OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
November 16, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas (USPK 60/640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Final Hull, Lawrence, Kan. 60515, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Wednesday during the summer sessions. Subscriptions are $1 for six months or $2 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $1 per semester through the student activity for PASTMASKER. Subscribers by mail are $1 for six months or $2 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $1 per semester through the student activity for PASTMASKER. Subscribers by mail are $1 for six months or $2 a year outside the county.
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
Managing Editor
STEVE CUSICK
Editorial Editor
DON KNOX
Campus Editor
PAUL JESS
General Manager and News Adviser
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
ANN HORNBERGER
Business Manager
DAVE WANAMAKER
Retail Sales
Manager
MARK MEARS
National Sales
Manager
LYNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN
Advertising Adviser
Tolerance
A distressing and disappointing dispute is taking place between the staff and congregation of the St. Lawrence Catholic Center and several residents of the Crescent Road neighborhood. It is distressing because it has made adversaries of two highly respected, likable groups of Lawrence citizens. It is disappointing because it should not be occurring.
Months ago, the St. Lawrence Catholic Center announced plans to build a church, chapel and student center on church property at Engel and Crescent roads. The center raised more than $1 million for the project, which has a building plan that conforms to present zoning ordinances. Neighborhood residents are seeking to change those ordinances in an effort to stop construction on the church.
The residents give many reasons for their protest of the development. In letters and interviews with the local media, neighborhood residents say the plan threatens the "integrity" of their "quiet and well-kept" neighborhood. They say the intersection of Crescent and Engel roads is "dangerous" and is "blind in one direction." They say the scope of the project is too large, and, if completed, may devalue the surrounding property.
Many of the residents of this neighborhood are elderly; several are former or current KU professors; many have lived there for years. It would be hard, indeed, to find a nicer, more respectable group of people.
Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't be hard to find a group more tolerant of others.
To say a neighborhood bordered by Daisy Hill, Jayhawker Towers and sororities is "quiet" seems a bit illogical. To say the intersection of Crescent and Engel is "dangerous" and "blind in one direction" may or may not be true, but in either case the blind corner is not on church property, which is mainly an empty lot.
And how any church or synagogue can change the "integrity" of a neighborhood, unless by strengthening it, is simply incomprehensible. Also, it seems more likely that such a structure would increase property values, rather than decrease them.
Changing the city ordinances would make it difficult for any church to develop in similar neighborhoods — a tough ordinance to result from the actions of a few.
Yes, this is a distressing and disappointing dispute. But it is a dispute about more than the Catholic Church or neighborhood groups. It is a dispute that concerns tolerance of others, no matter what religion, race or creed they may belong to.
It is sad that the two groups must debate the issue tonight at the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission meeting. How much better it might have been if they could have gotten together next week, over Thanksgiving dinner.
More public posturing
President Reagan's attitude toward the repression of political views in other countries changes as frequently as the wind.
Yet in South Korea last week. Reagan glossed over human rights problems in that country.
He ordered several thousand American troops to participate in the invasion of Grenada because Americans on the island were endangered and the government there was moving closer philosophically to the Soviet Union.
Some political dissidents had even been put under house arrest before Reagan's visit, so that a proper level of order would be maintained.
Regardless of any special measures taken because of Reagan's visit, the human rights situation in South Korea is far from perfect.
Reagan's comments in South Korea about human rights meant very little as far as specific actions. In talking about human rights, he said, "I believe it's important to adhere to the discipline of diplomacy, rather than indulging in public posturing."
Indeed, Mr. President, keep away from that nasty public posturing. We wouldn't want the people of the world to know what the United States stands for.
The nuclear debate
Some extremists on the right consider public discussion of the consequences of nuclear war politically damaging because it makes their confrontational machismo seem irresponsible. Across the political spectrum, other sophisticated may also be uncomfortable with the stress on the effects. More "interesting" questions center on the strategy, policy and hardware.
and authoritative scientific report projecting the likely atmospheric, climatic and biological effects of a large-scale nuclear "exchange."
This fall, however, two events are catapulting the consequences of a nuclear "exchange" into public discussion again. The first is a new
The second is a television movie called "The Day After," to be aired on the ABC network on Sunday.
It is encouraging that the networks and the scientific community may be awakening to their great, hitherto most unexercised capacity to shape and energize the nuclear debate.
-Boston Globe
The University Daily Kansas 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 home address or faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
City should find heat for the poor
Cold weather descended on Lawrence last week, and we Spartans who had postponed turning on our furnaces rushed to our thermostats the day that temperatures dropped and drizzle turned to snow.
But some Lawrence residents who heat with natural gas were unable to drive away the chill by the flick of a switch. Between April 1 and Oct. 20, Kansas Public Service, Lawrence's natural gas utility, had discontinued service to 670 customers and had sent shut-off notices to 920 others.
Perhaps some of those customers asked to be shut off because they were moving and perhaps others were reconnected to service before last week's cold wave hit. But some people did not, during that cold spell. Many will be deprived of heat before the long, cold winter turns to spring.
LETTERS POLICY
Kansas Public Service's announcement last week saying that it would be seeking a rate increase this winter and that an increase in fuel costs would soon be passed on to its customers only aggravates the situation.
Blaming the people who can't pay their gas bills is easy. Call them parasites or freeleaders. But for every person who abuses the system
for a free ride, many more exist who truly need financial assistance despite their hard work. Although the economy has improved, the unemployed, the under-employed and on people in low, fixed incomes are still with us. Until jobs exist for all those who want them and until fixed incomes are adequate to meet today's increasing living expenses,
DIANE
LUBER
Staff Columnist
Blaming Kansas Punice So is also easy. How dare it deprive people of a necessity of life! But this is capitalism, the free enterprise system at work. And companies only seek to provide a product or service if it's profitable. Providing heat to people who can't pay isn't.
The responsibility for seeing that no one goes without heat this winter lies with us and with the officials we
some people will be unable to keep up with their bills.
have elected to safeguard the public welfare.
But last week, the Lawrence City Commission rejected a proposal from its Natural Gas Task Force that the city establish a fuel assistance relief program. The task force has estimated that 2,000 people will need assistance with their utility bills this winter and asked the city to contribute $25,000 to a $100,000 relief program, the remainder of which would come from donations.
But the commissioners rejected the request even though the city would collect more than $50,000 in franchise taxes from residential and small-business customers of Kansas Public Service this year.
The City Commission also rejected the task force's request to decrease the franchise tax, though the 53 cities charge 3 percent or less.
That tax appears as a separate 5 percent charge on your gas bill and was originally levied against Lawrence's utility companies to reimburse the city for the utilities' use of city property. But the amount of money that the tax provides has exceeded its original purpose, and the city now uses it to keep property taxes under control. And while residential property owners are taxed twice under this system, large commercial and industrial customers are not required to pay the
franchise tax, though they use large amounts of natural gas.
The 20-year contract that Kansas Public Service has with the city to provide service comes up for renewal next year. At that time, we could decide that heat is a necessity and that its distribution should not be left to a business that concerns itself more with profit than public welfare. We could create a system that would provide one of life's necessities to everyone regardless of income or ability to pay.
Some of the city commissioners think that private donations alone, like the Warm Hearts fund drive last year, should help people to pay their utility bills. But no one should have any charity for life's necessities.
But if we leave the decision up to the present City Commission, those who cannot pay their utility bills will be forced to rely on the generosity of others. And if charity fails, they will pay the highest price of all — their health and, in the worst cases, their lives.
ANOTHER CAPTOL BOMB..
Whv did Eddie Washington die?
Countries have been wrong before without being dishonest. We are being dishonest wanting to be both a democracy and an imperial center, nowadays called a world power. Although seemingly the best of both worlds, the combination — democracy and world power — is finally corrupting. Rome disliked Britain. Democracy lives by negotiation, empire by imposition. Combining them breeds hypocrisy.
How do I know? Look at the monuments in your town. World War I in marble or bronze, World War II in granite or concrete, a plaque for Korea and maybe one for Vietnam — though some euphymism must be found for Vietnam, the war that officially wasn't. Is there a monument to our heroes killed in Nicaragua in the late 1920s or in Santo Domingo in the 1960s? A monument for those fallen in Mexico, Haiti, Panama or the Philippines?
I remember stories told by old men in Nicaragua who fought with Augusto Cesar Sandino 50 years ago — stories about young Marines who were cut down by peasants as they stumbled through unfamiliar terrain lugging the wrong equipment. How many were they, those young gringes? How is it that I don't know, don't even know where to find that
President Reagan ended his recent speech about Grenada and Beirut saying that prayers weren't needed for those lost in either place. They already are in the arms of God, and only the wounded require our prayers. I pray for those who give their lives in combats that presidents hope will be forgotten before the next election rounds around.
statistic" That's when I remember that in all the towns I've passed through. I've never seen a monument to heroes fallen in Nicaragua.
In Washington, tourists silently scan the names of the Vietnam dead on the memorial in the Mall, while relatives and buddies pass their fingers over the letters chipped in marble. What do they say to them? Would they say "For you" or is it too hard to say "Brother or sister, nothing we needed then and there required your life. You died in vain."
It has happened all over again — in Grenada now. In time, perhaps, it
ELDON KENWORTHY
Professor
will happen in Nicaragua. Our leaders will be ferried from the golf course to microphones to tell us how "creditability" or the "world Communist threat" or some other abstraction requires human sacrifice. Many courses "will be courses," but also a few of us, killed in countries whose names our leaders have just learned to pronounce.
The host of one call in radio show justified it this way: "I don't really give a damn what the rest of the world thinks. We're tired of getting kicked and pushed around by those little potdum countries down there." Who will write a monument to a Marine who died in Grenada — let's call him Eddie Washington — that says he died to provide a therapeutic moment for the American public?
Grenadian authorities had reassured the administration that there would be no obstacle to foreigners leaving. And even if that was the reason, why have we stayed to root out resistance? all over the island?
What did Eddie die for? To get medical students out? But the
Did we invade to prevent Soviet or Cuban access to an airfield that is further from Central America and the United States than comparable airfields on Cuba itself, to which the Russians already have access? Did we hope to forestall some threat to neighboring islands that so far has not materialized? Or did Washington re-hestablish its credibility in international capitals by successfully subduing a country smaller — in population and area — than Columbus, Ohio?
Did our Marines die to restore order to a country that had passed through a coup? Is that a mission we've assumed around the world? We've been stationed by right-wing military officers, would we have intervened?
The world is indeed full of potential threats. But does the world's strongest nation sacrifice its youth to stave off distant but possible threats that it would have ample means to handle if indeed they arose? Doesn't our security really depend on keeping the respect of our allies and on strengthening the international norms that outlaw one state's forced intervention in the affairs of another?
Who will make a monument to Eddie Washington and engrave in marble the reason why he died in Grenada?
Copyright 1983 the New York Times. Eldon Kunworthy is professor of political science at Cornell University
Invasion might end antiwar era
WASHINGTON — A lot of congressmen would love Grenada. They would get a lot more love and joy in their home; they do back in their home districts.
The 14 members of the fact-finding delegation that visited the small island 1,900 miles south of Miami could hardly move without seeing and hearing expressions of gratitude from islanders, almost all of whom insist on calling the U.S. invasion a "rescue mission."
"God bless America" is serailed occasionally on doorways. Smiles flash across any Grenadian face whenever an American passes. Almost everyone wants to talk, and all of us would seem to would seem that almost everyone has at least one relative in the United States.
"Please, don't let your troops go home," they implore.
Once you talk with Grenadians — in alleys, in stores, in taxis or wherever — inevitably someone will ask you as an American to intercede with your government to keep your troops on the island.
The U.S. troops return the favor According to all reports and observations, the behavior of U.S. troops
has been exemplary, more like Boy
Scouts earning merit badges than
trained killers
DON PHILLIPS United Press International
"We're tired of politicians," a taxi driver told reporters. "Let the Americans run Grenada. You take over."
house Democratic whip Thomas Foley, the leader of the delegation, was stunned.
But there is little doubt that their attitude, whatever its genesis, had a profound effect on U.S. foreign policy and on the attitude of Congress. It is far too early to tell, but history some day may mark the Grenada invasion as the beginning of the end of the Vietnam antwar
A rare combination of factors led to the popularity of this invasion, factors that may not happen again in our lifetime. The assassination of popular Prime Minister Maurice Bishop on Oct. 19 probably left Grenadians in a mood to praise anyone who punished his killers
There were many serious questions to be answered in Grenada. Were the students really in danger? Was there a legal basis for the invasion? Was it carried out propfully? Would the students still have not been fully answered.
But after meeting these easy-going, friendly people face to face, it was difficult not to respecie that they no longer were under the control of
They made "justified" much easier to sav.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Large dogs do have a legitimate purpose
To the editor:
This letter is in response to a Nov. 4 column by Jesse Barker in which he states his position on the owning party of the opposing fellow is an opposing response.
Not everyone lives in a "modern society." I have worked on a ranch running 140 horses for a livery program. A major part of this program is a dog that is the offspring of a cross between a Dingo
and a Pit Bull Terrier — some might believe that this dog would be a death machine on four legs. This dog is very responsive to orders from its master for the dog has learned the consequences of disobedience. And I can say that these consequences are more than a “gentle pout.”
my judgment, lap dogs do not provide enough protection.
Before you formulate a stereotype of me, let it be known that I come from the Washington, D.C., area and have seen my share of dog laps. In
I am an advocate of dog training. If the master is not capable of handling his dog, he should not take on the responsibility of having a trained dog. A homeowner can use a well-trained dog to investigate a noise in the house. If the dog were to find an armed intruder, it, by risking its life, would inform its master both that there is an actual
intruder - not a false alarm - and that this intruder is armed.
Personally, I would rather have my dog take a bullet than me. A dog can be replaced, more so than I can. This is the reality of life. If, on the other hand, the unruffle is unarmed, it can be called off, whereas a bullet cannot.
Large dogs do serve a purpose
McLean, Va., senior