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University Daily Kansan, October 20, 1980
Opinion
Letters to the Editor
KU Spirit Squad's mike man is nothing but a 'scream'
To the editor:
Whatever happened to the good ol' days of college football: the raccoon coatens, the pennants waving in the stands and the fans singing "Football hero" as the huge hulks of mindless flesh took to the gridron while the cheerleaders hollered through their hand-painted megaphones, "Rah, rah, sis, boom, bah!"
The raccoon coats I can do without. They are bulky, their absence keeps many raccoons employed and they are "dryclean" only. The pennants aren't a good buy, either. They always are either stolen after the game or hit with a flying Coke. One no knows the words to "Football Hero." But what about the cheerleaders and their megaphones?
The grand old tradition of the past has yielded to the world of electronic reproduc- in place of the spirited yells of the faithful the insipid bantering of Mr. Microphone!
Oh Brave New World that has such people in it!
I've got nothing personal against the guy who sits atop the stepladder and plays junior football disc jockey. He's just doing his job. Yet the person who decided to install him should be run out of town. It's as though he was running and returning our cheer!" and someone else said, "OK then, we'll just ram it down their ungrateful threats!"
Why the hell should anyone want to respond to a yell leader who isn't yelling? Are all the fangs going to be equipped with microphones? Should we do all the yelling? Where's the justice?
And let's not forget the possible future ramifications. If Mr. Microphone is allowed to spread across the ivy-shrouded traditions of North America, what can be expected to appear in the future?
Next, they will remove Mr. Microphone and replace him with a tape of his greatest hits. Then they will make it even easier and have another tape of responses from the crowd so we will never have to even show up for the game.
Just think. There could be five or six tapes playing simultaneously and we could pretend that we were the first 1-10 team to have more than 150,000 fans at every game. Wow! We could even use the same tapes at Allen Field House. New attendance records every week!
Perhaps I'm getting a little carried away.
Perhaps I'm getting a lot carried away. But I don't think so. When I wake in the middle of the night screaming, "C'mon jayhawks, c'mon Jayhawks . go go . go go." I know that the time to act is now.
I therefore ask all sane people to help me stamp out Mr. Microphone. Should Mr. Microphone make an appearance at the next home football game, join me in a resounding boo of disapproval. One good, long boo should do it.
Kevin Koster Independence, Mo., senior
To the editor:
TV editorial lacks
The Oct. 2 editorial by Ted Lickteg deserves comment. "The epitome of a warped reality" is not, as he suggests, television programming, television advertising, television news, but rather it is his own editorial.
It was a shoddy attempt at professional journalism. Nowhere was a single piece of evidence to substantiate any of his accusations. Instead, Lieckig attempted to ride strictly on an elitist attitude of the print medium over the electronic form.
Lichtig bases his conclusions on questions yet being decided by courts. One accusation—that viewing is a major cause of violence—was found untrue by a Florida court. Perhaps the judge quickly enough, the judge would reverse his ruling because of this expert testimony.
If Lickiegt can in fact link lowered college entrance scores with television viewing, he surpasses psychologists, who have been researching the subject for 20 years.
Lickiegt's attack gives far too much credit to the effect advertising has on the viewer or reader. I hardly think Lickiegt wears jeans simply because he sees them on television or in newspapers. But if you tell me he walks on campus, May we remind Lickiegt that the major source of income for newspapers is advertising and that dirty money may pay his salary.
In his name-calling fervor, Lickett claims that television news is slanted to please advertisers. Any news story, newspapers included, suffers from the same problem. There are factors to which each story must be edited to make clear, concise, newsworthy information.
Katie Soward Martin 1979 graduate
In both newspaper and television, there are some unscrupulous people who will slant their news to please their money sources. But those newspapers that are found to be found. Journalism is an honorable trade.
Any news team with which I have worked, both print and electronic, has attempted to contain only the facts to enlighten the public but will not attack it. Joe Kiegge will attempt to follow those guidelines.
Libertarians warped
To the editor:
In a recent guest editorial, Kevin Helliker argued for a "liberated" society in which the functions of government would be "limited explicitly to the administration of justice" for a society. In other words, the only economic freedom that could protect the protection of property and individuals would be "free to profit or lose, prosper or starve."
Now wouldn't that be great! The children of parents who could not afford to pay cost-covering tuition for private schools would be permitted to grow up without ever learning to read or write (although at age six, the children, of course, would be free to teach them, of course, who were unemployed without any faction of the population thousands of automobile workers today, would be free to lose their homes, their savings accounts and all their property.
The sick who could not afford the prices charged by private hospitals, now free to charge any price, would be permitted to die painful deaths (or build their own hospitals); companies in the hands of wealthy whites would be free to refuse to hire blacks (who, of course, would in turn be free to compete, unhampered by government restrictions, with U.S. Steel, General Motors or Standard Oil).
And, as Helliker points out so wisely, if economic freedom were totally unrestrained, we would not need to worry about monopolies, either. So, for instance, if one individual owned the source of water supply for a city and if sources were available within 250 miles, a company could hire pipe lines for 250 miles, possibly bringing the cost of a glass of water up to $5.00.
But so what? After all, individuals would be free not to drink, wouldn't they? (And the owner of the original source would probably compete and let you have it for $4.88 anyhow.)
At the bottom of Helliker's article, there is a by-line stating that he is a senior in philosophy and fiction writing. I am not sure how well he does in philosophy, but I predict that he will turn out to be a great fiction writer.
Harry G. Shafter
Professor of economics and
Soviet and East European studie
Chickens galore
To the editor
The point of Scott Faust's editorial on chickens was, to say the least, unclear. The tone of his writing ruled out for me the possibility that he was actually advocating chickens' rights. That he merely used ideology as a means of ideology as ideology also seems unlikely, for such slogans as were uttered seemed entirely tongue in beak, so to speak. (Forgive me, but I'm only fighting fire with fire). Perhaps in this vein, then he was attempting to break the world record for highest number of clichés included in a paragraph—a record that he himself must臀 look at, and I don't seem looking at the Guinness Book of World Records, one finds no such category.
In any event, it was considerable of the Kansan to provide Faust a forum for getting chickens off his chest, even if the material might have been better suited to Mother Cray's play. It goes however that next time Faust comes in version 4, I can assure you that many members would gladly give their right wings for a chance to read between the feathers.
Eric Brende
Topeka sophonore
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Newly improved tenant bill attractive
Heavy-handed landlord opposition has, for the last five years, kept the Kansas Legislature from shoring up a cavernous hole in the state's Residential Landlord-Tenant Act.
The provision would give tenants a practical and speedy way to correct problems neglected by uncooperative landlords. It would allow tenants to have repairs made at their own expense, but it still agreed to pay for repairs, the tenant could sue for the costs in small claims cases.
The missing item, called a self-help provision, is law in 26 other states, and is included in the Uniform Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, which model state uses to develop their own legislation.
The only remedy provided by the existing 1975 act is for the tenant to notify the landlord of the breach of the lease or of his duties, and then to terminate the lease and leave 30 days after the breach. The remedy must be efficient. The "remedy" only forces a tenant onto the street because of the landlord's inaction.
Despite past defeats, the self-help forces are continuing their battle against this insufficiency. Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, who last week released co-consignors of the first self-help bill to make it a national calendar, managed to get an interim Judiciary committee to study the self-help issue this summer.
Solbach said the interim committee, of which he is a member, had worked closely with the staff to try to arrive at a bill that would neutralize盟南 concern and still serve tenants' needs.
"This isn't going to pass until we convince landlords that it is fair, is necessary and has a chance."
landlord concerns head on. It limits self-help repairs to those affecting the health or safety of a tenant and to a cost of $100 or half the rent. Last month, the bill help had no health and safety limitation.
Landlords have argued shrilly that a self-help amendment would leave them vulnerable to unnecessary repair claims by tenants and that such amendments could cover anticipated higher maintenance costs.
A rough-draft version of a bill formulated by the interim committee meets this and other
The interim committee bill requires tenants to notify the landlord through the mail when they need repairs. And if the landlord fails to comply or make "good faith" efforts toward compliance within 14 days, the tenant may employ and pay a workman.
Under the bill, local or federal agencies charged with enforcing building codes will
SCOTT FAUST
determine whether something affects health or safety. The agency must be notified by the tenant before or at the same time as the landlord.
As in previous self-help measures, the tenant may sue in small claims court for the cost of repairs and court and mailing costs if he and the defendant are unable to reach agreement out of court.
However, the rough-draft draft does not require the tenant to file one month's rent with the Clerk of the District Court when beginning self-help. This will appease landlords who have argued that they should be tied up without a court order, but it requires an important means of leverage for the tenant.
Landlord pressure on a 1974 interim Judiciary Committee that produced the foundation for the 1975 act failed to get a self-help provision removed. According to Solbach, who has studied
No matter how soft a self-help bill is drafted by the interim committee, many strong-march landmarks will oppose it because they want no more of the act, which is already skewed in their favor.
House Journal accounts, self-heLP was left in by the full House and Senate, but removed in a conference committee that was insisted upon by a powerful Emporia representative. That same representation refused to sign the conference report request, and self-heLP provision was removed. And he succeeded.
The 1975 act differs from the URLLA in ways other than just its lack of a self-help provision. For example, it does not allow the court to assign payment of putative damages or the tenant's legal fees to a landlord in cases of unconscionable contracts. Neither does it make negligence the sole basis for tenant responsibility for destruction. In effect, tenants can be held responsible for any ordinary wear and tear on the property.
An even more glaring example of the power of landlords in Kansas comes from Solbach's own experience. Before his primary campaign this summer, Solbach said, he received letters from Johnson County landlords telling him they had paid them and the money to see that he was not re-elected.
The angry, profit-obsessed landlords who will accept no compromise to meet a glaring tenant need are probably only a minority. Others, and the legislators whom their lobbies have influenced, may be willing to accept this new bill as a middle-of-the road proposal.
Sobach said that the new bill, with the legitimacy of an interim committee, would pass both houses if the Associated Students of Kansas, student body presidents at Regents schools and concerned landlords could convince legislators of its fairness and viability.
No major legislation that has such a widespread effect as the self-help bill can be expected to pass in its first year in the Legislature. Yet the time for a workable self-hill help has come, and the Kansas Legislature must not fail tenants across the state in 1981.
Add to Solbach's list of important supporters KU students, who can send letters of support to their home legislators, and the interim committee's workable bill will become workable law.
Vigilantism better than no crime control
The national crime rate, which in some cases has swamped police efforts to keep order, has driven growing numbers of crime-sick citizens from a reliance on D Dick Trace to a traditional law enforcement solution: taking the law into their own hands. It is as American as Cowboys and Indians.
In but those locales that don't have it quite so good, the people apparently have had enough and have begun fighting back. The newspapers have run several stories in the past couple of weeks alone: New Yorkers grabbing jewelry-snatching pedestrians and detaining them until the police show up, anonymous witness programs that net 99 percent conviction rates and the rise of vigilantism in many cities—especially riot-scared Miami.
As a result of the latest in criminal fashion, it is an adventure in many cities to walk down the street and to avoid having one's jewelry ripped off of one's body. The worst problems that manifest themselves in Lawrence usually take the form of burglaries of unlocked houses and the occasional drunkard relieving himself next to the petunias.
Even the judiciary has jumped on the bandwagon, after 100 years of hesitation, with criminal programs that reward the victim incumbent. There is even a national trend in this area.
The most attractive facet of the trend toward giving the criminals what they deserve is the rise in vigilantism. A recent Associated Press story detailed the trend in Miami, which has many cases in the wake of last May's riots, the arrival of thousands of Cuban refugees and several drug wars.
Spurred on by a Dade County murder rate of 31.4 deaths per 100,000 people, and the advice of the local Police Benefulent Association, gun violence prevention agency, reported a poplause armring itself to "to the teeth,"
This journey back to Dodge City days has not been going on long enough to evaluate its effectiveness, but the idea of the townpeople banding together to defend against the Indians when the army can't handle it has worked before, and probably will work again. The man has been portrayed in a favorable light by such people as John Lewis and "Taxi Driver," an indication of widespread acceptance of the idea if one looks at box office receipts.
and killing burglars, robbers and occasionally each other.
The vigilante concept harkens back to the historical American traditions of rugged individualism and self-reliance that were not really needed to deal with criminals because the state lacked a system.
BILL
MENEZES
R
Times have changed, and now it is every man, woman and vigilante for themselves. The more vigilant you are, the more appropriate, far outweigh the possible dangers. For many, vigilantism translates into lynch mobism. And unfortunately, in the past this has sometimes been the case. Under the right circumstances, community action can quickly turn into riot, with innocents suffering some of the results.
Then there is the danger of the trigger-happy types, the ones who would blast away at shadows, the cat in the garbage cans, the dog in the books suspicious. The inclusion of such types is unnatural. The backbone of the villainic concept. The threat of community law enforcement, while a powerful
crime deterrent in itself, is bolstered by the image of a nervous, armed contigent just waiting for a chance to blow away a would-be looter. In the mind of the criminal, the chances of a successful night out would be considerably diminished.
Considering all these aspects, what choice does the unprotected community have but to take its protection into its own hands? In an age where criminals are put back on the streets just months after they commit crimes, the choice is obvious.
As much as the vigilant trend in Miami is a symptom of the local lucidary's inability to cope with crime, it is also a sign of things to come. The isolation of the "me generation" may be about to take care of community working together to take care of urban problems that the city can't or won't handle.
Besides, vigilantism isn't as bad as it sounds. Why not let the people most affected by crime have such a hand in its control? After all, crime control has to be practiced logically sometime.
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is afar from home, please contact the writer should include the writer's class home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.