OPINION
The University of KANSAN
September 14, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
reuse university Daily Kansas (USP5 665-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-First Hall, Lawrence, KA 60045, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer semester, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays, and final periods. USP5 is free to all students outside the county. Student subscriptions are $3 a semester paid through the student activity fee POSTMASTER. Send subscriptions to: Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $3 a semester paid through the student activity fee POSTMASTER. Send subscriptions to: Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county.
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM STEVE CUSICK
Managing Editor Editorial Author
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
MICHAEL ROBINSON Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN
Advertising Adviser
DAVE WANAMAKER
Retail Sales
Manager
MARK MEANS
National Sales
Manager
PAUL JESS
PAULJESS
General Manager and News Adviser
A closing note
Some great literary pundit — perhaps Yogi Berra — once declaimed: "The opera's not over until the fat lady sings."
The fat lady is now singing her heart out for Skip Moon, precarious owner of the Lawrence Opera House. For months, Moon has been the principal actor in his own drama, bounding from interested buyer to interested buyer, from guarantor to guarantor, from creditor to creditor — all for what seems to be a fruitless, though valiant, attempt to save his mortgage.
Give it up, Skip. The fat lady is singing, and she's not Linda Ronstadt in "The Pirates of Penzance." She's the Lawrence National Bank, and her aria is called "foreclosure."
The Lawrence Opera House is a local landmark, and until recently has been host to some of the world's best musical performers. It's a shame to see that long tradition ending, but ending it is, and it's time that the opera house meets its fate with dignity, a dignity that fades with each passing year of erratic ownership, varied tenants and local
furor. Yes, Moon may have a lot of heart, but heart, as we all know, doesn't pay the rent.
Happily, though, the fate of the opera house may not be so grim. Mayor David Longhurst has said publicly that the city would be willing to find some way of preserving the building for posterity. Whether he backs up those words later still remains to be seen, but at least it's a hopeful sign.
For now, however, the time has come for the fat lady to bow, and for the audience to applaud Moon's efforts and leave the theatre, bringing the drama to an end. A new actor, the Douglas County sheriff, is already stalking in the wings, waiting to sell the opera house should Moon fail to successfully jiggle his loans.
The sheriff's show may not be as promising as Moon's was, and, indeed, it may even end more tragically. But the sheriff is the best of the few realistic alternatives left for Moon, and as the owner of the opera house knows well, the show must go on.
Another powder keg
Yet another country in South America is starting to explode.
Chile, under the shaky regime of President Augusto Pinochet, has been rocked by violence recently as protesters continue to call for Pinochet's resignation.
The Democratic Alliance has held five nationwide protests in the past five months. Forty-two people have died — at least ten of them in the past week during anti-government protests. The violence of the past week coincides with the 10th anniversary of Pinochet's rise to power when he wrested the presidency from the government of Salvador Allende in a coup.
But he'll have to do more than that — he must loosen his grip and get out long before 1989. Democracy had better come soon to Chile or else the opposition will kick Pinochet out with a bloody boot, or another military-minded leader, recognizing the crumbling of the regime, will take over.
Pinochet, in a speech commemorating the event, said that he would stay in office until 1989 and that he was considering a referendum to reform the constitution and to establish an elected congress.
Under Pinochet, Chile has arrived at 35 percent unemployment, and the protests prove that the working-class is getting more than restless.
"The government must understand that without democracy there will be no solution to the economic crisis," said one opposition leader. "Political steps are required to solve the crisis, because poverty has taken the country close to an uprising."
How true. The violence will continue until Chileans get to vote in a free election.
His biggest mistake
President Reagan says that if women simply looked at his record, they would not think him insensitive to their concerns. He argues that his administration includes some women of genuine stature — and it does. He says that he has signed some laws to help women — and he has. But those modest accomplishments cannot dispel the impression that the president does not take women seriously.
more thoughtful gestures have failed to calm his critics: In a speech before the Republican Women's Leadership Forum last month, Reagan reiterated his commitment to "legal equity for women," dismissing as "demagoguery" any criticism of his past behavior.
That impression is reinforced nearly every time the Reagan administration tries to counter it. The president and his aides have answered challenges of insensitivity to women with belittling comments, embarrassing jokes and inaccurate assertions. Even the president's
Such blanket dismissals, like bad jokes and false claims, are unlikely to win many women's votes. In his quest to prove his dedication to sexual equality, the president keeps stumbling over his biggest mistake: He opposes the equal rights amendment, breaking the Republican Party's 40-year tradition of support for it.
-Minneapolis Tribune
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-space 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 Kansan allow invite recipients to group to share small guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansas office, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or rejectletters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Lesson from Morton Grove
Gun-control movement shoots forward
WASHINGTON — On June 8, 1981, the village trustees of Morton Grove, Ill., fired a shot heard around the world. They passed an ordinance restricting handgun ownership within village limits.
Legal challenges, financed by the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups, were immediately filed, and the result was national attention that kept the town of 25,000 in the police department from arrest. The man has been heard from Morton Grove lately, but the silence should not be misinterpreted.
Both the local law and the larger issue of national handgun control
CHARLES J. ORASIN
Executive Vice President of Handgun Control Inc.
are alive and well. In fact, the U.S.
Supreme Court may announce in October whether it will accept an NRA appeal in the Morton Grove case, which to date has withstood all legal charges on state and federal levels.
If the Supreme Court takes the case, the outcome may truly be, as the association has said, "the most important decision interpreting the Second Amendment in this half-century." The court declines, it will be a big loss for the NRA and a big victory for handgun control.
*On Dec. 29, 1981, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the ordinance did not infringe on provisions of the federal and Illinois constitutions.
The history of the judicial challenge to the Morton Grove law includes these highlights:
- On Jan. 29, 1982, the Cook County Circuit Court ruled that the ordinance did not violate guarantees of the Illinois Constitution, a decision affirmed by the state appellate court last February.
- On Dec. 6, 1982, the United States Court of Appeals in Chicago reaffirmed the district court's ruling. The plaintiffs' February 1983 motion for a rehearing was denied by the Court of Appeals. U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
The plaintiffs, seven Morton Grove residents, claim that the Second Amendment "guarantee" of the right to keep and bear arms is an individual, not a state militia, right. They've marched boldly on on a slender legal limb and taken the NRA with them.
Such a fair, open confrontation is unusual for the NRA, which usually fights its battles by playing on the principle of respect and putting pressure on congressmen.
Anyone who thinks the defeat last fall of Proposition 15 in California, which sought to freeze the number of handguns in the state, means the handgun-control movement is struggling is mistaken. The reverse is true. This is because the symbol of what is happening across the country than the referendum.
This year, handgun-control laws have been proposed throughout America. In New York State, an NRA-backed effort to weaken the state handgun-control law was stopped. In Washington state, hunters, including some NRA members, helped pass a tough new handgun-control law. In Colorado, NRA efforts to prevent local handgun-control activity failed miserably in the Legislature.
vocates are encouraged by new data showing that Chicago's 1981 handgun-control law has reduced gunmurders by 24 percent.
On Capitol Hill, despite the association's unceasing efforts to repeal the 1968 Gun Control Act — its single biggest defeat until Morton Grove — there is more gun-control activity than ever before. The Kennedy-Rodino Handgun Crime Control Bill has more House and co-sponsors than any bandgun-control legislation in history.
The Moynhan-Biaggi bill to ban armor-piercing, cop-kill bullets has 171 house sponsors — 54 more than the NRA has for its measure; the McClure-Vulkmer Gun Decision board would effectively repeal the 1968 law.
Moreover, handgun-control ad-
The public continues to voice its preference for handgun control. A Gallup Poll published in June shows that 59 percent of the respondents wanted stricter controls on handgun sales.
For decades, Americans have been saying they want their elected leaders to put an end to the handgun war. Now citizens are moving forward on every front — federal, state and local — to insure passage of responsive legislation for the Morton Grove. And that's why she NRA is so agitated, why it has stepped out of character and gone to the Supreme Court.
By the way, despite gun lobby efforts to defeat them, the village trustees who voted for the Morton County board were e-lected this year by a 2-1 margin.
Copyright 1983 the New York Times. Handgun Control Inc. is a lobbying organization.
Reporters are caught off guard
WASHINGTON — A stealth bomber is designed to fly over enemy territory without being seen. The bomb known is the stealth press release.
An important story broke on Capitol Hill the Friday before Labor Day when a press release arrived at 5:01 p.m. in the House Press Gallery from Rep Jack Brooks, D. Texas. It said that a long-time committee was bad and resigned in admitting that he had altered during transcripts.
Only now is the story becoming generally known, however.
Normally, press releases are designed to gain attention. Press secretaries are hired at relatively good salaries to write press releases and to time them to gain maximum attention.
Not so the Brooks release. It was delivered on the Friday afternoon before a holiday during a long congressional recess, at a time when mountain heads for the beaches and mountains. That includes reporters.
Also, it was a cryptic, two-
DON PHILLIPS
United Press International
paragraph release with no background, meaning that it was difficult for those few reporters who were at the Capitol to gather facts. They were directly affected by the story was in town to react to it or to add to it.
When the story did go out, it was largely ignored by newspapers and broadcast outlets, which were themselves being run by holiday crews. The Washington Post ran nothing on the day of the release, but splashed the story on their front page several days later, after the holiday.
The Post story caused a flurry of activity among reporters who had been on vacation and not scanning the wire services. Only then did they discover that the story was almost a week old.
This press release is a textbook case of how to be open but to avoid publicity.
Brooks and the House Democratic leadership have been attempting to play down the overall story of altered hearing transcripts from the time that several House Republicans discovered that their remarks in a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency on July 21 and 22, 2005 were obtained to train them appear to be saying things that they did not say.
At the same time that GOP members were made to appear foolish in the printed record, the statements of Democratic members were changed to make them sound better than they did at the time.
Republicans have been attempting to keep the story before the public eye, not always with success. There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the issue again, however. The Republican party is continuing to investigate the matter and will issue a report later this year.
Also, the Brooks press release seems to raise about as many questions as it answers.
For example, was the staff member — Lester Brown — the only one involved in the alterations? Did he change Republican statements, or was he involved only in changing policies? How was his role discovered?
For the answers, perhaps we should hang around the House Press Gallery late every Friday afternoon.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Editorial research was not thorough enough
To the Editor:
Since I did not witness Lawrence City Commissioner Howard Hill's remark about Haskell Indian Junior College, I will give the editor who wrote "Tactless Remark" in Monday's Kansas the benefit of the doubt that Hill's remark was tactless. From that point on, I will take exception. The editorial columnist should have attitude, but at the same time reflects the ignorance of the writer about the actual situation.
First, if the writer had done his homework, he would have found that Haskell Indian Junior College discourages students from such action. Therefore Hill's remark and evidence were not a reflection on the college.
Second, the complaint brought to the commission was mild compared to problems found throughout the neighborhood. The writer displays ignorance of cultural differences between the two communities and also any understanding of the neighborhood's frustration in coping with the situation.
I suggest the writer do more
research on the problems or perhaps live adjacent to the neighborhood bar before stating such liberal opinions.
Regina G. Stalder Lawrence graduate student
Hypocritical
To the Editor:
The editorial "Tactless Remark" that appeared in yesterday's Kansan and its treatment of a questionable statement made by a Lawrence City Commissioner was really quite hypocritical.
While pointing out the unfairness of such a statement to the students at Haskell Indian Junior College, the Kansan itself stooped to using the old "Johnson County sob" stereotype to make a point.
A stereotype is a stereotype no
At a recent City Commission meeting, Commissioner Howard Hill noted what he perceived as problems arising from when people are broken from Arizona reserve, or the "relative sophistication" of Lawrence.
Dan Cunningham Lenexa graduate student
Dan Cunningham
matter what label we give it or we use it. Employing one shows a profound lack of critical thinking in any regard.
Excuse me for learning.
It appears that in its zeal to point out Hill's gaffe, the Kansas stuck its editorial foot in its accusatory mouth.
A sweatshop
To the Editor
I've put up with a lot of crap from the University of Kansas, but I've always dismissed it as the trials of bureaucratic red tape. Now I want an explanation and a change. I won't expect an apology.
At the door, I showed my student I.D., a student ticket and a general admission ticket. The snobbish ticket-taker said, "I can't let you in here, the students' entrance is over."
While attending the St. Louis Symphony at Hoch Auditorium Saturday night, my companion and I were waiting eagerly in line at the center entrance in anticipation of an enjoyable evening of fine music.
Perhaps I am confused, but isn't this a university for students? It seemed like the Ivory Tower Country Club on Saturday, except that most country clubs are air conditioned — the auditorium was steaming hot, and many left in frustration at intermission. The show was excellent, but the atmosphere was as stuffy as a sweatshop.
The University looks silly inviting talented performers to create their art in a sweltering cave. I'll bet a decent, air-conditioned auditorium could have been built for the cost of a certain useless alumni center. Who's running this show, and for what reason? Because the pacification of the alumni has taken precedence over the intellectual and cultural enrichment of students.
Why are there separate entrances when we all leave the same way?
If there must be discrimination, let it be in favor of those to whose benefit the University is supposedly dedicated.
Ron Fent
V
Lawrence senior