Punt man
In an extroverted sport, Kansas punter Rich Inieth remains an introvert. Rieth, a junior college transfer, currently is ranked 16th in the country.
Story, page 11
The Cheap Rocket Club, a group of engineering students, is working on building a rocket. After completing their 3-foot models, they will build a full-size rocket. The club hopes someday to launch their final creation into space.
Space cadets
Wet it be
Story, page 3
Today will be mostly cloudy with a high temperature in the low 60s. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with chance of light rain and a low temperature around 50. Tomorrow also will be cloudy.
Details, page 3
Vol. 97, No. 44 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Thursday
October 23,1986
Kurt Vonnegut, the author of such novels as "Slaughter-House Five" and "Breakfast of Champions," discussed today's political bureaucracy.
Vonnegut fills Hoch with fans emotions
By NANCY BARRE
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. says he is the only person who benefited from the bombing of Dresden, Germany, in World War II.
He benefited in royalties from his book, "Slaughter-House Five," which is based on his experiences as a prisoner of war in Germany.
'I can assure you that no one benefited from the bombing of Dresden. No side benefited.'
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Author
"I figured out that I got about $3 for every one that was killed," he said last night in a speech that received a record-breaking amount of praise because of about 8,000 in Hoeh Audtmann.
"I can assure you that no one benefited from the bombing of Dresden. No side benefited. To be on the ground and see what that type of revenge looks like is discouraging — to see children and old people killed."
Novegnut gave his opinion on everything from the Reagan administration to religion to interpretive writing.
Throughout the speech, however, he stressed the need for world peace and the need to continue fighting for liberty in the United States.
Vonnegut, 64, was born in Indianapolis and educated at Cornell University and the University of Chicago. He said he grew up in a generation of pacifists, when manufacturers of weapons were called "merchants of death."
It wouldn't be a bad idea if more Americans expressed those sentiments today, he said.
"The only reason Reagan and his supporters like Star Wars." Vonnegut said, "is because it makes an awful lot of money for an awful lot of people.
"It doesn't matter that it's just junk. A whole lot of people are going to die."
Vernongead said that even though the United States had made great strides toward liberty in his lifetime, especially in the area of civil rights, Americans needed to remain on
guard in order to keep their civil rights.
Nomveng, whose books often have been the targets of proponents of censorship, said Americans were becoming too dependent on television and particularly reliant on what he called a centralized television media.
He said a society that glorified television naturally glorified actors.
He said he thought that because Reagan and the three major televi-
were good actors, the public tended to believe what they said — true or false
"People believe whatever they say, no matter how preposterously they behave," Vonnegut said.
He said that the media often presented only one point of view.
actions, would have been surprised at how economically government control could be achieved.
He joked that George Orwell, who wrote "1844", which depicted a centennial of the American government that put television sets in people's homes in order to monitor their
"Our government found a cheap way to do it. Instead of having to put a TV set in everyone's house, they've used the internet, which source of information," Vonegut said.
One of the best ways for Americans to guard their constitutional rights, he said, is to stop watching so much motion and start reading more books.
Contracts in housing approved by board
Students living in some places may pay more
By PAM MILLER
Housing contract proposals that recommend rate increases for scholarship halls, Stouffor Place and Sunflower apartments for the 1987-88 school year received formal approval yesterday from a University board.
The Residential Programs Advisory Board approved rate proposals that Kenneth Stoner, director of residential housing, submitted last week.
The rates for residence halls and Jayhawk Tower will remain almost constant, but other rates for University housing will increase between less than 1 percent and 18 percent.
With the exception of some rewording of the rate justification, the proposal will go on for review by David E. Horne, vice chancellor for student affairs.
The office of business affairs and the chancellor's office will review the proposals before they are presented to the Board of Regents for review next month and final approval in December.
Caryl Smith, dean of student life and RPAB chairwoman, said she seriously doubted that RPAB's proposals would be changed before going to the Regents. Only once in the last 10 years, Smith said, were the rate proposals changed.
Stoner said he would reward some rate justification paragraphs for rate increases for Stouffer Place and Miller and Watkins scholarship halls to give their residents a better understanding of the reasons for the rate increases.
See HOUSING, p. 5, col. 1
Regents dissatisfied with schools' reports
Bv TONY BALANDRAN
TOPEKA — Some results from the last Board of Regents meeting were not what most Regents members had in mind, a Regents official said yesterday.
Last week, the top executives of the seven Regents schools, including KU Chancellor Gene A. Buding, presented their separate reports explaining the reasons behind the relocation of the Regents last Thursday, and Friday in Salina.
Many Regents members were not satisfied with the schools' role and scope reports because they appeared to be "too hopeful," according to Martine Hammond, director of academic affairs for
However, Robert Cobb, KU executive vice
chancellor, said the University had concentrated on improving programs and not adding new ones.
The officials of the seven schools gave reports on their schools that included self-examinations of their backgrounds, their roles in the Regents system and their objectives in higher education.
The reports generally were not specific enough, Hammond said.
"I instead of talking about maintenance, they spoke about expansion," she said.
Hammond said the members' attitudes were aimed at all the Regents schools and did not single out any particular one.
said, "and it's the latter which they did not address specifically.
"There was more unanimity in them than I have ever seen."
Hammond also said that the schools, in preparing their reports, probably did not keep in mind the limited resources they are given by the state.
"We asked them to address things they would do and things they would not do in the future," she
"The board viewed them as too similar and lacking differentiation.
Compared to their peer schools in other states, the Regents schools are under-financed by $40 million, she said.
"The current fiscal condition of the state is one that does not have many opportunities for growth and expansion, unless the state can find resources it currently does not have." Hammond said. "We were taken aback by (the school's) statements under those conditions."
S. African institution drops apartheid
United Press International
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The pro-government white Dutch Reformed Church abandoned a century of support for apartheid yesterday and decided to allow blacks, Asians and people of mixed race to join.
in a series of other decisions at a synod meeting, 360 Dutch Reformed leaders said attempts to justify racial segregation through the scriptures is false. "This must be admitted as an error and denounced." leaders said.
But they reaffirmed their support for segregated education and rejected moves to unify the white Dutch Reformed Church with three sister churches set up for blacks. Asians and people of mixed race, known as "colored."
After more than a week of often-bitter debate, church leaders voted to declare racism a sin, but rejected a move to declare apartheid a sin, agreeing only that it cannot be
The Afrikaans-language Dutch Reformed Church has about 1.6 million members — almost half the church going white population — and has been closely allied to the white population since it came to power in 1948.
justified by the scriptures. Apartheid is the white-misorate government's
Observers at the synod said that although the decision against aparthied was qualified, it nevertheless made a breakthrough in church thought.
The church, an offshoot of the Reformed Church of Holland, has claimed a biblical justification for racial segregation since the Afrikaners migrated to the interior 150 years ago.
It is not an official state church, but its members have included all South Africa's white leaders since 1948. They are members and many civil servants.
Formal segregation began about 100 years ago, with black. Asian and
non-white members assigned to separate churches.
The synod unanimously adopted a motion yesterday that withdrew support for "the policy which over the years has become known as apartheid." It was the first time in its history the Dutch Reformed Church used the word apartheid in any document.
The leaders agreed to allow blacks, who represent a majority of the nation's population, Asians and people of mixed race to join the white minority in the same time reusing to join the separate sister churches into one.
"The attempt to biblically justify such a prescription must be admitted as an error and denounced," the synod decided.
The motion, adopted without a show of hands, included a clause rejecting allegations that apartheid is mainly cause of suffering in South Africa.
One delegate, Jan Kuyler of Mosselbay on the south coast, told
the synod he prayed and wrestled with his conscience throughout the night before abandoning his lifelong conservatism to support opening the church to non-white
The Rev. Allan Boesak, leader of the 650,000-member "colored" branch of the church, condemned the failure to label apartheid a sin.
He said in The Hague, where he met Queen Beatrix. "They are saying that racism is a sin, but apartheid, of course, is not racism, therefore apartheid is not a sin," he said.
"Their position of privilege and their rightness and their position of dominance in South Africa apparently is far more important than the suffering and the pain of black Christians." Boesak said.
An observer from Boesak's Dutch Reformed Mission Church told reporters at the synod, "It is not a final rejection of apartheid, but at least it is trying."
Staff writer
Panic is not a cure for whooping cough
By COLLEEN SIEBES
If you have a runny nose and a little cough, don't panic. The chances are slim that you have whooping cough, said Sheila Imman, a receptionist at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Recently, Inman has been bombed with telephone calls from people who think they have the infection, she said. People are panicking because of news reports that emphasize the potential fatality of whooping cough and not the small likelihood of such a fatality.
A nurse at Watkins Hospital said many KU students had come to the hospital to have colds treated. Doctors there have stopped sending cultures to the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department to be tested for whooping cough because they weren't getting results for about three weeks, she said.
"It really isn't that serious for adults who have been immunized." Imman said.
The doctors are prescribing antibiotics immediately for bad colds, she said.
The hysteria is a result of a recent outbreak in Dallas County that has infected about 160 people, including three KU students. However, none of the confirmed cases required hospitalization.
Anne Ailor, communicable disease nurse at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, said 88 percent of school-age children in Douglas County had been immunized.
And a high percent of the entire county population has been immunized because the health department requires that all children in the county, except those who are exempt because of religious or medical reasons, be immunized before attending public schools.
Those who contract whooping cough after immunization will usually have only a mild case of the disease, she said.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory infection that begins with symptoms similar to those of the common cold but can lead to other fatal diseases, such as pneumonia and post-infectious encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain.
A victim will first experience a runny nose and a minor cough, but within a week or two, the cough will develop into severe spasms.
Previously, the city-county health department recommended that any person with common cold symptoms consult a physician. But, because of the pane during this cold season, Altar said only one patient once on vacation was a persistent, hacking cough should be concerned.
She also said people who have been in contact with a person who has pertussis but don't have sympathy and not need to see a physician
However, Martha Skeet, coordinator of nurses for Lawrence public schools, said she had sent notices to all parents advising them to keep their children home if they had a cold and a cough.
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