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Tuesday, October 28, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Opinions
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Branson proven as KU's representative
Of the races for positions in the Kansas State Legislature, the 44th District campaign is the one of greatest concern to KU students. The 44th District representative serves most of the western half of Lawrence north of 23rd Street, including Stauffer Place, Jayhawker Towers, most fraternities and sororities and all KU residence halls except Joseph R. Pearson Hall.
The 44th District incumbent, Democrat Jessie Branson, should be re-elected. The representative of such a constituency should be a faithful advocate of the University and its students, and Branson has proven that she fits this description.
Branson, 65, is a 1942 KU graduate. She has the benefit of six years of experience in the Legislature. She serves on the Legislature's Education Committee and helped increase salaries for faculty, student teachers, and state employees.
Her opponent, Chris Miller, 35, is a Lawrence
lawyer who graduated from KU in 1972 and received a law degree from KU in 1983. He has said that Branson doesn't provide responsive leadership to her constituents. But this charge misrepresents her political approach.
Branson believes that representatives are elected to use their own judgment. But even so, she has said that she decided not to follow the opinions of her constituents only twice — when she voted against having the lottery and the parimutuel amendments included on the ballot Nov. 4.
Miller has cited the decrease in financing for higher education as a percentage of the state's general fund budget as evidence of the Legislature's lack of support for KU. But this shouldn't reflect badly on Branson's role in the Legislature. Her experience and record as a KU advocate and responsible leader make her worthy of re-election.
John Solbach has served the voters of the 45th district for the past eight years, and his experience and track record make him the most promising choice to represent that district in the Kansas House of Representatives for yet another term.
Experience distinguishes Solbach
The races between Solbach and Parker have consistently been classy ones, with a great deal of grass roots campaigning and a zealous effort to get out and get in touch with the people of their district.
Solbach, the Democratic incumbent, is facing Republican Martha Parker for the second time. He defeated Parker in the 1984 election.
Mudslinging has rarely, if ever, entered the picture and both candidates have been gracious opponents.
Despite Parker's polls and claims, Solbach's representation of that district during his past four terms has been excellent.
During the past six years, Solbach has served on seven committees in the Legislature, including Energy and Natural Resources, Agriculture and Judiciary. He also sat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which deals with every budget issue.
One indication of the satisfaction of his constituents, he points out, is the fact that he has been re-elected by a larger number of voters in each election.
Solbach has consistently looked out for the concerns of Kansas farmers and higher education in his sessions at the Legislature and he now supports a salary increase for faculty members here at the University.
It is the valuable experience he has gained in this trusted position that has earned John Solbach the 45th district's vote on Nov. 4 and a chance to return to Topeka to continue his fine work in the Legislature.
Charlton the only choice in the 46th
the race is for the 46th district House of Representatives; the candidates, the incumbent Democratic Rep. Betty Jo Charlton and Republican challenger Ben Casad.
There are strong undercurrents moving in one local race that have caused little more than a few ripples of publicity.
Charlton, 63, has lived in Lawrence for 41 years and has served the 46th district for seven of those as a member of the House of Representatives. She received bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from the University of Kansas.
Casad, 29, grew up in Lawrence. He attended KU for two years and recently resigned his job working a campus vending machine route to dedicate more time to his campaign.
Charlton has said she opposed the sin amendments — liquor by the drink, pari-mutuel betting and the lottery — because she does not believe they will bolster the state's economy the way advocates say they will.
Casad said he was in favor of the amendments. Casad has questioned Charlton's concern for
the economic and employment condition of the district. He has said the district had a "serious" unemployment record, but he could not cite what the unemployment rate was. Casad added that "quite a few" people in the 46th district were either employed in marginal jobs or were underemployed.
Charlton, in an off-the-cuff remark, suggested in a debate between the two that Casad should consider running for a spot on the Chamber of Commerce instead. She should not have said it. The comment did not address the issues Casad raised.
Casad had asked some valid questions. He failed, however, to do the research to back his stance. His lack of preparedness is not a trait desirable in a representative.
Casad should be commended for his willingness to run for a seat he knows he has little chance of winning. His willingness, however, is not enough to carry him against the seven years of experience and record of public service that Charlton has.
Fresh approach is best for the 43rd
Bob Miller's platform is straightforward:
Don't listen to everything you hear. Make your own assessment of an issue.
Bob Miller, the Democratic challenger in the race for the 43rd District seat in the Kansas House of Representatives, combines a refreshing mix of high ideals and practical sense that makes him an easy choice to unseat three-term Republican incumbent David Miller.
Miller, 52. a sociology professor at Baker University in Baldwin, graduated from Ohio Northern University in 1957 and earned master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago in 1968 and 1974.
He contends that the government's drug war has been used to cover up for the economic and agricultural problems that hit hardest in Kansas, yet are never attended to. He's right in suggesting that drugs may be a problem, but there are more serious issues that must be attended to first.
He opposes the death penalty because he thinks that it does not deter crime and could lead to the deaths of innocent men.
Bob Miller knows that education is important and proposed that the state do more to pay for it; he suggests the state pay for 50 percent of the state education costs. Some of the money for education should come from a proposed federal tax for education, Miller said.
Vitally needed economic growth should come from high technology industries he would seek to bring to Kansas. It's a tall order, but if successful, it would help shift the state's economic base away from volatile agriculture and heavy industry.
It's not complicated, but Bob Miller's platform is comprehensive and easily supported. Send Bob Miller to Topeka, and we can expect a change for the better.
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Endorsements
The Kansan Editorial Board met and voted on candidate and issue endorsements. These endorsements will appear on the editorial page for the rest of this week.
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On the issue of capital punishment, the board reached an evenly split vote. Consequently, endorsements may mention the candidates' stand on capital punishment when it is applicable, but the issue was not a determining factor in any Kansan endorsement.
Unfair trip to the Outhouse
In response to the Oct. 17 Kansan article "A Trip to the Outhouse."
We have uttered names, different skin tones and different hair colors and styles. We like different breakfast cereals, wallpaper patterns, seat coverings and music. Robin Leach vs. Dan Rather: who do you like? Dan will tell you which leader is invading what country, but Robin will tell you where they bought their fatigues and what shoes they wore.
It is a big world. We are only a small part of it. We are the public libraries in the national budget of life.
Christopher Cunnyngham
Columnist
We form groups, banding together like children afraid to go out alone in the dark. Strength in numbers, said the man. Join something.
to entertain the majority, who will find it fascinating because it is so removed from their own."
In America, "If you're not one of us, then you're one of them. And since there are more of us than you, we're the majority, popular opinion. The newspapers cater to us and the television sells us valuable products wrapped in shiny packages designed to please us.
“And if you're one of them, if you don't share our ideas and concepts of reality? Well, you're an outcast and will be scrutinized. Your life hold up
This is what happened in the story on the Ooutheuse and its patrons in the Oct. 17 Kansan. It bothers me.
Attempting to classify people by their haircuts is a pretty big step and will look very silly on the government census. It is too simple. It's a cop out. To illustrate my point I present, for the first time anywhere, excerpts from my unpublished masterpiece of gonzo journalism, "A trip to the Wheel."
"They wore strange clothes. The girls dressed like characters from a Louisa May Alcott novel, the guys dressed entirely from the Boring-R Us catalogue (fall edition). They wore plaid, strange plaid, plaid from Hell.
"Sometimes I really like to cut loose," said Overland Park sophomore Skippy Weejun. "That's when I'll wear some pretty outrageous plaid."
"'And the music of our scene is pretty wild, too.' added a freshman girl who asked that her name not be used because she wants to enter a sorority. 'If my parents knew that I was into Phil Collins, or punk groups like Mr. Mister, they'd throw a fit.' (Note: While researching this article at great peril to my own life, I noticed a strange tribal custom. It seems that the women of the Wheel have taken to labeling their buttocks with Greek letters, much like branded cattle.)"
This wasn't a fair characterization, was it? But you can see how easily it can be done. And you can do it with any group; they can be milkmen or gameshow hosts. It is painfully simple to take any group of people and their customs out of context, and the result is an image that makes them appear to be strange.
Any of these stories would be similar to the one on the Outhouse: "The strange lives of accountants; they add numbers all day," or perhaps "Crazed student up all night studying physics." "Coffee helps," said one wacky pupil.
Of course they are. Why was it doubted? Why should these people have to justify the way they have chosen to live their lives or cut their hair?
One person was quoted in the Outhouse story as saying the people who often went there weren't "weird, as they were often thought to be." He said they were "thoughtful and intelligent people."
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
The Outhouse crowd has been labeled as "sub- or counter-culture." They are neither. They are culture.
They do not need newspaper stories to explain or justify their way of life. They are not worse than "straight society." They are not better. They are people making decisions on how to live their lives just like everyone else. It's a life, not a lifestyle.
RONNIE and the REAGANOMICS
Tennessee's good ol' booze
I mention this because I considered it more anomalistic, if not interesting, than anything on the
One of the country's leading distillers and a "saloon" both are located in the same dry county in Tennessee.
Dick West
When they talk business, those judges may confuse each other, but when they play!
It takes, I was told, at least 2,500 people to repeal prohibition, and Moore County has never had that large a population.
one of the recreation events was a barbecue at Lynchburg with the Jack Daniel Distillery as host That was when I learned certain truths about Moore County.
UPI Commentary
formal agenda of October's National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges at Nashville.
Along with the rest of the state and country, the county went "dry" when the 18th Amendment was approved, but unlike most of
Moreover, I was told, it takes a lot of money to change a sign on a plate glass window. So, the White Rabbit Saloon is still designated as a hotbed of libation although it serves mainly coffee and soft drinks with food.
next door, at the Lynchburg Hardware and General Store, customers can buy a soft drink for a dime. As the emporium's motto says: "All goods are worth the price charged."
Lynchburg, the townpeople say, used to be known as the "Mule Capital of the South." That was in the early 1900s and the mules I saw must have looked very much as mules looked then. So, for that matter, do the townpeople
the rest of the state and nation, it didn't become "wet" again after the amendment was repealed about two decades later.
Being in a dry county poses no great problem at the distillery, the town's major industry.
When I asked a tour guide how much liquor is shipped out each day, he told me, "All we ain't drunk up."
Another said Lynchburg (pop. 361) was so small "we all take turns" at being the town drunk.
Asked why the population has stayed so steadily, I was told that "every time a baby is born, a man's got to leave town."
One Friday each month, I learned, all distillery workers are given a sample to take home. As a guide said, the plant never has "much trouble with absenteeism that day."
Those guides are real characters in a "good of boy" way. Despite the redneck humor, it was good to spend some time in their company as comic relief.
They soon had me slapping my knee, I can tell you. Which is more than I can say for the rest of the conference.
How do they get their jobs in the first place? Our guide told our tour group that most start at the distillery fixing leaks in the whiskey barrels.
"It's when you quit fixing leaks and start kissing the barrels that they make you a tour guide," he explained.
Mailbox
Food for thought
Michael O'Rourke, in your letter "Columnist's fantasy" you looked at the food problem from the wrong point of view. The bulk of U.S. aid goes to our military and political allies, including some of the world's most repressive regimes. The aid usually helps strengthen the local elites, whose control over land and productive resources generated the poverty in the first place.
In order to answer questions about hunger, it is necessary to focus on the economic and political forces that determine what is planted and who eats it. In other words, hunger and poverty are not the real problems; they are merely manifestations of the root cause of so much trouble in the world: the lack of power and the inability of powerless people to secure what they need (irrigation, credit, improved seeds, roads, etc.)
Moreover, in our own country, we
Ted Millich Lawrence junior
So, Mike. our role isn't to go into other countries to "set things right." How can we aid others when there is so much that needs to be done here and now? The only way that power will be more democratically shared is if you and I take more of it for ourselves. The challenge to each of us is to make ourselves capable of shouldering that responsibility. Our forefathers have left us with some mess. Let's make the best of it. After all, we are in this for the long haul.
are taking part in the destruction of our resources and helping to foster the centralization of the economic power. For example, 90 percent of instant breakfast cereal sales are controlled by three companies: Kellogg's, General Mills and General Foods. This results in "shared monopolies" which overcharge consumers and produce foods that are geared toward profit and not health.
Faculty thanks
On behalf of the Thesis and Dissertation Support Group, I would like to thank the Kansan for the nice editorial in the Oct 15 Kansan, "Cesarian support." It was particularly gratifying to be noted for our potential to retain KU graduate students during an often-difficult part of their training.
The support group is offered through the services of the University Counseling Center. It is open to KU graduate students who are currently working on a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation in any academic department or discipline. Group membership is free and confidential. Anyone who is interested is encouraged to call the Counseling Center for more information (864-3931).
Joan P. Cesari
Associate professor of psychology