Battered wives Senate committee hears testimony Inside, p. 3
The University Daily
KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
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Vol. 94, No. 87 (USPS 650-640)
Fridav morning, January 27, 1984
Solutions to KIPPS could cost millions, state official says
By ROB KARWATH Staff Reporter
TOPEKA — A solution to four months of problems with the state's new computerized payroll system could cost the state more than $19 million, an official in charge of the system said yesterday.
In a briefing before the House Communication, Computers and Technology Committee, Secretary of Administration Marvin Harder said that his department was considering five solutions to the problems caused last fall by the Kansas Integrated Personnel Payroll System, or KIPPS.
Four of those solutions have price tags in the millions of dollars.
Harder presented five solutions:
OPTION ONE — freeze KIPPS. The current system would remain as it is, and technicians would continue to try to work out bugs in the computer programs.
"It would buy us some time," Harder said,
"although I'm not sure that's the best thing to do in
a world full of evil."
The benefit of this plan, according to Harder, would be that no more money would have to be spent on KIPPs. The state would simply pay the taxpayer a million that it owes for the computer, he said.
OPTION TWO — upgrade KIPPS. A data processor would be added to the system to allow KIPPS to handle more information.
The new data processor would cost the state about $5 million over the next seven years, Harder said. Another $53,000 would be spent for extra air conditioning to accommodate the new
The new piece of equipment might not solve all of KIPPS' problems though. Belleville said.
"The system probably still would not be big enough to allow all state agencies to go on," he said.
OPTION THREE — buy a twin computer to double KIPPS' computing ability. The state could buy a second Univac computer that would cost about $7.5 million if purchased outright or about $11 million if it is paid for over the next seven years.
The two computers would be placed side by side, making the system big enough to handle the load.
The state would have to pay technicians between $80,000 and $100,000 to connect the two computers. Another $80,000 to $100,000 would be necessary to pay extra workers to run the bigger system, and another $150,000 would be required for air conditioning.
OPTION FOUR — fix the KIPPS computer and add a new part. This plan calls for upgrading the KIPPS computer and replacing its box with one from a top-of-the-line Univac computer.
"This solution would give the system four or five times its current power and would meet
See KIPPS, p. 5, col. 1
Planning Commission alters downtown plan
Staff Reporter
By SHARON BODIN
The commission voted 8-1 to approve changes that made the downtown plan more flexible for residents.
Strong public opposition did not prevent the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission last night from changing the Comprehensive Downtown Plan, which will make development by the Town Center Venture Corp. adhere to the city's master plan.
Town Center is working on plans for retail development in the 600 block of Massachusetts Street. If the Town Center redevelopment plan did not adhere to the city's master plan — known as Plan '95 — the city might not be able to receive federal financing for the project.
MARGARET BEARSE, president of the League of Women Voters in Lawrence, said, "The downtown plan was developed by expert consultants to careful study this plan should not be changed."
The specifics of the plan are important and should be kept because removing them would weaken the downtown core, which was not the intent of the original plan. Bearse said.
HANK BOOTH, former planning commission member and Downtown Improvement Committee member, said that he thought that the planning commission and others involved should
work together so downtown development could proceed.
"If we don't start working together, we're going to see that suburban development. We're going to have to make changes in the downtown plan." he said.
A former member of the city planning staff, Myles Schachter, said that the trend in city planning was to make downtown plans more detailed, not more flexible.
Changes made to the Comprehensive Plan removed a specific definition of the primary retail core of downtown. The old plan described the area between Seventh and 10th streets and Vermont and Rhode Island streets as the retail core.
The changes say that the retail core should be concentrated along Massachusetts Street.
THE NEW PLAN deletes a paragraph that designated Eighth and Massachusetts streets as the focal point of downtown. It also deletes a statement designating Vermont Street as one-way southbound and New Hampshire one-way northbound.
Another change to the original plan deletes specific mention of a sewer beneath Eighth Street and replaces it with a general statement that requires it to major underground utilities should be avoided.
The new plan adds the 600 block of Massachusetts Street as a possible area where traffic moves in.
Daniel Bourne, 11, jumps in one of the last patches of snow behind the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, 1433 Tennessee. Daniel is the son of Marsha Bourne, 1321 Tennessee St. Yesterday's unseasonably warm temperatures melted most of the snow in the area.
Reagan's speech hid policy flops. Soviet press says
By United Press International
MOSCOW — The Soviet Union accused President Reagan yesterday of using his State of the Union address as a campaign speech to cover up failed domestic programs and a militaristic foreign policy.
Tass said the speech Wednesday to a joint session of Congress was "made in a spirit of electioneering."
The official news agency described it as "an attempt to picture in a favorable light the results of his three-year rule and justify his policy, marked by extreme aggressiveness in the international field and total disregard for the needs of the common people."
THE NOVOSTI NEWS agency said Reagan's speech had "many high-sounding slogans, but little of substance."
At a star-spangled rally in Atlanta yesterday, Reagan again raised the subject of U.S.-Soviet relations.
world as "meiordanamic" and "highly inappropriate in its sincerity."
Reagan had appealed to the Soviet people to seek peace, although he had offered no concrete proposals for thawing relations between the two countries.
He told the Atlanta audience of 14,000 that under his leadership. America had "come too far, struggled too hard and accomplished too much to turn back now."
REAGAN'S TRIP TO Atlanta apparently was intended to build momentum toward his re-election announcement, which will come in the form of a five-minute paid television broadcast Sunday at 9:55 a.m.
the 72-year-old president sounded an upbeat tone likely to mark his re-election campaign, saying, "I believe America is stronger, more democratic and more resilient."
IN REMARKS LATER to the Southern Republican leadership conference, attended by GOP activists from 14 states, Reagan offered a vision of a "New South" steadily renouncing its century-old Democratic roots.
Reagan's trip was not uneventful. The helicopter carrying him from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., made an emergency landing when a red warning light went on shortly after takeoff. Reagan was not injured and Andrews Air Force Office said, and he went ahead with his speech several hours later.
He also displayed an eagerness for political combat, charging that the Democrats were trying to buy support by making promises to interest groups.
"Just a while ago there was a debate in New Hampshire," Reagan said. "There were so many candidates on the platform there weren't enough candidates."
"The Democratic drumbeat against Reaganomics has been drowned by the roar of expansion and growth."
Reagan also extended another overture to the Soviets, signaling readiness to improve relations if Moscow returns to the arms control arena.
See REAGAN, p. 5, col. 5
Filing period for Senate elections begins
Staff Reporter
By CINDY HOLM
The Student Senate voted 38-12 last night to accept a proposal submitted by a special elections committee that recommended the dates and opened the election to new candidates.
The filing period begins today for the new
filing period of June 1, 2014, which will be
Feb. 29, 2014 and March 1.
candidates must also be former members of the Senate or provide a list of 500 students' signatures requesting that the candidate's name be placed on the ballot.
Candidates will have until 5 p.m. Feb. 3 to file their declarations of candidacy.
If a prospective candidate cannot meet the eligibility and certification guidelines by the filing date, the candidate's names will not appear on the ballot, the proposal said.
THE DECLARATION of candidacy requires that candidates verify their enrollment at the university.
The special elections committee recommended that the Senate review its procedure for write-in candidates before the election.
If the Senate decides to include space for write-in votes on the ballot, then only the legal name of the candidate should be accepted, the committee said.
The senate voted to have its Committee Board choose a new Elections Committee from a pool of students who have already applied to be on Senate committees.
the Senate appoint a new Elections Committee to supervise the election.
The board will exclude from the Elections Committee all current student senators, all students who ran for a Senate office in the fall election and all students who actively campaigned for a candidate or a coalition, according to the Board's rules, by Jim Cramer, student body vice president.
THE COMMITTEE also recommended that
The Senate approved the appointment of Roy Goldberg, Prairie Village senior, by Lisa Ashner, student body president, as chairman of the Elections Committee.
William Burroughs, KU writer-in-residence, speaks to a standing-room-only crowd. Burroughs, author of "Naked
Lunch" and other novels, spoke yesterday afternoon in the Alderson Auditorium of the Kansas Union.
Burroughs gives tips, adages on his vision of writer's art
By KEVIN LOLLAR
Staff Reporter
Norman Mailer compared him to Hieronymous Bosch for his ability to "render an intimate, detailed vision of what Hell might be like."
But William Burroughs yesterday gave a standing-room-only audience at the Kansas Union Alderson Auditorium an intimate, detailed portrait of his own vision of the writer's
Using Kerenau, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and others as springboards, Burroughs, KU writer-in-residence, read a sometimes rambling, often funny and always canatic piece, "The Werewolf," written by Several 200th Century Writers," that was more a series of aphorisms than a structured essay.
THE 69-YEAR-OLD author of 12 novels, including "Naked Lunch," "Cities of the Red Night" and "The Place of Dead Roads," began his speech by setting up a series of precepts, taken from Matthew Arnold, by which a reader can judge a book. What's the writer trying to do? How well does he do it? Is it worth doing? Does he know what he's talking about?
Then, in answering the questions, he praised Keroau and Fitzgerald, criticized Hemingway for selling out to Hollywood, and reduced the themes of "Lord Jim" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" to "courage lost, courage regained."
Throughout, Burroughs spoke in maxims, especially when talking about his art, almost as a guide for the reader.
"Writers live in a world of fiction," he said.
In fact, one of the main points of the lecture was the writer's relationship to his writing
"And they often become spurious when they touch down."
Maintaining validity, according to Burroughs,
depends on how much a writer wishes to become
like the characters he writes about.
"To what extent writers can and do act out their writing in so-called real life, and how useful it is for their craft, are open questions," he said. "That is, you making your universe more like the real universe, or are you pulling the real one into yours?"
"Hemingway's determination to act out the least interesting aspects of his own writing and to actually be his characters was unfortunate for his writing."
HE QUOTED KEROUAC, who raised the same point: "I am not 'I am,' but just a spy in someone's body pretending these sandlot games, kids in the cow field near St. Rita's church."
And always Burroughs played the sage, going for the big hit that sounded good and was at least superficially identifiable as wisdom. Throughout his speech were comments such as:
"Often an early death is the kindest gift an author can bestow on a beloved character."
"The function of art is to make people aware of what they know and don't know that they know."
"Never snitch on a fellow writer; he'll snitch on himself sooner or later."
what they know and did I can tell that they know. But even at his most epigrammatic, Burroughs always had the key question near the front. What makes a writer?
As an answer, he said, "Jack Kerouac was a writer. That is, he wrote. Many people who call themselves writers and have their names on books are not writers and they can't write — the difference being, a bullfighter who fights a bull is different from a bullshitter who makes passes with no bull there. The writer has been there, or he can't write about it."