OPINION
University Daily Kansan, August 27, 1984
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
KANSAN
The University Daily Kaman (USP5 60-440) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 6045 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, Kan. 6044 Subscriptions by mail are $4 for six months or $7 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $8 a year in Richmond County and $2 are paid through the OMASTER: Send address subscriptions are to Fint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 6045
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
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
Breach of trust
Student Senate has once again stubbed its toe on the rock of responsibility.
Students.
The only problem is that Senate regulations prohibit the use of money for travel. Edmonds, who is also Senate parliamentarian, should have known that. Carla Vogel, student body president, also should have known it. But she didn't, and signed the voucher form.
The request eventually passed through the hands and under the pens of University administrators and the Board of Regents, but the responsibility for the mistake lies squarely at the door of the Senate.
at the door of the Senate. Although it is commendable that the violation was caught by Student Body Vice President Dennis Highberger, it is equally important to note that the request never should have been passed on in the first place.
Vogel said that she had made a mistake and that Edmonds would not receive the money.
Did not receive the money. Edmonds said that Senate rules didn't prevent him from submitting a request that failed to follow regulations, so he went ahead. But that seems an irresponsible attitude for a parliamentarian.
prior to the issue is one of trust, Highberger said, trust among members of the Senate staff.
This, however, is more than a question of office efficiency. KU students must be able to trust that those who administer their money will do so properly and by the rules.
The Senate must now find out where and why the process went wrong, and see that it never happens again, not simply to avoid embarrassment, but to ensure that the students' trust is not misplaced.
Is Big Brother 21?
After an era of patchwork legislation on the consumption of alcoholic beverages, states may be forced to raise the legal drinking age to 21.
drinking age to 21.
Although the new federal legislation does not require states to adopt the uniform rule, the federal government is dangling an expensive carrot in front of state administrators' noses.
an expensive car.10 Kansas could lose $5.5 million in federal highway funds if the drinking age is not raised by September 1986, and an additional $11 million if the age is not raised by September 1987.
The threat to withhold highway money hints not only of bribery, but also of intervention by a Big Brother government.
The mandating of a national drinking age is forcing states either to relinquish much needed federal money, or to give up sales-tax revenue from the sale of 3.2 percent beer to the under-21 crowd.
under-21 crowd. The new law could be responsible for further federal establishment of laws for states instead of allowing states to make their own policies, as well as federal control of state transportation departments' plans for highway development.
Federal intervention in civil rights issues may have been justified in the past because of the serious need for such action, but the need for raising the drinking age is not as certain.
certain. The federal government should make sure all methods of reducing alcohol-related car accidents have been attempted before sticking its hand into state policy.
Budgetary control
This would allow the president to veto individual programs in an appropriations bill. The Constitution now limits his veto authority to an entire bill — the whole-hog veto, you might say.
With all the huzzazing and harrumphing over the big stuff in the GOP's platform - tax reform and such - it's easy to overlook an unglamorous little proposal such as the line-item veto.
The concept of a line-item veto is neither new nor radical. George Washington reportedly groused about some of the package deals Congress sent him. Ulysses S. Grant was the first of several presidents to try, without success, to acquire broader veto authority. Forty-three states, however, authorize their governors to strike unwanted appropriations from bills.
from bills .
Given the line item veto, the president . . . would have both the authority to cut wasteful items and the responsibility to explain why - to a public fed up with deficits - if he didn't.
In short, the line item veto would inject into federal spending a measure of accountability that is badly needed.
The (Providence, R.I.) Journal
Page aims at thought
Welcome back to the University and to the Kansan.
I won't give you a intricate, noble-sounding rundown on First Amendment rights, the power — and responsibilities — of the press and the significance of the student vote.
I don't read those colitis, but:
My goal as editor is this; this session is not easy but not easy to put together five days a week a page that will make people think.
Preamachers and politicians can bother themselves with converting the heathen and preserving the delivered. Me, I'd just like this page to give its readers a few moments of thought and information each day. Don't worry; the editorial page will certainly deal with the "issues". This is a university book, and students must be doing some thinking not only about grades and careers but also about more abstract things: the meaning of life, the direction the country and the world are headed, stuff like that.
Regular features on the editorial page this semester will range from syndicated cartoons by Don Wright of the Miami News and syndicated columns by Bob Greene and Mike Royko, both based at the Chicago Tribune, to cartoons, columns and editors by members of the Kansan editorial staff. The staff, of course, consists of KU students.
This page will also be open to letters and guest columns. I hope that enough are submitted for them to become regular features, too. The Kansan policy on letters and guest columns is as follows: A letter to the editor should be typewritten on one sheet of paper, double-spaced and not more than 200 words. It should include the writer's name, address and phone number. It should also indicate the writer's affiliation with the University, faculty or staff post-graduate faculty, faculty or staff individuals and groups are welcome to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansas office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at the Kansan. 864-4810
Certainly a student voice exists. Indeed, in light of the noise accompanying the Country Club Week parties, more than one voice is alive and well on campus. Some political pundits, however, tend to view students as a monolithic force; after all, all women vote alike, as do all members of a racial minority, as do all labor union members, as do all rich businessmen.
As you might expect, the 1984 elections will receive plenty of attention on this page, a point that raises the devilish old notion of a student "voice," as in the statement, "All students likeate ----" (Fill in whatever name is dominating the news of the moment.)
The members of a group, whatever the criteria are for inclusion in that group, are not robots. All students do not think alike. Period.
but others alike.
Thus, the Kansan editorial page represents not any official student opinion but the opinions of students.
A plague on both houses
Student work makes paper
The newspaper you now hold is the work of more than 70 students of the University of Kansas.
Is. reporters, photographers, copy editors and sales representatives are all students who juggle their class work and their lives with their work in the editorial and business offices of the University Daily Kansan.
Its editors and managers — also students — are former reporters, former photographers, former copy editors and former sales representatives who, for different reasons, have stayed on to help and to direct the newspaper and its staff.
Students have a tremendous amount of control here. They assign all stories, direct long-term projects, make all news decisions.
And yet we student editors often find ourselves dependent upon our readers - also students.
This semester is no different.
This column, the first of the
semester, usually outlines the editor's goals, the editor's aspirations,
the editor's lofty intent. In it,
the editor usually praises the staff
often the best ever assembled, of course — and maintains that this Kansan will be great, if not the best.
1. too, am optimistic about the coming semester. I think that through persistence and dedication, this staff will produce a newspaper that professionals and professors will continue to honor.
continuity to hold
These thoughts are not absolute, however, but there are certain things that seem real and true to me.
Yes, this staff is committed to reporting the news with intensity, vigor, accuracy and fairness.
Yes, this staff is committed to careful and sensitive editing and to designing aggressive advertising campaigns.
And yes, this staff is committed to correcting its mistakes.
but we need your help.
Give us a call if we are missing something. Tell us about our shortcomings, our faults, our errors.
Many of our better stories and photographs originally were ideas submitted by students or faculty Most newspapers, including the Kansan, thrive on these news tips Please call the newsletter. 864-4810, if you have one.
If you are interested in journalism and want to write stories or take photographs for the Kansan, stop by 11 Staffer Flint Hall and see me or Managing Editor Paul Sevart. Although most Kansan reporters are third-semester reporting students, any student is welcome to contribute.
This newspaper has, for years,
emblazoned on its stationery a slogan:
"The Official Student Publication
of the University of Kansas"
The most important word in that phrase is not official. It is student
This is your newspaper. Help make it what you want it to be.
Reagan supporters feel love for the president
DALLAS — Right outside the tall fence surrounding the convention center, an enterprising young man set up a small business. His sign read: "Get your picture taken with the president."
Propped upright on the sidewalk was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Ronald Reagan in which the president was smiling broadly. Delegates, reporters and ordinary citizens were invited, for a nominal fee, to step up next to the photo of Reagan, strike an appropriate pose and stare at the entrepreneur's camera. The result was an instant photo to take home that, if the lighting was right and no one examined the print too closely, looked as if the owner had stood on the sidewalk with Reagan.
The funny thing was, the young businessman's idea was not considered at all unusual in Dallas during the Republican convention last week. It was accepted as an article of faith here that everyone loved Ronald Reagan — not just supported him for re-election, but was crazy about him. The Republicans at the convention were in full-blown, heart-pittering, starry-eyed love with their candidate.
date
It was a pristine, wholesome love;
the delegates and Republican camp-followers did not lust after
Reagan the way fans might lust after
a rock star. Instead, they sought
comfort and reassurance from him. They merely wanted him to tuck them in at night, say their prayers with them and turn out the lights.
with them and his wife. The thing worth pondering is how rare a phenomenon this is. Our recent presidents — Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter — have commanded policy support from the voters who elected them. John Kennedy brought forth
BOB GREENE
Syndicated Columnist
strong emotions from both people who liked him and people who did not
But you probably have to go back to Dwight Eisenhower to find an example of a beloved president. With Eisenhower, for some reason, that did not seem so startling. he was president in the days before loving a president became an unexpected emotion.
Now, you may not be a supporter of Reagan Among the rulers of people who will vote for him, however, he has attained a status quite outside politics-as-usual. He can do no wrong; it is said that love is blind, and perhaps this is the aphorism that guides his flock.
I spoke with a 47-year-old woman from Richardson, Texas, named Barbara Waldie; she was not a delegate to the convention, just a Reagan Republican. I asked her to think about Reagan for a moment, and then to tell me how she talk about him not in political terms, but in personal terms.
Daniel
"I feel the same way my mom does," she said. "In my lifetime, I feel that Ron Reagan is the best president we have had. He's not afraid to be real. Take his hearing aid, for example. He doesn't hide the fact. He admits he needs a hearing aid, and so what? He's real, and people can sense that."
You might assume that her feelings have something to do with her generation and her political preduces However, I spoke with her daughter, too - Ansie Basinger, a 24 year old working woman living in Dallas
"Well," she said, "I honestly believe that Ronald Reagan is the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. I just love him. He's a real people person. I sense that he really cares about us as people. He's not up on a pedestal; he's down with the people, and he has the same concerns that we do. He's not afraid to make mistakes, and to admit them when he makes them. He's not an image, he's real."
Those emotions may explain why Reagan is able to get away with things that would sink any other president. An example is the joking remark about bombing the Russians. Can you imagine what the national reaction would have been had Richard Nixon said those same words? Not only would there have been calls for his impeachment, not only would psychiatrists have been issuing somber statements on what the words signified about his mental stability, but even Nixon himself would have realized that his presidency probably had been irreparably damaged. With Reagan that didn't seem to happen.
Dallas during convention week probably wasn't the best place to think rationally about the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Election Day is a long time away
it seems clear that, no matter what happens in November, when Reagan's supporters think of their man in years to come, it will be less the way they have become accustomed to regarding a politician than the way they might remember their first high school prom.
That last paragraph is probably a little too sappy for its own good, but I don't have time to change it. I have to go outside and get my picture taken with the propped up Reagan photo on the sidewalk.