VOL. 101.NO.35
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANASA
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1990
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
NEWS: 864-4810'
ASK falls short of voter registration goal
By Jennifer Schultz
Kansan staff writer
Associated Students of Kansas set a goal this week to register 10,000 students to vote, but lack of concern by students, poor coordination and the weather have caused totals to fall considerably short. ASK officials
As of yesterday, about 2,000 students had registered at ASK tables on campus, said Greg Hughes, ASK teacher. The last day the tables will be set up.
"It's not bad, but it is not as high as we expected." Hughes said.
Carl Rang, ASK voter registration coordinator, said that he was surprised at the number of people who did not want to register.
"Bither they say no, or they lie and say they are already registered," he said.
The coordination for voter registration also was not as good as it could have been. Ring said
Hughes said that if ASK had used a better advertising campaign for the
registration, more students might have registered.
Ring said that he was not dis pleased with the results.
The tables have been set up since Monday at the Kansas and Burge unions and in front of Wescoe Hall. After today, students who want to register to vote must do so before Oct 21 at the Douglas County clerk's office, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.
Mary Brown, ASK member, said that she and a co-worker received
more response when they called out to the students as they walked past the table.
Callie Denton, ASK member, worked at the table at the Burge Union yesterday she said that registering to vote was a simple, painless task.
She said that people only needed to know their name and where they lived to register to vote.
ASK also has been asking students at the tables to sign letters urging gubernatorial candidates to support
third-year financing of the Margin of Excellence.
The margin of Excellence was the Board of Regents three year plan to bring the total financing of its seven institutions to 95 percent of their peer schools and to bring faculty salaries to 100 percent of their peers. The Legislature financed the first two years but not the third.
Hughes said that ASK would try to continue the letter-signing drive but that he did not know exactly when or how
He said that after the Nov. 6 election, ASK would begin a publicity, visibility and letter drive to urge the Senate to urging them to support the Margin.
ASK members have visited different living groups to speak about the Margin, voter registration and other concerns. Hughes said.
Hughes said that ASK members also had spoken to students in Lewis, Templin, Ellsworth and Joseph R. Eilshoff and some fraternities and sororites.
Grade-schoolers learn to look for fire hazards
Kansan staff writer
By Debbie Myers
The boy punched computer keys furiously, desperately trying to find the house's fire hazards.
His friend used a joystick to guide them through a house projected on the computer screen. In the base of the projector a gas can near a water heater.
Boom 'The screen on the computer showed an explosion and members of the sixth grade class at Pinkney Elementary School gassed The broken computer game called Firewatch and had found a fire hazard
Lawrence firefighter Sandy Hed showed the video to the class yesterday as part of her tour of Lawrence elementary schools in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week. The Lawrence Fire Department will speak to students about fire prevention through October.
The theme of Fire Prevention Week this year is "Hunt for Home Hazards," Herd said. In her presentations to fifth and sixth graders, she focuses on fire prevention by showing the video and then answering questions
Montie Greene, sixth grade teacher at Pinnacle, Bingham, W. Sixth St., said he assigned his class to draft an emergency fire escape plan and a safety plan with their parents help. The students also had to take a fire safety test.
"I make this a part of a social stud-
less lesson every year," Greene said.
"I always get the parents involved."
Herd said the target group for this month's educational programming was kindergarten, developmental first grade and first grade students.
Herd said the younger students also were shown the video but then asked to participate in a portable course set up like a child's
The course had simulated props including smoke, a bed, a door and a window to help show students how to use them. Bedrooms were on fire. Hard said.
First the students were asked to pretend they were asleep. Herd said. When they woke up and discovered the smoke, they had to roll out of the bed onto the floor and crawl on their hands and knees to the door.
Instead, they had to crawl on their hands and knees to a secondary exit such as a window. Herd said. After the meeting, she was in a predetermined meeting place.
The students then touched the door, which was red and felt hot. Herd said. The students were told not to open the door if it was hot.
"We find that at that age, talking about it doesn't do the trick." Herd said. "They need to get some practical experience because their actions can make a lot of difference."
Herd said that more than half of families never practiced an exit drill in their home to prepare for a fire.
"It's a losing battle in a sense, but we're trying to win it." Herd said. "Maybe by working from the bottom, we can reach the parents through 'he kids.'
She said she hoped that the students would take what they learned in her programs home to their families. The students could practice a fire escape plan.
Firefighter Robert Hardy helps Amanda Vernon during a program at Pinckney Elementary School.
"People just don't talk about it happening to them," Herd said.
Herd said the public's idea of a fire was distorted by television. People think that in a fire, they will be able to see through the smoke well enough to save their family members, the family dog and toys.
"They have some skills, but the reality of a fire is something that, luckily, few people have experienced." Herd said.
Becky, Spradlin, fifth-grade teacher at Pinney, said she was surprised at some of what she heard from listening to Herd talk to her class.
"There's about 40 kids in here and she asked them how many had actually practiced a fire escape route with their families," Spreadlin said. "About three hands went up and that really surprised me."
His hypothetical package would increase the top rate on the highest-income people from 28 percent to 31 percent, ease the top rate from 33 percent to 31 percent for some 4.5 million slightly less well-to-do taxpayers and chop the rate on capital gains from 28 percent to 15 percent.
Bush willing to raise taxes for gains cut
The Associated Press
"We believe we have made progress," said Senate Democratic Leader George Mitchell after a meeting with Republican leader Bob Dole and members of the Finance Committee.
WASHINGTON — President Bush said yesterday that he could trade a modest increase in taxes on affluent Americans for a deep cut in capital gains rates but that it was a waste of time and money. He dealt through a divided Congress.
By most accounts, higher Medicare premiums and taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline are likely to be included.
Instead, Bush called on lawmakers to put aside that battle and come up with a $100-billion deficit-reduction plan that contains neither element.
Within hours, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee said that they were well into writing an alternative budget that would be much more on rich Americans but push them higher than Bush has said he could accept.
The committee's chairman, Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, said that the changes would restore fairness to the tax system. He said that the Democrats would meet again today to decide whether the package will also reduce the capital gains tax rate. Rostenkowski said that if it did cut the gains tax, it would be a lot less rich than the administration's version.
Crashes ground gulf training flights for day
Congressional committees are working toward the goal of finding a half-trillion dollars in spending cuts and tax increases before the latest emergency spending authorization expires Oct. 19.
WASHINGTON - The Air Force said yesterday that it grounded most of its warplanes in the Persian Gulf and sent an in response to a rash of air crashes.
The Associated Press
The brief ban on training flights, which account for a majority of U.S. air missions in the gull, ended yesterday at noon Saudi Arabian time (5 a.m. EDT), and regular flying scheduled for Friday. The Captain and Air Force officials said.
In Saudi Arabia, Capt. A.C. Roper,
a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said the Air Force had not changed anything in flight operations as a result of the suspension of flights.
Air Force leaders wanted to examine potential hazards and make sure they were doing everything possible to prevent accidents. Roper said.
"They have not identified any common cause or common contributing factors" to the recent accidents, he said.
Air Force pilots in the gulf were
given "safety awareness" briefings during the flight ban in order "to review what they need to do to fly more safely," Williams said.
Col. Miguel Monteverde, speaking for the Pentagon, said planes on operational missions — including reconnaissance aircraft, refueling tanker planes and F-15 jets patrolling areas near the Kuwait or Iraqi borders — were not grounded. He said pilots of those planes received safety briefings but their flight schedules were not changed.
The toll for accidental deaths since Operation Desert Shield began, rose to 31 on Wednesday when an air Force F-11F fighter-borne crashed on a training mission in Saudi Arabia, killing both crew members
An estimated 700 Air Force combat and support aircraft are in the gulf area as part of Operation Desert Shield, which is the largest U.S. military buildup since the Vietnam War.
On Monday, two pilots were killed in the crash of an Air Force F4
Phantom reconnaissance jet in Saudi Arabia. Just hours earlier, two Marine Corps UH-1 Huey helicopters, each carrying four crew members, crashed over the Arabian Sea, killing all eight men.
Williams said the Air Force was the only service that had taken special measures to review safety in the gulf since this week's accidents.
Five U.S. aircraft have been involved in fatal crashes in the gulf area since the start of Desert Shield two months ago.
Legislative candidates pledge support of Margin
Betty Jo Charlton Sean Williams
"I would like to see the students, faculty and the Board of Regents work with the Legislature to rebuild support for the Margin," Rep. Betty Jo Charlton, D-Lawrence, said during a debate with Republican opponent Sean Williams at the Dole Human Development Center.
Republican and Democratic candidates for 40th District representative said last night that financing the third year of the Margin of Excellence would be their top priority if they were elected in November.
Bv Carol Krekeler
Kansan staff writer
refinancing the Margin from the state's general fund but that she would support Gov. Mike Hayden's proposal to raise the tax on "garagee" tax increase if the law is passed.
"The Margin is not a one-year program or a three-year program," Williams said. "It is an ongoing program that needs to be main
ture considered it during the 1991 session.
Williams did not propose a specific way to refinance the Margin, but he stressed its importance.
Charlton said that she favored
The Margin of Excellence was the Board of Regents three-year plan to bring the total financing of its seven institutions to 95 percent of their annual budget. Salary salaries to 100 percent of their peers. The Legislature financed the first two
years, but not the third.
The debate, sponsored by the Student Senate cultural affairs committee, was one of two that will take place between local Statehouse representative candidates. Candidates for the 44th District, Democrat Sandy Baraal Ballard and Republican Sandy Berger, will debate this point.
Charlton said she thought citizens should not lobby for the Margin while lobbying for qualified admissions.
"Let us not tie the Margin in with any controversial issues." she said.
When asked by the panel about her views on abortion, Charlton said her
personal opinion about the subject had nothing to do with how she would act on abortion legislation.
Charlton said she would support the continuation of abortion services at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Williams, who is pro-choice, said he wanted the state to adopt a program used in other states that was based on the laws of abstinence and sex education.
"I don't believe the Legislature should have anything to do with it," he said. "I do believe in prevention, though."
Finney's budget proposal would be disastrous, Winter says
By David Roach
Not long ago, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Hayden and his supporters were criticizing their Democratic opponent, Joan Finney, for being vague and "fuzzy" on the issues.
Kansan staff writer
Now some of Finney's clear proposals are drawing criticism.
State Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-
Lawrence, said yesterday that a Finney proposal to trim $200 million from the state budget would be disastrous for Kansas. Winter spoke during a news conference at the
Kansas Union.
Finney has said that she would target waste and inefficiency in the state government with the goal of saving $200 million.
She has said that budgets for Social Rehabilitation Services, education, public safety and the Board of Regents would not be affected.
Winter produced documents prepared for him by the state's legislative research department that showed that Finney's budget reduction was a 60 percent budget reduction in all other areas of government.
"These were very specific proposals." Winter said. "They have a thin veneer of attractiveness that, when stripped away, reveals ideas that are simply impossible or would result in wrecking higher education."
"Can a person make such statements without being held to accountability?" Winter said.
Mark Schmeller, a spokesperson
Winter said that Finney's proposals revealed ideas that raised the issue of her qualifications to be governor or that meant she had a callous indifference to higher education.
for the Finney campaign, said Winter seemed to be saying that no cuts could be made in the budget.
Schmeller said that Hayden was criticizing Finney without offering any concrete proposals of his own
"If this is the case, the Weigand commission may as well go home and save the state a half-million dollars. But the commission will cost," he said.
Hadyen recently appointed Nestor Weigand, his chief opponent in the June primary, to lead a commission to study efficiency in state government.
about how to cut state spending
He said that Winter's figures were drawn strictly from the state's general fund.
"The state's general fund is only one-half of the budget." Schmeller said. "There are cuts that could be made in the other half of the budget."
Schmeller said that the Finney administration also would seek to eliminate waste and inefficiency in education and the SRIs, but that it would also save the savings back into those agencies without reducing their budgets.