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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1985
Again a change of seasons has provoked complaints about campus buildings being too hot or too cold. Maintaining ideal indoor temperatures in erratic Kansas weather isn't easy, but a few steps can help.
The University administration usually calls for facilities operations to turn the heat on Nov. 1, but complaints about the cold caused them to switch on the heat a few weeks early.
Not-so-cool complaints
Waiting to turn on the heat also can save fuel and money, hardly a minor factor.
After all, it's easier to warm up in a slightly cold building than to cool off in relentless heat. And it's more socially acceptable to add clothing when it's cold than to remove it in a public building when it's too hot
But now people are sweating, and the University should have stuck to its normal Nov. 1 start-up date. A few cold nights around Oct. 1 should not erase memories of warm October afternoons like those of the last two weeks.
Facilities operations tries to
maintain room temperatures in 184 campus buildings at 68 degrees when heat is running and 78 degrees when cooling is running. Obviously, that doesn't always work.
People, lights and most of office equipment create heat. Pumping in outdoor air above 55 degrees — without heating does little to provide relief indoors. And human comfort often has to take second place to the needs of animals, musical instruments and research equipment.
Blocked or broken thermostats, crowded offices, bright sunlight and other environmental factors affect actual temperature. Sometimes heating and cooling equipment, often pushed beyond its listed life span, breaks down.
Although the U.S. Constitution provides the right to bear arms, nowhere does it grant citizens the right to make immediate purchases from gun shops.
The time it takes to start heating or cooling makes repeated changes in a fall or spring impossible, so there's not much to do but grin and bear it. The next time the season changes prematurely and people don't like it, they should wait five minutes.
Last week City Commissioner David Longhurst suggested that the city establish a three-day waiting period to buy a handgun in Lawrence.
Delaying handgun sales
Longhurst's suggestion was prompted by the recent suicide of a 21-year-old KU student. The student walked into a gun shop and bought a .22-caliber pistol, then killed herself with the gun two hours later.
There's no guarantee that a waiting period would have prevented this woman from taking her life. But it would have placed an obstacle between the wish and its execution that might have been enough to keep her alive.
Gun rights advocates worry that any hindrance to the purchase and ownership of firearms threatens their constitutional liberties.
right to bear arms with the common defense, not our mutual destruction.
They misunderstand the Constitution. The Second Amendment clearly links the
A waiting period would in no way infringe on this right. It would only prevent someone from going out in a fit of anger or despondency and buying a handgun. The delay also could give police time to check prospective buyers for criminal records.
But no one gains when individuals can have quick and easy access to handguns.
Critics argue that anyone who really wants a handgun, or any lethal weapon, will find a way to get one — legally or illegally.
Maybe so. But we don't avoid making needed laws because someone might find a way to get around them.
Only a few legitimate businesses would be hurt by a waiting period. The sale of handguns at weekend gunshows, for example, might be curtailed.
There is no consensus for the outright ban on handguns. Until there is, any precaution that might save one life should be taken.
HOPEful enthusiasm
Energv. Enthusiasm.
Those are two qualities students say mark the work of Tim Bengtson, associate professor of journalism. Many students agree, his lectures are humorous and it's obvious that he puts time into them.
Bengtson, who teaches classes such as Advertising Media Strategy and Advertising Campaigns, has acknowledged that he thinks enthusiasm is vital in the classroom.
On Saturday, Bengtson was named the winner of the 1985 Honor for Outstanding Progressive Educator award.
Bengtson has been honored in the past. In the spring, he received the Amoco Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching, and he had been a finalist for the HOPE award three times before winning it.
But what is particularly significant about the HOPE Award is that the judges are perhaps those who have the best idea of how an educator performs on a daily basis.
Those judges are students; specifically, members of the senior class.
And this time they saw fit to reward Bengtson for the enthusiasm he brings to his work.
Rob Karwath
Editor
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
Brett McCabe  Sue Johnson
*Retail sales*  Campus sales
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMillen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General manager, news adviser
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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The fine art of trick-or-treating
When I was little, I spent weeks planning my Halloween trick-or-treat route. I had to be quick, cover a lot of ground and make sure I visited the houses that gave away the good stuff and not those orange and black chewy things.
I would run from door to door, determined to cover half the city of Omaha on foot so I could fill my pillowcase and still have plenty of extra candy to give my dad when he tried to mooch from us kids.
I can't figure out where the trickor-treaters are. Don't they want free candy?
So what's happened? For the past two years, I have spent several dollars on miniature candy bars, chewing gum and the like. On Halloween night our porch light would illuminate all bowl walt would wait inside the door.
The first reason I thought of to explain their absence was that the kids had smart parents who were selective of the homes they visited.
My efforts all were in vain. I haven't served a single trick-or-treater in Lawrence. And it haunts me every year.
"Mommy, let's go to that house," I
Rick Zaporowski Staff columnist
contribute to the thrill the children will experience when they dump several pounds of sweets onto their living room floors and stuff their faces full of chocolate.
can hear the kids saying.
"No," the mommies probably replied, "students live there. You won't get anything but a hard time from them. They have no money, no values and no candy."
Unfortunately, I can pretty much count on not getting any trick-or-treaters again this year. But I really don't want to be without something, just in case someone dares to knock on my door.
So this year I've developed some deas for a safe and economical Halloween.
"I know if I had lived in Lawrence when I was at the trick-or-treating age, I would have skipped the student living areas, too."
Perhaps I'm living under a stereotypical label of being an ungiving student who only buys candy for himself. I know if I had lived in Lawrence when I was at the trick-or-treating age, I would have skipped the student living areas, too.
Maybe the parents are concerned about safety. Considering the creeps I've heard about, I don't blame them.
I will not be giving away candy this year. Instead, I have collected dozens of those little packages of ketchup, mustard, salad dressing and barbecue sauce that you get free at any fast-food restaurant.
These items are perfect. Each comes in its own completely sealed package. There's no chance of tampering. And moms will love them. They'll cause fewer cavities
But I'm no creep. I want only to
for Junior and can be used at the dinner table instead of dessert.
"Mommy, can I eat my ketchup now, pleaseense?" the kids will ask.
And if by some divine act I run out of condiments, I'll go to my freezer and start handing out fortune ice cubes. They are a little riskier for moms, but the kids will love them.
And the moms will answer, "Not
and you've finished your peas.
Junior."
I wrote messages on little pieces of paper and froze them in the water. I wrote such things as "Be cool, stay in the room," "65 saves lives" and "I want my MTV."
Children will be delighted when they suck on their cubes and find the fortunes within. That is, if they don't choke on them.
And, miracle of miracles, if I run out of ketchups and ice cubes, have a closet full of disposable razors I got free from the Kansas Union Bookstore, I know the children will be safe with these because the commercial told me they won't nick or cut your skin.
I may be a little stingy, but when it comes to Halloween, safety always comes first.
Bookie vows to reopen man's incision
A few weeks ago, something really scary happened to Tom, who lives in a sleepy little Illinois town.
He was groggy from the painkillers and the stress of the surgery, so he had to wear a mask.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a man standing at the foot of his bed. At first he wasn't sure who it was. Then his eyes focused.
He was flat on his back in a hospital room. His belly was aching because the doctors had gone in to make some extensive repairs of his plumbing.
And Tom groaned. That's because the visitor was a bookie and loan shark. And Tom owed him money.
It didn't take too long before Tom was on the hook for $1,200. For a small-town factory worker with a wife and a couple of kids to support, that's a serious debt.
It's an old story. Tom works in a large factory in Sandwich, Ill., and lives in a nearby farm town of about 1,200. He happened to discover that one of his co-workers, a $5-an-hour forklift operator, was also a bookie
So Tom bet on a baseball game.
Then he made a few more bets. And
he was in for a couple of hundred.
Hoping to get even, he bet again and
again.
Tom asked for time to pay. The bookie said his time was up. With interest, the debt was now $3,990.
The bookie told Tom that it would be unwise for him to welch. He said he worked for people "up north," meaning Chicago, and they were unforgiving.
While Tom was pondering his predicament, he got intestinal pains, the doctors found problems and they operated.
Which takes us to Tom and his visitor in the hospital room. As Tom described the conversation:
"He asked me how I was. I told him not too good. Then he told me he had to have the money. I told him I was very sick and I couldn't pay him right now.
"He told me he was very sorry about my being sick. But he said that business is business and if I didn't nav, they would reopen incision."
I've heard most of the usual threats that Chicago mugs use. We'll break your legs . . . we'll work you over with baseball bats . . . fracture your fingers . . . hang you from a meathook . . .
But this is this first time I've heard of a bookie or loan shark saying something like: "If you don't pay, we
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
wun reopen your abdominal surgery incision."
Forget about the mooing of cows,
the quacking of ducks and the splendor of the autumn leaves. They play rough in those hick towns.
The bookie left, but as Tom said, "I was real scared."
And he got even more scared when one of the bookie's colleagues phoned the hospital room the next day and reminded Tom that any incision that is stitched can easily be unstitched.
As soon as he was discharged from the hospital, he went to his hometown police department. They brought in the state police, and a trap was set in Tom's house, with hidden cameras and microphones and recording devices.
The bookie came to see Tom. And darned if he didn't talk about Tom's incision again. As well as the dangers that Tom's wife and kids might face if he didn't pay.
With the threats on film and tape, the police jumped out of hiding and pinched the potential incision-popper.
He was charged with intimidation and syndicated gambling, both felonies, and the case is expected to so before a grand jury any day now.
It appears, the investigators say, that the small-town bookie is a runner for bigger bookies out of Chicago. They say he may book as much as $200,000 a year from his territory, which is Sandwich and two other small towns.
Now Tom sits on his back porch in his small town and frets. The bookie is out on bond and is back working at his forklift job. So when Tom recovers fully and goes back to work in the same factory, he expects a certain coolness in their relationship during coffee breaks.
And he wonders — would the Chicago mugs be bold enough to go all the way to a hick town to try to shake $3,390 out of somebody?
Well at least the incision is just about healed. That's something for him to be grateful for.
Doc, do him a favor and use your thickest thread.
Mailbox
Nigeria has special interest in the Peace Corps' future
Pioneers of the Peace Corps recently gathered at the University of Michigan to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps volunteer program by former President John F. Kennedy.
When Kennedy launched the program on Nov. 2, 1960, little did he realize that it would become one of the most popular and demanding programs ever initiated in the United States.
The establishment of the Peace Corps brought the United States closer to most Third World nations at a time when they were in dire need of both economic and educational aid from the West.
The Peace Corps filled this need. The 25th anniversary of Nigerian independence also was celebrated this year. Nigerian gained its independence from Great Britain on Oct. 1, 1960, just one month before Kennedy commissioned the Peace Corps program
Nigerians to this day emotionally recall the start of the Peace Corps program, largely because their country received more volunteers than any other nation.
Many Nigerians also believe that the arrival of the Peace Corps in their country was the beginning of real U.S.-Nigerian relations.
Under Kennedy, the United States greatly increased economic and educational cooperation with Nigeria. Nigerians began to appreciate the uniqueness of an American education.
The United States remains the largest foreign educator of Nigerians. The numbers have increased dramatically: 300
Memories of the Kennedy Peace Corps era remain indelibly imprinted on the youth of the country.
students in the 1950s to about 30,000 today.
Nigeria shares with the United States durable bonds of language, a history of British colonial rule and a devotion to free enterprise. The United States also has the largest black population outside Africa.
Armed with Kennedy's famous injunction — Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country — Peace Corps volunteers eagerly served in little-known countries with little monetary compensation. They served not only as ambassadors of peace, but as an embodiment of faith in freedom for all.
The U.S. government under President Reagan has a job to keep the spirit of the Peace Corps alive by helping African countries to end famine with modern farming technology.
Continued food donations from government agencies, religious groups and charitable organizations won't solve the problem.
Modern science will enable Africans to revive their dust bowls into fields fertilized and drenched with water. They will be able to reefstore their barren lands. And finally, they will be able to switch to new ways of farming, thus ensuring abundant health for Africans.
John Mbapuun
Ghoko, Nigeria, graduate student