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Monday, September 24, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Campus parking
At long last, the parking department responds to scholarship halls' complaints about lot hogs
I took time, but scholarship hall residents persuaded the parking department to take on the pub crawlers.
More than 50 vehicles have been towed from two Alumni Place lots near the Wheel Cafe, 507 W. 14th St., since an unprecedented department policy took effect Aug. 1. Alumni Place lots are designated only for residents of the eight scholarship halls, and unauthorized vehicles can be towed from the lots for a first offense.
Donna Hultine, assistant director of parking,
said the parking department initially
responded to complaints by swarming the lots
each Thursday and Friday evening. But Wheel
Cafe patrons and others continued to park
there.
The residents, along with the University of Kansas parking board, have pressed the department for two years to tow unauthorized cars from the lots. Bill Moseley, a former parking board member, said the board requested towing in a 1988 report because Wheel Cafe patrons often considered the $10 tickets routinely pasted to their cars nothing more than a cover charge.
And scholarship hall residents continued to pressure the parking department. So this year, in addition to giving out $10 tickets, the department is ordering offending vehicles towed from the lots. The cost to the car's
owner can reach $36.
Jeff Hatfield, Wheel Cafe manager, thinks that is too much. But customers are likely to take their chances in the lots, he said. The department's enforcement has not hurt Hatfield's business.
Hultine said such signs soon would be in place.
He said signs should be posted to warn people of the new policy.
Moseley, who lives in Battenfeld Scholarship Hall, said scholarship hall residents had noticed an increase in the number of available spaces.
Still, like most campus lots, those near Alumni Place remain full most of the time. The number of stickers sold each year exceeds number of spaces in the lots by about 5 percent.
Before the new department policy took effect, vehicles could be towed for a first offense only from traffic and fire lanes and handicap parking spaces. More than 60 vehicles have been towed this semester from those areas.
The two Alumni Place lots now have joined that select group. Clearly, parking does respond, however slowly, to students' concerns.
Rich Cornell for the editorial board
Refugee assistance
Individuals can make a difference with one call
o often when we read about people suffering a half a world away, as
refugees are in holding camps along the borders of Kuwait and Iraq, we think the situation is out of our control. We think there's not much we, as individuals, can do about the situation.
However, Aida Dabbs reminded us in her letter to the editor in the Sept. 13 Kansan that there is something we can do for the refugees.
Dabbas, a Jordanian graduate student, a group of other KU students and Lawrence residents have established a national toll-free telephone number people can call to donate money for the refugees. Money collected will
go to the American Red Cross' special effort to deliver medicine, food and water to the refugees, called the "Middle East International Response."
To donate money, call 1-800-842-2200, or mail donations to: American Red Cross, P.O Box 72423, Washington, D.C. 20013 Dona Javier Garcia for the Middle East International Response.
Men, women and children in the holding camps are fighting each other for scent supplies. But there is something we can do. The American Red Cross effort is an excellent opportunity to help people far away.
Jill Harrington for the editorial board
Q: WHICH PRESIDENT WARNED OF FUTURE FUEL PANIC?
Creature finds way into hearts
met George this summer.
He was smart — that much I knew right away. He was cute, too. My roommate agreed with me about that.
But he was a little too cocky for his own good.
He would show up around lunch time, expecting (and usually getting) a free meal. I tried to convince my roommate that, like a stray dog, he would go away if we stopped feeding him.
"But he's so cute," she would say. "I don't want him to go hungry."
Pointing out his slick, strong, obviously well-fed body, I would reply. 'He won't go hungry.' He's obviously getting enough to eat, and if he were to be scared, he'd get it from some other suckers. After all, who could resist that face?'
Sure he was good-looking, and had a great body, but there was some thing about him that made me sure I was going to kill of him if we expurgated him pow.
Amelia Beard Staff columnist
Besides, something about the thought of having George hanging around our living room all summer made me nervous. Like it would somehow be against the laws of nature.
George, however, had different ideas. He was determined to work himself into our hearts.
He always knew when we were talking about him, and he would sit there on the porch, looking at us with those big brown eyes. You could almost hear his voice, a trifle high and chirpy, saying, "C'mon ladies, let me in. Aren't I cute? Huh? Huh? Let me in!"
Then he'd be gone, leaping over the railing to the tree next to our porch and then down to the ground.
George lent after us for a while.
He knew my roommate was a soft touch, but I wasn't so easy. I'm not one to give you to a sweet face and big sense of humor. He requires intellect and a sense of humor.
Unfortunately for me, George had it all.
He knew, somehow, just how long I'd let him stay before I got fed up with his chattering and made him leave.
And I had to laugh at his acrobatics
every time he leapt for the tree branch hanging over the balcony.
I couldn't help but admire his gymnastics, his charming manners and his looks, but I finally made him go.
One afternoon when he showed up,
I told him to go in no uncertain terms.
It was quite a scene, it but worked,
much to my roommate's dismay.
He never came to our door again.
At times I've regretted what I did this summer. Would it have been such a big deal to let him come into the living room to talk?
Would it have been such a sacrifice to have let him stay?
I think I did the right thing, but it is hard to tell.
Sometimes I see him on campus, and I try to explain to him why I made him leave.
I try to tell him as he sits on a high tree branch, or scamperms through the long grass, that I just couldn't let a woman go into the apartment. But he won't listen.
He just scolds me, flicks his tail,
and bounds off into the nearest tree toes.
Hey George? I miss you.
KU police should not tote semiautomatic guns
Amelia Beard is an Atchison senior majoring in English and journalism.
In an announcement earlier this month, KU police said new semiautomatic guns would be purchased for its officers — police officers who couldn't have to fire a weapon in the line of duty since 1973.
The department, which is financed by the state, is going to spend more than $10,000 of the state's money on weapons that are used every 20 years or so.
Why do police officers, who haven't had to fire a gun in the line of duty since the Nixon administration, all of a sudden need new firearms? Are KU警形 afraid that so much dust has collected in the base camp? Are they can no longer fire. Are they preparing for a possible Iraq invasion? Just what is the deal here?
And KU police aren't shopping for your basic, run-of-the-mill revolver; they are getting Glock 17 semiautomatic. 9 millimeter handguns. These are one of the critical claims are prone to accident discharge.
I'm not convinced KU police need guns that discharge at all, let alone semiautomatic weapons that may accidentally discharge every now and then.
The Glock 17 requires only eight pounds of pressure to fire. Most revolvers require 12 to 14 pounds of pressure. Guns with light triggers, like the Glock, have worried many experts for years.
This gun also features a short trigger, which does not have to be pulled back as far as a revolver's trigger. According to Massa Ayoob, the weapon is a large firearm for N.I.J., this makes the Glock easier to shoot well.
"And, by definition, if it's easier to shoot well, it's easier to shoot by accident." Aycoh points out
Rich
Bennett
Staff columnist
in an article published in the Sept. 11 Kansan.
In the article, Ayoob also is quoted as saying that most gun accidents are usually caused by human error and that the Glock 17 is "very unforgiving in this respect."
Some experts have voiced concerns that an officer in a stressful situation using a gun with a short trigger, like the Glock 17, might shoot by mistake. It would therefore stand to reason that officers must prone to err would be those who don't know where they are in the field, like KU police officers, for instance.
It is true that police officers in major cities have begun to carry semiautomatic weapons. However, those officers are sometimes called on to battle drug dealers and brutal killers who often use fully automatic weapons. KU police officers are fortunate enough not to have to deal with such problems.
It's not that KU police officers are loosy markmen. They just rarely are in situations where their guards have the power to kill them.
According to the Kansas City, Kan, police department, there still are some officers on its streets.
department representative also said that, while semiautomatic weapons are the trend, there still are plenty of officers in major cities who do not carry them.
It would consequently make perfect sense to conclude that KU police officers, in the peaceful city of Lawrence, do not need weapons that will fire randomly, shot after shot.
Most crimes KU police combat include fraternity men streaking on campus, perks peering in windows and serial parking permit thieves. Fighting such crimes should not require the use of force.
In fairness, however, it should be pointed out that the semiautomatic weapons KU police are shopping for are practically maintenance free. The equipment is cheap, even though it is cheap, said Jim Dempsey, KU police director.
Denney also points out that practice firing of KU police officers' current shows shows that some officers are not aware.
The weapons currently used by KU police are Smith and Wesson 38 caliber revolvers. To replace all their guns with guns of the same type would be more expensive than the Glock 17s.
However, the revolvers have only been in use since 1882. Denney said. Not one of those guns has been fired in the line of duty.
Not one
Yet, these virgin guns are going to be replaced later this month. One cann't help but think that the $10,000-plus that KU police are going to spend could certainly be put to better use.
> Rich Bennett is an Overland Park junior majoring in journalism.
Language preserves culture
No, it's not a Dick and Jane book, where he and she go who knows where. It's a fairly normal conversation describing last night's conversation with a preacher or total or total jerk, as the case may be.
T when he goes . . .
Then I go . . .
Then he goes . .
The problem isn't with the conjugation, which is correct, but with the usage, as "go" replaces "said."
I know a distinguished and erudite professor who saw this trend in language coming in the '30s. Sentences were becoming more horrifying to library shrunken. He decided then to learn a new word every day.
Only a small matter and hardly something to get miffed over, you might say. True enough. I admit. But it only caught my attention because it seemed indicative of a language, as well as culture.
This is a trend that seems to minimize vocabulary, reducing expressions to the bare minimum of utterances.
When he began to write, which he does prodigiously, he said he tried to gauge how long public
Marion Horvat
Staff columnist
opinion would allow a sentence to extend — and then he went that full length, and even further. He hoped to stretch minds to embrace complex thoughts and ideas in order to discover the domain of the complex for the bare essentials of speaking, writing and thinking.
Today sees the baptism of cultural activities where thought and reflection have no place.
It may seem that I have traveled far from my original paragraph. But I haven't. I think there are many who will not cede without a fight to such pessimism. Like the professor who found a personal way to counter the threat of being left behind, we saw advancing, we also can find ways to fight the looming specter of triumphant non-thinking.
▶ Marion Horvat is a Bonner Springs graduate student studying education and journalism.
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Three Imaginary Girls
By Tom Avery