OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
February 27, 1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Italy Kannan (USPS 605-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Finn Hall, Lawrence, Kan. Daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding holidays, students pay $12 for a semester and $13 for a month. Mall office mail are $13 for six months or $7 in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 for every outside the county. Student subscriptions are a $14 semester paid through the student activity fee. POSTMASTER Send address changes to postmaster@uki.edu.
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY
Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
CORT GORMAN
CERTial Sales Manager National Sales Manager
JANCE PHILIPS  DUNCAN CALHUNO
Campus Sales Manager  Classified Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Health fees high
The board members of the American Medical Association are concerned about the cost of health care for the average American.
And they are almost certain that the rest of their members are too.
The board recently gave unanimous approval to a resolution asking physicians across the country to freeze fees voluntarily for one year, to help combat rising medical costs.
In addition to that, doctors will be urged, when warranted, to accept reduced fees from patients in difficult financial situations.
This action is especially important to sick people who are unemployed, uninsured or on Medicare.
In 1983, physicians' fees rose faster than all other service items of the Consumer Price Index. This meant that people going to see a physician paid 6.4 percent more than they had the previous year.
In a country as wealthy as ours, considering whether or not a person can afford to see a doctor when he is sick should not be a decision anyone is forced to make. Good health isn't something that can be traded off.
The unhealthy individual is not the only one who suffers from his decision to get well on his own and not to seek medical attention.
Unfortunately, in difficult economic times, many people have been forced to make the choice between a visit to a physician and other necessities.
Anyone who has had to sit next to a person coughing and wheezing in class or has had to cover at work for someone who has been sick for several days in a row, knows the cost of someone else's illness.
Medical costs, and not just doctors' fees, have skyrocketed in recent years. All too often people have had to decide whether they could afford to get well.
The AMA's proposal is a step in the right direction. Everyone involved with health care in this country should take a good look at what the doctors have done.
If the entire health care profession would take similar steps, affordable health care for most of the country could become a reality.
A need for inspiration
The debate Thursday among the Democratic hopefuls for president uncovered little new information. Generally, it was as boring as similar events around the country.
If the Democrats are to win in November, they desperately need to do something to inspire the voters.
Several months ago, many people would have guessed that the Republicans would dig their own grave. High inflation, unemployment and interest rates would cause many to leave the Republican fold, or so the thinking went.
The Democratic primaries have started to take on the aspect of a good cattle show as the candidates continue to parade around. Even President Reagan was able to upstage the Iowa caucuses with a little clever campaign stumping.
Times seem to have changed, as Reagan is fond of pointing out.
The inflation rate is the lowest in
years. Unemployment, although still unacceptably high, is lower than in past months.
And Reagan's hands have stayed clean through several difficult times, as his subordinates are given the job of handling the bad press.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are sparring among themselves about who is a pawn of special interest groups.
And the editorial cartoonists are having a heyday, as they draw John Glenn in various areas of outer space.
Simply, the Democrats are facing some formidable opposition. However disliked Reagan's policies may be he remains personally popular.
If the Democrats expect to win in November, they had best start acting like the Democratic party of old, with a little fire and brimstone to inspire people to follow the party's ideals.
Taking has been good
You take what you can get from the Interior Department these days and, lately, the taking has been pretty good.
The New York Times has reported that recently installed Interior Secretary William P. Clark . . is prepared to accept the resignation of James R. Harris, director of the Office on Surface Mining, because of "problems in the office."
Those "problems" include a backlog of some 2,000 alleged violations of national strip-mining laws.
that Clark will purchase 1,100 acres of land to add to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, effectively breaking the moratorium on the acquisition of new park land declared by former Interior Secretary and social commentator James Watt.
Both the environment and the national parks suffered mightily under Watt . . . and if Clark's two initiatives are not mere wallpaper, then perhaps we can expect some clear skies over the Interior after all.
Better still, however, is the news
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
The University Daily Kan萨 welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, 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 includes his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansas also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns, and letters and books brought to the Kansas office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Co-op makes changes
Many ideas and movements of the 1980s and 70s never made it to the 1980s. But the Community Mercantile Co-op is not only an idea that actually became reality, but one that has always helped me to meet the needs of its customers.
In the early 1970s, a group of Lawrence residents began planning the co-op. They envisioned a cooperative store, run by members, where people could purchase whole grain foods, organically and locally grown produce. In bulk quantities and food not always found in regular grocery stores.
The members decided they were ready to make the investment and have a building of their own. In 1977,
As with many projects in their formative stages, the planning was not all smooth. One founding member of the co-op said he remembered him as one who and during the first year so everyone had a chance to voice their opinions.
The co-op, which finally opened in 1974, began downtown. It was met with positive response from the community and in 1977, discussed buying a building as a permanent site.
True to its original commitment to be a member-run store, the group gave every co-op member a right to cast a vote on whether to buy a small. grocery store on Seventh and Maine streets.
the co-op moved to its new location.
Through it all, the concept of membership went through few changes. For a small initial fee, anyone could join the co-op. Members agreed to the responsibility of two hours each month at the store.
By having the members do such things as pricing, labeling and
Non-members could also shop at the co-op, but their lack of contribution to the cooperative effort was an important higher prices they paid for groceries.
sorting, the co-op was able to pass along the savings, allowing members to save money.
MARGARET
SAFRANEK
Staff Columnist
co-op, many founded in the 1960s, came and left, unable to meet the needs of the communities that originally supported them
The Community Mercantile Co-op has survived, but in the last couple of years, it too, has had to take a new approach. It needs the skills and the needs of the people it serves.
Several months ago, co-op members once more considered a significant change in organization.
The two-price system, one for members and one for non-members, was eliminated to attract more people in the community to shop at the co-op without penalizing them by charging the higher prices.
Meanwhile, around the country.
This change also eliminated the monthly work commitment and along with it the problem of having to work the hours they had signed up for.
Today, the Community Mercantile Co-op has one price on its products. There is still the chance for members to work at the co-op, but to receive the discount, they must work more hours.
Twelve years after it started, the co-op and its members are a reminder of what it takes for an idea to come reality and then to survive.
The co-op stands as witness that ideas can survive if the ones who carry them out recognize the need for change.
Stopping to smell the flowers
The sunshine is chewing its way through my sweater, it's 65 degrees on Washington's birthday, and my hand is in the foreground. I embark on a brute. I punt class and take a walk.
Four guys are sitting on the base of the Jayhawk statue in front of Strong Hall. They're singing, or doing something close to it, and keeping tune with a Martin istring, who's also playing guitar. Honors, a tambourine and a cababas.
They're friendly guys, and it doesn't take long to find out that I'm
HELAINE KASKEL
Staff Columnist
listening to Mark and David and Chuck and Barrry.
They don't really have a name for their band. On different days they've called themselves "The Mariborato Men," "Vernier," "Rubber Chitin" and "Vendexions." They are "Drive through a Window."
tune from the old Maribor commercials that used to be on TV before they weren't allowed on TV. There isn't any point to the song.
The guys have set out a beat-up old Army helmet on the ground in front of them and they're really cleaning up — they've cleared $1.50 in the last 45 minutes. They're hoping to get enough change to buy a pitcher or two at the Hawk's Crossing.
I ask Mark what the point of the song is. Mark says that when he was in the shower that morning, two of them entered out, and they started strumming the
Barry is singing about Mariboros.
"Mariboros, I smoke Mariboros, I smoke Mariboros every day, I smoke Mariboros when I'm riding on the plane."
The crowd changes as I watch. A fresh-scrubbed student face replaces another as its owner walks down the aisle, where a nickel or two for the musicians.
As I listen to the music, I look across the street to Wesco Beach, where the perennial evangelist is pushing up his first shoots of the year on this imposter spring day. He's hoping to spread the word around just a little before winter again freezes his mouth shut.
But that's OK. "Drive through a Window" isn't really out there to make money.
It's occurred to me that perhaps the grass at KU is a trifle too well-tended, a bit too manicured.
Mixed in with the Mariboro song, it occasionally catch an earful of "And the Lord said . . . . . . . People on both sides of the street are more interested in Barry's sode to smoking than in a fire-ticket ticket on the beaven express.
But I wouldn't dream of asking the evangelist to stop intruding on my February spring day. And even if didn't like their music, I wouldn't begrudge "Drive through a Winfield" spot on the Jayhawk pedestal.
well as the bongo-tappers. We need the hacky-sack players out there flattening the well-tended grass.
We sneer at the weirdos out there making a spectacle of themselves, the eccentricities who shout their theories past the headphones of our Walkmans and the musicians who forget that life continued after 1969.
We need the Bible-thumpers as
We've got more important things to do. So we purposefully stride along the concrete sidewalks, rushing along a short four years in our harbor to jump on the first run of the corporate ladder.
And the grass that surrounds the concrete walks remains free of imprint, undisturbed because no flowers are touched and smell the flowers along the way.
That evangelist at Wesco Beach may or may not have two degrees, a three-page resume and the promise of a job at IBM.
And Mark and David and Chuck and Barry may stay in Lawrence until they turn 40, giving each new friend a chance to make smokers something at which to snicker.
But for those of us who took the time to stop and listen, the music on one side of the street and the mission on the other changed a day that otherwise would have been just left on the highway to succeed.
And it made me realize that we will eventually be able to reach the same destination where we choose pathways or walk through the grass.
Cartoons not worth getting out of bed for
Saturday mornings aren't what they used to be. They're almost not worth rolling out of bed for anymore.
I speak of cartoon lovers and the programs that have recently imputed the airwaves.
The state of the world is worsening for those who have long used Saturday mornings to escape into the Grand Canyon with Wile E. Coyote or from Elmer Fudd with Bugs Runny.
The new shows that the national networks offer bear such titles as "The Monchhichi's," "The Shirt Tales," "Smurfs," "Pac-Man" and "The Biskits." Consumer groups have denounced these shows as 30-minute commercials.
Upon one man's shoulders the credit for this condition must ultimately rest. Because this is election year, and because he's already taken credit for the health of the economy, the drop in unemployment in Beirut, it is fair to name names: Ronald Reagan.
In the 1970s, the FCC sought to improve children's programming. Since the deregulation, the networks have canceled all the least-profitable shows, which included Emmy Awards for Animals Animals Animals Animal Toos" and "Rids Are People Too."
The high-quality shows have been replaced with broadcast versions of comic books and hour advertisements for toys.
Even "Captain Kangaroo" has been pulled from his weekday spot and restricted to Saturdays. I never liked Captain Kangaroo, but supposedly he helps instill in me a sense of humor with good morals and ethics.
I am neither a parent nor an opponent of all television. I do not harbor any ill feelings about our president. I don't watch cartoons for education or enlightenment, but for their value as escapist entertainment
One of the truest tests on maturity is whether you root for Coyote or the Roadrunner. To be an adult you must cringe every time Coyote slaps a canyon wall or smacks the desert floor. You must share his frustration with technology as he emerges accordion-like from beneath a slab of rock, or staggers with pelt charred from a rock-shattering exoskeleton.
The new shows give little reason to so much as turn over. They aren't funny. They serve one purpose: to sell toys. The sad case of the duck appeared on the airwaves after the toys appeared on the shelves.
Of course, they are all in unaffeyable cute. Monchichiis are cute and chubby little monkey types. Shirt Tales are cute little forest animals, and Biskitts are the world's smallest, cutest dogs. Snirfs are uncommonly cute. Only the standards of their peers
I can think of only one good use for Smurfs.
Because of their color, Smurfs might produce a grape-like juice if squeezed between the thumb and forefinger. A certain callousness would be required to ignore their constricted little fingers, but fermented into a perfectly palatable wine.
I'd give a bottle to Wile E Coyote. He's earned it.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Term is misused
To the editor:
I would like to respond to the editorial "Nation Shows Off," published on Feb. 16.
I am a Nicaraguan and my family lives there. I also keep up to date with the situation and have many sources of information.
Elections were announced by the revolutionary government at the time of their victory in 1979 and 1980, which was later discussed, both by the Sandinista newspaper and by the opposition paper La Prensa.
The Sandistas had had advice from Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico, and Nicaraguan commissions have been visiting many countries and observing their different electoral processes.
Many things that happen in Nicaragua are not mentioned by the U.S. media and most U.S. citizens receive only fragmentary information. This makes it hard to discuss the situation objectively.
labeled the Reagan administration labeled Nicaragua as a "Soviet-cuban-backed Maracaibo country that was actively been mediated by adopters of this media."
Going to Nicaragua is quite an
They lowered the illiteracy rate by more than half and improved health conditions significantly, I think that they will be a good contest against
experience. By living there, we can find out many things about its reality.
For example, the Sandinistas' political and economical system in quite different from the Soviet-Cuban Marxist model.
Radio Revolution plays "Man Eater!" to the soldiers fighting U.S. backed rightist rebels. True, the Sandinistas are not perfect, and much less saints, but have done much for the Nicaraguan masses
any other party in a fair electoral campaign.
I also wouldn't give any more credit to other electoral campaigns controlled by right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. The Sandistas are not capitalists and have never denied it.
They are proletariat-oriented. The majority of the people in the Third World are proletarians.
The Sandistas are against big, profit-oriented corporations and this is the reason why in Chile the technically elected Allende was toppled.
Leonel Aguilar
Leonel Aguilar Leon, Nicaragua, senior