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Monday, November 6, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Party littering at Clinton trashes high student ideals
To call students who leave their trash at Clinton Lake "litterbugs" would be to let them off far too easily. "Hypocrites" might be a better term.
The officials who watch over Clinton are not too happy with the way KU students have been treating their lake. Beer cans litter the scenery, Vandalism makes the area look as bad as a New York subway station.
One would think that KU students, who are so concerned with polystyrene in their union and unrecycled paper in their computer labs, would have more respect for Lawrence's most beautiful wildlife area.
As the officials have said, they have no problem with people who are older than 21 sitting around the lake and having a drink or two. But it is a problem when those people finish drinking and drop their cans on the grass or, worse yet, throw them in the water.
Keg parties are an even bigger worry. The mess is incredible, and the morning after, there's no bleary-eyed host to clean it up. Wildlife areas suffer because the crowds trample them to death.
To top it off, the state is responsible if something goes wrong at the party.
The responsibility, however, should belong to the people who drink at the lake.
The solution is simple. Go ahead and drink at Clinton, but find a trash can to put the empties in. Park in the parking lots, not in the fields. And keep the keg parties at home, not near the lake where everyone will pay the price the morning after
And when you head out to the lake for a drink, don't leave your high environmental ideals behind.
David Stewart for the editorial board
Bakker sentence is stiff, appropriate punishment
Fate caught up to television evangelist Jim Bakker when he was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000. The sentence was for his Oct. 5 conviction on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
The jury based Bakker's conviction on the fact that he had used some of the $158 million he had raised for his Heritage USA Christian resort and theme park to support his own extravagant lifestyle — including an air-conditioned dog house and a fleet of Rolls Royce automobiles.
Bakker told his followers that a $1,000 donation to the resort and theme park would buy them lifetime partnerships. The benefit of a partnership was a one-week, every year for life vacation at the resort.
"I have sinned. I have made mistakes, but never in my life did I intend to defraud anyone," Bakker told the judge. His words say one thing, but his actions reveal his obvious intentions.
Bakker promised he would only sell 25,000 vacation partnerships at the Heritage Grand Hotel but he sold 66,000. As for the unfinished Towers Bakker, Bakker sold 74,000 partnerships when he said he would only sell 30,000.
Bakker's lawyer thought the sentence was a bit stiff in comparison to those of Bakker's previously convicted associates. We think the sentence fits the crime.
The judge had the authority to sentence Bakker to a maximum of five years in prison for each count, and at one point it was reported in the New York Times that his fine could be as high as $5 million.
The minister's fall from grace began in March 1987 when he resigned because of his publicized sexual encounter with former ministry secretary Jessica Hahn. Bakker authorized the use of $265,000 of ministry money to buy her silence. The incident was merely another example of the minister's dishonesty.
Kathy Walsh for the editorial board
Bakker has tried to portray himself as the victim throughout this scandal. The only victims of his crimes are his followers who placed their faith in a man who betrayed them. Bakker is worse than your common con man. He is a "con man operating in the guise of God."
Members of the editorial board are David Stewart, Stan Diel, Brett Brenner, Ric Brack, Daniel Niemi, Craig Welch, Kathy Walsh, Deb Gruver, Thom Clark and Tiffany Harness.
News staff
David Stewart ... Editor
Ric Brack ... Managing editor
Daniel Niemi ... News editor
Candy Wiemann ... Planning editor
Stan Dienn ... Editor
Jennifer Corser ... Campus editor
Elaine Sung ... Sports editor
Hari Huang ... Photo editor
Christine Winner ... Art/Feature writer
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news eduator
Business staff
Business staff
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Jill Lowe ... Marketing director
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Carrie Staninka ... Assistant production manager
Margaret Townsend ... Co-op manager
Creativist ... Creative director
Christian Doe ... Classified man
Jeff Meesey ... Tearsheas manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Fine line between parties and riots
Any Puritan would have been more than satisfied with the way Manhattan handled the potential rioting that weekend. Coming from someone who was hit by a flying beer bottle two years ago, it was nice to know that Aggieville was in good hands. In fact, it was in such good hands that, at times, it seemed that the police officers outnumbered the crowd.
As my friends and I walked through post-game Aggieville, I began to wonder how much money must have been spent to keep this many officers on duty, most of whom were receiving overtime pay. Little did I know that later that night, I along with countless other criminals, would find out how the city was going to compensate itself.
David
Sandefur
Guest columnist
Throughout game day, I partied at a friends house with a group of Kansas State University and University of Kansas friends. The great rivalry meant little to us. We were just looking to have a good time. As the party went on, I heard of a fraternity party across the back alley of my friend's house. It was a mere 20 feet away, so I grabbed a beer and a friend, and we headed over. As soon as our feet crossed the property line and touched the alley, two police officers approached
Coincidentally, there just happened to be a temporary criminal processing zone in a park near Aggleville, so the officers grabbed us firmly by our arms and escorted us to this center. As we got closer, the number of approaching "delinquent" individuals three blocks later, we arrived to wait in line to hear the criminal charges. It was a well organized setup, and the officers, for the most part, were quite friendly.
notice to appear in court, and then sent us back out. At first I thought that maybe this was necessary to keep order until I talked to others who were arrested and realized the extent to which the police were going to bring in their "quota."
us and asked us for identification. We were caught red-handed. Obviously this was either a popular entrapment zone or the large number of available officers forced some to lurk in alleys to await their prey.
They took a sample of our beer, took an instant photo of us with our arresting officer, gave us our
When I returned home, I contacted the Manhattan courthouse to find out what my punishment would be. I cringed at the possibilities. Would it be community service? Or maybe I would have to attend alcohol school. It seemed my future would be affected by the court. I put after contacted the court, brushed the teeth. All they wanted was my money. All I had to do was send them a check or money order for $39.
The message that I'm trying to convey with this adventure is that there is a fine line between riot control and a city's capitalization on the inevitable partying after rivalry games. It's a sad turn of events when even the most strict parents laugh when they find out you were busted for drinking and walking.
▶ David Sandefur is a Lansing senior majoring in chemistry.
'Pseudo' book banning hits schools
At year's end, when you see those news stories about which books have been banned in what cities during the past 12 months, the list has an abstract quality. You can smile about some of the entries, be aghast at others, and wonder what possesses these people.
Then BAM! One day a school district close to home announces that it isn't exactly banning John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." But it's taking up the copies that have been distributed in class and ordering teachers not to teach it anymore. The book still will be kept in the library but it won't be required reading anymore. Why? It seems that some of the characters engage in profanity.
At first you're puzzled. Then, if you're like me,
angry. But mostly ashamed. "Not here," you say,
"not in my town."
But at least you can say this much for those who want the book banned from the school outright: These citizens don't take refuge in bureaucratic maneuverings. They don't pretend that a book isn't being suppressed when teachers are told not to teach it. They don't claim they're encouraging kids to read by confiscating books.
Just as the Ayatollah made no bones about how he felt about Salman Rushdie's portrait of the Prophet, these book banners use terms like "garbage" to describe John Steinbeck's tale of George and Lennie.
Like any good censor, he would start only in the schools. He seemed happily innocent of the possibility that a government powerful enough to ban a book he didn't like would also be strong enough to ban any he did.
"If I could do what I wanted to do," said one man, "I'd ban it entirely."
They're censor's straight and honest who, because a piece of American literature offends their sensibilities, would pluck it out of the schools. It's not like dealing with professional educators. You can disagree openly and honestly with these folks; you don't have to them down first, or hack your way through a small jungle of excuses.
Paul Greenberg
Syndicated columnist
Those who would ban "Of Mice and Men" seem much attached to virtue, if only the cloistered variety. The way to protect high school students from an all-too realistic world, they seem to be saying, is not to let them read about it. They don't seem concerned that such an "education" might produce a brittle and untested virtue at best and, at worst, another hermetically sealed mind — as if there were not enough of those already.
Not the least of censorship's problems is that it doesn't allow its patient to build any resistance to bad ideas. And when they infiltrate, they may prove irresistible, however fraudulent. To be exposed only to duly approved thought is no way to strengthen the faculties. Without doubt, how strong can faith be?
Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson could describe himself as "mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Are we to censor whose imprimatur shall say what book may be sold and what we may buy? Shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not." Not enough of Mr.
Should a Jim Bakker be allowed to preach but a John Steinbeck told not to write? The genius of freedom is that it does not force us to choose between the two. To quote a thoughtful justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, “the price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.”
Jefferson's spirit, and his self-respect, remains alive in the republic he played so large a role in creating. It's a good thing the Bill of Rights was initiated in 1789; do you think it could be passed in 1899? Right here in River City?
There are some books that ought to be the cultural heritage of all Americans, but those who disagree should also have their rights respected. Watson Chapel would seem to have worked out a fair compromise when it permitted any student who objected to "Of Mice and Men" to read some other book deemed of equal literary merit. But the class as a whole was not cheated of an opportunity to discuss the book — until now.
- because some educators, bowing to the loudest common denominator of public opinion, have chosen to suppress it.
The Bible, the unsuspecting reader should be warned, is a work deeply subversive of the established order. It's a revolutionary treatise that makes Karl Marx seem tame and a book in which the humble are brought up and the proud brought low. In its stories the eldest are passed over and the youngest singled out. Even more shocking to polite sensibilities, the chief Protagonist of its later volumes is depicted associating with tax-collectors, prostitutes, winehollows, riffraff of all kinds.
"he complained. But where the Bible has been barred from the classroom, that wasn't because of any Supreme Court ruling. Contrary to a widespread misinterpretation, the court didn't ban the Bible from the classroom but only the State's preaching it. If the book of books can no longer be taught, it is for much the same reason that John Steinbeck's little novel can't be in Watson Chanel
Speaking of books that ought to be the cultural heritage of all Americans, one would-be censor mentioned the Bible. "We've banned the world's best seller and the greatest piece of literature
▶ Paul Greenberg is editor of the Pine Bluff (Ark.)
Commercial.
CAMP UHNEELY
But you'll go ahead and take a slight chance. You'll just go into.
You'll try to get the Intermediate Dance. You'll sign up for Psychology
of Shrubs and Trees. Fiction Writing, Glass Slowing and The Making of Cheese.
When you've filled out your card
and think you are through
They tell you that you must
come to town soon.
There you'll enroll and try
to get hours
of Badminton, Econ. and
BY SCOTT PATTY
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