OPINION
University Daily Kansan, August 28, 1984
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daykan Kaisan (USPK 60440) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kanuck 60440, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kanuck 60044 Subscriptions by mail are $13 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student letters are $1 and are paid through the student flint Hall. Mail address changes to the
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
DAVE WANAMAKEE Business Manager
SUSANNE SHAW General Manager and News Adviser
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
JILL GOLDBLATT Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Hostile note
KU opening convocations by nature are traditionally optimistic, and yesterday's wasn't expected to be much different.
different. In fact, this year's affair did have all the pomp and all the obligatory first-of-the-year remarks typical of pass convocations.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig asked the students to re-dedicate themselves to searching for knowledge. Dennis "Boog" Highberger, student body vice president, asked them to strive to understand each other.
But in all the calls for understanding and in all the calls for learning, one discordant theme emerged: The communication gap might be greatest between our student leaders and our University administrators.
The problem came to light when Highberger told the convocation audience at Hoch Auditorium that the administration purposely had not invited Student Senate leaders to speak. Other student body presidents had spoken at past convocations, he said.
"We may look strange," he said, "but we are the officers the students elected, and we expect to be treated with the same respect they have."
University administrators, however, contended the whole thing was a mistake, a misunderstanding. "It was not a deliberate snub," said James Scally, assistant to the chancellor and the convocation organizer.
Snub or not, the whole unfortunate matter probably shouldn't have been played out at convocation. It could have and should have, been resolved beforehand.
This is not to say that administrators and student leaders shouldn't disagree. Their relationship doesn't always have to be entirely cordial.
But must it be so hostile?
It's unfortunate that the present administration and the present student leaders are not able — or willing — to cooperate on even the most trivial things.
It's even more unfortunate that they expect others to cooperate and to understand and to learn when they find it so difficult to do the same.
Truman Capote
He will be remembered by many as an aging leftover of a bygone literary generation, a writer full of promise who was reduced to recounting tales of his high life for talk-show audiences. But his work will live beyond the People magazine stories of drug use and alienation, beyond his constant feuding with Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and other contemporaries, and beyond his death Saturday at age 59.
Kansans and all readers should remember Capote not for his decline but for "In Cold Blood," his haunting account of murder on a ranch near Holcomb in 1959, and of the events that followed.
A previous Capote book, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," rated a scant mention in a November 1959 Saturday Review, which called it a brief story that "playfully accounts for the career of a bewitching, rather daffy young lady named Holly Golightly." But "In Cold Blood" was rather different stuff in early 1966; then Capote made the cover of Saturday Review, and the reviewer was full of praise for what Capote called his "nonfiction novel."
Capote worked five years on the novel; he amassed 6,000 pages of notes before he began writing, sometimes hurrying away to write down the quotes from a long conversation.
At his death, he left unfinished "Answered Prayers," an ambitious and unflattering portrait of the characters he encountered in his high-flying life. Published excerpts brought him renewed attention and criticism from his socialite friends in the 1970s.
In memory of 269
One year ago on Sept. 1, 269 people aboard Korean Air Lines flight 007 died after a Soviet missile had been fired at it. The passengers included a U.S. congressman.
That's the easy part. The hard part is filling in the story. Little wreckage from the plane has been found, and suspicion lingers among some that government secrecy has hidden other pertinent information.
That's the easy part.
As the one-year anniversary of the disaster nears, attention returns to KAL 007. The Soviets, who have yet to express official regret over the slaughter, have made an interesting variety of accusations about the U.S. government's role in the affair. A former U.S. diplomat is conducting an inquiry, as are some journalists.
One of these diligent searchers might bring forth evidence to show that the U.S. government was less than innocent, whether from action - such as using the flight for a spy mission - or inaction - such as not warning the pilot of his position in Soviet airspace.
The fact remains, however, that the plane was hunted and destroyed. Did this brutality represent mere paranoia, or savage bloodlust?
It's a familiar scene — Bob goes to his residence hall room one Friday after classes and finds that his friend gives him gift cards has just popped in for the weekend.
Abuses alter roommate relationships
Bob gathers a few things and ventures down the hall in search of a room to stay in so his roommate and girlfriend can have some privacy.
Complaints by residence hall students, as well as by some KU administrators, have led to some new policies regarding students' guests.
In the past, overnight guests at any of the residence halls needed only to
JENNIFER FINE
sign their name and leave some sort of identification for collateral, but usually that could be easily side-stepped.
Now, both guests and residents must leave identification. Security guards will be keeping closer watch of visitors, who must be escorted by a guard at all times, and uncooperative guests will be asked to leave.
Staff Columnist
Residence hall officials hope that by making students responsible for their guests' actions, the residents will be more particular about whom they have staying with them and how often guests visit.
The policy was established as a compromise between a proposed rule that forbids guests and a situation in which guests roam the halls freely and residents are displaced to accommodate visitors.
Some students already have called the new procedure a hassle. The question that remains is whether the students will be hassled to the point that they have fewer overnight guests and the complaints end
It's what our parents and teachers have told us all along; if you abuse a privilege, you lose it. Some folks haven't learned that. Although the
To further help students such as Bob, roommate contracts, or, to use a rather euphmatic term, agreements, have been established so that roommates can determine what conflicts may other crazy before conflicts arise.
students have not lost the privilege of having overnight guests, the new rule could be a step in that direction.
The contracts allow the roommates to decide such things as whether Bob's stereo is off-limits to his roommate unless permission is granted, whether Bob can help himself to half the food his roommate's mom just sent, whether Bob's penchant for chanting while he meditates at 6 a.m. will be tolerated, and whether the room will be known as a party palace or a second Watson Library.
Roommates are not required to fill out the contract, but they are advised
students who are legally adults cannot be depended on to realize the consideration and compromise necessary in sharing one of those tiny cubicles called dorm rooms.
Although the intention of the contracts is good, it's a shame that
The residents who don't know of the need for that consideration probably will be the ones who choose not to answer the contract questions.
Although I'm sure there will be room for negotiation in these agreements, contracts are not made to be broken. Students might think they must stick to their agreement because it was written in black and white and because it was supposed after mature, open discussion.
It would be nice to talk that two people, often strangers, could sit down and think of everything that bothers them, and be assertive enough to say it. In the light of the beginning of the semester, however, a freshman may not realize how nerve-racking even a slightly messy roommate can be during the tension of cramming for finals.
Maybe it's old-fashioned, but the good of 'up front' approach still could be used to solve differences of this type — the approach in which people label bad problems and solutions using of paper to be used as the final word.
And although Jane may not hesitate now to say share and share alike, her attitude may change the first time her associate in this "positive, working relationship" comes in with shirt ink decorating Jane's white skirt.
Living with different types of people teaches tolerance, adaptability and acceptance. A piece of paper is a crutch that can be used instead of compromising to fit a particular situation.
Attempting to prevent problems is a commendable effort, but treating roomsatms as business partners is a challenge. A person must stand, flexible, friendly relationship.
Life on North Side hooks bicyclist
To many of the people who live in the suburbs or the outlying city neighborhoods, life on the North Side of Chicago can appear cosmopolitan, exciting, even exotic. And it is The little restaurants, the singles bars, boutiques. High-rise life. Yuppie life. Joggers in the parks. Street fairs. A taste of this, a taste of that.
It even carries over to the ordinary parts of daily life. As an example, take the simple act of getting up in the morning and going to work.
For many suburbanites, it means marching from the house to the driveway or garage. A short drive to the commuter station. A peek from the wife. On the train, read the paper, a march through Union Station to the street and on to the office.
Most days, it's the same routine. The only surprise might be a bike left in the driveway or a sudden change in the weather.
When Faltico leaves for his job early in the morning, he doesn't worry about commuter schedules and such. He just gets on his 10-speed bike and begins pedaling toward the restaurant, which is only a mile or so.
Compare that to the experience of a North Sider Specifically, Richard Faltico, a chef who lives on a pleasant looking side street a few blocks north of Wrigley Field.
morning Most people hadn't begun
stirring, and his street was quiet.
That's what he did the other day. It was shortly after dawn, a lovely
As he moved out on his bike, he noticed a young woman standing in the mouth of an alley. He noticed her even more, a few seconds later.
"She sexually molested me," he said. "She came up running up and
MIKE ROYKO
Syndicated Columnist
grabbed me around the you-know what "
Now admit it, surbarbanites. No female has ever greeted you that way when you leave your house in the morning, right?
"She was a hooker." Faltico says.
"We have them hanging around the neighborhood."
"Well, she almost knocked me off my bike, the way she was grabbing at her."
As it turned out, the woman was not some passionate young thing who had been stirred by Faltice's cycling style or his mature age (88) good
"Naturally, I told her to stop it, but she kept grabbing and groping The
next thing I knew, she had her hand in my pocket."
How intimate.
"It was terrible. She was after my money. And she got it. More than $200.
"See. I was going to start a vacation as soon as I finished work." That's why I had that kind of money on me. I was stupid enough to have it in my pocket. And she felt it. So she grabbed it and took off."
The hooker went clumping down the street on her spike heels, while Faltico gathered his wits, leaped aboard his bike and gave chase.
That's another facet of the charm of city living. Out there in the suburbs, you won't see a hooker being chased by a guy on a bike at a m
'She ran over to Broadway Avenue and was running down the middle of the street. Then she jumped in a cab. So I peddled harder and caught up with the cab. I pulled right in front of him and holtered to him that she stole my money, but he just swerved around me and kept going
"Luckily, a cop car came by and I waved them down and they stopped the cab and grabbed her. Then we all went to the station."
That is the police station, of course not the commuter station.
Faltico told his story when the booker quoted. She was frisked but not beaten. $85.99
"Iad only $95."
"I don't know what she did with the
rest of the money." Faltico says,
"and the cops did not, either. Maybe
she slipped it to the cabdriver or
something."
Then came the predictable response by the hooker.
"She told the police that I had sought her out to have sex," Faltcoe said. "Can you imagine?"
Well, yes, such things have happened. Men have been known to seek out the favors of ladies of the night. Or ladies of the dawn.
"Well, I told the police that was unthinkable."
The woman was charged with theft and Fallout was told he'd have to go to jail.
"By the time I take off work, I'll lose money just to recover half of what she took. It is so unjust."
"I told them that I happened to be a member of the gay community. So what interest could I possibly have in someone like her?"
When he got home that night, he found a note from the hooker stuffed in his mailbox. It said, "I was by. I will have something for you Liz."
Maybe she is going to refund your money so you won't show up in court?
"I can't believe it! After all that,
she leaves notes for me in my mailbox."
"I don know. But can you imagine — she signs her note Liz, like we're old friends."
And some people think city dwellers aren't neighborly.
In their book "The Real Majority," Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg drew a picture of U.S. politics as a struggle for control of the ideological center of the electorate.
Parties battle for voters in ideological center
authors defined the political center in a novel way. The middle, they said, can shrink or expand, depending upon the size and strength of the political right and left.
That was not a particularly startling revelation, except that the
Using a football analogy, they said the center of the political spectrum could be as narrow as the space between the 40-yard lines or as wide as the area between the 10-yard lines.
ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International
Whatever the width of the Scammon-Wattenberg center in the current political situation, the events of recent weeks show clearly that the Democrats and the Republicans are trying to occupy the center.
Some have said that Walter Mondale's victory at the Democratic convention marked the return of party control to the liberal-left wing of the party, but Mondale has tried hard to keep his campaign from being so labeled.
President Reagan's strategies have tried just as hard to keep their campaign free of a radical right image From Campaign Chairman Bill Clinton, who was the Republican convention characterized the party platform as reflective of the mainstream views of average Americans.
In addition, both sides have been putting in overtime trying to pin the extremist tag on the other Mondale, in an exclusive interview with a Dallas newspaper during the drafting of the Republican platform, called the GOP document the work of right-wing "kooks."
Speakers at the GOP convention repeatedly said that the Democratic party had been taken over lock, stock and barrel by the left
The convention also gave a lot of time to disillusioned Democrats, including U N Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick and former professional football player Rossowitt Grier, an assistant friend of the late Robert Kennedy.
Both parties have moved one way or the other over the years, but, in truth, neither can be said to have moved beyond the boundaries of the wide center defined by Scammon and Wattenberg. Both political radical political parties at both ends of the spectrum, but most of them are outside the stadium
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