OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
February 22, 1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kanman (USP$ 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Strauffer Print Hall, Lawrence, KS. Kennons, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday in the afternoon. The University Daily Kanman (USP$ 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Strauffer Print Hall, Lawrence, KS. Kennons, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday in the afternoon. The University Daily Kanman (USP$ 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Strauffer Print Hall, Lawrence, KS. Kennons, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday in the afternoon. The University Daily Kanman (USP$ 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Strauffer Print Hall, Lawrence, KS. Kennons, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday in the afternoon.
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
DON KNOX SARA KEMPIN
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
CORG HORMAN JILL MITCHELL
Retail Sales Manager National Sales Manager
PAUL JESS
PACI JESS General Manager and News Adviser
JANICE PHILIPS     DUNCAN CALIHUO
Campus Sales Manager    Classified Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Century of errors
Finding money to finance KU's library system has never been easy.
In 1875, when the Board of Regents voted to request $3,000 to establish what most people would call a particularly modest library at KU, the Kansas Legislature pared the request to $1,500, and then to $500.
The same was true the next year, when the library's acquisition fund was cut from $3.000 to nothing.
In fact, the story has continued throughout the University's history.
KU's libraries were ill-housed for three decades until Watson Library was built in the 1930s. In the 1960s and 1970s, the University's acquisitions were not extensive enough to accommodate staggering enrollment increases.
The 1980s, it seems, are no different.
The Legislature's Joint Committee for Building Construction recently refused to finance planning for a $12 million science library that probably would be built south of Wescoe Hall.
University officials regard the committee's decision as another in a long line of delays for the proposed library.
One of the members of the Board of Regents, former KU chancellor Archie Dykes, said Friday, "The omission of any planning money to get started on a library at the University of Kansas means that you're talking about the decade of the 1990s before there will be any relief of the library situation . . ."
Dykes, along with other regents, decided to press the Legislature to adjust the joint committee's recommendation.
Their action appears to be warranted. Throughout its history, the Legislature has refused to plan for library expansion, instead choosing to wait until conditions became so overcrowded that financing had to be approved.
Perhaps with prodding from the Regents and from KU officials, members of the construction committee will learn from more than a century of mistakes.
Peace effort hindered
Syria's recent rejection of Lebanese President Amin Gemayel's eight-point peace plan clearly shows Syria's lack of intent to reach a peaceful solution to a miserable problem that obviously won't go away by itself.
Syria has also insisted on unconditional abolition of the Lebanese-Iraeli troop withdrawal accord signed last May.
However, since the war in Beirut began, both the United States and Israel have made at least token concessions so the people of Beirut may once again live above ground and try to regain a hint of normal life.
After the initial invasion, Israel pulled its troops out of Beirut. And since then it has sent many messages to Damascus indicating its will to quell the mayhem.
The United States, as well as Italy, France and England, stationed troops in the city for the original task of peace-keeping, only to be forced to abandon that hope in the face of Syrian-backed violence that resulted more in unnecessary loss of life than in the gain of peace.
Syria, backed by the Soviet Union, on the other hand, has remained an unmovable outside force.
Surely the problems in Lebanon cannot be stopped with a single eight-point peace plan presented by a Lebanese president hanging onto power by a thumbnail.
But simultaneous rejection of such a plan is nothing more than admitting a refusal to communicate. If there is no communication there can be no concessions, and with no concessions there will be no peace.
It's high time Syrian officials realize that the continued bloodshed in Beruit, much of it involving civilians, is blood on the nation's hands that may be impossible ever to wash off.
China's fast-food fever
Fast-food fever has become a worldwide endemic.
China is the latest nation to succumb to theravages of hamburgers,hot dogs, french fries and other items made with the speed and efficiency of an assembly line.
In a few weeks, Peking's first Western-style fast-food restaurant, Yi Li Fast Food, will present mainland China with a menu of fast-food delicacies, as well as more traditional Chinese snacks.
Xia Chuan, director of the Peking Food Industry Office, said that China would not be afflicted as severely as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila and other Asian cities with fast-food-tits.
Although he said that he thought long meals were too much of a
China's cuisine temps the palate with crisp vegetables, tangy sauces and tender poultry. Meals are an event; aesthetics and atmosphere are as important as taste.
The recipes of a nation are an important ingredient of its culture. The preparation of native meats, fruits and vegetables are an expression of a distinct way of life and heritage.
Chinese custom to change, he also thought the restaurant would sell 3,000 hamburgers a day.
Fast-food is not a terrible scourge that threatens to wipe out national cultures. But, it is a symptom of the growing standardization of a hurried world that has lost its taste for diverse, cultural fare.
The University Daily Kanan 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 should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kanan also invites individuals to speak to soild press columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kanau office, 111 Stauffer Flint Hall. The Kanau reserves the right to edi or reject letters and columns.
THE ORIGINAL
© 1985 BY THE
TROUHE COMPANY.
LETTERS POLICY
Rules of combat zone
Driving an automobile near tense borders in Central America can be detrimental to your health if you do not follow the rules of the combat game.
And as I found out recently, it can still become desperate even if you are prepared to follow the rules.
Some danger and anxiety must be expected when driving two rebuilt Volkswagen bugs — 1957 and 1965 vintages — from Washington, D.C., to El Salvador's war.
My associate and I had covered the war together from the front lines in El Salvador for several months during the spring and summer of 1982, so the fact that we were about to traverse an almost equally unbalanced zone in Guatemala at 1:30 a.m. didn't bother us too much.
We agreed we would take it easy. Because of our experience in combat zones and our common sense, we didn't have to discuss that there would be many armed patrols and roadblocks along our path and that it was essential to stop at each barrier.
What we didn't count on was mechanical failure. We were about to come precariously close to being boxed off in much the same manner as the uninformed tourist who last visit in El Salvador late last month.
In that idiotic incident a woman died because the army-brown camper-bus her husband was driving didn't stop when a force of gun-toting leftists ordered them to halt at a roadblock.
A tragedy occurred because the couple also followed the ill advice of a Salvadoran immigration official who asked her secretly so he could save his own skin.
Now when six guys carrying M-16s tell you to stop, you had better stop. They aren't carrying that
hardware just to have something to clean.
So in the incident in El Salvador on Jan. 26, a family was destroyed. A cardinal rule was broken. The ultimate penalty was paid.
Our troubles in Guatemala began when the brakes started to soften on the '57 VW shortly after we entered the country.
In the first 18 kilometers from the Mexican border we had already
GARY
SMITH
Staff Columnist
passed four check points manned by 88 heavily armed Guatemalan civilian guards. Guards stopped us at two of them for identity checks.
We decided to find a place along the road further on to either fix the brakes or stop for the night where we wouldn't be hassled by anyone.
Civilian guards in Guatemala at night are an interesting phenomenon brought on by civil strife.
They are ordinary citizens with no military training who are given weapons by the unbalanced government and told to patrol roads for subversives. The work is supposed to be more difficult that the government is working.
The guards are nervous, trigger- happy yahwhos who get a kick out of their responsibility and who feel like they are being loaded semi-automatic power toy.
Well, at the fifth checkpoint my associate and I learned a valuable lesson.
At the last possible moment, the
guards waved their flag, a signal to stop, and my driver driving the car in front of me immediately slammed on his brakes.
To avoid hitching him and three civilian guards, I was forced to jerk the wheel of the 57 left and run off the car. The driver, who the car was propelled into the air,
Of course my troubles didn't there. Within seconds I had five guns pointed at me from close range, three of them actually pushing against my quivering chest.
My associate was screaming, "Don't shoot; Don't shoot." I decided that my trip to El Salvador as well as the big trip itself was about to be a rather unpleasant end.
It landed, bounced a few times and came to rest three feet from a 15-foot cliff.
If we had been shot, even though it would have been because of mechanical failure. I would have had no objection to my obituary reading: "He and his associate had combat experience and were of sound mind and body, but they died as did a woman in El Salvador because they broke the cardinal rule of driving in a combat zone — they didn't stop."
The only alternative to the rules of combat would be to stop the combat. And after analysing what I saw while I was in EL Salvador last week, if you're planning an overland trip anywhere south of Mexico in the Caribbean you had better prepare to stop at any roadblock along the way.
Luckily I had missed all the guardmen by inches, and we finally convinced them that the brakes had failed: Nevertheless, it was a good 15 minutes before we knew we were not going to die.
And make sure you don't forget to check your brakes.
Congress is wary during election year
WASHINGTON — When Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger made his first visit to Capitol Hill this year to talk about the administration's proposal for defense spending, Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., observed.
It is early yet in the budgeting process, and few on Capitol Hill are willing to guess what the final bill will say. But many observers agree with Ninn.
"The question is not whether it will be reduced, but when and by how much."
As it works to carry out President Reagan's proposed five-year $1.9 trillion defense buildup, the Pentagon wants nearly $133.4 billion in its accounts when fiscal 2015 begins Oct. 1. That figure includes defense nuclear programs in the Energy Department.
Historically, the Pentagon has not always gotten all it wants - this
ELIOT BRENNER
year it is looking for a 13 percent increase after inflation in contrast to the 5 percent it won from Congress last year.
United Press International
Much of the outcome this year, observers say, may depend upon what progress is made in bipartisan negotiations to reduce the budget deficit. The Pentagon budget has been criticized for Democrats to point to for cuts.
There is pressure this year to settle the matter quickly. It is a presidential election year. The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is up for election and two of its members are running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
All House members are up for re-election, and Congress has scheduled generous recesses to take place. Congress is campaigning into account
The most commonly cited number on Capitol Hill when it comes to the defense budget these days is $297 billion, well up from 1984 spending, but well below what the administration wants.
It's far too early to say what programs will be the losers, but Congress historically has refused to eliminate large weapons systems.
And in an election year, it would be akin to political suicide for a member to advocate dropping a candidate from the ballot. Sands of sacks in a district or state
Some programs have been stretched out — which itself raises problems by raising the overall cost in the long run — but when there's talk of cutting an existing program "that's got people working on it, that's hard for Congress to do, and I don't see them much improving their record this year," said the source.
An easy solution is to cut everybody a little bit, and that may be the way Congress will go rather than taking a more drastic approach to defense cuts.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
I've had it! I fed up with having to breathe the exhaust of all the smokers on campus who so blithely assume the "right" to pollute the air we all must breathe.
For too long nonsmokers have sat by passively and allowed smokers to assume this "right" at the expense of the more basic right we all have, which is to breathe clean air.
Why can't smokers see how incredibly unfair it is to usurp the nonsmoker's right to clean air, free of the worry of associated lung damage, allergic reactions or just the basic discomfort which usually accompanies the inhalation of cigarette fumes?
Smoking should not be allowed in any campus building frequented by nonsmokers private
Whether to smoke or not is an option that should be open to all of us; but two-thirds of the population are deemed that option by the other. The majority seem to think it made the decision for us as well as for themselves.
This includes the student unions, the halls of classroom buildings, the restrooms etc. If smokers want to smoke, they should do so, but not at the expense of the rest of us who choose not to.
The "non-smoking" section in the Student Union is a joke. Instead of isolating the polluters, students should wear masks and refuse to smoke.
Certainly people have a right to smoke, but that doesn't negate my right not to.
It's like letting people dump low-level hazardous wastes anywhere they want in a city except for one neighborhood, and then expecting all people who pollute or be exposed, to live in and neighborhood!
Why not stick the smokers in their own section over in the corner and let them breathe each other's smoke; that would leave the rest of the Union atmosphere clean for the rest of us?
If you want to smoke, do it! But do it somewhere away from the rest of us. Like outside. Sure it's too hot or too cold. Sure it's inconvenient.
But that's just too bad. It's not my fault you need "cigs" to make life complete. So why should I be forced to pay the price? Kill yourself if you want, but stop killing me!
Keith Sessions
Lawrence senio
Lawrence senior
Editorial is misguided
To the editor
To the editor:
The Kansan editorial of Feb. 16 judging the people and leaders of Nicaragua carry no byline but reads like a release from the Reagan Wire Service.
service.
The writer's refusal to recognize any of the efforts and achievements of the hard-working people of the nation sounds too similar to the antagonistic attitude the Washington military is spouting.
Certainly there have been mistakes in Nicaragua, and the zeal of personal post-revolutionary vendettas has been suggested as government policy there. But deaths such as those are the unfortunate legacy of virtually every significant power change in recent history.
It is generally overlooked here that one of the main instantiated government was to abolish capital punishment.
In Central America, Reagan can sometimes get away with, and profit from, manipulating and
And pity the writer if he really thinks that "the Reagan administration has refused to deal with the Sandistas because of their human rights" or "Lies have a way of slapping back in your face."
And they are the only Latin American country to date to respond to a 1980 United Nations suggestion that each country establish a human rights mission in countries in areas where they are recognized around the world.
The editorial writer's snide comment about Sandinista elections "for the first time in four years" ignores that our own form of government was a gradual process. In fact, it was twice as long until our revolutionary victory was translated into our Constitution.
dominating other people. But as a people, most of us learn that real prosperity depends on friendship.
A piece of propaganda
The Feb. 16 editorial in the University Daily Kansas headlined "Nation shows off!" was a classic piece of propaganda.
And every time we allow our government to shum friendship for tense power-tripping, it's another step toward tragedy.
I appreciate any North American who visits Nicaragua (except those under cover, camouflaged or carrying explosives). Cheers to Jesse Jackson if he goes. Too bad that it's too late for Romnie to try it, too.
Chuck Magerl Route 2. Lawrence
Chuck Magerl
A general category such as "human rights violations" should never be used without reference to particulars which make the category meaningful.
We know that there are human rights violations in El Salvador because we know that innocents end up in the ditch dead and mutilated night after night.
But what is the meaning of this category in reference to Nicaragua?
The same problem relates to the use of the phrase "eliminate all political dissent." What
Further, I doubt that the Nicaraguan state would arm the populace with military weapons if it wanted to take control.
Has the Soviet Union agreed its population with military weapons?
Again, the editorial was pure propaganda. It attempted to convince us to negatively evaluate the Nicaraguan state without referencing particular state actions.
Or, it could have shown how socio-structurally the state violates human rights. But nothing was done.
Chris Bohling
Winfield graduate student