University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
KANSAN
Friday, January 16, 1981 Vol. 91, No.75 USPS 650-640
Battle brews again on beer drinking
By GENE GEORGE Staff Reporter
Kansas legislators who want to raise the legal drinking age for beer may have a choice this year. They can either increase the age to 21, or to 35.
Robert Bingaman, executive director of Associated Students of Kansas, said that the Rev. Richard Taylor told him of plans to propose the 35 age limit.
Taylor, director of Kannans for a Better Life, the state's legal union to simulate battle battles with armed forces.
BESIDES THE BEER issue, other student-related issues that will probably surface in the 1981 session are a new landlord-denant bill, use of student fees for capital improvement projects and possible changes in the property tax system and university budgets.
DAVE KRAUS/Kansas staff
Bingaman said that ASK, a student lobby group, opposed changing the drinking age from 18, but that Taylor's comments earlier this week "make 21 look pretty good."
Taylor could not be reached yesterday for comment.
Bingaman said that a bail raising the legal age for 3.2 beer would probably be introduced in the House. He said that ASK planned to fight that aggressive, grass-roots letter writing campaign.
Bingaman said that Taylor had told him he had read a study claiming the human body was not physically mature enough to handle the effects of drinking until 35.
The campaign, which will be organized at next month's ASK Legislative Assembly, will resemble past lobbying efforts when beer bills were introduced. Bingaman said.
He said that ASK added a second punch to its fight this year.
wunw. Morris, R-Wichita, agreed to hear bill that was supported by ASK, Bristman law.
The ASK bill would ban the consumption of beer on state highways, which is legal.
THE ASK BILL would also provide criminal sanctions against minors caught drinking beer.
Bingaman said that a minor caught drinking beer could be sentenced to five years under the law and made a ward of the court.
Jeff Evans, KU ASK director, said that past rights against the public were a violation of civil rights.
Now, only persons who provide beer to minors are published.
Kansas center Megan Scott makes things difficult for Colorado's Debbe Descano during last night's opening round of the Big Eight Conference Women's tournament at Allen Field House. The Jayhawks stamped the Buffaloes, 88-69. Story on page 10.
Evans said he would rather see the state design a program to educate youth on the problems of drinking and how to handle alcohol then raise the drinking age.
Bingaman said that the Student Advisory Committee to the Board of Regents passed a resolution Thursday asking the Board not to use funds from the grant. The funding was approved by a student referendum.
Another issue that student lobbies are for improvement is the use of student fees for improvement to canvass.
The advisory committee was upset over the use of student funds for the new medical library at the University of Kansas City of Health Sciences campus in Kansas City, Kan.
REP. JOHN SOLBACH, D-Lawrence, said that he would respond a similar bill in the House.
Sobach said the problem was rooted in the early 1970s, when student unrest led to property damage and the cutting off of some state funds. He also said that students were to student fees for capital improvement funds.
The landlord-tenant bill supported by ASK allows tenants to make repairs in rented property without notifying the landlord first. The cost of repairs would then be taken out of that payment.
Bingman said Sen. Elwaine Pomeroy, R-Republican, introduce a landlord-fund bill in Pensacola.
Solbach warned that any landlord-tenant legislation must be treated with kid gloves.
"The problem is that a majority of legislators are landlords," Solbach said. "This must be a co-
See LEGISLATURE page 5
Financial woes may make Washburn state school
A Topeka lawmaker may propose a bill that would place Washburn University under the Board of Regents system and give administrative control to the University of Kansas.
Staff Reporter
The lawmaker, Rep. William Bunten, K-Topeka, said yesterday that he had not definitely decided to propose the bill, but that Washburn has to do something to receive more money.
By GENE GEORGE
Bunten said Washburn may fall $1.5 million short next year and school officials warned the deficit may have to be covered by tapping endowment funds.
Bunten said that meant either increasing Topeka's property taxes, which finance the city university, or making Washburn part of the state university. The university is municipally-controlled University in the country.
BUNTEN HAS not approached Washburn officials about the plan yet.
KU Acting Chancellor Del Shankel, unavailable for comment yesterday, said earlier that he had not been contacted about the plan.
Bunten's plan has not generated much interest from the Lawrence legislative delegation.
“It's not a realistic proposal this year,” Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, said.
He said the state financed $2 million of Washburn's $14 million annual budget.
"THERE IS no place in the governor's budget
where we could come up with the extra $12 million." Solbach said.
Sen. Jane Eldredge, R-Lawrence, said including Washburn in the state system would monetarily drain all the state schools. The Regents oversee seven schools, KU, Kansas State University, Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Pittsburg State University, Wichita State University and the Kansas Technical Institute.
Eldredge said he did not expect any tax in-
charge for the estimate for the added cost of
including Weibhmer.
SOLBACH SAID if Washburn was included in the plan, it would be $45 million to demand a budget increase from $20 to $5 million.
Washburn officials said they would like the
entire Swainee County to be taxed to support the university. County residents must approve such a tax first, however.
Typhoid suit brings change in lab classes
SOLBACH added that the plan would raise administrative problems for KU, and that he did not think Washburn officials wanted to lose administrative control.
Robert Bingaman, executive director of the Associated Students of Kansas, said the meeting between the Shawnee County legislative body and Ashburn officials was set for Monday morning.
Bingaman said ASK, a statewide student b lobbying group, took no stand on Bunten's proposal. He said the plan probably would be changed to the group's Spring Legislative Assembly Feb. 5-6.
By ANNIKAN NILSSON Staff Renorter
Staff Reporter
Because a KU student was awarded a $21,000 settlement in mid-December for contracting typhoid fever in a microbiology class, the university agreed to award a $75,000 campeting bacteria in its introductory classes.
IN THE SUIT fitted in Douglas County District Court in November 1979, Raymond Sieradan, Syracuse, N.Y., senior, argued that negligent laboratory methods in microbiology had caused him to contract typhoid fever during the 1979 summer semester.
James Akagi, chairman of the microbiology department, said Tuesday that the policy change was made after a suit was brought against the University. The suit was settled out of court.
The Joint Committee on Claims Against the State unanimously approved the payment to Sieradan last month under the Torts Claims Act. Before the enactment of the statute in July 1979, the state had governmental immunity against such suits.
Akagl, however, said the question of negligence was not answered because the case was settled out of court before negligence was legally determined.
The award, the first settlement under the act,
must be forwarded to the full Kansas Legislature
for final approval. According to Jerry Donnelly,
the state law requires the Legislature probably
will approve it in March.
VICKIE THOMAS, University general counsel, said the University decided to settle out of course recommendation from Bruce Miller of Kansas State office. Miller could not be reached for comment.
Thomas said she could not comment on whether the University was satisfied with the
Akagi said that even though Sieradzan was the only student he knew who had ever been infected during a microbiology class, the faculty members had decided to remove the potentially disease-causing organism from low-level courses.
Akagi said that the Salmonella typhi would still be used in an upper level pathogenic microbiology class and that the microbiology course to take the typhoid immunization shots.
He said the organism, Salmonella typhil, was used to teach students how to distinguish pathogenic, or disease-causing, bacteria from those that occur normally in the intestines.
HOWEVER, he said the University could not force a student to have the immunizations.
Akagi said that removing the typhoid-causing
laboratory work will eliminate all risks with
laboratory work in microbiology.
Sieradan, who was enrolled in Microbiology 502, fundamentals of microbiology, when he contracted the disease, said it was a freakish accident.
"I WAS the person who was at the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.
seau the typhoid fever had put him in the
EXPEDITION 5
Novelist discusses life of Russian youths
See TYPHOID page
Bv CORAL BEACH
Staff Reporter
Moscow hippies are about the same as California hippies, according to dissident Russian author Vasily Aksonov.
Aksyonov's work with controversial issues eventually made it impossible for him to publish his recent writings in Russia. He said the Soviet government also began to suspect him of being an enemy of the state. Aksyonov and his wife moved to Armenia, when the Soviets gave him the choice of living the country or "repenting" his writings.
Moscow hippies wear blue jeans and listen to rock music. In the 60s they demonstrated against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, complete with signs and slogans in English. Aksyonov, heralded by Newsweek magazine as Russia's most popular singer, is renowned for many of his writings on Soviet oppression and the taboo topic of Russian youth.
Wednesday afternoon he discussed Russian literature with students in his native language. Tonight he is scheduled to speak at 7:30 in the Forum Room of the Kansas Union. Akyonko's lecture "The History of Literature" is on contemporary Russian Literature; Crossing the Border."
The 48-year-old author is a guest of the department of Slavic languages at the University of Kansas. He arrived here Wednesday and will stay through Monday.
Wednesday morning Akaysonov talked about young people in the Soviet Union, a topic which has been strictly censored by the Russian government. He said the Russian hippies who protested against the 1980s were, like some of their Western counterparts, brutally beaten by police and arrested for their actions.
The important difference between the Soviet and American arrests were the reasons behind them, Aksonyov said. The Moscow hippies were not punished because they were disturbing the peace or damaging property, they were jailed because their protest was an independent act of free speech. Aksonyov viewed the absence of free public speech as the major difference between young people in the United States and Russia.
Aksyonov, speaking with a thick Russian accent, said restrictions on free speech and on the youth of his country were to avoid Western influence, the same reason that the communist party doesn't want the facts about Russian youths publicized.
The influence of the United States, Great Britain and other Western countries on Soviet youth is much stronger than the party would like to admit, Aksonoyn said. He said the government did not want rest of the world to be similar young Russians were to their non-communist peers.
Nevertheless, Aksyonov said, the youth of Russia is in touch with Western culture, despite the party's attempt to oppress and isolate it as much as possible. It has become impossible to make a photocopy of anything without special government permission.
The Soviet government, Aksonyov said, not only oppresses Russian youth, but also sturts to repress creative or intellectual individuals who are above mediocrity. This constant oppression has resulted in a terrible situation" within his country, Aksonyov said.
"It's dangerous for the government if the young people have too much Western influence," he said.
Akyonov stressed the fact that Soviet youth share similar tastes and values with other young people when he said that the death of John Lemon horrified them.
"They (the government) are fighting against intelligence," he said.
It was the oppression of intellectuals that caused Akaysonov to leave both his native land and a 20-year-old son behind for the United States, where he interested and hospitable place for a writer.
As the government began to consider his work dissident, Aksyonov said it increased the number of restrictions on himself and his crew. He felt he was losing touch with his true self.
Akyonov described himself as feeling almost completely isolated during the last five years he was in Russia. He said that he was not a pessimist, though, and that he eventually hoped to return home. Akyonov said he couldn't foresee how long his stay in America would be, but he knew he would "be here for a long time."
"First two-thirds, then one-half, and soon I thought I was going a small crescent of the boy." The koyonov, "be said."
While he waits for Russia to become more hospitable, Aksyonov said that he planned to continue writing. He recently started a new novel, "Come To Me My Melancholy Baby." The book was named after a popular American tunes singer and the song "Would you marry with young people in Russia during his youth, and that the book would be reminiscent of his younger days.
He said he would only return after the creative individuals, the intellectuals and the youth were given the chance to instigate some changes.
"Russia is pregnant now, pregnant with desires of change." Akavonov said.
Aksyonov said he would be teaching at the University of Southern California this spring. He has also had several offers for jobs on the East Coast which he said he would consider.
Akyonov's most recent work, "The Burn," by Ardis Publishers of Ann Arbor, Mich.
By TIM SHARP
Police ask for help in identifying body
A decomposed body found Wednesday on West Campus is believed to be a white woman in her late 28s or early 30s, according to a Lawrence pathologist who performed an autopsy on the body Wednesday night. Police are investigating the case as a homicide.
By TIM SHARF Staff Reporter
The pathologist, Carol Modrell, said the autopsy revealed that the woman had been dead since September or October, but the cause of death was not determined.
She said a hole was found in the left temple of the skull, but it was probably only a defect and not a fracture.
Lawrence Police Detective Lyle Sutton said his department had received only one missing person report last year, but it was for an elderly woman who did not fit the description of the
Bob Burdick, KU spokesman, said no KU students were known to be missing.
The body was found by a retired University maintenance worker, Clovis Lathom. 2027 Kentucky. Lathom had been exploring the area with a metal detector when he found the body.
Modrill said she had called in a forensic pathologist from Kansas City and another from Kansas State University to aid in identifying the body.
The skeletal remains were transferred to Lawrence Memorial Hospital Wednesday night for an autopsy.
The K-State pathologist will take some bones to Manhattan to determine the weight and height of the body at the time of death. Modrell said the tests would take about two or three days.
Dental charts made from teeth X-rays are being sent locally and nationally to dentists to help determine the identity of the woman, she said.
A nationally known cranial expert from Oklahoma City, Betty Gattif, will reconstruct the face using clay. Modrill said Gattif would require about a week to complete the model.
It will be partly cloudy today with winds from the north to northeast at 10-28 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka. High will be in the low 20s. Tenight's low will be near 8.
Tomorrow will be warmer with the highs in the middle 30s and lows in the teens.
Sunday will be clear and slightly warmer with highs in the middle 30s. The lows will be in the teens.