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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1985
Private aid to contras
When Congress voted overwhelmingly last October to muzzle military and CIA support of the contrais fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, it did so with legislative and democratic purpose.
The Reagan administration only demonstrates its contempt for Congress when it so blatantly circumvents legislative intent. Once again the administration flies its real colors in its tiresome and dangerous campaign against Central American independence.
However, recent reports revealed that conservative persons, organizations and even a retired U.S. general have decided their government can't decide issues properly any longer. They have begun to send arms to the "freedom fighters" with the direct help of administration insiders.
In fact, reports say that a member of the National Security Council staff, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, has met and advised the rebels in Nicaragua.
The growing number of private organizations devoted to the overthrow of the Sandinistas now rival the White House in its illicit support of the contras. Not content to lobby and petition for their goal, the groups have hit the conservative circuit to raise money for the contras.
One of the more successful of these groups is the Coucil for World Freedom, founded by retired Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter relieved Singlaub of his command as chief of staff of U.S. forces in South Korea for publicly disagreeing with U.S. policy.
Such disagreements have always been thought of as the most heinous crime a subordinate officer could commit
against the commander in chief.
During the Reagan presidency, it seems, a Singlaub can resurface and gain hero status for such bold and seemingly arrogant acts of privately arming 16,000 troops against the will of Congress.
A recent New York Times story estimated that Singlaub and others — principally conservative Americans, Germans and French — have shipped more than $25 million worth of arms into Honduras to re-supply the contrasts after the CIA was forced by Congress to pull out.
Toll tales
U. S. neutrality laws forbid American citizens from supporting military operations against any country with which the U.S. government is not at war. The administration says they were never meant to apply to U.S. officials.
The Parking and Traffic Board in December voted to increase the price of parking in toll lots from 50 to 75 cents. The increase look effect last week.
It was not, it seemed, a public relations move.
Congress apparently lacks the political will to challenge the President on this. Perhaps we should just give up, donate our money and be the first one on our block to have a "freedom fighting" tank bear our names.
Don Kearns, director of parking services, said that the increase would make the price of parking in metered spaces and toll lots equal, and that visitors would be the ones most affected by this.
But what most of us know is that we'll be paying an extra quarter when we park in toll lots.
Artful new center
Chancellor Gene A. Budig recently called the lack of a first-class performing arts center at KU "THE glaring need on campus."
Recent news reports have told how some professional
He said a brand new center for theater, ballet and live music was essential to KU's academic program and he vowed he'd see it built.
And if it were up to us, or any individual who has had to suffer through great performances tainted by the antiquated conditions at Hoch Auditorium, it couldn't be built fast enough.
Let's face it, Hoch is a beautiful old building where tradition echoes from every corner. We'll hate to see it ignored by performances and left to the KU parking service and large biology classes. But the key words are old and echoes, and it's been that way for quite some time.
performing troupes have refused to play at KU after seeing Hoch. Once an entire orchestra wore blue jeans to punctuate its disdain at being forced to play in the Grand Canyon of Oread Boulevard.
Budig said the next step would be to launch a fund raising drive to collect the needed $12 to $14 million for construction of the new center. The University must also find a site either near Murphy Hall, where KU's performing art students are, or on West Campus which would be more accessible to out-of-towners.
A West Campus location would alleviate campus traffic and parking problems on performance nights and not clutter the Hill with one more building. But it can be built on top of Wescoe Hall for all we care.
We're just happy this glaring need is coming closer to a bright reality.
Rob Karwath
Editor
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial edito
Laurette McMilen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General editor
Business manager
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson Retail sales Campus sales
General manager, news adviser
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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Learning leads outside of boundaries
Out of Bounds in Lawrence.
That's where you'll spend much of your time while studying in the River City, like it or not, so listen up.
Here are some general hints to getting by comfortably on the side-lines of college life where the black-and-white stops and Oz begins.
But where does Out of Bounds start? And how much does it cost?
Does your 19th birthday have to have been before July 1 to get Out of Bounds? Is it rated pr or XXX?
Freshmen, pay special attention when you're Out of Bounds, for they don't call you fresh men for nothing.
We at Out of Bounds headquarters would gladly give you the answers to those questions, if only we knew. You see, each person's Out of Bounds are like finger prints and you'll have to shape yours from the inside out.
There'll be a maniac outside your door preaching about how his god and the bomb make better bedfellows
In the next few weeks there will be so many people trying to influence you with ideas - moral, religious, political, social and idealistic — that you'll suddenly wake up one morning and have a stark fear of leaving your room.
Gary Smith Staff columnist
than a shot of bourbon and an ice-cold beer. If you get past him you'll have to dodge the KU Out of South Africa Committee and once again feel guilty because you had no time to stop and chant, not even for a minute.
You'll pick up a University Daily Kansan and read the words of columnists who will be attempting to rid the community of controlled substances for the good of the "rest of society." They'll tell you that if you're not a straight-laced radical rule-follower you won't get a job and nobody will like you.
Your professors, those lovable front-of-the-roomers, are professionals at shaping your minds and getting you to fit in. Watch them
closely, for if you don't, an occasional bad one will have you worrying more about pleasing him than learning and pleasing yourself.
And one of your roommates is bound to confront you on your return home because you still don't own a single pair of Hawaiian shorts.
You may decide those prospects are just too strange to take another day of without a 24-hour fetal-position break. But whatever you do, don't stay in bed. Forget all the horse manure and come Out of Bounds fighting with common sense and individualism.
First, decide not to label yourself or let anyone else label you a political conservative or liberal for at least six weeks. If you think you are a conservative, then pick up a copy of the Disorientation handbook being circulated on campus. Don't let it
To get near enough to Out of Bounds to find the answers however, there are several valuable guidelines you may choose to follow.
If you don't you might miss Out of Bounds. And that's where the real action is in Lawrence.
bother you that your folks or friends might think oddly of you for carrying it to a yoga class. Just be thankful that you're much closer to Out of Bounds than they.
If you're a liberal, go to the next Young Americans For Freedom meeting and decide for yourself if it's all shock or if maybe the "moral majority" really are God's chosen minority.
Do the same sort of flip-flop thing with your religious beliefs and your moral upbringings. Try the other side at least once and you'll either reinforce your standing view with personal proof, change your view completely because you saw a light or decide a happy median exists and you can concentrate on other more complicated boundries.
But for gawd saws, don't just sit in your room alone growing sideways, ignore the rules and mores when you feel the need to do so.
Go Out of Bounds and get four years of learning — not just 120 hours of undergraduate credit.
Extra help needed for short-term poverty
Why forecast gloom and doom for March when September has barely limped in yet?
Beware the Ides of March.
. All you great budgeters out there know what I mean.
Because March is usually about the time when most students start facing the realities of limited funds.
Telephone bills begin to resemble the national deficit, landlords make sarcastic comments about the late rent check, and the few bucks still left in your checking account quickly begin to dwindle.
You know hard times have hit when you realize the only thing you can afford to do during spring break is a bus tour through West Campus.
A new hitch in getting a short-term loan through the Kansas University Endowment Association will make this year's financial crisis even more difficult to slog through.
For a short-term loan, you now need a co-signer who can't be a KU student, staff or faculty member.
This sounds as if they want students to ask their parents for help to bail out of money crunches.
Most of the people I've met in college seem to have some dreaded fear of going to their parents with money problems.
Playing it straight usually brings quicker results, but good, bad and false excuses seem to roll easier off the tongue.
"Well, Ma. See, uh, like this phone call to Honduras accidentally got on my phone bill and I haven't been able to convince the phone company that, like, my bill's too high. So, like, could you co-sign this loan application for $250 for me?"
Or, "Seriously, Dad. Those medical bills from that cold I had last year really added up. I mean the cost of a
Michelle Johnson
Staff columns
True, the lines of communication will open up between hundreds of KU students and their parents.
hospital room is unreal. Could you help me out with getting this $500 loan?"
But who wants to grovel at the feet of their parents and explain their sinful downfall into the pits of poverty while Mom and Dad stand there with a 'i knew they couldn't hack it' look on their faces.
I can understand the Endowment Association's point. Defaulted loans
cost KUEA $80,000 in the last fiscal year.
But where's the dignity of it for the poor students who count on those short term loans to help get them through rough times.
Trying to suck $400 out of a bank balance of '$3.57 just isn't easy. Knowing you have back up forces in the form of a quick, easy, parent-free loan helps support the illusion of independence for many.
The hurdle of getting a loan co-signer is going to prove harder to clear than most people imagine.
Short term loan aficionados are going to have to choose between better budgets or better excuses.
With seven months left before March, I think pride will be the deciding factor for most.
Mailbox
Drugs, peace and love
In answer to the KU Disorientation Handbook: "if people were stoned on drugs all the time. Then peace and love would flourish and war and hatred would never exist again." (Kansan, 8-27-85.)
Scene: The quarter and nickel hit the wood table with a dull clink. The little side bats were whispered, could she get the nickel under the quarter without touching the quarter? Her husband laughed at the challenge, we all laughed, cheers and peace and harmony. It ended with him raising his fist to her face. They were both high.
Scene: We worked together at the same factory. We played on the same softball team. We watched each others' kids and hung out on Saturday nights at Ray's Rec. One left while we were laughing at a joke one of those Saturday nights and returned to chase me out to the street—she felt like fighting. We were all drunk.
This is the kind of thing that you only read about in the newspaper because it always happens to the other person. Or this is the kind of thing the pamphlets and TV commercials spout off to scare you out of getting high until you shrug it off as just so much more propaganda.
At age 22 just out of college -1
spent 40 days in an area hospital chemical dependency treatment center. At a low average of three new admissions a day, that's 99 people per month or almost 1000 people per year who believed that drugs and drink brought peace and love an end to hostility. And that's just one treatment center. Out of half a dozen in this area alone. Then there are those numbers multiplied nationally.
I have no recollection of bating up my best friend, Bruises, cuts, a limp. A friend has no recollection of chasing her roommate around the table while brandishing the kitchen butcher knife. Another friend has a vivid recollection of the murder he committed. But we were all high on good feelings and drugs at the time, so, in the spirit of this handbook, those "wars and hatreds" don't count.
I was one of the "lucky" ones — friends yelled and got hysterical, roommates moved out jobs were lost, and the district attorney and I chatted often enough that I'd had enough by age 22. There was a 70-year-old in treatment with me. Did you know that there are Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous groups formed across the country for five and six-year-olds?
Shella Brown
Secretary, Herbarium, West Campus
Front page problems
We onsider Robert Mimbs, Alvin Walton, Warren Shields and Marvin Mattox to be very fortunate.
If we ever have academic problems, we would like to request that you grant us the same privilege as these four individuals. We believe that front page coverage of KU is vital to their psychological wellbeing and successful academic pursuits.
Mike Mader
Great Bend senior
Tom Magliery
Lindsborg senior
Mopeds on campus
mopeds are not only allowed on campus, they don't even have to pay for a campus pass. I would think that would annoy faculty and staff who must pay for a campus pass on top of $52 per year for a blue zone permit.
The article, "Police have eye on cyclists", (Kansan, 8/29/85) brought to mind another two-wheeled menace on campus. I refer to the large number of mopses on campus. The first problem is that they are indeed on campus.
Upon reading the KU Parking Regulations, I have found that
It was always my understanding that campus was closed to all but faculty and staff vehicles bearing a campus pass. This was in order to avoid congestion, increase pedestrian safety and decrease noise and air pollution. That always seemed sensible to me.
Why do mopeds need access to campus? A moped with a worm muffler can be just as noisy as a loud car and smell almost as bad. A moped with an unsafe driver can be just as dangerous as a small motorcycle.
Mopeds are also given special parking privileges. For $5 per year, they can park in the bicycle racks on in any motorcycle parking area. Students with motorcycles can't get blue zone motorcycle permits and must pay $20 per year for a motorcycle red zone permit.
Finally, one of my worst peeves, the lack of enforcement of section 2.7 of the KU parking regulations wherein it states:
"At no time shall the moped be operated on the sidewalks or lawns of the University of Kansas."
This is a very dangerous practice and it happens quite frequently. Perhaps the KU police should include mopeds in their crusade against unsafe and illegal bicyclists.
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Steve Bradt Lawrence junior