UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kanans editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of
October 2,1979
Fire site is eyesore
Fire. Lawrence knows it can strike without warning, leaving ravaged property and ugly scars.
Most recently, the Sept. 20 fire at the 700 block of Massachusetts St., which caused an estimated $201,000 worth of damage, has left the crumbling shells of the Burn Awing Co. and Freeman Real Estate buildings.
Now, what is visible to anyone passing through downtown is the unsiglyph remains of these businesses, its own red sticker of condenation.
Excavation of the debris was halted last week, apparently because of a problem in determining who would pay for removing the rubble.
With the cause of the blaze as yet undetermined, Larry Stemmerman, fire department lieutenant and head of the Douglas County Arson Squad, has said little progress has been made in removing the rubble from the site.
Meanwhile, Bob Gould, whose architectural firm owns the condemned Burk Awning building, said yesterday that its management team had Development, had bought the charred
buildings at 700 and 710 Massachusetts St.
He now says excavation will resume in the next few days. Indeed it must.
More importantly, Gould and those responsible for clearing the site should not allow the remains of the buildings as an eyewear and a safety hazard.
A new precedent needs to be set. For more than a year and a half, the debris from a two-fatality fire in December, 1977, at the southwest end of the same block was allowed to detract from the downtown area. Only this summer was the last of it cleared and leveled to a vacant lot.
It is hoped that the owners, who showed much enthusiasm in their original plans to remodel the building, were also encouraged in fitness and citizenship in the clearing site.
As Lawrence moves toward understanding the importance of a vital downtown, we cannot afford to let this scar laser as a sign of this disaster.
Kansan photos get contrived criticism
There is a point in life where sensitivity turns into raw nerve. The line separating the two is faint and easily missed by our hand to protect us from our own ignorance.
The latest people to cross that line in the heat of their zeal are those who claim to have found sexual stereotypes in some Kansan photographs. The comments are based on a criticism. Instead, protesting about sexism seems to have become a hobby.
It's quite possible to find whatever you're looking for in nearly any place you want. It appeared to be a picture of a girl standing, arms akimbo, with a football on the grass between her legs. It could have been just a picture of a girl sucking to the female population. Or it could have been just a picture of a girl football on the grass between her legs.
It is, as the well-worn phrase says, all in the way you look at things.
The photo showed an attractive woman trying to hit a tennis ball with a tennis racket. Her T-shirt said, "It's not how you play the game, it's how you look." She wore a black dress and her blowing hair; the rest of her face was caught in a goofy expression.
In reacting to this photo, one letter writer said, "Some men and women confuse the identity of women today with the identity of a certain rigid standards of appearance."
The phone calls received by the staff about the football picture indicated some people thought it was sexually degrading and insulting to the female population.
melissa
thompson
According to the cutline under the
The events of the past few weeks have put this reaction in a different light. The fact that it was discovered after blossom on the editorial page in reaction to another photo that had run through the press is puzzling.
COLUMNIST thompson
photo, it was intended to be a visual and verbal pun. The woman obviously was going to miss her shot because of the hair in her eyes. "It show you look" . "Get
The pun's obscurity is not really an issue, but rather the definition of sexism is important. The word defines sexism as any arbitrary stereotyping of males and females on the basis of gender.
But, according to that letter writer, sexism is a confusion of identity on the basis of body appearance. Both of these definitions are highly subjective and rely on the perception of the person who is sexing or labeling a sexism of sexism to something or someone.
And the people who are finding fault with these photos are saying that they perceive the photos to be seismic. Maybe they are crying wolf instead.
Fighting sexism is a valid and necessary goal in a society where roles have been constantly changing for the past 15 years.
And in this transitional state, it has been essential for the printed word (or picture) to discuss the reasons for the decision and the direction that it is moving.
Amid protests against sexual stereotyping in the worlds of business, politics and education have been successful—to varying degrees.
But these protests were successful because injustices existed; they were not minor as the Kansan photos.
People who are tempted to cry "sexist" and point finger at less-than-worthy targets should save their breath. They will be less about, their argument loses strength.
In search of a solution for the current industry shortage facing the United States, power plants are increasingly toward coal, electricity and nuclear power, and less town solar power, wind power and offshore wind.
Government ignoring energy options
Government officials are giving little consideration to these alternative energy forms. They say that these sources have not been developed in the past, but that is their real reason?
Solar power can be a very cheap and feasible source of energy for the nation. It is abundant and there are no controls over it environmentally sound and pollution-free.
And wind power count be used as a major source of energy. Although it hasn't been fully explored, the potential is there, and it cannot be overlooked or ignored.
The use of biomasses for energy also shouldn't be overlooked. Biomasses can be converted into methane gas—a natural gas—and used on a large scale by utilizing an existing natural-gas pipeline. It also would provide the source of energy and environmentally advanced energy. Yet it is too at the bottom of the list of energy alternatives being considered.
John COLUMNIST fischer
All of these various forms of energy can be very efficient, cheaply produced and cause little strain on the environment. Compare this to the inefficiency of burning oil, the high expense of nuclear power and the effect of striping on the environment.
But why haven't these forms of energy been considered more by government officials? And why haven't they been further developed?
One can only speculate that it is due to the power of special interest groups, or more specifically, the power of major business companies in coal or oil and utility companies.
Both of these sectors have a lot to lose if these other forms of energy were developed. We can imagine that we would because these sources of energy don't involve them for production, refining or storage.
For example, many coal-mining companies and electric companies would be greatly affected if the government decided to use methane or the sun as the primary energy source in industry. Neither of these sectors would be involved much, in the production of these energies.
Consequently, with their survival and increased productivity, utilities have supported the use of nuclear power and coal -burned to produce electricity - as the sources of tomorrow's energy.
And at the same time, they are too tough or downplaying the use of force to have anything to give them. They have nothing to gain. It all sounds like a conspiracy to scream the nation over in the name of it.
Although some of these businesses and utilities have built in systems with solar energy or other energy forms, consider for a moment their results. Usually they are contradictory to each other.
This could be an attempt by these groups to create a bad public image for these alternative sources of energy so that the public
will "realize" that they aren't feasible. And this could be an attempt to make the public believe that coal, which is a limited energy source, can be used for other alternatives to our energy shortage.
Also, big businesses and utilities have bought patent rights for devices that might have a tremendous effect on their business if they were mass produced.
An example of this is General Motors. It bought the patent rights from people who run engines or engines that run on different types of fuel, but you never hear them call a car engine.
It is time the government officials look out for the best interests of the country and its people rather than the interests of big business and its profits. This "What Is-Best For The Country" attitude can only lead to our country, an oil economy, and otherwise.
Government officials need to seriously consider the feasibility and importance of these alternative sources of energy, instead of being greeted by big business to ignore them.
Bureaucracy blocks Liberals' goals
Rv CARL LEVIN
N. Y.Times Special Features
WASHINGTON—Liberal members of Congress—because liberals increasingly are becoming former members of Democrats—are trying to shed their political label.
Changing labels, however, does not change the plight of librarians. That plight springs from the fact that the simplicity of conservative rhetoric is often more conducive to the current resonance of American thought than is the complex rhetoric of librarians.
Liberals thought their identification of the immorality of the war in Vietnam produced our withdrawal. In reality, it was the appeal to the United States to the will to win-to-bomb them to their
knees—then let's get out") that caused the war machine to knock and miss.
THE LIBERAL plight also springs from the eternal internal arguments about who has the greatest degree of ideological authority. The American 44/100 percent pure—but that does not mean that they will float in the bath water of American politics. And we do not help their efforts to keep their heads above the concretely social line when we focus on the 36/100 of a percent.
When libermails sat back, because Hubert Humphrey was not pure enough, they allowed this country to be polluted by the corruption in politics of the Nixon administration.
It is time to put aside these ritualistic acts of self-immolation and rediscover our common values. In that process, we may
IN OUR QEIR to safeguard our achievements, we institutionalized them. The policies that we produced spawned new federal departments and regulatory agencies, an administrative branch with power arising from its control over imprisonment and, more significant, from its exclusion from the mathematics of our system of checks and balances.
People who care about their communities are upset about the way that power affects them. In response to our goals of our programs, they have begun to reject the claim that our programs have made a difference.
find out why the liberal movement has lost control over the emotions of the nation.
People have a right to reject that claim when programs waste their money, belittle their efforts and insult their integrity.
Column miscasts Nader as leader
To the Editor:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: America's desire for a strong leader is a sure sign of our own weakness, of our reluctance to formulate our own stand, answer our own questions, we expect *leaders* to do our thinking for us. And Lym Bryczyski, while one of the most perceptive and in-depth voices on this issue, is as guilty of that weakness as anyone.
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
Ralph Nader is not a leader. He spent an early evening telling us what students are doing in their Public Interest Research program. The research, he says, is the best possible refutation of the John Birchers' claim that the PIRG groups are Nader's tools to advance his own power. They are not his, nor does he tell them what to do. Nor does he encourage them to disclose facts that others leave hidden.
Yes, I am, we do have the problems. We don't need anyone to tell us what they are. What we do need from people like Halpah is to make sure that we don't cause of those problems. As Nadel pointed out, ignorance is the underlying cause. Another is our inherent sylvestry to investigate those things that raise our suspicions and to understand consciousness raising is all about. The only
The ultimate reward of this solution is a savings of $3,500. With our consciousness raised, we won't have to ask Nader back to raise it again when new problems appear.
The only "solution" Nader did offer was, sadly enough, ignored both in Byzacyn's column and in the front page report that appeared the day after the speech. That solution to reform our educational system, to study in a class, to study lounge with highlighters and textbooks in hand, students can exercise the investigative methods we acquire in the classroom to tackle the problems that face all of us as citizens. Then, who knows? We can move back into these textbooks axiom to gain more insight into those problems we can't solve.
way to "progress beyond the consciousness raising stage" is to make Nader's method of investigation a part of our daily lives.
Provo, Utah, graduate student
Gregory Halbe
Nader story needed deeper coverage
To the Editor:
The staff of the University Daily Kansan should be recognized by the student body for 14 priorities on campus affairs.
Nader, who spoke for more than two hours, discussed several major issues that concern most people today: energy and education, to name two. The over-capacity of the conference hallroom to hear them tends to show that education at KU share these interests and concerns.
I refer to a comparison of two stories: Ralph Nader of Sept. 25 and the feature story on intramural football of Sept. 26.
The Ralph Nader lecture was an event that attracted perhaps the largest audience in recent memory with the exception of the events here at the University of Kansas.
1 FOUND IT interesting to see that one local newspapers, the Lawrence Daily Journal-World, the Topeka Capital-Journal
THE MOST ironic point is the fact that M. Hollowell, besides writing the story about the war, has told us this a possible precedent for newspaper staff members to discuss themselves full
In contrast, Amy Hollowell regaled us with a full-page story with very dramatic photographs discussing her views on an intramural football game.
In all likelihood, it is very possible that M. Hollowell's story was severely cut by her editors. So, perhaps the blame should not be placed with her.
However, the editors of the Kansan and their decisions on what gets printed should be public. Should the public get an opportunity to read more about the rare, special occurrences in history by Raiph Nader, or about a newspaper staff member with no psychic or an annotator for the book?
and the Kansas City Star-Times devoted lengthy copy to Nader's speech and visit. The Kanans seemed hard pressed to get the attention they needed, but, it did have a very nice photograph that was larger than the space used for copy, even with the reporter's advantage in size.
Lawrence senior
My fear is that the programs I so strongly support are going to be doomed—not by a law in intent but by a flaw in implementation. I am exaspected to be exhausted by the battle to say what is good
I COME from a traditional liberal background: created by the New Deal, molded by the Civil Rights movement, fired by President Richard Nixon, the anti-war movement and seasoned by local politics. That background encouraged me to work with the federal government. But instead, I ended up fighting it because it would become more important than my people.
To prevent that we must regain control of the way government runs, re-establish our mastery of detail and reaffirm our commitment to helping people.
And after that battle, the federal rules and regulations and programs still stood strong. The city continued to decline; the local communities were in the neighborhoods continued to deteriorate.
We can adopt sunset and legislative veto provisions that will force Congress to reevaluate programs and return accuracy for regulations to elected officials.
that the fight may no longer seem to be one we can win.
IF THIS feeling grows, then the law will have been proved right. They will be able to do more than dismantle our goals. They will be able to gult our goals.
The alternative is to watch our opponents build public support for abandoning the liberal dream.
The keepers of the dream today are the people who can make the dream work. If we want our children to be more supportive, sink our social programs it can only be because we fear that we cannot get support for them.
We can correct those methods. We can refuse to rationalize failure because our task is hard. We can refuse to accept arrogance because the task is inefficiency because our task is hard. We can refuse to accept arrogance because the task is inefficient.
If we are to mobilize support for our visions, then we must administer our programs with the common sense that conceived them.
CITIZENS HAVE not turned their backs on our goals. They have had their stomachs turned by some of government's methods.
Carl Levi is junior Democratic senator from Michigan. This article is based on a recent speech to the Americans for Democratic Action.
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