Opinion
University Daily Kansan, February 11, 1982
Fireworks in City Hall
This isn't the Fourth of July, but there have still been plenty of fireworks at Lawrence City Hall this week.
For those who haven't been paying attention to the goings on there, here is a list of some of the week's events:
City Commissioner Tom Gleason sent City Manager Buford Watson a letter asking him to resign. Watson refused.
Ed Carter, a former Lawrence mayor,
asked Gleason to resign. Gleason refused.
A host of Lawrence citizens suggested that
Gleason be recalled.
And the commission met in a closed executive session to schedule a closed executive session to figure out what to do about the whole, sticky mess.
The local media has covered these events in breathless detail, but generally, the stories have been like charcoal fires—the sheds a lot of heat, but very little light. And it is not totally the media's fault that stories on the City Hall contremetries have been confusing. The events themselves have been confusing.
they say he is sleepwalking through the job he has held for so long.
The controversy surrounds Buford Watson a man who has been city manager since 1970.
Another group says Gleason is irresponsible and it implies that he is the tool of a neighborhood cartel that also dominates the city.
No matter how these accusations are reconciled, three questions will remain:
What has Watson done—or not done—that would warrant his possible termination?
Did Gleason the authority to unilaterally ask for Watson's resignation?
And should a public matter, such as the hiring and firing of a city manager, be decided behind closed doors?
Of course, Watson works for the commission, and according to state law, his case can be decided in private, as can any other personnel problem.
When the commissioners emerge from their special meeting next Thursday, we can only hope that we will have answers to a few of these questions. And we can only hope that they will leave the fireworks alone at least until this July.
However, this is not just any problem. And Watson is not just any employee. He holds one of the most powerful positions in city government and he has held it for a very, very long time.
Valentines revive fifth grade love
It had been so many years since I had bothered to observe St. Valentine's Day with any zeal, that I was surprised the other night in Watson Library to see a friend writing messages on the backs of paper valentines. The valentines were adorned with furzy animals relicking on the front of them.
"What are those things?" I asked.
She looked up and smiled. "Bears."
"Oh, yeah." Strange how one forgets
children's make-believe companions.
The bears were not grizzlies with jagged, snarling teeth, of course, but cute little innocent-faced creatures, like the ones who live in the magical story illustrations of Dr. Seuss.
One of the valentines was in the shape of a house inhabited by a bunch of bears. There were bears at every window, a bear perched in the doorway and one swinging on the eaves. I was charmed.
The bears brought back memories as sweet as the scent from a honey jar. For the first time in a long while, I remembered one of the rituals of grade school.
When we had pasted concentric hearts on the front and printed our names in large letters across the top, the valentine sacks were clipped, all in a row and probably alphabetically, to a wire which stretched across the top of the classroom blackboard.
The lace-fringed days of childhood, Valentine's day meant shiny, blunt scissors and crisp, red construction paper—and, we hoped, artful interaction between the two. We took pains to dress them in plain brown paper bags with denim and white paper and had folded and cut into symmetrical designs.
There the sacks hung for some days, empty but open to promise. We each took particular pride in the appearance of our own and stole glances at it during class.
At home we punched perforated valentines out of a book with big, slick pages, dutifully signed them and matched them up with the appropriate envelopes. All of the valentines in the book were different, and by the time we had decided on the right ones to give most of our classmates, the only punch-outs left were small ones that weren't very clever. We gave those to the classmates we liked the least. But we unquestioningly abided by the rule, and the rule was, everybody in the
BEN JONES
class got a valentine from everybody else in class. Love in the fifth grade was egallitarian.
But to send a valentine to someone in a different homeroom was another matter. That was a voluntary declaration of affection, and, in the fifth grade, a sure sign of serious love. It meant, plain and simple, that you were "in love" with Debbie, or Debbie was in love with you.
Either way, you were in for a lot of ribbing. There was no chance to hide one of these voluntary valentines, either, because everyone had to empty their sacks and open all their valentines during the classroom party that afternoon. Your pals were sure to crowd around, trying to repress smirks until you found the card they somehow knew was in the sack.
but beneath the embarrassment and the baiting there was a growing meaning that we all
Then came the dreaded moment when you pulled out Debbie's valentine, and suddenly you understood why all the guys were grimming. You were so angry about the protestations that your nails didn't believe at all.
understood. Secretly they envised you, and secretly you savored it. Aloofness between the sexes had to be kept up for appearance's sake, and no one else could. Boys and boys were beginning to like each other.
Our teachers saw the inherent dangers in our growing tendencies to be discrimination, so after sixth grade there were no more school Valentine's Day celebrations with compulsory cards. For the first time, we had to accept responsibility for choosing our sweethearts. Valentine's Day now took on a terrible significance.
You might like Becky, the brown-haired girl who sat two rows up in geography class—and you could safely watch the back of her head not gracefully as she answered a question from the teacher—but how could you know whether she would accept a valentine from you, especially without spilling the news to all her friends? It is possible that your boss wanted of a commitment, and those of us boys who were prudent and timid never wrote Becky's name on an envelope again.
Which explains why I had let the custom lapse for so long. But when I saw my friend with a stack of friendly-bear-filled valentines scattered before her in the spacious, carpeted confines of modern Watson Library, suddenly it seemed so long ago since the winter spent in small schoolrooms with narrow-boarded pine floors.
The contrast struck me and left me wanting to send out some valentines this year, to narrow the tap that separates us from those years of platinic "be mines." I realized valentines again were safe to give. At this stage in life, it chocolates and flowers that tell you into trouble.
So I resolved to buy a whole stack of valentines with cute little bears on them and mail them out to some of the girl friends in my junior school. I made sure they about it see it. Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.
Letters to the Editor
Handicapped should get prison reform funds
To the Editor:
Your February 1 ediorial "A Chance for Reform," concerning the state prison system, while obviously well intended and probably genuinely motivated, missed the mark.
Prisons are political high priorities. However, the fact that even the best U.S. prisons are grossly inhumane seldom enters anyone's mind, unless of course, one is a convicted offender serving time, or a close friend or relative of one.
Construction is only the tip of the cost iceberg. While $70 million is a lot of money in a state this size, the day to day operations will be damaging costs for the future. And what of the benefits? Except for the relatively few persons who really are so dangerous that they must be removed from the community for our safety and for theirs, there are numerous alternatives.
Prisons are utter failures. They began as an experiment, a great U.S. experiment that was transported to other nations. The U.S. is the third most prison oriented of the industrialized nations of the world. We are out-distanced only by Russia and South Africa.
Prisons are many things. But they are not what our leaders say they are, nor do they accomplish the objectives stated in the law or on the floors of the Kansas Legislature.
Prisons are illusions! Prisons are monuments to elected officials' needs to demonstrate to the public that they are doing something about crime.
There is a terrify devastating aspect of our prisons. It is that they capture our imaginations and our support when other human needs with a similar investment or less would do so much
Prisons are monumental symbols of our willingness to believe in the words of our leaders who understand neither the nature of the crime or the persons who commit crimes.
We have in Kanas at least 5,000 pre-school handcapped children. Less than half of these are kindergarteners.
develop close to their physical and mental potential.
But these children aren't old enough to vote.
Even if they were, they might not be able to.
 Their parents, with few exceptions, do not un-
wear a tie or make no requests for the state's involvement.
The legislators will, willingly, vote money to launch Kansas further into the world of big prisons. These same legislators insist that the state cannot afford programs that will help one of the most needful population groups in our state. ForrestSwall
Assistant professor of social welfare News staff also paid
To the Editor:
I somehow fail to be persuaded by the meandering of the writer of "Setting bad precedents." Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the very editors of the University Daily Kansan, who launched that missive barb at the justices on the KU Board of Parking and Traffic Appeals, are in fact themselves guilty of accepting money for their very own "opportunity to serve." A phone call to the offices of the Kansas (I feel I would undoubtedly unleash an entire army.) I feel I should if he shares his identity), revealed that the editor-in-chief accepts $800 per semester for her sacrifice, and the campus editor must go begging for his $500 per semester.
News staff also pair
Now, this question may sound rather trite, but is there any substantial difference between the right for the justices to receive remuneration for their services and the rights of the editors to receive remuneration for their efforts? Perhaps you editors might empathize more if you were to imagine performing your duties without pay or credit.
James Fenimore Cooper once said that "the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master." If you would be interested in an author who has been a trusted servant, Kansan should not be paid for their opportunity
Douglas P. Murray
Clay Center law studen
Douglas F. Martin,
Sharing the load
to further their journalistic careers, I shall be glad to oblige, free of charge, of course.
I read with rather mixed feeling the news of law students resigning from the traffic court because of the rejection of a proposal to pay them salaries. I had some occasion to serve in school committees that were somehow time-consuming to an extent and in some instances fortuitously costly, as committee members had been scheduled for meetings when meetings are scheduled during lunch hours.
Dear Editor:
I would not prejudge the merit of the dissatisfaction of the resigning student justices as I have no idea about their docket loads and the nature of the decisions they are leaving are also initially non-remunerative. It may be of the larger student interest for the resigning parties to clarify whether a commitment was earlier made that their positions were irrelevant and their conduct when the proposal was disapproved.
I recall no instance wherein committee members, faculty or student alike, grumbled for lack of remuneration on either the use of precious time or interchange of expertise.
Probably some accommodation could be reached as not to upset traditionally gratuitous services to the University constituency. The duties at the traffic court could possibly be parcelled out among the staff of a class of law students deciding traffic cases to spread the burden to a broader group. Student justices, on the other hand, would probably welcome this traffic court opportunity as a public service training minuta for their future preoccupation after their Green
Edwin P. Acoba
Nueva Cejia, Philippines, graduate student
Proposed war memorial will not honor Vietnam vets
They're ignoring the Vietnam vets again.
This time the government is trying to honor the vets and try to win back their trust.
It all started in 1980 when Congress commissioned the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to design and build, with private capital, a suitable memorial on the Mall in Washington to "honor and recognize the men and women . . . who served in the Vietnam
Ross Perot of Dallas, chairman of Electronic Data Systems, contributed much of the
W.J. ANDREWS
capital, including the funds necessary to a national memorial design competition.
There were 1,421 entries, including some by Vietnam vets. A Memorial Fund jury selected the winning design, submitted by Maya Ying Lin, a Yale architecture student from Ohio.
In an artist's conception, the black-granite memorial's appearance in Constitutional Gardens, between the bright-white monuments to Washington and Lincoln, is one of ignominy. The 400-foot long tapering wall would look like a giant pillar on the ground. One architecture critic said the memorial would look like an erosion control project.
The design caused quite a stir. James H. Webb, Jr., Marine platoon leader in Vietnam and author of "Fields of Fire," resigned from the National Sponsoring Committee of the Navy and in protest. And he criticized the total absence of vets on the design selection jury.
Jan. C. Scruggs, president of the Memorial Fund, countered that Webb declined an appointment to the jury. But Washington columnist Patrick Buchanan reported that apparently no Vietnam veterans were allowed on the jury.
Perot took one look at the design, then immediately commissored a poll to结 out our recommendations.
So now the memorial is on hold.
Finally, Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-III, circulated a letter and gathered enough support to force Interior Secretary James G. Watt to convene the meeting that had been given preliminary approval June 10.
Is this how Washington wants to honor its Vietnam vets: build a memorial unmarked, diminished from view and dark? In the case of the 65,792 American soldiers who died were memorial was there to be the word Vietnam. It was not even planned for the American flag to fly at the memorial site. The names of the 65,792 American soldiers who died were memorialized on the dark face of the memorial.
It appears that the Washington eggs have inflated beyond reason again. They seem to have forgotten that the memorial isn't to honor the victims, and not to honor the patriotic veterans, not the politicians.
But the memorial seems designed for politicians, for the government and administrations that Jekyll-and-Hyde'd their way through a war they never intended to win. They even want to forget about it by building a suppressive memorial.
However, the spoils of the Vietnam war didn't show in the faces of the troops. Not until their trust of command had been tainted and then subverted by politics.
To honor these men will take a much more substantial effort than has been made so far.
Many were duty-bound regulars. Many just followed orders. Many were just teenagers: the kind Michael Herr's *Apocalypse Now* or gumball-gumbers with one foot in their graves."
More than a design contest whose end result is politically founded. More than an oppressive, wailing wall for post-Vietnamization policies has its cataracts on the Hill. But it will take time.
They'll probably select a new selection turv.
It would be best to go back and start the process from the beginning. Start all over again the right way before we go too far. Keep our goals in mind.
Maybe that's what they should have done twenty years ago in Vietnam.
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