabits our building. It is a sports car nor a luxury car. It is a more of a "It'll probably get you there--if you're lucky" kind of car. I would describe it more specifically, but I don't need all of Lawrence coming over to see it or hear it.
Besides, if you've ever breathed on the car, you know the one I’m talking about.
If you step anywhere near the car, the paranoid electronic voice warns you. "Guarded by security system. Stand back!"
You can only imagine the fear this strikes in my heart when I unknowingly lynch it
Actually, this is the point where I casually look around to see if anyone will notice when I kick it as hard as I
David Mitchell Staff columnist
can.
But the stand back command is just a glimpse of what lays ahead if you dare mess with the machine. If you continue to breathe in the vicinity of this vehicle, the stand back warning is issued two more times. If you fail to flee in desperation after the third warning, you get the full treatment: sirens, whistles and buzzers fill the air until the owner can stop the audio onslaught.
Perhaps, I underestimate the contents of the car. It might be loaded with a high-tech radar detector or an incredible sound system. Still, I have little respect for people that spend more money on their car stereos than the car itself.
Even if his car were the hot rod to end all cars, stray cats setting it off at 4 a.m. would still make me less than happy. I would still resent his coming home at late hours and turning the
alarm on. I cannot remember how many times I've been awakened by, "System armed!"
It would be one thing if he owned a Porshe. And his paranoia might be justified if we lived in East Hell. However, his car is definitely no Porshe, and I've yet to have any damage, theft or vandalism to my car, apartment or person in the eight months I've lived there.
Then again, perhaps my incredible crime-free existence is owed to the menacing voice keeping area hoods out of our parking lot.
but a few days ago, when my pitiful, unarmed little Ford was parked next to the loudmouth, I was intrigued that simply starting my car elicited a warning to stand back. It was early in the morning—very early. And at first I felt bad that my actions might wake people in the building—until I remembered that he was one of the sleepers. It happened to be cold that morning, and I felt it necessary to rev up my engine—a lot.
David Mitchell is a DeSoto senior majoring in journalism.
And I took great satisfaction as I pulled out of the parking lot-whistles blowing and sirensreaming.
Good morning, neighbor.
THE UNIVERSITYDAILY KANSAN
Legislators must take stand
Especially during election year, public should know politicians'
position on issues
Recently the state Senate voted without a debate to reject an abortion regulation bill. Furthermore, the vote was unrecorded. There is no public record on how the senators voted on this issue. This was certainly an act of cowardly evasion of accountability.
The abortion debate is hot, perhaps one of the hottest issues facing our country today. Whether one agreed with the proposed bill or not, we all have the right, perhaps the obligation, to know where our congressmen and women stand on the issue and how they voted. An excuse offered by some was that this is an election year, and no politician wants to go on record as being pro-choice or anti-abortion, for fear of alienating voters in the other camp.
This explanation seems to be exactly the reason voters ought to know where their senators stand. The purpose of electing officials is to choose those who best represent the ideals of the population.
This is the time for politicians to be taking firm stands on important issues. They are accountable to their constituents for the confidence those voters placed in them by electing them to office.
The Senate has 40 members. Currently, it requires 21senators to request a roll-call vote. Last week, Democrats tried to reduce this number to 10, but were opposed by all 22 Republicans. It should be noted that in the House of Representatives, only 15 out of 125 members are required to request a roll-call vote.
Sen. Jack Steineger, D-Kansas City, said it best, "The issue here is fundamentally the public's right to know."
We, the public, need to demand accountability from our legislators.
Gun owners must be trained
Kate Kelley for the editorial board
The state requires licensing of drivers, but not the owners of firearms—an unsettling irony
statistically speaking, you have a better chance of surviving a night walk in Belfast than a night walk in Detroit. During the height of the IRA conflict, the number of fatalities caused by firearms in Detroit exceeded those in Northern Ireland, a nation with about 500,000 more people than Detroit, population 1 million.
Although the violence in Northern Ireland is internationally deplored, no one talks much about Detroit. The fact is, the top 10 metropolitan areas in the United States all have homicide rates higher than that of Northern Ireland, and this doesn't seem to be as important as fighting overseas. Homicide in the United States has become so much an accepted part of life that only mass killings receive much attention.
Although it would not be correct to say that enacting new, more restrictive laws would curtail this violence — the United States
already has more than 20,000 federal, state and local gun control laws—at least one new law has some merit.
Many more people who keep guns in the home for self-defense are killed in accidents with their own weapons than are killed by the burglar the weapons are supposed to protect them from. It is time for Kansas to require a gun safety program for all prospective purchasers of firearms. In untrained hands, either a gun or a car can be a deadly weapon, yet the state only requires licensing and training to use a vehicle.
Greater training and education can reduce the unacceptably high firearm homicide rate in the United States, a goal that certainly should outweigh any inconveniences and expenses such training would require. Although happiness may indeed be a warm gun, such happiness should also be intelligently and correctly achieved.
Mark Coatney for the editorial board
International perspectives
**Strata Times, Singapore, on the Pentagon's world order:**
The United State's continued prominence is a matter of profound importance, not least for its smaller friends. It is a benign power whose non-expansionist policies contrast tellingly with the past actions, and feared future roles, of some of its principal contenders. Rather than try to be the sole superpower, the challenge is for the United States to retain a position of first among in an international distribution of power which, though increasingly diffused, remains stable.
The problem with the leaked Pentagon document — which argues that the United States should remain the sole superpower — lies not so much in the claims it makes as in the questions it leaves unanswered What matters is the kind of power the United States intends to and whether it has the ability to achieve that goal.
**Arab News**, Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on
Israel's patriot sales leaks:
The burning question going around Washington these days is: Have the Israelis sold U.S. military technology to Communist China and South Africa, among others?
The technology concerned is the U.S. Patriot missile, which proved so effective during the gulf war. At $1 million a missile and with a seemingly high-profile success rate, it is hardly surprising that several nations with own arms industry should want to get hold of the technology by fair means, or foul if necessary.
It is noteworthy that Washington has not rushed to sweep the charges under the carpet as it would have in the Cold War days. Possibly that is because relations have become strained anyway as a result of the Israeli's refusal to heed U.S. calls to abandon territories — a refusal that has the potential to sabotage the efforts to defuse the powder keg in the Middle East.
The fact that the charge of technology transfer has received such high-profile attention makes one thing clear — the rift between the two is far greater than realized.
- The Financial Times, London, on apartheid in South Africa:
President F.W. de Kierk has won the referendum. Now his troubles begin. In the most momentous decision in their 400-year history, Mr. Kierk will be reelected, that minority rule can no longer be sustained.
Yet it is too soon to enjoy the luxury of excessive hope, and the world must now find ways of assisting South Africa to consolidate its transition to a post-apartheid society. The perils that lie ahead remain daunting. One-third of the voters opposed reform and opted for the fantasy of apartheid.
The danger of violence from their right-wing extremists has never been greater. They have many supporters within the ranks of the police and the army. Their last constitutional opportunity to resist political reform has been resoundingly lost.
There are many potential pitfalls ahead. The new South Africa deserves substantial assistance to help it redress the legacies of aparthiet, and boost an economy sapped by the need to run a balance of payments surplus in order to service its external debt. It should have access to International Monetary Fund facilities, and recourse to the World Bank's other lending agencies. The sooner the outside world ensures that these resources are made available, the better the prospects for a democratic South Africa.
In the past two years, South African president F.W. de Klerk constantly stressed that there was no turning back on the reform process. But only on March 18 was the final, irreversible departure from apartheid confirmed. The United Nations pro-african force of a reintroduction of racial segregation. The white fanatics who tried to return to the past have suffered a considerable blow.
Foreign investors can now be certain that South Africa will not be excluded from the
Der Bund, Born, Switzerland, on aparine in South Africa:
international community of nations. The process of normalizing relations will be continued at the same pace as the internal constitutional negotiations.
El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, on apartheid in South Africa:
After his referendum victory, President F.W. de Klerk can proceed with his final and most important reform: a new constitution granting full political rights to the 30 million black majority. For the 5 million whites, this reform represents the only way to survive in an African country, at a time when racial equality is considered a key principle of human behavior.
The referendum outcome is considered an unprecedented declaration by the white minority in favor of peace and compromise, in a country that was seen for decades as a stronghold of racism. Many political leaders consider that the victory means that a majority of whites decided that sharing power with blacks is the only solution to South Africa's problems.
The elimination of apartheid is a pause in the tense South African situation. We hope that the population's wisdom will continue to prevail
Algemeen Dagblad, Rotterdam, Netherlands, on the Albanian elections;
Hope glimmers again in Albania, Europe $ ^{c} $
The Democratic Party's victory has not solved the problems. On the contrary, the party will find it impossible to meet the expectations it has aroused.
The hungry populace expects an economic miracle. The Democrats have promised the people freedom, order and quiet. It is unclear how that can be attained in a country where most factories are inoperative because materials shortages, where two out of three adults are unemployed, and where the stores have barely anything to sell.
poorhouse.
The only hope Tirana can have is that as a result of the victory of democratic forces it can count on more generous aid from the West.
II Messaggero, Rome, on the Albanian elections:
With respect to the other European capitals, Tirana arrived last to the appointment with freedom, but it arrived without the uncertainties, complications, or restraints that characterized the difficult march of the other countries that had to bear the voke of Stalinism.
The Albanians appear to be teaching the rest of Europe a lesson. Although other European nations are afflicted by a political panorama full of schisms and prospects of ungovernability, Albania has made a clear choice by dumping an avalanche of votes on the Democratic Party.
KANSAN STAFF
TIFFANYHARNESS Editor
by David Rosenfield
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
VANESSA FUHRMANS Managing editor
Editors
News  Mike Andrews
Editorial  Beth Randolph
Planning  Lara Gold
Campus  Eric Gorski/Rochelle Oleson
Sports  Eric Nelson
Photo  Julie Jacobson
Features  Debbie Myers
Graphics  Aimee Brainard/J Jeff麦雷
JENNIFER CLAXTON Business manager
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
JAYSTEINER Retail sales manager
BusinessStaff
QUEENS
Campus sales mgr ... Bill LEibengoop
Regional sales mgr .. Rich Harsherbarg
National sales mgr ... Scott Hanna
Co-op sales mgr ... Anne Johnson
Production mgrs ... Kim Wallace
Marketing director ... Leanne Keefer
Creative director ... Leanne Bryant
Classified mgr ... Kip Chin
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 home town, or faculty or staff position. Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed. The Kanas reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kanas newroom, 111 Stuart-Flint Hall.
Stick
1