OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
August 31, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University of Dayton Kanaan (USP5 60540) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuart Fint Hall, Lawrence, KA 60640, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday on university sessions. Students should check the website www.usp5.edu for additional information at Lawrence. Subscriptions by mail may cost $16 six months or $27 a year in Douglas County and $14 for six months or $3 for one outside the county. Student subscriptions are $4 a semester for Douglas County and $14 for Fint Hall, Lawrence, KA 60640. Some
MARK ZIEMAN Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
Managing Editor
STEVE CUSKIF
Editorial Editor
MICHAEL ROBINSON Campus Editor
PAUL JESS General Manager and News Adviser
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
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DAVE WANMAKER   MARK MEARS
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Out of Lebanon
Two Americans are dead. They were soldiers fighting in a land that wasn't their own. They died amid the debris and hate in war-torn Beirut.
Two Americans are dead. They were part of peace-keeping force that might as well be trying to re-unite Cain and Abel. They were Marines sent to Lebanon in the wake of Israel's bloody march across the country.
Two Americans are dead. They will come home, but in the hands of pallbearers. They were caught in a cross-fire between Lebanese army units and Moslem militiamen, and some of their comrades were trapped in the same exchange of hate.
Two Americans are dead, and others are wounded. It's time for the U.S. Marines in Lebanon to come home.
The eyes of the United States were
again turned to the turmoil in the Mideast this week when the two Marines were killed. Attention had been focused recently on Central America, and it had seemed as if a lull was coming from Lebanon. But gunfire in Beirut has reminded the United States that the Marines are still over there.
Even conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., has said the U.S. troops should be taken out of Lebanon.
Yet the Reagan administration doesn't appear to be ready to withdraw the Marines. And U.S. military officers say their troops will keep returning fire. The result can only be that more Americans will die in Beirut, especially as the influence of the Lebanese army continues to dwindle and another carnage begins.
Two Americans are dead. But no more should die for such a futile cause.
Nearing a decision
Discussion of a shopping complex for the downtown area revolves around one central premise.
At least two developers and most city commissioners have said in the past that the premise was correct.
Without such a premise — that the Lawrence retail market has room for at least 200,000 to 400,000 additional square feet of shopping space — a downtown mall would be doomed.
If it is correct, some smart corporation would want to build more shopping space in Lawrence sometime.
sometimes. One out-of-state developer presented a proposal for a shopping mall four years ago. But, of all things, the developer asked that the shopping mall be built in an outlying area of the city.
So the focus, a few years and a few fights later, has now shifted to downtown. Merchants in the downtown area know that if a mall is built in a suburban area, downtown would take another step closer to dying.
But despite such a realization, development downtown has proceeded slowly. The Lawrence City Commission asked Monday for more
investigation into two possible ways of building more retail space downtown.
town. The commission's discussion Monday at least indicated that it is not continuing to postpone decision making.
A public referendum on the project seems likely, judging from the comments of some commissioners Monday.
Whatever plan is eventually considered, the motivation behind a downtown mall or shopping complex is simple and comes right down to the old U.S. dollar. Most things come down to the dollar, if one is cynical. And realistic.
But if more shopping space is going to be built, it might as well be built properly and efficiently. The city moved in rapid fashion late year and earlier this year when considering questions about downtown redevelopment. Decision making seemed to stall in the past month or so.
The commission now, however, is actively investigating different ways of redeveloping the downtown area. Perhaps it realizes that the time for a decision has come at last.
Spreading the word
The University of Kansas may yet shake its snobs-on-Oread image. KU administrators have planned a road show that could give Kansas communities a better glimpse of what KU is all about.
KU has much to offer to this state, and the more Kansas residents know about the University the better. The speakers are visiting towns like Great Bend and El Dorado, where some folks probably still view KU as that group of intellects and foreigners up near Kansas City.
This University belongs to this state. Besides belonging to the students, it belongs to the Trego County farmer and the Johnson County businessman alike.
Academic administrators from the Lawrence, Kansas City and Wichita campuses are participating
in the program. And Keith Nitcher, director of business affairs, said private contributions were paying for the visits.
And cultivating the support of the residents could be helpful for the University at appropriations time. Legislators might just listen to hometown folks who think the state ought to spend more money on higher education.
LETTERS POLICY
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. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansas also invites individuals to submit question columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansas office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
Like thieves in the night Lawmakers cloak raises, trips in secrecy
WASHINGTON — Congress has a way of collectively putting its foot in its mouth, chomping down hard and then blaming the press and the public interest groups for the resulting wound.
The classic scenario, of course, involves congressional pay increases and outside income limits.
Congress daina and again acts like a thief in the night, skulking around and through parliamentary maneuvers to sneak itself a pay raise. When someone flips on the political lights and congressmen are left standing there sheepishly, they blame those who turned on the light.
It never occurs to them that one reason they are treated like thieves is that they act that way. There are good reasons to increase congressional salaries; why not do it openly?
The same thing is true of congressional travel.
Not all congressional trips are junkets. Rep Leo Ryan of California was not on a junket when he was gunned down on an airstrip in Guiana. And I doubt that anyone dodging balls in Leeds is on a junket the trip a junket unless a lengthy stay in Paris accompanied it.
But the destination doesn't necessarily make a trip a junket. The Interparliamentary Union meets in some of the world's great cities, but experience has shown that congressmen who attend these sessions are serious about their work and come home with a greater under-
Some trips are clear junkets. Any trip by a lame duck is a junket. One committee actually spent weeks in South America studying the postal
systems of countries with some of the world's greatest beaches and night spots. That's a junket.
DON PHILLIPS United Press International
standing of the world and its needs, even if they do have a little fun while here.
Getting information on congressional travel, for instance, is deliberately made difficult. There is no central point to gather the information. Unless a congressman announces a congratulatory gift, he announces it is not certain that we ever will learn that a trip was made, much less its purpose.
The trouble is that Congress seems to treat all trips as if they are junkets.
There is no requirement that the trip even have a purpose.
Common Cause, the ever-present self-styled citizens lobby, spent a lot of time digging into congressional travel for the past two and a half years and concluded that members
of the House and Senate took 901 trips to 114 foreign countries at the taxpayers' expense.
The group said that its information "was difficult to acquire and often incomplete."
Every reporter has had doors slammed on fingers, figuratively at least, in attempting to get information on congressional travel. Staff members immediately become suspicious and begin hiding papers when the subject arises.
Common Cause made no knee-jerk judgments of congressional travel as such, saying that there are such things as "critical fact-finding" trips. The point that the group made was to distinguish between junkets and trips that benefit everyone, including the public.
In fairness, some committees are open about travel, notably the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Then they send their staff with slightly legitimate needs.
The Pentagon refers questions of travel on Air Force jets to Congress, and Congress often says to call the Pentagon
But Congress sometimes seems to operate on the principle of the lowest common denominator. In this case, we have assumed that the users were shameless and useless junkets.
Then Congress seems surprised when the press does the same thing.
Joes ruin river trip with play
It was to be a restful weekend of camping and of canoeing down southern Missouri's North Fork White River. I drove the seven-hour drive in 100-degree weather contemplating my last camp trip a restful, rejuvenating float down into Missouri's cool-green rivers
This trip was going to be just the thing I needed to stir up my creative juices to tackle school again.
To my surprise, I spent the weekend in more academic pursuits, studying a sociological phenomenon common to groups of men in their late 20s and early 30s — the search for and subsequent return to that hallowed state of adolescence.
You too can conduct this study. Take an ordinary Joe out of his normal surroundings, put him in a new place or situation with a group of other JOEs, preferably in the school or college, and watch how his brain slowly becomes to function (large amounts of beer help
nere) as he and his cronies slide back to their lost youth.
This sliding can take many forms, as it did for the 20 or so Joes who were rediscovering the joys of youth just a couple of hundred yards away from our camp.
Things to look for in this academic study include the male strut, which involves using a lot of hip action while walking shirttails around the camp in cutoffs with a beer can in one or both hands; talking in a louder-than normal voice to describe the amount of laughter; the number of women he knows or the brilliance of his canoeing abilities; and extremely loud music.
The music is in a category all its own. One of the Joes had a new car stereo and as we all know, the best way to break in new speakers is to play them long and loud. After playing what I think music may be most enjoyable, The Band's albums, the Joes finally settled down for a couple of hours sleep about 5 a.m. Saturday.
The next day's canoeing was another interesting phenomenon. The Jeos managed to turn the river into a watery roadway, a floating strip, which they creep in and out of as they probably crushed their hometown Main Street as hungry teenagers looking for something to do.
They jammed up the river, yelled obsescences to Joes farther down the river and brought Main Street to a river that had once been a haven for those looking for a peaceful rest from the city
To be fair, some of the individual Joes weren't so bad. But get those individuals in a large group and it's time for teenagers.
Camping is meant, at least in my book, to be a quiet and restful experience. My weekend of studying the habits of the post adolescent man searching for his lost youth was anything but quiet
Maybe I'll try ice fishing.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the Editor:
Column missed point of Saturday's march
Michael Beck missed the point of the Aug. 27 march on Washington, D.C., and other nationwide marches, including one in Lawrence If Mr. Beck had taken the time or energy to call local organizers of the march he would have meant to see and meet which meant to us and why we were so driven to inform the public about the event.
Mr. Beck criticized the march organizers and participants by stating "these people are making a joke out of the system (of protest) by trying to the nation's problems with one broad sweep."
Only an uninformed person could have made such a ludicrous statement. The purpose of the march was to bring people together to form a "New Coalition of Conscience" that would address concerns about unemployment, peace and freedom and who are renewing their commitment to
solving these problems. The New Coalition brings these issues together based upon the concept of the "Beloved Community" of Martin Luther King Jr. that all humans are caught up in mutuality — whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."
This march could not "solve the nation's problems with one broad sweep" but what it has done is to call attention to various problems that affect the welfare of the citizens of this country. It brought together people who care and also helped in creating. This powerful unity is fearful to some who have tried to negate and diffuse it through criticism.
Nancy E. Caruso
Well over 500 Lawrence citizens participated in Saturday's local march. This showing proves that we were not "merely a gathering of a hodgepodge of social do-gooders," but a strong unit willing to unite and
become a collective power standing together always and in all ways in the fight for human rights.
An artless show
To the Editor:
Angela M. Wellman Co-chairperson and chairperson of the Lawrence chapter of the New Coalition of Conscience
It could have been worse. I could have paid money to have sat through "Escaping Lobo Tech" at the Spencer Museum of Art Saturday
Performance art is a medium that I respect. The fliers around campus aroused my curiosity, and the set up of the show looked promising when I arrived. A few minutes into the show, I saw two (two?) pieces, however, and my hopes for an art experience were dashed (or should I say smashed.)
Instead of art I got incessant amplified pounding of chain on metal, monotonous electronic blastings and meaningless visual effects of gynecological X-rays and other images that may have been meant to shock but only bored. Not only did it start out deafening, violent and pseudo-existentialistic, but the level of artistic sophistication never rose above just plain base.
I suggest that if Spencer sponsors another performance piece they review it before damaging their fine reputation and subjecting their patrons to more amateurish and pretentious trash.
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To Schloss (and or) Tegal I suggest that the next time you feel the need to bang on something, you perform your mechanical masturbations in the privacy of your own home.
V
Rebecca Regan Lawrence