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Tuesday, November 18, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Opinions
Taking the Initiative
The Initiative Coalition's candidates for student body president and vice president have kept level heads in their campaign and, in doing so, have earned your vote in tomorrow and Thursday's election.
All four candidates got their start with the Common Sense coalition in last year's election Betsy Bergman and Stephanie Quincy of Initiative and Brady Stanton and Kelly Milligan of Cheers are all Nunemaker Senators and all have served on a variety of Senate boards and committees.
On the other hand, the Initiative Coalition's platform is built on solid ideas that can be implemented in this shortened six-month term.
Their plans are health food compared to the Big Macs the Cheers coalition is dishing up. While it may not taste great at first, it's better for you.
But the Cheers Coelion is chasing goals that, although appealing, will be difficult, some impossible, to attain.
Initiative's plan for improving the undergraduate advising system can be realistically put in motion this term and will serve the academic needs of students. The Cheers' plan to lobby the city to allow people under the legal drinking
age into bars, while enticing, is dubious.
The Initiative Coalition is looking to the next six months and what they can accomplish within that time. They are not planning to run again in the spring and have structured their platform accordingly.
Cheers, however, is planning to run again. They look at this term as a warm-up for the next, and their proposed programs, namely to establish student credit accounts with the unions, the sale of lecture notes and under-age admittance, would probably need the extra term to be implemented. It seems foolish to waste this term on campaigning for the next. And if they should fail to win the next election, their good intentions will have been for naught.
Both platforms contain ideas that undoubtedly would improve the quality of student life at KU. The winning coalition's officers should not dismiss the ideas of their opponents; they should work to put as many of them as is feasible into motion.
The winners also should not be concerned with how to best serve their coalitions, but how to best serve the campus. And it is the Initiative Coalition that is best prepared to do just that.
He can't deny history
There is no question about what happened one summer during World War II in a place called Kozara, a region of West Bosnia in Yugoslavia. German and Italian soldiers killed more than 13,000 unarmed civilians and marched 68,000 more to concentration or forced-labor camps.
But the question that remained unanswered until recently was whether Kurt Waldheim, the president of Austria and former secretary-general of the United Nations, was involved in the killings.
Waldheim has denied being involved in the Nazi atrocities at Kozara. He has said he was also a "supply officer."
But according to documents released by the World Jewish
Congress last week, the Yugoslavs accused Waldheim in 1947 of "murders and exterminations; hostage executions; and deliberate destruction of property by setting settlements on fire."
This grim history cannot be denied by Waldheim and the Austrian people. It has not been forgotten by the survivors.
Waldheim denied it, chastised the congress and then changed his story again. But fast talk doesn't change hard fact.
Does Waldheim still hear the screams? Does he care?
The congress has urged Attorney General Edwin Meese III to bar Walkheim from entering the United States. There is no other option.
Facing the consequences
Was it any surprise that the Sandinistas would find U.S. flier Eugene Hasenfugs guilty of supplying weapons to the contras? Or that they would impose their maximum sentence of 30 years?
Hasentus is fortunate that a 30-year jail term is considered the maximum penalty, not a firing squad. At least he was given a lawyer and a trial. He also has the chance to appeal the decision.
Hasentus' only defense seemed to be that he thought his mission was backed by the U.S. government. The Reagan administration denied any such claim, and Hasenfus was left in Nicaragua with a downed plane and very incriminating cargo.
Niearaguan President Daniel Ortega has said that he was not considering a prisoner
exchange, nor should the United States.
If he truly believed running arms had the blessings of the administration, he surely must have known the risk of getting captured would not be lessened by having government backing.
In any case, the United States has laws against fighting in foreign wars. Would the administration stick its neck out for an U.S. drug smuggler caught by a foreign government? Surely a smugger's business is just as illegal and deadly as to the weapons Hasenfus flew to Nicaragua.
If the administration would arrange a deal with Ortega for Hasenfus, the flier should not be given a mere slap on the wrist. He should be prosecuted in this country as well for the laws he has broken.
News staff
News staff
Lanureta McMillan ... Editor
Kady McMaster ... Managing editor
Tad Clarke ... News editor
David Silverman ... Editorial editor
John Hanna ... Campus editor
Frank Haniel ... Sports editor
Jocki Kelly ... Photo editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
David Nixon ... Business manager
Gregory Koul ... Retail sales manager
Denise Stephens ... Campus sales manager
Sally Depew ... Classified manager
Lisa Weems ... Production manager
Buncany Corbun ... National sales manager
Beverly Kastens ... Traffic manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Don't bet on Democratic good will
Don't bet the rent on post-election declarations by Democrats that they will work with rather than against President Reagan in the last two years of his White House tenure.
Arnold Sawislak UPI Commentary
The Democrats said much the same thing about President Eisenhower 28 years ago when they clobbered the Republicans in the congressional elections. They kept saying so for two veto-filed years until John F. Kennedy won the presidency on the promise to "get the country moving again."
Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Democratic leader Lydon B.
The Democrats in 1958 increased their House strength from 232 to 283 seats and regained control of the Senate. jumping from 49 to 64 seats.
Johnson declared they wanted to work with Eisenhower. They did it by welcoming his legislative program and then thoroughly rewriting it to suit themselves.
This was one of the reasons Eisenhower finished his second term with 201 vetoes, more than any other president except the pugnacious Harry Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in the White House for more than 12 years.
There are a lot of differences between 1958 and 1986, but there is one obvious similarity. The Democrats then and the Democrats now must deal with a president who popularity remained very high even while his party's congressional candidates were being whipped.
Rayburn and Johnson would have snorted at the suggestion that they paid attention to public relations. In truth, they were just plain shrewd and well aware that public opinion was a key factor in political success.
the momentum he had maintained since 1932 when he tried in his second term to ramrod his Supreme Court packing plan through Congress and attempted to purge his party of dissident Democrats.
So the two Texans, who could be mule-stubborn when it suited them, put on such a good show of collaboration that some Democratic liberals spent more time damning than fighting the Republicans. But when it came time to elect a new president, the Republicans could not pin on the congressional Democrats the obstructionist label that Truman used to whip the GOP in 1940.
They had, after all, seen FDR lose
With Robert Byrd of West Virginia set to lead Senate Democrats again and Jim Wright of Texas a leading candidate for House Speaker, some elements are in place for a repetition of 1958-60, which, it is worth noting, was the last time any president was serving a seventh and eighth year in office.
There are some salient differences between the Democrats now and then. Even if Byrd and Wright could match Johnson and Rayburn for know-how and craftiness, they will not have the same kind of army behind them as the two Texans had.
Party unity, seniority and leadership authority meant something in the House and Senate back then Rayburn, with the support of baronial committee chairmen, ruled the House like a monarch by divine right. Johnson, though a relative youth in the Senate, got his way by brokering the interests of political giants willing to let the brash Texan do the work they did not deign to undertake.
In any case, both men appeared to have more power than the Democratic leaders of the 100th Congress are likely to command. That may make even the appearance of cooperation more difficult to project in the next two years.
Americans stop the smoke
Regardless of the number of tobacco farmers who have become financially strapped during the interval, it doesn't seem possible a whole decade has passed since the first Great American Smokeout was observed.
Dick West
UPI Commentary
Yet, the American Cancer Society assures anyone who will listen that this week's event will be the 10th annual Smokeout, and I can't argue. The society, after all, is the sponsor and presumably keeps an accurate count.
Nevertheless, it says, 54 million Americans still smoke and "will be given a variety of fun ways to kick the habit for the day."
I can tell you that almost any way you kick the habit is fun. Almost as much fun as trying to strike a headless match.
I enjoyed it so much I kept going for more than a day. And I didn't even have a pack of headless paper matches to laugh about.
The society says "anyone who quit smoking during the past 10 years will be treated as a celebrity" during this year's Smokeout on Nov. 20.
I suppose I quit too long ago to qualify.
I am told that the six-time Smokeout chairman, television's Larry Hagman of the "Dallas" series, brought national attention to the smoking problems of women last year by "adopting" a California nurse for the day.
That could be even more fun than snapping an elastic wristband every time you feel like lightning up.
I guess there weren't enough female smokers to go around.
The society reports that the Smokeout set an all-time record last year when more than 23 million persons tried to kick the habit for the day. But since it didn't, alas, break that figure down according to sex and occupation, I can't say what percentage of the 23 million consisted of California nurses.
I personally have never tried lighting up a carrot, even with a headless paper match. Therefore, I am unable to attest to how much fun that might be. But, believe me, the texture of the vegetable is quite different from any smokeless tobacco I
The society does tell us, however, that Smokeout 1985 was observed in a number of ways, including a "spitout" to point up the hazards of smokeless tobacco and urging smokers to choose a carrot instead.
Don't try to get your kicks by bickering smokers. According to the factsheet, "Everyone tries to be especially kind to smokers who are trying to quit. It's a time of light-hearted fun." That's opposed to heavy-hearted fun. I suppose.
Smokeout 1985 was observed in a number of ways, including a "spitout" to point up the hazards of smokeless tobacco.
ever saw.
In addition to suggesting ways that smokers can have fun kicking the habit, the Society provides a fact-sheet telling "how to help a friend quit on Smokeout Day."
One means of being light-hearted is to give up something that day, too. The Society mentions candy and desserts, but since I seldom partake of either, I don't think it would be playing the game to give them up.
Instead, I plan to give up helping smokers for the day. Even California nurses.
Mailbox Election woes
The losers of the coming Student Senate election have already been chosen. They are the students. A lack of issues and strong candidates have left the Jayhawks with no one to support. The coalitions' candidates have been unable to distinguish themselves from one another, and both sides have struggled to find issues.
How poignant that a coalition sponsoring underage admittance to taverns should call itself "CHEERS!" "CHEERS!" gulp gulp, "Cheers, and we'll run again -- win or lose!" "CHEERS!" burn "CHEERS!"
And how poignant that another coalition, calling itself "Initiative," runs on its experience. Yes, as history has proved in this case, campus safety has "experienced" life in precious campus elections. The apartment guide Initiative sponsors is already "experiencing" life as a service of the Office of Residential Programs.
Who benefits from Student Senate? The students or the company that supplies the paper for the documentation of those oh-so important weekly changes in the rules, regulations and legislation? Or is it the Kansas Union Bookstore, which provides the ree and blue three-ring "leadership" notebooks? The veteran senators have a rainbow of colors adorning their shelves or car trunks.
What ever happened to issues, issues, issues? Hilltop Child Care KU on Wheels and Robinson Center are statuses symbols of bygone Senates.
Or maybe it's those at the Hawk's Nest who quench the thirst of those dry-mouthed, debating senators. Kansas Power and Light also benefits from the power they use at the meetings that run until 2:00 a.m.
2. 604 I encourage you all to vote for the best candidates, whoever they may be.
Some day, KU's Student Senate will have top candidates who propose issues to serve the students. Until then, the MOMENTUM will increase and COMMON SENSE will become a REALITY. And students will be able to EXPRESS their UNITY at a COSTUME PARTY eating FRESH VEGETABLES which will trigger a premonition of a blazing FRONTIER.
Kip Brinkman Meade senior