October 22,1984
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily
KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan (USP$ 609.400) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuart Fliott Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kansan 60451; daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second class postage贴文 at Lawrence, Kansan 60445. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $24 in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student publications may be mailed to: University of Kansas Address changes to the University Daily Kansan 118 Stuart Fliott Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kansan 60451
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DQUG CUNNINGHAM
Campus Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
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
Luckv seven
What if they had an election and everybody came?
That's almost the situation facing the Student Senate.
Seven student coalitions — perhaps a record number — last week filed candidates to run in next month's Senate presidential and vice presidential elections.
The situation is heartening, no matter one's opinion of the Senate or student government in general. Given the past problems with Senate elections and the low turnout year after year after year, it is gratifying to think that student government is provoking some students to think - and to act
At least some credit should go to the present student body president and vice president, Carla Vogel and Dennis "Boog" Highberger, whose distinctive approach in seeking student office now has inspired 14 other students to do the same. "People feel powerless to get involved," Vogel said shortly before she was elected in February. "We want to show them that they can stand up for their rights."
The large number of candidates might even have two favorable side effects:
First, it might inspire more students to vote in Senate elections,the turnout for which averages a dismal 12 percent.
Second, it might encourage other students to enter University governance — the committees, the boards, the panels — that are responsible for the making of numerous decisions at the University.
At the least, this news will go a long way in helping the Senate re-establish the credibility it has lost in recent years.
Answer needed
Sen. Nancy Kassebaum wanted to talk about control of nuclear arms when she visited campus Thursday, but the audience asked mostly about her support for a raise in the drinking age to 21. Her explanation of that vote left a key question unanswered.
Kassebaum voted for a bill — later signed into law — that forces states to raise their legal drinking age to 21; a state that fails to raise its age by Sept. 30, 1986, will lose its federal highway money.
Kassebaum said that she did not favor a trend of federal intervention in state government and that she thought the law would hurt some Kansas businesses. She said also that "it's hard to understand when you're 18. You can be drafted into the Army, vote and pay taxes and they tell you, 'Sorry, you have to be 21 to drink.'"
The defense that Kassebaum offered was that drunken driving was such a serious problem that action was needed; the measure to force the 21 age on states had the best chance of passage of any drunken driving measure.
She said, however, that strict enforcement was necessary for the new legislation to work; thus, the law contains financial incentives for states to crack drown on drunken driving.
If, as Kassebaum said, strict enforcement is the key to a reduction in drunken driving, then the states could start with stricter enforcement of existing laws. "Adults" drink, too.
It still is hard to understand: How can 18-year-olds be considered adults in many ways except drinking?
No issues in protests
For a very brief while this month, I thought that I was back in the old days. What with the happenings at Kansas State University, Illinois State University and Detroit, real protest looked as if it might be heating up around this country before a long nuclear winter's nap.
Since the Aggieville melee, people have been running around setting up commissions all over the place to investigate what some have called a "near riot." They did the whole bit; police marching down the street in a line; rocks and bottles; riot gear; a stabbing.
I can understand the concern of the city officials there, but it could have been worse. Much worse.
Consider Illinois State University at Normal. Normal is a town of about 35,000, and the residents were tired of the crowds and needed large, mossy student beer parties.
so last summer, while most of the kids were out of town, the city passed laws that barred the sale or transaction of kegs after 10 p.m. and required permits for parties of more than 25 people, a bathroom for every 75 people.
To show their displeasure, a mob of about 1,000 ISU students gathered
MICHAEL
ROBINSON
Staff Columnist
one evening earlier this month. They tore down street signs, vandalized university property and threw eggs, and beer at police and passing motorists.
Then there were the car-burning celebrities of Detroit's World Series.
Just as I was reading these accounts and beginning to get my blood up, I realized that those were the reasons for least reasons to riot overly convicted.
There was a time when mob violence had some meaning. Students used to protest because they resented the establishment and the military-industrial complex. When people rioted in Detroit 15 or 20 years ago, burning a police car was an act of vandalism. Now it is reduced to the level of kicking your host's dog at a wild party.
That's really a good way to think of the situation because that's what this nation has become. Party USA From sea to shining sea, this country is just check full of young, fun people who are about to enter fast-track professions and can write their own stories. And all they want is to have fun.
Now, I'd be the last person to deploy having either a good time or a violent protest. What I object to is the mixture of the two
The only things today's college students find worth fighting about in an election year are sports and beer. That makes these incidents more reminiscent of a soma riot in "Brave New World"    the students in Normal chanted "We want beer" — than a meaningful protest.
So my hopes for a resurgence in protest and dissent once again foundered on the shoals of a complacent America. What we basically need is more generational. Me. Generation's version of student activism, which is to say none at all.
Senators retiring by choice
WASHINGTON — By their own choice, not the mandate of voters, four U.S. senators have chosen to end their careers. The adjournment of the second session of the 98th Congress marks their farewell.
For the record, the four are
Howard Baker, R.Temm, Jennings
Randolph, D.W Va., John Tower,
R.Texas, and Paul Tsongas, D.
These four, who are leaving on their own volition, might well be joined by one or more others who, for one reason or another, have displaced voters in their states and will be ushered out of public life No. 6.
In a way, the departure of Tsongas is the saddest.
Four voluntary retirements is somewhat above average for any election year, but no common thread can be together Baker, Randolph, Tower and Tsongas and their decisions to abandon the Senate.
Although as vulnerable to the vagaries of the electorate as any colleague, the four would have been favored for re-election and at least one — Tsongas — was considered a sure thing.
Intelligent and articulate, the Massachusetts senator was considered one of the best of the younger crop of senators, one of the bright new generation of Democrats and a man who could rise to higher office.
However, Tsongas, discovering that he was the victim of a mild and treatable form of cancer, took a new look at his priorities. He decided that his wife and children were more急迫 to him than his political career
As a result, Tsongas, at the politically young age of 43, became one of the four retirees.
At the opposite end of the age spectrum is Randolph, who, at the age of 82, decided to bring to an end a
STEVE GERSTEL
United Press International
long and colorful political career, though he has shown no decline in either his physical or mental capacities. An exception is his increasing intolerance for the frequently unruly behavior of his younger colleagues.
Randolph was the last link in Congress to the beginning of the New Deal; he was elected to the House in the same year, 1932, that Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeded him. Although times changed, Randolph forever remained a New Dealer.
If West Virginia remains a chronically depressed area, the fault does not lie with Randolph. Federal and
was to be had Randolph always
Virginia got at least its share and used it
itsself.
Tower, the first Republican elected to the Senate from Texas since the days of Reconstruction, decided to call it a career at 59, an age considered almost young in the Senate. He will return to teaching.
A pit-bull terrier of a man and also a dandy, Tower spent 23 years in the Senate. He climbed the ladder to chairman of the Armed Services committee and cemented his standing as an unobtrusive conservative and an unabashed backer of the military.
However, the senator whose retirement will leave the largest void is Baker, an extremely popular Tennessee who has been called the best majority leader of the Senate since Lydon Johnson.
Baker has a unique reason for leaving after three terms. In his usually direct fashion, Baker said that 18 years had been enough of the hard work he'd had to be freed to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.
Tsongas and Randolph probably will disappear into the anonymity of private life. Tower might surface in a second Reagan administration. Bake temporarily will continue to play important role in the nation's political life.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Proposed science library could harm design of campus
To the editor:
The Alumni Center
The new parking lots west of Memorial Stadium.
Memorial Stadium. The proposed science library site
The building will be built in stages, and will ultimately be about the size of Watson Library. Now, try to imagine this project in the area with a few hills and valleys. Himmm, it would kind of take over that whole space, wouldn't it it?
The proposed science library site.
These are three cases of the schemes used in making decision decisions for danger or for worse — warre the first two have already been built. The science library, still in the planning stage, could prove to be another brutal affront to the campus.
Now, consider that the area is one of the nicest on our campus — and don't pride ourselves on what a beautiful campus we have! There is no easy answer here. The new library is badly needed, and it needs to be accessible to the main campus. However, the siting of it is a very crucial decision, both from the standpoint of protecting — improving, maybe? — what exists, and also from the needs of a working library.
tree — and replacing it with a library isolated from parking and streets wouldn't seem to be a good solution from either point of view.
Lack of decency
Joseph Ogier Creve Coeur, Mo., senior
Taking a wooded grove — and a big
I am very disappointed that the SUA film series chose to select a film like "Freaks" to show on this campus. I am also concerned that the Kansan was willing to advertise it, complete with pictures to illustrate graphically what kind of freaks would be on display.
To the editor
We say that we are above racism, sexism and handicapism when pressed for an individual judgment regarding our values, but do not practice that when we stoop to commercial ventures that were designed explicitly to pander to the word that is in us.
Has the University lost all sense of decency and respect for human dignity that it would encourage such a blatant example of handicapism?
I think that the maker of this film, like films that are racist, sexist or
pure pornography, has the right to make such films. What I do question is the human decay decision that a student committee or any individual makes when financial support is available for a film or attendance at a showing of it.
Films like this have no redeeming social value and put the disabled or those who have unusual physical appearance or both in an extremely difficult situation to gain society's acceptance.
professor of special education
Meaning of cadet
Gary M. Clark
We wish to address an ongoing mistake in Kansan reporting. We are midshipmen in the Naval ROCT unit at the University. It has been our past experience that the Kansan refers to the members of our unit as "naval cadets," an example being Mark Hutchinson's article (Oct. 18, "Military historian says past wars predict future").
To the editor:
However, we are not "Naval cadets." We are midshipmen in the U.S. Naval Reserve. This might
seem to be a trivial difference in terminology, but it is not. When on active duty, a midshipman has the rights and privileges of an officer. In addition, a midshipman has the legal responsibility to assume command of a vessel or installation if all other officers are incapacitated. Cadets have no such authority. Calling a midshipman a cadet has the same derogatory effect as calling a reporter a copy boy.
We mean no disrespect toward the cadets of the Army and Air Force ROTC units, but we would appreciate your interest in us and to us as midshipmen in the future.
Trov Mellon
Milliken, Colo., senior Dean Pearson
Junction City senior
To the editor:
Festival response
The opinions expressed by Ah Wah Lai in his Oct. 17 letter ("Campus festival for Oct. 10 disregards traditions of many Chinese") are misleading, and we feel obliged to make clear clarifications.
First of all, in his letter Lai said that at least 146 Chinese at KU not in the Chinese Student Association from the People's Republic of China, Malaysia, Singapore. Hong Kong and Indonesia do not elevate the historical significance of Oct. 10. Regardless of the question of now he being a student of the University, opinion on this issue, and of the question of whether he did conduct this poll, the information is obviously erroneous.
It should not be so surprising that the Chinese Student Association chose to celebrate Oct. 10, which has been designated by the least Taiwan and mainland China.
Jie Liu wrote in his letter (Oct. 17, "Dispute over day") that Oct 10 was still celebrated as the 1911 Revolutionary Day throughout mainland China. Also, because of its importance in modern Chinese history, this day has been and continues to be celebrated in Hong Kong. Therefore, the 45 students from mainland China and 15 from Hong' Kong whom Lai includes in his statistics might not all agree with him.
The Chinese Student Association is a nonpolitical, nonprofit organization and accepts applicants of any cultural or political background. Currently the association has 148 paid members, of whom 127 are from Taiwan (excluding those who did not pay dues), seven from mainland
China and 14 from other Asian countries and the United States.
Another mistake in Lai's letter is the claim that "not all Chinese everywhere revere Oct. 10" as the secretary of the association seems to portray. It is simply a fact that our president did not say "all Chinese everywhere."
As stated in the opening of the Chinese Festival '84, the objectives of the celebration were to commemorate Ocf. 10 because of its significance in modern Chinese history and to promote cultural understanding among Chinese and all other KU students. The ultimate goal of this activity was cultural, not otherwise.
To protect all members of the association, we reject Lal's accusations and emphasize that the activities commemorating Oct. 10 were in the best interests of our members and absolutely not for just a faction of the members.
Represented by: Lai Chan
Benjamin I. Chan
Hong Kong graduate student
association president
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