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Monday, February 21. 1994
OPINION
UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
VIEWPOINT
Delays are inexcusable in Lindley Annex repairs
Lindley Annex is in desperate need of repair. But the renovations request is caught up in a mire of bureaucracy and red tape.
The state fire marshal found six potentially dangerous violations in the annex during his visit in Fall 1992. However, it is unclear when these renovations will occur.
Bob Porter, associate director of facilities operations, said requests could take as long as seven to 10 years to complete.
Such delays are unacceptable.
The annex's fire code violations are not insignificant technicalities. They are potential hazards that could endanger students. Among the needed repairs is a door that cannot close or lock.
One architecture student reported seeing an unknown man enter the annex through this door late one night. Inarguably, this is a frightening hazard for architecture students who work on projects at the annex day and night.
Obviously, at a large university only limited resources are available for renovations. Projects cannot be approved or completed instantaneously, and some delays are inevitable.
But when students are put in danger, renovations should become a priority. The University cannot afford to allow the request for the annex's renovations to sit idle beneath a mound of paperwork for years to come. Students' safety should supersede bureaucracy.
The University should take steps necessary to expedite the renovations to the annex. Allowing the annex to remain in its current state of disrepair is a perilous proposition.
COLLEEN McCAIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Criminals deserve only hard time, not cold cash
Allowing convicted criminals to profit from their vicious crimes is ludicrous. We should not allow crime to be an appetizing avenue to fame and fortune.
In Florida, Danny Rolling, a budding artist, has pleaded guilty to slaying five teenagers. Rolling has been offered lucrative movie contracts and plans to sell more of his graphic sketches. However, Florida is one of only nine states that prohibits a criminal from profiting from crime. Rollings' lawyer is trying to change the state law in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling.
The issue is not new. Both Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy have brought this controversy to the public eye. Manson designed a series of T-shirts and books. Gacy paints portraits of clowns. The items sell only because demented killers created them.
Despite strong protests by victims' families and friends, the Supreme Court struck down a 1991 New York law that prohibited Gacy from profiting from his killings. This case set a scary precedent by allowing criminals to make money from breaking the law.
An alternative approach to the problem would be to allocate profits acquired from such activities to the cost of incarceration. If criminals make more than the cost to incarcerate them, they could keep the excess.
It is sad that criminals can profit from the horrible acts they commit. Some may argue that paying off the cost of incarceration with profits from art and movie deals takes away what the criminal has earned. On the contrary, by committing such brutal acts and then trying to use them to make money, the only thing criminals have earned is hard time.
CARSON ELROD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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Watching the Olympic Games changes strangers into friends
There's nothing like the Olympics.
You know, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat and all that stuff. All the cliches, however trite they may be, really rising true.
COLUMNIST
I love the Olympics. I have ever since I was little. I remember watching Dorothy Hamill win the gold medal in 1976. I like so many other aspiring skaters of the time, immediately got a "bowl" haircut — just to be like Dorothy.
As hard as I tried, I found I just wasn't cut out to be an Olympic skater. I now live out my Olympic fantasies with a normal haircut in front of my television. Every event from luge to alpine skiing to ice dancing to bobsledding — I could watch them all until my eyes fell out of my head and rolled across the floor. And I would be happy.
While I was walking through the Kansas Union, I noticed that a crowd of about 10 people had gathered in front of one of the new Union schedule monitors. I approached the crowd and noticed that they were all whispering to each other in excitement.
Something that happened the other night made me see that I wasn't the only one who felt this way about the Olympics.
As the skaters spun in a million circles across the rink, the crowd followed them with delight, their own heads dizzy from the fast movements on the screen. When the pair moved together in perfect rhythm from one corner of the ice to another, the crowd moved and swayed in time with the athletes.
I looked at the monitors to see just which part of the computerized calendar was so fascinating. Much to my surprise, I found that the Union was broadcasting the Olympic coverage over one of the two small monitors. The small group was watching the finals of the pairs figure skating event. I began to watch them watch the finals of the pairs figure skating event.
And when the moment came for the couple to do their triple axles and double toe loops in perfect unison, the entire group stiffened with tension. Nobody dared breathe until the skaters were safe on the ground again.
Their conversation appeared to be quite animated.
At the end of the routine, the group stood motionless for a moment as the couple effortlessly glided off the ice together and moved toward the press box.
I didn't bother to watch the television for the slow-motion replays of the routine's highlights because they were being acted out for me by the little crowd. One person imitated the movements of a treacherous jump. Another waved her arms, mimicking the graceful gait of the spins. They all offered their opinions about the routine as a whole as if they were sitting next to Scott Hamilton in the CBS commentator booth.
As the scores flashed across the screen, the crowd became silent once again. One man moved closer to the screen in anticipation of what was to come. Everyone waited to find out what the results would be. I found myself getting caught up in the heat of the moment.
"5.9, 5.9, 5.8, 5.9... , " the numbers
came across the small monitor, and the crowd squealed in delight. The couple had done it — they had won the gold medal. The crowd, including me, began to applaud and jump around in appreciation of the scores. The celebration of the group in front of the monitor nearly equaled that of the winning pair on television.
As the television coverage for the evening ended, it hit me. The entire time I was watching the crowd I had assumed that they had all known each other. As they dispersed, though, I saw this was not the case. They said their goodbyes as if they had all been best buddies for some time, then went their separate ways. None of those people had known each other, yet they had all come together in front of that tiny monitor to cheer on the Olympic athletes in their quest for gold.
What can I say? I was amazed. A bunch of strangers standing in front of a television giggling and shouting like a bunch of little kids for two people they don't even know—how cool.
Danielle Raymond is a Wiltmette, Ill. Junlor in Journalism.
Olympic athletes not political game pieces
The Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, are coming under the scourge of politics. Like so many other Olympics, the Lillehammer games have been targeted by those who want to use the games to further their own causes. The issue is whether Norway should have been allowed to sponsor the games because it broke an international whaling ban.
Although the idea of punishing a country with sport sanctions for its misbehavior is not new, it is inconsistent and its results are debatable. The inconsistency lies in the way that only certain countries seem to suffer the punishment. Until the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, South Africa had been prevented from competing in the seven previous Olympics because of its domestic apartheid policy. China was also at the Barcelona games but, unlike South Africa, was also at the '88 and '84 games. In Barcelona, China won 54 medals. Three years earlier, Chinese security forces killed 5,000 pro-democracy students in Tiananmen square, but China's place at the
Olympics was never doubted. One country was banned from Olympic competition because it denied much of its population basic rights; the other country was allowed to compete despite doing essentially the same thing. There lies the inconsistency.
Sixty-two nations boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but does anyone really believe such an action brought the Cold War to an end or brought the former Soviet Union out of Afghanistan any quicker? Although Olympic success is considered important by many nations, no nation ever caved in because of international
So it is time to separate sports and politics, as hard as that may seem. Each country's Olympic committee should have the power only to regulate its athletes' behavior and set sports standards. It should not be allowed to tell its athletes when and where they can compete. This policy would prevent governments and special-interest groups from using athletes as pawns in their international policy games. There always will be a certain amount of politics in sports, especially in the Olympics with its country-by-country medal counts, but with all countries competing, at least the gold would truly mean best in the world.
There also always will be countries that abuse human rights, international treaties or the environment, and those countries should be punished for such things. But the punishment should not be laid down like a blan-
sports boycots. Athletes don't run countries; they compete for them. Those with the power to change a country's domestic policy usually are unaffected by a sports boycott.
ket. Don't think a country is simply a collection of people with one will or mindset or that athletes from such countries share their leaders' beliefs. Remember that the athletic ban on South Africa prevented both Black and white South Africans from competing. Norway may have indeed broken the whaling treaty, but to punish its athletes for that action would be comparable to failing every student in a class if only one was caught cheating. The levels to which sport has risen and the training demands now required mean that the successful athletes are the ones who have sacrificed everything — including a childhood, friendships and family life — to train for their sports, a dedication that few of us will ever attain for anything we do. Is it fair, then, to think that that dedication is somehow a country's asset to be disposed of or sold however we see fit? Who is to say one person's cause is more important than another person's lifelong pursuit?
Jack Fisher is a London senior in Journalism.
Tailhook case leaves feelings of distaste
The Tailhook partying in Las Vegas in 1991 was not an edifying spectacle.
The investigations and judicial proceedings that followed haven't been exactly edifying either. With the Feb. 8 dismissal of the last three cases against naval officers charged with one offense or another, the Navy can put this sad chapter behind it.
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
It ought to. What good can come of it already has. What's left is a mixed bag of disgust and doubt.
You can come away from this episode convinced with Capt. William Vest that Adm. Frank B.
Kelso II, chief of naval operations, arranged for subordinates to shoulder the blame for not stopping lewd and improper conduct he himself could and should have stopped.
You can come away convinced that the Navy both botched the initial investigations and overcorrected in its subsequent legal proceedings.
You can come away wondering whether distasteful acts weren't treated as worse than the criminal — never mind the failure to intervene.
You can come away hoping that this occurrence won't adversely affect the working relationships — civilian and military — of men and women who know how to behave, which is most of them.
You can come away saying,
"Enough."
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star Norfolk, Va.
You can come away hoping that enough consciousness was raised among the rest of them to prevent a recurrence.
Funding needed to save beauty of Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is among the natural wonders of the world. To see it is to be awed almost beyond words at the power and scope of the forces that carved such a creation from the flat Earth.
Administrators of the canyon park
are considering asking for financial support from corporations and private citizens. The number of visitors to the park is growing, jeopardizing its natural integrity.
The National Park Service needs more money to improve mass transit and to build roads, parking areas and commercial sites. Park service officials may need to limit the number of visitors and vehicles. They fear that Congress may not allocate the money needed. It should. The Clinton administration and Congress should not be stingy on something this important.
Omaha World-Herald
Omaha, Neb.
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