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University Daily Kansan, January 21, 1983
Opinion
Weir's disappearing act
Only administrative silence has followed the indefinite postponement earlier this week of construction on the new $3.5 million broadcast communications center. And it is deafening.
The announcement in 1981 that the center, almost totally financed by Ralph L. Weir, a KU alumnus, would be built on West Campus meant that the radio, television and film departments of the School of Journalism could expand and improve.
The building was to have housed KANU and KJHK radio stations, as well as the RTVF department. Bruce Linton, professor and chairman of the department told the Jayhawk Journalist last year, "It could be a barn and we would be excited about it. We're sitting out here in Blake Annex waiting."
They may have a long wait.
So far, Weir has refused to explain his request to postpone the project, but Strong Hall would neither confirm or deny that Weir's desire for tighter control of the center was a factor
Chancellor Gene A. Budig's state
ment on the postponement mentioned "fiscal restraints on the University of Kansas," but no one in Strong or Flint halls was willing to say what those restraints were or how they would affect construction of the center when Weir was to have footed virtually the entire bill.
The generosity of Ralph Weir's gift — if he decides to give it — or the gift of any other alumnus is greatly appreciated by the students. The money which has come to the University through the Alumni and Endowment associations in large part helps to make KU the institution that it is.
But students and professors make up the University, and both have been given short shift in Weir's now-you-see-it-now-you-don't act with the administration.
In light of the enormity of the proposed gift, its far-reaching effects and the suddenness of the program's postponement, students deserve a more complete explanation of why construction has been delayed, and if and when planning will resume.
BY HELEN THOMAS
—WASHINGTON — President Reagan will be a man in search of many compromises in the next two years if he wants his presidency to work.
United Press International
At midpoint in his White House career, Reagan has had to reassess his own hard and fast positions as he watches his supply-side economic policies founder.
Reagan would be the last to say his three-year tax cut, combined with his monetary policy, is not working.
Although he was warned that planning a trillion dollar defense buildup was not the way to go, his economic advisers had convinced him that the tax slash would wipe out the recession.
Today, the nation is still in a slump and Reagan has approved a three-year $99 billion tax increase and a four-year $20 billion gas tax. He also increased the advantages of the tax cut. And that's not all.
cut. And the security taxes will be accelerated under the reform plan and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan has let the cat out of the bag that the president will propose a whole new package of tax hikes in the forthcoming 1984 fiscal year budget.
bigger.
Some past presidents who have now been sidelined may be smiling at all this, particularly as one remembers Reagan's campaign battle cry against those who "tax and tax and spend and spend."
The president came into office promising a balanced budget and a job for everyone who wanted to work. In his two years as president, the deficit looms at around $200 billion and unemployment has increased from around 7.5 million to close to 11 million.
million to close the fortress. Confronted with the facts and a persistently sluggish economy, it appears that he can no longer hang tough. Under strong pressure from Republican leaders who have gone public on the subject, Reagan has been displaying more flexibility. Much against his will, he sent Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger back to
the drawing board and Weinberger came up with $11.3 billion in military spending cuts.
His top GOP lieutenants on Capitol Hill are telling him that those cuts are not enough, but he passed the word that that was his bottom line.
Reagan is enough of a politician to know that he has to make concessions if he expects his programs to pass. It is difficult for him to bend, particularly when it involves his political convictions. But he also sees the handwriting on the wall, and what is being called the "paralysis of confrontation," if he chooses to do battle with Congress on the major issues.
Direction is one thing, rigidity another, and Reagan can see some of the fruits of his philosophy in the right turn the country has taken.
In the area of nuclear arms control, Reagan is being reluctantly pushed to change tactics and
Although he is sticking with his zero-option plan in the nuclear arms field — meaning no intermediate-range missiles on the European continent or aimed at its capitals — the president and his advisers realize they are losing ground in the field of public opinion as Soviet President Yuri Andropov drops new proposals for cuts in nuclear weaponry.
Another area where Reagan has bowed to outside pressure and image has been the administration's apparent acknowledgement that it has not placed many women in high-visibility or top policy-making government jobs. As a consequence, Reagan selected two women to join his Cabinet: Elizabeth Dole to be secretary of transportation and Margaret Heckler to be secretary of health and human services.
For some, the changes and concessions Reagan is making may be too little and too late, as in the case of activist women's groups who he is making only token gestures to women.
But it is the mark of a resilient, open-minded president when he can move with the times. In the case of Reagan, it is a necessity born of the need to survive.
'Sport' of boxing questionable
Imagine marmoth fists, hissing as they sail through the air, pounding into your face. Imagine those fists slamming into the side of your skull one, two, three, and four times in a row. Your vision blurs, your head throbs and your strength dwindles.
Then, imagine you are Duk Koo Kim or any of the number of boxers who are killed by their sport. Boxers probably feel different sensations as their heads are slammed around the ring, but one sensation they feel is certain. After a severe beating to the head, the fighter becomes dazed. He stumbles. He stares. He blocks too slowly.
The American Medical Association's report released last week only added more paperwork to what was already apparent: Boxing gives boxes brain damage.
The game is one of cutting open a wound and then pouring salt into its deepest crevice. A champion does not have to be better than his opponent, he just has to be more vicious. He picks a spot on the opponent's head, as he does on other vulnerable body parts, and throws constant blows to the target. The underdog fighter gets half his brain slammed away.
A man with half a brain is only half alive. A boxer with half his brain is only half an athlete. After too many blows to the head, boxers become pieces of meat being used as punching bags.
It is the ostram that tells the boxer's body what to do, not his fists. It commands the boxer and his skill at the sport. When a boxer's brain malfunctions from constant blows to the head, the sport is no longer controlled by skill, but by a caveman-like instinct to survive.
Kim's Nov. 13 death match was a World Boxing Association lightweight championship fight in Las Vegas, Nev. The boxers performed before a Caesar's Palace audience of 6,500, and before an undetermined number of people who watched the CBS broadcast on television. After the match, WBA safety regulations received a rigorous, but brief, examination.
in quick succession, Las Vegas fight promoters called for an investigation of the safety of boxing; Virginia withdrew from the WBA; and WBA officials announced rule changes that took effect Jan. 1.
The maximum number of rounds went from 15 to 12 for title fights, and the rests between rounds were lengthened by a few seconds. A referee must now give a boxer who appears defenseless an eight-count. Before, only a boxer who had been knocked down and got back on his feet could get an eight-count.
Eight-counts do not save boxers when they are defenseless. If a boxer is defenseless, he already
is in danger, and the sport of a boxing match is over. Part of any sport is a sturdy defense. Part of the sport of boxing should be how well a boxer blocks the punches, not how well he can take a beating.
And limiting the fight to 12 rounds accomplishes nothing when boxers are killed in shorter matches — like Fred Bowman, another recent lightweight fatality. Bowman's death blow enmeshes in the six round of a fight in Atlantic City, N.J., was comatose for nearly 13 months before he died.
But boxing promoters do not want to change the sport. During last year's football strike, for lack of anything better to watch, sports fans turned to boxing. Boxing promoters are afraid that eliminating the pain and violence of the sport may eliminate some of the audience.
Boxing spectators believe they are great sportsmen. They believe that the essence of boxing is violence, blood and pain.
After the Duk Koo Kim fight, fans and boxers alike were outraged. Instead of doing nothing to remedy the disputed safety hazards after Kim's death, the WBA patched up some disheartened sports fans' complaints by promising to change the rules.
Howard Cosell, despite all his unfavorable characteristics, is a good example of a boxing sportsman. He resigned from boxing coverage after the World Boxing Council let Larry Holmes fight less-talented Randall Cobb for the heavyweight title.
When the publicity of Kim's death ended, the council delivered their rule changes without much clamor. But neither the WBC nor the WBA are doing enough to make a sport of boxing.
The new rules do nothing to assure safety for a boxer whose head is hurt early in the match, or to ensure that boxers will not die from brain damage in the future.
What they did do is temporarily pacify those who dislike boxing because it kills boxes unnecessarily.
The use of protective headgear has been suggested by some reformers, but headgear fails to solve the brain damage problem because the blows are still severe enough to kill a man. Army boxer Charles D. Love went only two minutes in his Oct. 9 death match. Loved were headgear.
Both of the professional boxing associations must ask themselves whether they are promoting a sport or another Jonestown. Many of them argue that boxing gives minority athletes a chance for stardom, and that the athletes consent to being knocked around.
In no other lawful sport is suicide condoned, and it should not be condensed in boxing.
Boxing isn't much of a sport the way it stands, and if a few rules can kill it, it deserves to die.
Letters to the Editor
Arguments to change drinking age illogical
To the editor.
To the editor.
The inconsistency of the old prohibition lobby in Kansas and its attempt to raise the drinking age to 21 was well reflected in your lead editorial Jan. 17. I wasn't sure if you were attacking the arguments made against the bill by the Associated Students of Kansas or if you were actually advocating the proposed change.
Since the law arbitrarily selects 18 as the age when one becomes and adult in terms of responsibility, should these people not have the same rights as other adults? Where is the magic in the maturation process between the ages of 18 and 21 that enables us to better control our
actually devolving that ASK is making the wrong arguments against the bill, why didn't you come forward with some fresh ones? I maintain that ASK and the case being made against this bill are right on target.
The governor's commission that studied this problem determined that there was not sufficient cause for such a change in the Kansas statutes. Furthermore, state laws that are already in place could potentially solve at least a portion of the problem.
drinking habits. There are problems with alcohol after the age of 21. We all realize that. So if you advocate raising the age, why not take it up to 25, or beyond. The reason is that that is called prohibition — as impractical today as it was in the 1920s and 1930s.
However, enforcement of these laws is not being carried out properly, and this is where the problem is. If the laws we currently have are not enforceable, what makes us think that this law would be? If they are enforceable, why aren't they being enforced?
Another point that ASK would like to make is
that in light of the impracticality of this law, we believe it would be better to make these young adults aware, rather than ignorant of alcohol and its hazards. Let people know at an early age that drinking and driving do not mix, that it is illegal to do so and that your license may be revoked. Also, help young adults in resisting the knowledge of where they can seek help for themselves or loved ones should an alcohol problem arise.
This type of help can be found in groups like BACCHUS. Currently, KU is the only Regents institution to have such a chapter, but ASK, in a logical approach, is advocating setting such groups up on all campuses.
These are valid arguments. The fallacy your article speaks of is anything but a fallacy. These arguments advocate consistency in the law
Bob
Your article was correct on one point and that is that something must be done about alcohol-related deaths, but ASK believes something should be done to benefit all ages. This is a problem our society has and by simply making young adults criminals for doing something that has been their right for over 30 years is not the solution.
The Associated Students of Kansas supports education, not prohibition. If you are truly concerned about this issue, you will realize that ASK is clearly lobbying for the logical and best interests of its constituency on this matter.
Scott Swenson
something which prohibitionists and other advocates of such a change know little about.
Associated Students of Kansas Campus Director
Maturity doesn't come at 21
To the editor.
To the editor,
I am writing in response to the editorial written on Jan. 17 that seemed to advocate raising the drinking age for 3.2 percent beer from 18 to 21. In particular I am wondering what criteria the writer used to make the statement that "Old enough to fight, old enough to drink!" is a fallacy.
Two out of every three alcohol-related fatalities are caused by people over 25, yet the author sounds as if these fatalities were okay because they were caused by "adults." If the responsibilities (such as draft registration) given to me at age 18 aren't enough to guarantee me full adult rights, I would like to find out what does.
Perhaps I will have to wait until the day 19
21 to find out, because then I, too, will be bestowed with the wisdom and maturity that
magically allows those who are 21, such as
the editor of the
Jerry Nickelson Oakley freshman
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