OPINION
November 30.1984
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansas, USPIS 620-6400 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kansas 76031, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, and fall periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansu 60044 Subscription by mail are for six or more people, or $82 a day in Douglas County and $160 a day in Henderson County. Visit the student activity for POSTMaster Send address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 Staffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kansas 76031
DON KNOX
Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE BESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
General Manager and News Adviser
JILL GOLDBLATT Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Where's the beef?
The Union Memorial Board is scheduled to begin work tomorrow on renovation plans for the Kansas Union. The board, however, will be working with partial information on at least one important matter — addition of a fast/food franchise to the Union.
The board last spring told its Merchandising, Policies and Practices Committee to study the idea, and the committee asked an accounting firm, Alexander Grant & Company, Kansas City, Mo., for a report. The report, released this week, raised two potential problems for a fast-food franchise. Unfortunately, the report and two committees failed to pursue the questions.
One question is whether a franchise would be profitable for the Union. The other question is whether a franchise would jeopardize the Union's exemption from property taxes; state laws exempts from property taxes a building used exclusively for educational purposes.
Both questions are undoubtedly important; neither was answered in the report. Worse, both the Merchandising, Policies and Practices Committee and the University's Renovation Committee forwarded the report to the Union Memorial Board with a recommendation that a fast-food franchise not be allowed in the Union.
The question of whether a fast-food franchise should be in the Union is important because of the existing state of affairs. A franchise would inject competition — in the forms of food selection and price into the Union dining arrangement. A franchise would stay open late, and thereby provide nighttime users of the Union with extended hours of service. A franchise also would provide jobs for students.
Another factor to be kept in mind is that fast/food franchises have worked at other universities; is the University of Kansas an island in a sea of convenience and service to students?
Further investigation into the question of profitability and, especially, property-tax exemption is needed — that is, if the Union Memorial Board is to make an informed and forward-looking decision on renovation of the Union.
Fond farewell
In William Ruckelshaus, the Reagan administration found what it couldn't find in many of its other appointees: a tireless administrator who kept out of the headlines.
His second term as head of the Environmental Protection Agency is a model for all prospective career government employees to follow.
Ruckelshaus didn't seem so much a Superman, but his accomplishments were superhuman. He helped manage the once-unmanageable Superfund. He continually pressed for increased support in the cleaning up of toxic waste sites. Most important, he sought a path of compromise that placated most environmentalists, as well as most conservatives on Capitol Hill.
In his 1½ year term, he kept the much-maligned agency from destroying itself.
Aready Ruckelshaus has been criticized — to add to his nautical analogy — of bailing out, then bailing out.
Therein lie another reason for Ruckelshaus' success — a three-step guide to government as a career: work hard, work fast and get out before anyone is entirely certain of what you've done.
WASHINGTON — In releasing a long-awaited Treasury Department report on tax reform, President Reagan floated a post-election trial balloon intended to fulfill a key objective. He escaped the ensuing political heat.
Trial balloon on tax reform draws fire
Reagan wasted no time placing a comfortable distance between himself and the tax simplification plan, which had been prepared by the Treasury Department in direct response to his own order earlier in the year.
The plan, White House officials said, belonged not to the president but to Treasury Secretary Donald Regan, who has received the assignment of explaining it, defending it and firing the first shot in a political battle that will continue well into the opening months of the 90th
Release of the report took the familiar technique of the trial balloon - floating ideas in the press to gauge the political impact - to new heights.
From Capitol Hill came qualified accolades; praise for what many considered to be a long-overdue examination of the tax code and an initial step toward the long-sought goal of tax simplification and reform.
From the business community and anyone with an ox to be gored came an immediate wave of protests that underscored the high stakes and vested interests inherent in any tampering with the tax system — much less as far-reaching as the Treasury Department study.
However, public disclosure of the report — and efforts to hold the Treasury Department, instead of the White House, responsible for its paternity — helped insulate Reagan from the tray and enabled him to buy precious time before he must transform the promises of the campaign trail into concrete proposals.
Release of the report ended a persistent flurry of news leaks about what the Treasury Department was considering and what Reagan might propose. It shifted the focus from the piecemeal details of its contents –
NORMAN D.
SANDLER
United Press International
leaked daily in the press — to the merits and ramifications of its recommendations.
within the business community, were provided ammunition that placed them on equal footings to protect their interests in the coming fight.
Myriad groups, especially those
The scramble had the immediate effect of easing pressure on Reagan. Satisfied that he had made good on his promise to produce a forward-looking study of the tax system, Reagan sat back to wait out the first few rounds of the tax out.
Capitol Hill, Reagan instead chose a more conservative course that is more likely to promote the building of a consensus.
The strategy freed him of the need to expend political capital on a trial balloon that might go down in flames even before the new Congress convenes. Having been burned in the past by sending untested proposals to
At the same time, relentless attacks from business and other special interests can be expected to reduce the Reagan tax plan to a far less ambitious proposal than the Treasury Department recommendations would suggest. As the plan is picked apart, some elements will be discarded as too controversial or too objectionable.
If past is truly prologue, the final product could be a shadow of its original form.
Before making key policy decisions, the President always studies background information...
Find a child Borrow one Rent one Call friends and neighbors, but search until you find one.
Pot Shots
Bake Christmas cookies; have him teach you the Christmas carols he's learning at school, or take him with you to visit your grandmother
Then some morning or afternoon during the Christmas season, spend a few hours with your children.
Seeing Christmas through a child's eyes
even for a short time is a way to keep the Christmas ranch off your doorstep.
It may meay a sticky, half-sucked Christmas cane stuck to your good wool shacks or a seven-year-old's less-than-cheap Christmas of a Christmas tree for your root room.
And the four homemade Christmas cards that you and your young friend produce after three hours of labor may seem like a lot of toil.
The Christmas cookies may have a little too much icing and way too many of those chocolate chips.
OK, folks, it's my turn to ram the damn campus lighting problem down your throats. Say "Aaaahah." Enjoy.
The University of Kansas is not Central Park, but KU has its share of rapists and muggers and armed kooks. From Watson Library to Learned Hall to Jayhawker Towers to GSP-Corbian, the lighting is just enough to give them lots of places to park.
But in the midst of the spilled hot chocolate, the listening to long Christmas lists, the playing for the seventh time of "Frosty the Snowman" and searching for answers to those probing questions about Santa Claus, you'll find a Christmas spirit that none of the finest advertising agencies have yet been able to package.
Here is the way this type of problem usually gets attention. Some student doesn't make it home from Watson Library some
night. The body is the next morning in a clump of bushes or on the shore of Potter Lake. It doesn't matter whether the victim is male or female. Weeks later, workmen start putting up better lighting, by someone's frantic executive order prompted by frantic public horror. Sorry to say that way, but wheels get grease only when they squeak.
Show this column to your parents. If they give to the University (even if they don't), make them inquire about the possibility of starting a fund drive for better campus security with better lighting as the top priority.
If there is money to build a sports pavilion and a satellite union and a new scholarship hall and an alumni center, there is money for first-class campus lighting.
I challenge you to get the ball rolling — now.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of the position of editorial editor is mail.
One item that arrives in the newsroom is a true blue Republican newspaper — Republic of Cuba, that is “Granna, a Weekly Review” is postmarked Havana.
This week's issue includes the headline, "We can safely say that the 39th session (of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) held in Cuba confirms the superiority of socialism." Here's one of the teasers on Page 1: "The world's peoples are well aware of the fact that Indira Gandhi's death only serves
the most base and aggressive representatives of imperialism."
Many letters from outside the state come in. One such letter contained a poem opposing U.S. policy in Latin America. The first four lines are, "Down in the valley, the valley so low, / Wang your head over, hear the wind blow, / Under Allende, Chile was free, / Until he was murdered, in 73."
The most fascinating piece of mail received this semester from outside Kansas was a fund-raising appeal from Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. Helms eventually won re-election, but he sweated it out. A letter from his wife asked for donations, and the reader was requested to send a birthday card — it was Helms' 63rd. A photo in the package showed Helms kissing a baby, the back of the photo read, "Now does this man look like a 'Prince of Darkness'"
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Christian asks professors for debate on homosexuality
To the editor:
At a special public seminar sponsored by the department of religious studies titled "Christianity and Homosexuality" four faculty members presented their views as to why Christianity is an acceptable way of life today.
Although there was some opportunity for questions and discussion during and after the seminar, it would have been impossible, in the time allotted, to have discussed all of the statements made by professors Shelton, Hanson, Macaulay and Zimdars-Swartz.
Inasmuch as the University should be a place of learning and the free exchange of ideas, I would like an opportunity to share the podium with the four professors in order to relate their experiences offered to substantiate their views.
The statement by Zindām-Swartz, "Christians say, I am a Christian and I think this way; therefore, you should think this way," was an obvious attempt on her part to portray those with an opposing view. It is the reason why those who impose their views on others As a Christian, I make no such statement and feel capable of presenting a straightforward biblical
viewpoint, leaving the persuasion to God.
Although I can offer no academic credentials to qualify myself as a self-appointed representative of a Christian viewpoint, I trust that the learned professors would allow those in attendance to determine the validity of my scriptural evaluation.
Given equal time to expound on an opposite view on "Christianity and Homosexuality," I would offer the aforementioned professors ample time for rebultal in order to allow the audience to evaluate both sides of the issue.
Loyal opposition
Will they accept the challenge?
Charles Miller Lawrence resident
While we were reading the letter from Terry Brown (Nov. 26, "Insult to voters"); we were disturbed by his views on American democracy system of government
To the editor:
Brown, in criticizing opponents of Ronald Reagan, suggested that we should stop "trying to fight him." Is
he suggesting that we should just lay down our beliefs and principles and let Reagan and the GOP develop a one-man-one-party rule? That would be contrary to our U.S. system. Now that Reagan has been re-elected, Democrats have the duty of ensuring democratic policy-making. Had Mondale won, we would expect the GOP to do the same.
In the next four years, the Democrats will continue to offer fair and reasonable alternatives to what we know from misjudged and shortsided policies.
Brown said also, in a vigorous defense of his vote for Reagan, that he had failed to see how Reagan was threatening women's rights, because the president had three women Cabinet members and had appointed a woman to the Supreme Court. Democrats think that Reagan, who has appointed one twentieth the number of women to address that Jimmy Carter did, could help women and all Americans by supporting ERA and comparable worth legislation, and by enforcing civil rights laws.
Brown said he supported Reagan because of the economy. However, is
the largest deficit in U.S. history and the highest percentage of people living in poverty since the Great Depression a sign of economic success for all Americans?
Regarding foreign policy, Brown said that Reagan "has strengthened America and refuses to be bullied around." However, is building more bombs, while the Soviet Union matches him, with Russia's "more" Moreover, increased belligerence and paranoia really helping to prevent a nuclear war?
In closing, Brown said that the vote "of 49 states can't be all wrong." It's interesting to note that the only other president to carry 49 states was Richard Nixon. Need we say more?
Tadd Cohen
Alta Vista freshman
Scott Focke
Athwool sophomore
To the editor:
Sexism on page
The placement of the men's and women's basketball stories in Monday's Kansan gave me an excellent
The men's team came home from Alaska with a second place finish and were given top billing on the sports page, whereas the women from Tulsa with first place but were featured below the men's story.
illustration of the notion of sexism to show my students.
As a loyal Jayhawk, I'm terrificly proud of both teams, but as a male, I'm embarrassed to think that we men must be given the best spot on the page even when the women have first claim on that space.
John Brewer
graduate teaching assistant Applied English Center
.
Foolish review
To the editor
moment, it appears that any nonsexual play or film is perfectly acceptable as biography and even source material, so long as the names haven't been changed to protect the innocent. It also appears to be perfectly acceptable journalism to review this nonsense without a shred of historical reference, let alone any correction of the records.
Regarding the Kansan's review of the film of that gretzogues, "Amadure," I should like to say I unsure I suppose not be surprised
In this nation that has just overwhelmingly elected a president for whom the truth is whatever nonsense he happens to believe at the
As it happens, Mozart was not crazy, and only a couple of weeks before his death invited Salieri to the theater to see Don Giovanni, and most pleased that Salieri complimented it so greatly. Salieri was not the masked man, nor was he troubled by Mozart's genius as Peter Schaffer wrote in an earlier years, he was a music teacher for one of Mozart's sons, as he had been for so many who respected him greatly - a group that included one who wrote him a note and signed it, "the pupil Beethoven."
In this nation of so many alleged Christians, there appears to be an attitude towards the truth of, "So what!"
Poor Mozart! Poor Salieri! And poor fools that believe this nonsense.
S. Kortlucke
Lawrence graduate student