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Friday, October 24, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Efforts come to fruition
Two KU students are just about to pull off the Vietnam veterans benefit rock concert that they have been trying to get financed for more than a year.
Craig Krueger, Sioux City, Iowa, graduate student, and Reggie Estell, Overland Park law student, should be commended for their perserverance and dedication to a cause.
The efforts to bring to campus three big names - Stephen Stills, John Fogerty and George Thorogood and the Destroyers - have been a bit of a mess. The organizers of the concert attempted to get financing while at the same time waiting for letters of confirmation from the performers.
After being denied a $45,301 no-interest loan from KU's Student Senate Finance Committee, the two organizers went to the Paralyzed Veterans of
America group, which agreed to finance the concert. Their efforts also have received the support of basketball head coach Larry Brown.
The proceeds from the concert will go back to the national, non-profit veterans organization to create scholarships for the children of Vietnam veterans killed, disabled or missing in action or prisoners of war.
Why didn't the two students go to the veterans group in the first place? In their zeal to get the concert off the ground, the organizers brought media attention that probably hindered their chances of getting the financing from Student Senate.
But the organizers are finally seeing the fruits of their labor. They have the money, they just need to run with it and make the benefit into an event worthy of the time and work it took to get it off the ground.
Wake up, America
The oil glut has lauled America back to sleep, dreaming of a future filled with big cars and higher speed limits, low gas prices and plenty for all. It's an illusion, fantasy.
We've been mesmerized by sub-dollar gas prices and an overabundance of inexpensive heating oil. "Fat, dumb and happy." That's how Senator James McClure, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Energy Subcommittee, described energy-unconscious Americans.
Domestic oil companies, devastated by the glut, have closed field after field in Texas and Oklahoma. And oil imports have reached a six-year high. We imported 48 percent more oil in August 1986 than in August 1985, and some electric utilities are switching back to oil as its cost becomes competitive with coal and natural gas.
We're intoxicated and on a crash course with our dismal past.
Dependence on foreign oil
leads to vulnerability and higher prices and presents a risk to national security. We learned that the hard way in the 1970s and began national conservation. But Americans have a penchant for ignoring hindsight and it's clear that most of us have forgotten the gas lines and high prices, the recession, inflation and unemployment that accompanied outrageful fuel costs.
Experts have said that another oil crisis could occur within the next five years if we continue to increase our consumption of foreign oil. It's time to redouble our conservation effort. The only way to remain strong and maintain low fuel prices is to keep world oil prices low.
"Remember to set thermostats at a reasonable temperature." "Don't drive if you can walk." All those catchy phrases may seem outdated, but they're not. They are responsible for what we are today — fat and happy. Let's just not be dumb.
Hope for Geneva
Although the Iceland summit ended in disappointment, tales of how close Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev were to the greatest arms control deal in history raised the world's expectations for real progress soon. The superpowers are now under considerable pressure to accomplish something tangible in the traditionally stalemated Geneva talks.
Both Reagan and Gorbachev pulled out all the rhetorical stops in the aftermath of Reykjavik, each painting his rival as the one who killed the deal. Yes, the first opportunity was missed, but plenty of options remain very much alive.
The closest of these to reality is the proposal to remove all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Richard Perle, the Pentagon's chief arms control negotiator, predicts that such an agreement will be reached sometime next year.
Optimism is rare at the Geneva talks, and the summit's real accomplishment may well have been to breathe new life into the long-deadlocked negotiations there. But the flip side of the summit is the impasse on the Strategic Defense Initiative.
If SDI remains non-negotiable, arms reduction agreements will only go as far as the Soviets feel is prudent while the United States retains the potential, real or imagined, for a unilateral defense system. At Reykjavik, Gorbachev would have agreed to a 50 percent cut in strategic weapons in five years if the United States would confine SDI to the laboratory for the next 10 years. Shouldn't we at least have said we'd think about it?
News staff
News staff
Lauretta McMillen ... Editor
Kady McMaster ... Managing editor
Tad Clarke ... News editor
David Silverman ... Editorial editor
John Hanna ... Campus editor
Frank Hansel ... Sports editor
Jack Kelly ... Photo editor
Tom Eblin ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
David Nixon ... Business manager
Gregory Kaul ... Retail sales manager
Denise Stephens ... Campus sales manager
Claire Dugan ... Classified officer
Lisa Weems ... Production manager
Duncan Calhoun ... National sales manager
Beverly Kastens ... Traffic manager
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Opinions
Why he kept stealing cars, I don't know; maybe he needed the work. Anyway, I met him when he was released from prison. He had a job picking up trash around the loading dock where I worked.
The perfect crime is not insolvable, it is one you can write a book about and then sell the movie rights.
Crime doesn't pay, until you're caught
What's perfect is that the criminal makes more money than he would have had he gotten away with the crime. With a little luck, he might even make the talk show circuit.
You see, not everyone is born Mr. T or Brooke Shields. Some people have to actually do something before they can become a media celebrity and get paid the big bucks for standing around in front of a camera.
That's where the perfect crime comes in.
R. Foster Winans received a $35,000 advance for his book, "Trading Secrets: Seduction and Scandal at the Wall Street Journal." He also wrote several cases for conspiring with a stock broker on an inside buying scheme.
He shouldn't complain, there's talk that he may receive a six-ffigure payment.
During each lunch break, he'd repeat his life story to me. We weren't friends; he just liked to be familiar and he mistook my silence for interest.
Winans said the best job he ever had was being co-author of the "Heard it on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal. He lost this $31,000 a year job when the Securities and Exchange Commission nailed him with an indictment broker before the columns were published, which gave the broker an
advantage over the competition.
Winns made $30,000 in the scheme,
the broker and his pals made
$700,000.
Of course, Winans was sentenced to 18 months in prison. But if the movie deal goes through, it'll all have
Columnist
Gil Chavez
Winans isn't the only one who's made a mint after getting caught. He is part of a tradition that became a watergate conspirator among Watergate captives.
been worth it
While John Dean was still waging legal his legal battle, he was offered $250,000 for his account of Watergate. Oh sure, he went to prison but like most of the Watergate guys, he did much of his time in a "minimum security" prison, which is like living in JRP, except the rooms are nicer.
popular figure; everybody's talking about her as the "Lee Iacocca of Prostitution." She may even make as much money being a media celebrity as she did running a high-society prostitution ring.
Some crooks who become authors didn't even go to prison, Sydney Biddle Barrows, whose "Mayflower Madam" is third on the New York Times bestseller list, got away with only a fine. Barrows is now a
changed to protect the guilty. Willie was a convicted car thief.
A new celebrity is now in the making in Nicaragua. If he gets out of the jam he's in, innocent or not, Eugene Hasenus' story has all the classic flair that will become the next bestseller-soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture.
Hasenfus was arrested for gunrunning, but not in our country, which makes it a clean, almost white collar, crime. His story smacks of political intrigue. His wife said he was working for the CIA, but the CIA said he wasn't.
He could call his book, "U.S. Patriot in Nicaragua: How I was Abandoned by the CIA."
This was Willie's problem. Willie is not his real name; his name has been
Actually, I felt sorry for the guy.
He was broken and dazed over his mistress.
But really, if he'd been smart, he would have taken the proper marketing approach. To paraphrase Barrows, crime is a commodity. In order to sell, it has to have style so that people buy the book or see the movie.
The way people are cleaning up on getting caught, I'm sure Willie, if he's still alive, is kicking himself for missing his opportunity. Who knows? If he'd written a book, he might have made the talk show circuit.
Hypocrisy is liberal free speech
Let me rephrase that.
There is no freedom of speech on campus.
There is no freedom of speech on college campuses.
Victor Goodpasture
Columnist
I finally realized this the other day when conservative activist Phyllis Schlafy came to KU to debate radical feminist Sarah Weddington on the "Issues of the '80s."
Irving Kristol, a professor at the
When Weddington spoke, nobody interrupted him, kissed, or held up his phone.
If the films "Rambo" or "Red Dawn" were ever to be shown on campus (I doubt the University would permit it), there probably would be protesters demanding the films not be shown. Which side, one wonders, would the Kansan editorial board take?
But when Schlafly spoke, students were rude. They were loud and disruptive as they booed and laughed at her. At times it was impossible to hear what she had to say because of all the noise.
That's what the liberals call freedom of speech. What matters to them is that their agenda gets the right deal with moderates and conservatives.
For example, several weeks ago, about 150 people protested the showing of the film "Hail Mary." A Kansan editorial headline read, "In-tolerant of free speech."
If you give an opinion that doesn't match the left wing's, then you're considered closed-minded.
That's the sorry state of the First Amendment on the nation's campuses.
What did a former left-wing scholar have to say about the current state of our universities?
But didn't those protesters have a right to speak out? Or is that right spoken out?
New York University Graduate School of Business and a senior follow of the American Enterprise Institute, said in a Wall Street Journal story, "It does seem strange does it not? Here we have one of the most popular presidents of this century, a conservative presidency over a nation that has unquestionably become more conservative in recent years, and our major universities seem to be living in some kind of time warp, still casting their votes for George McGovern. The explanation is simple: These universities are living in a time warp, in a kind of self-imposed exile from American realities."
Example? The left screamed censorship when it learned that people were actually taking notes on the garbage they were teaching. Accuracy in Academia has never endorsed censorship of any kind. They merely reported on ideologically motivated teachings that slant to the left. These teachings are still trapped in a time warp. For this, the left screams censorship.
When was the last time a truly conservative speaker came to campus? When Schlafly came, she was accompanied by an opposing viewpoint. This hasn't been the case with liberal speakers.
Who's censoring whom?
There have been a couple of conservatives who came to KU this year, but you probably don't know about it because the Kansan didn't cover them.
One of them was Charles Wiley, who came to KU in February. Wiley is a veteran journalist who has appeared in countless newspapers, magazines, and television broadcasts, and he's one of the ones to speak on how the media selectively decides what it wants to cover — exactly what the Kansan did.
Two years ago, a student rescued from Grenada came to campus to talk about the rescue from his own experiences. Can you believe that the Kansan didn't cover it? Can you possibly imagine the Kansan doing that to a liberal of the same magnitude? Why if that were to ever happen, the left would rock Mount Oread with cries of censorship.
Even I haven't been beyond the wrath of the Kansan.
My opinion on the funding of gay and lesbian organizations appeared in September issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Apparently the Kansas editorial board didn't approve of my comments.
From that interview in Rolling Stone, a Kansan editorial concluded
that my views did "little to help give the University an image as a free-thinking, open-minded institute."
Oh, I get it. If you give an opinion that doesn't match the left wing's.
While they scream for freedom of speech, they themselves are plotting censorship.
then you're considered closed minded and against the free exchange of ideas.
But KU isn't alone when it comes to this left-wing hypocrisy.
Last spring, Northwestern University invited Nicaraguan contra leader Adolfo Calero to speak.
Students and faculty members rushed the stage. Someone threw blood on him. One professor grabbed the microphone and yelled, "He has no right to speak here . . . he'll be lucky if he gets out of here alive!" Not surprisingly, the speech was canceled.
Also last spring, at the University of California at Berkeley, leftist radicals destroyed the pro-life film "Silent Scream" that was being shown by Maranatha Christian Ministries.
Gosh, I guess that just wasn't horrible enough to evoke any outrage from the media.
The list of conservatives who were shouted down, disinvited or attacked at large and even small U.S. colleges and universities goes on and on.
The new liberal hypocrisy is that while they scream for freedom of speech, they themselves are plotting censorship on people and ideas that don't match their own.
This censorship against other ideas is setting a dangerous precedent.
But as the violence and censorship against conservatives continues, the media remain strangely silent.
You better believe that if some radical leftist is ever shouted down by students, the next morning's newspaper headlines would cry out about students' intolerance to different ideas.
There seems to be no end to this hypocritical double standard.
President Reagan is giving his all to the midterm political campaign to help Republicans retain control of the Senate.
He wants the "Reagan Revolution" to continue after he has left the White House, and by electing candidates who share his conservative philosophy, he believes that can be done.
Helen Thomas
UPI Commentary
Reagan also has had to compromise, accepting less money than asked for on defense and more money. Superand to clean up toxic wastes.
But Reagan has not always had his way, even with a Republican majority in the Senate. He and the majority parted company on tough sanctions against South Africa to show America's repugnance, as Reagan has often put it, against apartheid, the system of racial segregation.
But Reagan has won many legislative battles by virtue of his pardon.
Every president has done it. And in the majority of cases, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to say no to the president.
Reagan is determined to make his second term dynamic and not to cater to potential successors waiting in the wings. His high profile on most issues indicates that he does not want to be counted out.
So his ambition and drive has not abated. And he has set aside the final week of the midterm election campaign to be available to lend support to Republican candidates who may be on the ropes. It is difficult to remember a president who has done so much campaigning for his party.
It's no secret; he enjoys the hustles. He likes to make speeches, and he has a staff that provides the red, white and blue settings where he feels very much at home. They lift his spirits, and his style is easy, affable and confident.
When Reagan has needed Democratic support to show a solid front in foreign policy, he has urged unity and bipartisanship. But when he is on the stump, all that is forgotten.
He does not mind accusing those who want to cut his military budget of endangering national security. As a leader in the U.S., he no matter, he wants total support.
He has said on several occasions that the Soviets are waiting to win from dissension in the United States what they cannot achieve at the bargaining table.
His relationship with House Speaker Thomas O'Neill is a case in point. They made up and broke up more times than young lovers. But in the end they were philosophically at odds.
Politics being adversarial at best, it is understandable that when the president wants to help Republicans, he can take a step to go for the Democratic ingenuity.
The president, who undoubtedly will campaign for the Republican presidential candidate, whoever he is, has scoffed at those who think he will retire to his California mountain after his later White House days are over.
Sure, he will spend time there, writing a book, maybe a column, joining corporations, going on the lecture circuit, as past presidents do. But political person that he is, is no question that he will be on the campaign trail whenever the call comes.