OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
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February 10, 1984 Page 4
Editor
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
JEFF TAYLOR ANDREW HARTLEY
Campus Editor News Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
PAUL JESS
CORT GORMAN JILL MITCHELLA
Retail Sales Manager National Sales Manager
PAUL JESS
General Manager and News Adviser
JANCE PHILIPS   DUNCAN CALIHUO
Campus Sales Manager   Classified Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
William Allen White Day Feb.10,1984
You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people — and, alas, their folly with it.
No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed, it is most vital to justice.
But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is, the history of the race. It is proof of man's kinship with God.
To an anxious friend
You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger.
Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion — that is to say, free utterance decently and in order — your interest in justice is slight.
And peace without justice is
tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expedition. This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence.
Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood.
When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.
So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold — by voice, by posted card, by letter or by press.
Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.
William Allen White
The Emporia Gazette
July 27, 1922
The end of the downtown
One wonders, after a time, about the basis of support for the present course of downtown redevelopment
Indeed, one wonders what support exists. And if a truthful answer were known, probably not much.
Downtown merchants have hardly fallen over each other in their rush to support the plan proposed by the local Town Center Venture Corp. The one comment heard most frequently is that "finally the city is doing something."
Notably, many of them have been silent in any public praise of the plan, which would entail building a mall in the 600 block of Massachusetts Street.
The reason for their silence is simple but understandable - if a downtown mall in that location is eventually built, the merchants will be out of luck. And out of customers. And some likely will be out of work.
The Town Center plan really is little different from a suburban
Numerous studies have shown that Lawrence can support more retail space. "Where?" is the key question.
The premise of downtown redevelopment is clear. Keep out the dreaded suburban mall. Once such a mall is built on the outskirts of town, its attractions and shopping opportunities will be so great that downtown dies. Or so the thinking goes.
mall. It proposes a downtown mall, but in name only.
The 800 and 900 blocks of Massachusetts Street now contain much of downtown's retail shopping. If the Town Center mall is built, it will effectively create two shopping districts downtown.
One will be in the 600 block. The other district will be the remainder of downtown. One of them is bound to fail.
But despite the lack of vocal and active support from the community, the City Commission and the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission have lined up behind the Town Center plan.
Tuesday, the City Commission unanimously approved changes in the city's downtown plan that would allow a downtown mall in the 600 block of Massachusetts, and thereby allow the Town Center proposal.
Generally, projects financed by a benefit district have fairly certain benefits for the property owners. A sidewalk along a dangerous street, for example.
But many of the property owners downtown likely will ask themselves, "Why should I pay money to seal my fate?"
The University Daily Kansan 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. It the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individ- ul groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters are brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
The city now will work to find a suitable way to raise money through benefit district financing. This form of financing spreads out the cost among downtown property owners.
And the answer probably will be only silence.
Monument to excess
As a cardinal rule of good poker, "Don't follow bad money with good" rivals the knowledge of when to hold, when to fold, when to walk and when to run.
In other words, when the odds against winning are insurmountable, a smart player folds, abandoning the bad money and saving the good money for the next hand.
The Wolf Creek nuclear power plant is not a game of poker, but it is
a gamble, and the risk grows with every construction delay and cost overrun.
Wolf Creek, which is 56 miles south of Topeka, near Burlington, was supposed to cost a half-billion dollars. Penny ante. The stakes have quintupled over the last 15 years to $2.67 billion.
Kansas Gas & Electric Company is the managing partner, with 47 percent of the ownership. Before Wolf Creek, KG&E enjoyed a bond rating of AA. The rating has since sunk to BBB-, reducing it to
If 2.67 billion $1 bills were laid end-to-end, they would circle the Earth 10 times with enough change for six trips around the borders of Kansas. To make it more meaningful, that's 3.050 round trips between Lawrence and the Missouri state line.
speculative grade, the same as that of Crazy Harold's House of Cryogenics.
KG&E and KCP&L are required to maintain a production level 18 percent higher than their peak summer demands. In 1983, KG&E's excess capacity was 32.7 percent; KCP&L's was 25.5 percent. With full Creek working in 1985, excess capacity was 36.9 percent; KG&E and 46.6 percent for KCP&L.
KG&E is borrowing money at speculative interest rates to pay dividends and to pay the interest on construction bonds. That is not generally considered to be sound financial practice.
Does Kansas need a nuclear power plant? No. But Kansas has one. For the 414,000 Kansas households served by KG&E, KC&P&L and Electric Power Cooperative, rates up jumper 30 to 80 percent.
From a purely financial perspective, energy consultant Amory Lovins concluded last week before a joint session of the House and Senate Energy and Natural Resources committees that it would be cheaper to construction now, before a single watt of electricity has been generated.
Speculate is the Wall Street word for gamble.
What's to be done with Wolf Creek? The owners could drape aarp over it and wait until 1999, when it actually may be needed.
Whether a single wait is needed is another question. KG&E and Kansas City Power and Light Company, also a 47 percent owner of Wolf Creek, already generate more electricity than their customers use.
Luckily, Lawrence is served by Kansas Power and Light Company, which is not a Wolf Creek owner.
Indiana's Marble Hill nuclear power plant was scrapped last month because of its cost. The
The Zimmer nuclear power plant in Ohio, with a projected cost of $3.1 billion, will be converted to a coal-fired plant. So the bill for the Zimmer plant, which is 97 percent complete, is $1.6 billion.
owners had already spent $2.5 billion.
Wolf Creek could be adapted for coal-fired operation. The owners would probably say that reverting to coal at this point is not practical, but learning about Wolf Creek has been gained, left the drawing board the first time.
- An observatory. Just cut a slot in the top and drop in a big telescope, and you could look at an astronomical nature than the cost figure
- A United States Football League stadium for the Burlington Bears, with the cheap seats stacked even more steeply than they are in Kemper Arena.
Other options for Wolf Creek include its conversion to:
But the Wolf Creek owners are gamblers. Even a USFL franchise would not be risky enough.
To satisfy their gambling instincts, they should haul in some bleachers and some dirt, and concert their lobbying efforts with Kansans for Pari-Mutuel. And after racetrack betting in Kansas is legalized, the Wolf Creek owners should open the Keerc-Flow Horse Races, in the haloured tradition of Nebraska's Ak-Sar-Ben.
*The Bob Dole Presidential Library, Or, to keep plausibility parallel the David Longhurst and Stephen R. Kowalczyk national House of Peace Summits.
Smart money isn't betting that the Wolf Creek owners will do what they should. Splash "R.I.P." on the side in black paint and let the plant stand as a monument to the uncertainty, excess and expense of nuclear power.
Space station is too costly for America
A permanent, operating U.S.-manned space station is great.
LETTERS POLICY
Maybe I see it all differently because I am not American
It will once again show the supremacy of the United States. It will be the ultimate sign of U.S. greatness — provided you forget that $8 billion could be spent a different way.
President Reagan has a dream — the American dream — to spend $ billion, that is, 8,000 million to build a space station in Earth's orbit in the near future to once again prove American greatness
How?
This permanently operating manned station out in the blue is expected to generate unknown "peaceful, economic and scientific gains."
Or what about improving the economy by spending $8 billion on a spectacular dream.
Maybe we'll ship all the Russians, along with the nuclear weapons, out there, so we can all live in peace and harmony on Earth.
I can't argue that this space station project will be a tremendous
scientific American victory. But maybe there is more to be gained from science by finding ways to discover new energy sources.
My concern is that I don't know exactly what to do when we run out of oil.
Maybe that's when we all will be shipped out to the space station to chase "distant stars" and "greatness" and play with Star Wars-like beam-weapons in addition to "living and working in space."
President Reagan has a dream. Fine.
It's just that spending $8 billion on a dream when many Americans struggle below the poverty line leaves me in puzzled bewilderment.
Maybe my culture looks at Real-21's proposed $8 billion project differently. Maybe I am too used to living in a country with few poor people.
I am not sure I understand Reagan's priority list. Technology over people. Dreams over reality. Greatness over everything else.
I fail to understand that $8 billion couldn't be spend to improve the condition of poor people. I also fail to understand that greatness is shown in dreams coming true, such as a 2014 operating manned space station.
I fail to understand that the quality of human lives and living is not a measure of greatness.
Maybe having a dream is easier than dealing with reality.
Reagan's space paradise"... for;
peaceful, economic and scientific;
gain," will hopefully provide us with
an answer.
Tone Berg, Norway senior, is studying journalism at KU.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Just a laughing matter
To the editor:
Cindy Holm's articles, "New election weeds out three former candidates" and "Walker doesn't file for new election," which appeared in the Feb. 10 issue of *The Indian*; Kansan left me laughing at the present Student Council.
In a matter of three months, the Senate has become the biggest joke on campus.
Kevin Walker, whose petitions for a new election led the University Judicial Board and Chancellor
Scott Swenson, who was elected to the presidential office, ousted, returned to office and ousted again is not running for reelection. He obviously is discouraged by the system that elected him
one Budig to call for a new election, didn't even file for the new election.
Now, in the new election we have coalitions running simply to make a further mockery of the system. Bob Swain, of the Apathy-It Just Doesn't Matter Coalition, was quoted as saying, "It's a big joke and we thought we'd play the satire to the hilt."
president of the student body
Let the Senate retire itself until next fall and let it return with fewer problems, or retire it permanently and let the election of 1983 become fascinating trivia to be remembered years from now.
We have reached the point where the system is only hurting itself by letting the Kevin Walkers and the pseudo-coalitions dictate the future of the Senate.
Gordon Roe
Olathe sophomore
Drug use not warranted
Concerning your editorial, "Drug Use Warranted" on Feb. 6, the discussion I have encountered in the University Daily Kansan and elsewhere on the use of the drug Depo-Provera to lower the "sex drive" of convicted rapists, quite aside from shrugging off the constitutional and moral implications of this practice, misses an essential point.
To the editor
Rape is a crime, not of sex but of violence. To compare rape with sex is to compare the use of a weapon against the victim.
Simply because the same instrument is used does not equate the actions of one with the other.
The roots of violent behavior, and especially of the violent behavior of men towards women in our culture.
Desire to behave violently cannot be changed merely by inhibiting a rapist's sexual desire, for it is far more than sexual desire that forms the basis for an act of rape.
The use of the drug Depo-Provera cannot protect a rapist's potential victims by dealing with the real problems of a rapist or a sexist and violent society.
Raissa Rubenstein
Raissa Rubenstein Lawrence graduate student
Integrity unquestioned
To the editor:
Larry Brown's reputation speaks for itself, and everything he has ever said in regard to the law is a serious problem.
1 was appalled to read about Professor David Katzman's allegations concerning Larry Brown's integrity in regard to his role in helping Cedric Hunter in his difficult situation.
It is unfortunate that Coach Brown must have to
Cedric Hunter, as a freshman in a new surrounding, sought out the help of his coach whom he obviously thought was compassionate enough to offer any assistance possible.
It is even more unfortunate that Cedric Hunter is faced with the burden of all this public caused harm.
Professor Katzman was out of place to make the issue public as it was a private matter between student, instructor and a student's coach who offered appropriate assistance.
deal with this controversy publicly as now his integrity is at issue.
I take Larry Brown's word that he is concerned about the integrity of the academic standards at the University of Kansas. He returned to coaching a ball to have the opportunity to teach once again.
Until he proves otherwise, I feel Larry Brown's reputation as a coach who cares about growth, maturity and intellect in his student athletes is 100%. He's a confident leader; he hopes it will press as it is quite obvious that no one else did.
Wilmette, Ill., senior
To the editor:
Clifford Traisman Wilmette. Ill., senior
Gap should be bridged
The University Daily Kansan has reported that University of Kansas basketball coach Larry Brown thinks that student-athletes are not accepted as students.
Yet Brown's actions and comments demon-
tize the need for stricter standards.
strate why athletes are different from other students. How would students have acclimated with a adviser to help discuss a grade with a professor?
Who, aside from the athletic department, expects professors to file progress reports to make
sure students are attending class and taking exams?
True, not all athletes require special attention to do well academically, but as long as the athlete differently, requires professors to treat athletes differently, Brown's words, a "gap between student athletes"
Susan Miller
6
Berryton junior