Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, January 22, 1982
Well placed intentions
The latest bill introduced in the Kansas Legislature to help tenants sounds like a good idea.
But sounding like a good idea, and being a good idea, are not always the same thing.
The bill, introduced by Rep. William Brady, D-Parsons, would require landlords who lease 10 or more dwelling units to pay 6 percent interest on tenants' security deposits.
This would certainly be good news to the thousands of students renting apartments in Lawrence.
But, as usual, there's a catch.
What's to keep landlords affected by the bill from increasing their rents to cover the cost of the interest payments?
Most landlords are not renting apartments to fulfill their altruistic tendencies. They are in the home-renting business to make money.
And a little boost in the rental rates will put everybody back to ground zero.
According to the attorney for the Lawrence Apartment Association, this is exactly the outcome the bill would have.
Instead of spending legislative time and effort to pass this potentially ineffective bill, legislators concerned about tenants in Kansas could push harder for legislation that would really help.
Associated Students of Kansas, a statewide student lobbying group, is supporting a self-help bill designed to give tenants an outlet for solving the problem of uncooperative landlords who refuse to make needed repairs.
Concentrating on this bill would probably be more beneficial to tenants than working for the passage of the security deposit bill.
Too bad. Sure did sound like a good idea.
Pilots' deaths high price to pay for entertainment
Last June, while I was at home for a brief summer vacation, I went down to Offut Air Force Base south of Omaha, Neb., to watch the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds, perform during the annual air show at headquarters for the Strategic Air Command.
I must admit that I was overwhelmed by the precision flying group's performance.
The Thunderbirds wowed more than 10,000 spectators as they rocketed skyward, twisted over and dived toward the ground before completing a loop while in perfect formation. They did all this while traveling at speeds approaching 350 km/h, and traveling, at times, less than six feet apart.
I remember imagining, just for a split second, what it would be like if the four jets were unable
DAN BOWERS
to pull out of their streaking dive and plummet into the ground.
After last Monday's accident in Nevada, I didn't have to imagine that scene any longer. Dead are four of the United States Air Force's finest pilots. Four plots that entertained more than 8 million people at 97 different exhibitions last year.
I didn't realize until this week that only a month before the Thunderbird's appearance in Omaha, a pilot had died during a show in Ogden, Utah.
It happened again last October, when the four commander skidded off a runway into Lake Michigan.
This is not a case where incompetent personnel are making mistakes.
The Thunderbirds are chosen on the basis of a perfect flight record, a strict grading system and a high-energy intensity.
These are not flight school dropouts, as anyone who has seen their shows will attend, but the girls and boys would be excited.
The Thunderbirds are considered to be the most prestigious flying group in the nation, and more than 100 Air Force pilots apply each year for the one open spot.
Now, there are four open spots, and the future of the Thunderbirds is in doubt.
Granted, the Thunderbirds have entertained millions of people over their 29-year life, but since when is the U.S. government in the entertainment business?
It's bad enough that we have to resort to military weapons to ensure to a reasonable degree that we're not going to be chained and shackled by foreign power. Now those defense weapons are being used as toys for our amusement.
The pilots, I am sure, enjoy that exhilarating feeling of turning, etc., and the public laughter as we teach.
But then again, the public once enjoyed wat-
ting contests and tournaments and Christians being fed to infants.
After six deaths in the last nine months, maybe it is time for such fun and games to come an
So I said earlier, I used to appreciate the Thunderbird's daredevil performances, and I probably even managed to blurt out an occasional "That's incredible!"
I still respect the pilots' ability to perform nuits. But, the sanity of continuing the program remains.
Now that I have the facts laid out in front of me, my only reaction is: "That's stupid!"
Criticism of Reagan unfair
The University Daily Kansan recently ran a letter by Harry G. Shaffer, professor of economics and Soviet and Eastern European studies. This letter was entitled "Mystery Man in America." Mr. Shaffer is the author of this issue. I am writing to state my disagreement with some of Shaffer's views on Reaganomics.
Specifically, I would like to respond to his statement that President Reagan "is leading the country into the worst depression in half a century and blames past administrations for it." This is a very unfair and irrational statement to administrative that has been in office for only a year.
Letters to the Editor
The immense size of the federal government makes it almost impossible to feel the effects of Reagan's economic programs (which I believe to be progressive) during the first years of his administration. It takes several years to filter down through various institutions before they produce results.
To the Editor:
It is unjustified to blame Reagan for results of economic programs from past administrations. The poor condition of the economy today has led to World War II and cannot be turned around in a year.
Reagan is not leading the country into a depression, but rather, he is pulling back the reins of government by cutting the immense, wasteful waste of federal programs across the board.
True, many Americans are experiencing difficult times, but, in order to resolve the economic woes of the country, we must endure the consequences we brought upon ourselves. Americans are jumping to rush conclusions of their administration because of their suffering.
It has only been a year. Let's give Reagan a chance and save the condenations until they are over.
Charles Luchen,
Prairie Village sophomore
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GLS 'just ain't what she used to be'
Even to the few people who have crudled it protectively for several semesters, Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas must be finally available in an aged plow horse, sagging and short-sighted.
Apparently, horse hair doesn't make for a smuggly companion; few students last long with the organization. Yet at the beginning of each fall and spring semester a handful of KU students stir the animal just enough to set it undergoing without clear purpose for a few more months.
Meanwhile the University community churns on, largely indifferent to the organization's
In such a situation some students should be tossing with a question: Could now be the time for the final mercy, to let the haggard creature rest permanently?
But before that question was asked, the tired tradition rolled into this semester.
Sunday afternoon seven KU students, all men, and one non-student, a woman, gathered in an apartment on Massachusetts Street to proct GLS to life once again. The group reviewed debts and planned dances to try to cover them. Although GLS has a tiny stable among the student offices in the Kansas Union, the organization receives no funding from student fees. A conference of many of meetings held during the last two or three years: Let's reorganize to earn some money to survive.
The several hours of talking Sunday didn't contain a whisper of the flies, nationally renamed heritage from which GLS evolved. In 1971 the original KU gay organization, the Gay Liberation Front, requested University recognition—the ticket to University funding—from the Student Senate-approved the request and Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers J. blocked it.
radical leaders tried for conspiracy to riot violent 1986 Democracy National Convention
In December, the Front filed suit for recognition of the University in U.S. law at Topeka Supreme Court.
Civil rights attorney William Kunster argued that Proft's case. Kunster was nationally known for his work in civil rights.
At about the same time the Front announced that Kunstler had accepted its case, the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would contribute money to help pay the Front's court costs. These two names — Kunstler and the ACLU—pulled the case into headlines across the
The Front lost its suit in Topeka and again, in 1872, on appeal in Denver. From that day on, the Front lost its suit in Denver.
By the mid-70s Richard Linkler, education coordinator for the Front, told the University
JEFF THOMAS
Daily Kansan, "There's no ongoing political discussion or viewpoint within the organization
Still the Frons' court battles were enough to rank the University of Kansas as the home of one of the top two student gay movements in the country. Christopher Street, the leading news and literature magazine for gay readers, gave the University that distinction three years ago.
The magazine reviewed gay activism at the university, with the tone of an obituary. There was also a call to action.
A quiet compromise seems to have been struck in Lawrence: As long as gay students keep their sexuality to themselves, townpeople and other students won't make an issue of it either.
As early as the mid-'70s, Linker had glimpsed gay KU students passing on this middle ground. "There seem to be a fairly social life of our political department of our notital development," he said.
Many gay students are operating according to a trade-off that should have been expected: as
they began to feel a minimum of comfort in Lawrence, their activism declined. In a sense, gay people have secured their right to exist in Lawrence and a slight margin of social leeway on top of that. And that's where most seem content to stop.
After all, there may not be a reason to make the sexual into the political. Why should a person's sexual preference be a reason to join others? Do private activism? Do private desires make for public activism?
Early this week a visitor to the GLS office may have answered those questions.
the young man, a stranger to the GLS office,
has a $ bill to contribute in exchange for the
haircut.
As it turned out, he wanted the signature on the centerfalter of a Playgirl he pulled from his pocket. "You've got to look like," he said.
"I have to have this done by noon," he said. "Some of the guys have to count the dead people in Lawrence. I just got one of the easy jobs. I used to tell them, 'We've been fighting against you guys, so you could just sign.'"
One of the office workers smiled and asked the stranger if he could be, possibly, on some sort of initiation for a fraternity. The stranger only dropped his eyes to the floor and fidgeted.
He left with the Plavgirl unsigned.
Although it was just a prank, the incident said something about how some KU students think. For some students, gay people score about evenly on the scale of freaks with corpse.
Gay students may honestly feel fairly comfortable on this campus, especially if they were raised in just about any smaller town in Kansas. But the Playgirl incident is a reminder that gay students are far from equal footing with their straight classmates.
There is reason for gay students to organize at the University of Kansas. Only an outline is left of the legal activism of ten years ago. Today's difference between the GLS isn't likely to make much difference either.
Meanwhile, you men count bodies, beg for signatures and have a few hearty laughs about it.
Pot Shots
We hear a lot of complaints about apathy but these days it hardly paves to get involved.
At a Palm Springs hotel recently, a woman was having a heart attack and several physicians passing by came to her aid, taking turns perform CPR.
A paramedic arrived about 15 minutes later when she was officially in charge the emergency.
The woman's daughter, as well as the doctors, pleaded to let the doctors continue their work.
The paramedic agreed only after the doctors promised to sign a release form
The doctors won out and the patient's heartbeat stabilized, but not before the paramedic called seven police cars to wrestle with the contrary-minded physicians.
Sirens wailing, the police pulled in front of the hotel, charged the room, jumped one of the doctors, applied a choke hold on him, then handed him an while four policemen.
What is the deal with Todd Koppi? You all know who he is, the N nightline host on ABC.
When his wife tried to come to his rescue, they grabbed and handcuffed her. Then they bailed the doctor, his wife and colleague down to the slammer.
The charges were dropped about a week but that a hellava thank you for being a Good Samaritan.
What is going on on his show? He seems to be a cross between Rona Barrett, Tom Snyder and John Houseman. His father-figure, gossip hound and a hard-core seeker of those
visceral on-air revelations.
His earlier shows were pretty good, but now Ted has a tougher style. Those interview techniques he's learned in thirty years of news with major networks are gone. After the Air Florida crash, he quizzed the Park District chopper heros to embarrass excesses, almost with death." "Well did they work time to think about the event yet—with all the news coverage—let alone what they thought during the event.
And on the worst nights he gets the strangest guests.
'C'mon Ted, we want to find out the info,
and get to know the people. Qut being a news-
source was exciting.
"Mrs. Kaputin, we only have a few seconds, could you briefly sum up your feelings at the instant you saw your daughter crushed to death by the UF0?"
And he never really smiles. I'm not sure he even has teeth. His John Davidson hair never looks like that.
"You're graduating in May, aren't you?"
grandmother of last week.
When getting married
Then, while making small talk with a guy
he met, I mentioned that two of my
sisters were at the party.
"So you have two married sisters, huh?
What happened to you?" he said
A friend of mine was trying on her wedding dress for me to see the other day. Her mother was anxiously holding up the satin and lace dress of the dress so it wouldn't drag in the dirt
"When are you getting married, honey?"
my friend's mother asked me.
Well, I've been in college for four years, but it was only then that I realized there was such a fabulous job opportunity that any woman in her right mind could avail herself of. I clipped down and told the details from the Help Wanted section of the paper, and wanted to share it with you:
Free Ride! Immediate openings for June brides. Qualifications: Must be female. Ability to bear children preferable but not absolutely required. No experience, degree, transcript or references necessary. Apply to any available male. Free room and board
Why didn't I learn about this earlier? Then wouldn't have wasted four years in college.