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Monday, November 17, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Opinions
Cold winter, warm hearts
Mom and Dad sent the rem check and even helped pay for some of the food in the fridge. It's 20 degrees outside and the snow is blowing, but it doesn't matter because the heat's on comfortable, warm, secure
Now imagine that it's all gone. The apartment, food, heat and comfort. Welcome to the plight of the homeless.
The Lawrence City Commission last week approved the Salvation Army's request to use their gymnasium this winter as a shelter for Lawrence's homeless. The shelter, which opened Wednesday, will be open each day at nightfall and will remain open until 8 a.m.
Lt. Dave Jones of the Salvation Army said 120 volunteers would staff the shelter, two each night. But it operates on a volunteer basis and will stay open only if at least two people show up to chaperone the gymnasium.
Without the chaperones, there is no reason to have a
shelter. And although a fairly large number of people have volunteered, that number will probably dwindle.
That's where students and faculty come into the picture.
The Salvation Army can use more help. Volunteer your time to help chaperone the shelter. If you can't give your time, give blankets, clothes, anything will help.
Out of an era in which the average citizen seemingly had given up hope of righting the wrongs of the world came the story of the Great Peace March.
From sea to shining sea
Lawrence needs the shelter, and the Salvation Army is providing a worthwhile service. They say they have not put a limit on the number of nights people can stay at the shelter, and that's good. But it is only with the help of volunteers that the program can survive. Volunteer your time.
Without us, the homeless will literally be out in the cold. Jones said volunteers have to attend an orientation and training sessions with the police department and Alcoholics Anonymous. But the training is short and the investment is a valuable one.
It was a story about an impossible dream that succeeded. The marchers made a statement in favor of global nuclear disarmament — a grassroots demand for deliverance from the threat of nuclear war.
Participants overcame considerable hardship and adversity during their 3,500-mile, eight-month walk. It almost ended only 10 days after it began when 700 marchers abandoned the movement in the Mojave Desert. Organizers filed for bankruptcy.
But after regrouping with supplies and money from their base in an auto graveyard in Barstow, Calif., about 500 people resumed the march. Their odyssey ended Saturday with a rally at Lafayette Square, site
of a five-year anti-nuclear vigil across from the White House.
This rekindling of latent activism for peace in the United States is encouraging Efforts such as these can help to reawaken a callous nation to the inhumanity and immorality of the arms race.
The Great Peace Marchers reminded us that inaction represents tacit approval of the tyranny of nuclear weapons — approval of the U.S. and Soviet governments' threats to commit mass murder. The marchers chose to affirm life and security, and to reject reliance on the balance of terror.
Obstacles to peace are formidable, and "realists" will say the "idealists" marched in vain. But if other citizens, even, dare we hope, world leaders, are eventually dissuaded from pursuing a path toward global suicide, the peace marchers will deserve some of the credit.
Study for life
Advances in medical technology have opened the door to a new study of ethics for doctors who treat pregnant women. Through amniocentesis, amnotic fluid can be removed from a mother's uterus as early as the 16th week of pregnancy, to determine the baby's sex and to detect any birth defects. Laser surgery and improved surgical techniques can be used today to correct problems at birth that just a few years ago would have killed the baby.
These advances create heavy moral and ethical problems for doctors and the parents of children who are born severely handicapped. Finding out how parents solve these problems is a part of a three-year research project titled "Decision-making and Treatment of Handicapped Newborns."
The project, financed by a $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Handicapped Research, will take place for
the next three years. University of Kansas researchers will focus on three groups: newlywed couples, parents who have had a handicapped child, and doctors and nurses.
This year, 70 newlyweds were asked to decide whether or not newborns with severe birth defects should be given corrective surgery. Most couples said they would have the infant treated, no matter what sex the child was, although most of them envisioned the handicapped boys as being better able to deal with life in a wheelchair than the girls.
A 1984 federal lists failure to treat an infant with life-threatening birth defects as child neglect. And although most KU students are more concerned with getting through finals than with thoughts of the children they might have some day, this research may become all-important to them and others in the future.
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Student Senate candidates, platforms
Brady Stanton and Kelly Milligan, presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Cheers Coalition
Responsibility. Integrity Adherence to facts. Cheers!
We've concentrated on presenting solid, innovative and workable services. Our opponents, however, have concentrated only
Brady Stanton and Kelly Milligan Cheers Coalition
on making petty attacks on our proposals. It's time to set the record straight.
Our platform consists of programs that address umset student needs. They have been proven effective at other universities and have been specifically tailored to work at KU. These programs can be implemented in this shortened term, as was proven by this year's Student Senate.
Tipsy Taxi. Course Source and the Student Lecture Series were implemented within six months of last year's election. The key people behind the development of these programs are now the driving force behind the Cheers platform.
Our emergency short-term loan program, modeled after an extremely successful program at the University of Alabama, will provide no interest loans of $15-$100.
Initiative candidate Michael Anderson, a KU law student, asserts that this violated Kansas banking regulations. We have contacted the Kansas State Banking Board, the State Office of the Consumer Credit Commissioner, Legal Services for Students and one of the largest Midwestern law firms, all of whom indicated this allegation was false and this program could be implemented easily and in accordance with all relevant regulations. Don't be fooled. Trust the facts.
Our proposed Lecture Notes
Series is modeled after an enormously successful program at UCLA. Course notes would be made available to students for a small fee. Documented evidence proves that students using this service enhance their academic performance.
Once again, our opponents claim this program would be in violation of KU's Code of Academic Conduct. Brower Burchill, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, has said that this allegation is unfounded.
Finally, Cheers will push for a city ordinance to allow those under the legal drinking age to enter tavern. In several small college towns, including Manhattan, Emporia, and Norman, Okla., this system works well.
Although skeptical at first, city officials and tavern owners are now very supportive of their ordinances. Enforcement problems are minimal. Allowing those under age to enter taverns to socialize has lead to a drastic reduction in fake LD use and drunk driving because of readily available "designed drivers" in taverns.
Our opponents attack this proposal as unfeasible. However, armed with this evidence, KU students can successfully lobby for this change.
The people who made this year's Student Senate a success are ready to do it again. Experience comes from successful, productive involvement, not a tedious list of appointed positions. You annually pay a $56 activity fee that goes to Student Senate. We give you a return on that investment.
One final thought. Why have our opponents devoted so much time and effort to negative campaigning? Don't they have more to offer the voters? When you vote for Cheers you know what you are getting
Proven success.
Cheers! To a better year!
Betsy Bergman and Stephanie Quincy, presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Initiative Coalition
Initiative. The name says it all. The American Heritage Dictionary defines initiative as the "power, ability or instinct to begin or follow through with a plan or task; enterprise and determination." We chose the name with
Betsy Bergman and Stephanie Quincy Initiative Coalition
care because only with initiative can we hope to accomplish our goals in the upcoming short term.
Instead of the usual one-year term of office, the switch to spring elections gives the next Student Senate session only six months.
A time frame of six months doesn't allow for a warm-up period. The new president, vice president and senators will have to hit the ground running. This is where experience counts.
Initiative's candidate for president, Betsy Bergman, is one of only three student representatives to the Senate Executive Committee, providing a valuable link between the students and administration. Betsy also has long experience in Senate and its standing committees.
Initiative's vice-presidential candidate, Stephanie Quincy, is currently the chair of the administrative committee of Student Senate, StudEx, and has served with the Associated Students of Kansas and University Council. With this kind of experience comes a thorough knowledge of the rules, regulations and procedures of the University governance system, the kind of knowledge that gets things done.
Initiative has an ambitious platform, including a carefully researched plan to expand, streamline and personalize the advising
system at KU. Our plan calls for more staff at the advising center, workshops for faculty advisers and publication of a special enrollment booklet designed to aid students in the enrolment process.
Like advising, housing affects every student at KU. Initiative has studied and planned a computer base for off-campus housing that will include current listings with price range, locations, average utilities, etc. Initiative's plan also calls for computerized roommate listings and assistance for housing, 'landlord and roommate conflicts.'
Other planks of Initiative's platform relate to the sound use of the student activity fee, including increased support for the programs that work, like SecureCab campus safety programs, long-term planning and reducing red tape and needless procedural delay in the Student Senate.
Initiative will also address graduate students' needs, including an increase in the travel fund. Initiative has chosen this platform in order to address the needs of the University most effectively.
Our platform can be implemented during the upcoming term. We aren't gambling with the chance for re-election in order to get things done.
We've done our homework and found out what can and cannot be done here at KU. Initiative doesn't rely on the good will of local politicians to change the law at our request.
Initiative's platform does not run the risk of violating KU's Code of Academic Conduct, or the banking and credit laws of Kansas.
Initiative's platform uses Student Senate to improve students' lives
All it takes is your vote for Initiative. Six months isn't a long time. We have a lot to accomplish, but we can do it with Initiative.
Administration should know better
This is a major question for the United States," one of those anonymous sources in the State Department was saying. "It has left us with no coherent policy on terrorism at all."
Paul Greenberg
Columnist
He was talking about this administration's decision to ransom American hostages by supplying Iran with sophisticated weaponry. The ayatollah's regime apparently wants such weapons so badly it's willing to do something decent — like use its influence to win the release of innocent people being held in Lebanon.
One can understand the faceless aide's consternation. For months now the United States has been urging its allies not to negotiate with terrorists. And now this country has been caught doing just that, no matter what unconvincing explanations are offered.
Donald Regan, White House chief of staff, acknowledged as much in the course of trying to stop reporters from asking nosy questions. "We're still negotiating," he cautioned. "Well, I'm not supposed to use that word. We're still talking with people to get hostages out." And not just taking, apparently, but shipping arms.
The administration used to know better. At least it used to talk better. In the midst of the crisis that developed last year over the hijacking of the TWA airliner, Ronald Reagan seemed to understand exactly what ransoming hostages would lead to — more hostages.
Back then, the president vowed that "America will never make concessions to terrorists. To do so would only invite more terrorism. Nor will we ask nor pressure any other government to do so. Once we head down that path, there will be no end to it — no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody冉-
som all civilized nations must pay."
matters thus pays. That's just how extortion works, and how yielding to it doesn't. It's almost a matter of supply and demand — the more this country is willing to pay for hostages, the surer it is that more will be seized. Once the rules of exchange are established, Lebanon's motley gangs need only go out and replenish their inventory.
why did the president change his mind? Clearly it wasn't on the advice of his secretary of defense or secretary of state. They may have their differences but both agree that trading with terrorists doesn't pay.
Another nameless source had this explanation, "There is a pressure that comes from our national sense of humanity, our softness about individual people in trouble. The president reacts that way, too, even though it doesn't track with his policy."
This is how another president, Jimmy Carter, got into an almost endless hostage crisis that paralyzed his administration. One would think
Yes, one can understand the temptation. The hostages being held have names, faces, families. The ones that will be seized to take their places are still only potential hostages, without a growing segment of public opinion clamoring for their release
presidents would learn. One would be wrong.
Like any other victim of blackmail, a president will want to believe that the first demand will be the last, and that if these hostages can be freed, it'll all be over. Like any victim of blackmail, he is likely to find out different. The demands do mount; the word does get out.
But this doesn't have to be a major disaster — not if the press continues to report and public outrage continues to mount. If this exchange of arms-for-innocents can be stopped soon enough and definitely enough, a lot of Americans who are free at the moment will stay free.
If it can be made clear that it won't
pay to kidnap Americans, they won't
be kidnapped. The people who seize Americans for fun and profit understand about supply and demand. They may be fanatics, but they're not illogical.
The White House can still get out of this mess with only fleeting embarrassment — and public exposure can help. There is nothing like bright lights and explicit details to make an administration realize that if it had to keep this deal secret maybe that's because it's shameful. The press can continue to perform a public service by concentrating on the various stupidity involved in a piece of intrigue worthy of Inspector Clouser with an assist from S.J. Perelman.
The Common Market's decision to cut off arms to Syria indicated that Europe is awakening to the dangers of appeasement just as the United States is caught sucking to them. Traditionally it is Paris, not Washington that makes such deals. Now it is this country that is found negotiating with terrorism.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate