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Tuesday, February 2, 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
Saferide beneficiaries should help with costs
This semester Student Senate financed a fine service to the student body known as Saferide. This service not only provides rides for intoxicated students from drinking establishments, but it also transports students if they feel uncomfortable about walking home.
The service replaces the previous one known as Secure Cab. Secure Cab was operated under contract with A-1 City Cab. This service was undependable and inconvenient for students to use. Students often waited 30 minutes to an hour to be picked up. This was a dangerously long time for students who were drunk and wanting to get home soon.
Consequently, Student Senate contracted with the Lawrence Bus Company to provide Saferide. The Lawrence Bus Company purchased new cars and employed individuals to provide the service. Now students rarely have to wait more than ten or fifteen minutes to be picked up. However, popularity has its drawbacks.
Student leaders have tossed around ideas that have ranged from charging $1 per rider to decreasing the extent of the service. Both ideas would be self-defeating for Saferide. Student Senate would be undermining the service it is attempting to provide if it were to charge for the service. Would students be turned away if they didn't have a dollar? Would decreasing the service put fewer or more drunk drivers on the street?
During the first semester alone, 8,786 students have used Saferide's services, which are free to all KU students with a valid KUID. The cost for the service has been $27,508. Increased popularity has forced Student Senate to use more cars every night to keep up with the increased demand from students.
The administration, the City of Lawrence and local drinking establishments should seize the opportunity to contribute to Saferide's operation.
However, the increasing demand and costs have caught Student Senate off-guard, and some different solutions have been proposed. Without additional revenue, the long-term solvency of the program may be in jeopardy.
All three have a vested interest in student welfare and safety. Making sure that patrons get home safely serves the interests of bar and tavern owners while minimizing their liability. Fewer students drinking and driving decreases the number of accidents and arrests for local law enforcement. Additionally, it exposes local residents to fewer risks and increases safety throughout the city. Saferide also allows the administration to put its money were its mouth and sentiments are.
Student Senate finally succeeds in providing a service which genuinely improves students' lives. Yet without help, financial problems may undermine the spirit of operation.
Working together, Student Senate, the administration, the City of Lawrence and local bars and taverns, could help continue an invaluable program. Everybody would benefit from the monetary contributions especially the students.
STEPHEN MARTINO FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Kansan Editorial Board:
Kris Belden, Greg Farmer, Vered Hankin, Jeff Hays, Val Huber, Brent Kassing, Kyle Kickhaefer, Stephen Martino, Jolinda Mathews, Colleen McCain, Chris Moeser, Simon Naldoza, David Olson, Jeff Reynolds, Chris Ronan, and Michael Taylor.
KANSAN STAFF
GREG FARMER
Editor
GAYLE OSTERBERG
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
Editors
Asst Managing .. Justin Knupp
News .. Monique Gulschain
Editorial .. Stephen Martino
Campus .. KC Trauer
Sports .. David Mitchell
Photo .. Mark Rowlands
Features .. Lynne McAdoo
Graphics .. Dan Schauer
STEVE PERRY
Business manager
MELISSA TERLIP
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr .. Brad Bree
Regional Sales mgr .. Wade Bacte
National sales mgr .. Jennifer Perkil
Co-operative mgr .. Ashley Hessa
Production mgrs .. Amy Yunku
Ashley Langton
Marketing director .. Holly Peirc
Creative director .. classified mgr .. Jill Torne
Art Director .. Dave Habige
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 Kannan must include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position. The writer will be photographed should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed. The Kanai reserves the right to reject or edit letters, great coloration and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kanai newsroom, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall.
The moment we sat down for lunch, I knew it was a mistake. It was one of those cute yuppie-yoo restaurants with ferns and a menu that listed calories.
Greeks needed to save industry from yuppies
I knew it was an even bigger mistake when five minutes passed before the busboy dropped the silverware and napkins in front of us.
About 10 minutes later, I snared a waitress as she was hurrying by and asked: "Is there any chance we can see a menu?"
She flung down a couple of menus and rushed off. About five minutes later she returned.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "We're short-handed. One of the girls didn't show up today."
When she finally brought the food, it wasn't what I had ordered.
"There are some problems in the kitchen," she said. "We have a new cook."
"Never mind," I said. "I'll eat it, whatever it is. But what about the food?"
"Oh, I forgot, you wanted a beer," she said. The beer arrived just in time to wash down the last bite of the sandwich.
On the way out, I stopped at the manager's booth. He was a yuppie in a business suit. He and a clone were leisurely sipping their coffee and looking at a computer printout.
When she brought the check, which was wrong because she charged me for what I ordered instead of what I got, I asked "Who runs this place?"
"The manager?" she said. "He's in the end booth having lunch."
"Nice place you have here," I lied.
"Do you own it?"
COLUMNIST
The young man shook his head. It was owned by one of those big corporations that operate restaurants in large office buildings and health clubs.
He also told me proudly that he had recently left college with a degree in restaurant and hotel management.
That explained it all. His waitresses were short-handed, his cook was goofing up orders, the customers were fuming-and what was he doing?
He was having hunch. Or, as he'd probably sav, he was doing hunch.
I don't want to be an alarmist, but we nation collapses, he and those like him.
First, we had the MBA—especially the Harvard MBA—who came along after World War II and took over U.S. industry. With his bottom-line approach, the MBA did such a brilliant job that the Japanese might soon buye the whole nation and evict us.
The problem is that the service industry is being taken over by people like the restaurant manager and his corporation. They go to college and study service. Then they install computers programmed for service. And they have meetings and look at service charts and graphs and talk about service.
But we're told not to worry. Now that we don't manufacture as much as we used to, we'll be saved by the growing service industry.
You probably wonder what that
But what they don't do is provide service. That's because they are not
means. I'll explain.
If that corporation expects the restaurant to succeed, it should fire the young restaurant-hotel degree holder. Or demote him to cleaning washrooms.
It should then to my friend, Sam Stanis, who owns Billy Goat's Tavern, and say: "Do you know a short Greek who wants to manage a restaurant?"
Then he'd go to Greek Town and tell his cousin, who works as a waiter, that his big chance had come.
Sam will say: "Shoo. I send you one
my cousins. You 'got' from old cam-
side."
When the next lunch hour came around, and a waitress failed to show up for work. Sam's cousin would not sit down to lunch.
He would put on an apron and wait tables himself.
If the cook goofed up orders, Sam's cousin would go in the kitchen, pick up a cleaver and say: "You want I keel you?"
He wouldn't know how to read a computer printout, but he'd get drinks in the glasses, food on the table and money in the cash register.
That simple approach is why restaurants run by short Greeks stay in business and make money. And why restaurants run by corporations and managed by young men who are educated beyond their intelligence come and go. And mostly go.
So, if you are ever approached by a stockholder who wants to sell you shares of the giant service corporations, tell him not to bother showing you the annual report. Just ask him one question.
"Is it run by short Greeks?"
If he says no, leave your money under the mattress.
Mike Ryko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Irony marks presidential inauguration promises
Something just was not right. I went to the promised "American Reunion, an open invitation to the people," but there were some twisted ironies that dampened my expectations.
I had my official tickets, but as I stood on tiptoe and waited amid thousands, it became quickly apparent that the most I could hope for was a glimpse at a big TV screen on the White House lawn.
So as the president spoke of the "world in which we compete for every opportunity," I was vying for every glimpse at a crude screen image. Many were pushing for just the chance to snap a photo of this fuzzy image-maker with their Instaamic cameras.
And as he spoke of the "almost magical" technology that enabled his ceremony to be "broadcast instantaneously to millions". I noticed that the sound was not in sync with the lips on the distorted screen image. The sound lagged by at least six seconds.
The only thing that felt right was being asked to "please stand for the invocation." This was something I could handle as I, and thousands of others, were already standing, and had been for hours.
I can't help but notice the list of ironies surrounding Clinton. He criticized Bush for his Haitian refugee policy, but falsely raised hopes only to recant after the death of more than 400 fleeing Haitians. There is also the failed promise to reduce the presidential staff by 25 percent and the unmet pledge that his administration would look like the United States—where are the Asians?
Clinton's outward confidence in public schools and his populist persona was tarnished by the "choice" to send Chelsea to Sidwell Friends Private School. And knowledge of Zoe Baird's malfeasance regarding immigration laws PRIOR to her appointment as attorney general sent a shiver up the spine of some of the most vocal supporters of Clinton.
They remembered his promise to maintain high ethical standards. All of these were, of course, on my mind. The list of contradictions is so long and growing but I suppose his approach didn't sink in until inauguration day.
With the words of Clinton's inaugural speech still fresh — "We need each other and must care for each other" — I took too many elbow jabs from overager and undercarrying viewers on Pennsylvania Avenue. Too many ironies? Yes. But ironically enough, there was one ironic constant: things are never what they seem.
And of course, Tipper booeying down at the MTV ball came later.
Ann Jurcyk is a Kansas City, Kan., graduate student maturing in liberal arts.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Basketball mobs at Robinson Gym should be polite
Basketball is a big deal at KU. We only need to look at the success of both the men's and women's programs here to recognize this. But we can find another example of basketball's popularity when we visit Robinson Gymnasium. The courts at
Robinson are full of basketball fanatics. At first glance these Globe Trotter warmambs look like all the rest of the members of the human race. Be careful though, these people aren't too concerned about those skills we learned in kindergarten, you know, being polite, patient, respectful, waiting your turn and so forth. These people are of a different breed. I, as an individual who often prefers to shoot around, evidently do not possess any rights when groups of these people decide they want to use a
court. It is assumed that since I am "just shooting" I will magically disappear as a direct result of their mighty presence gathering on the chosen court. Funny, I thought mob rule went out of vogue a long time ago. Words are useless as these people refuse to speak, I guess their divineness is supposed to be enough to make me bow to their power. How incredible to think someone might be courteous enough to ask if perhaps I am waiting for the rest of my team to arrive, or if I would like to
join them for a game. But oh politeness must be too much to ask! Instead, rude behavior prevails. Obviously, not everyone who plays basketball at Robinson is egotical and inconsiderate, but apparently I've encountered the ones that are. As amazing as this may sound, the gym is open to all students of the University of Kansas, and I have just as much right to be there as you do!
Tricla Sears Burtington, Iowa senior
Mystery Strip
by David Rosenfield