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Tuesday, October 7, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
The Lawrence smokeout
It soon may be against the law to light a Lucky, puff a Pall Mall or smoke a Salem in Lawrence public places.
Smokers may gasp in despair, but the Lawrence City Commission is looking into an ordinance similar to one recently adopted by Topeka, which prohibits puffing in public restrooms, elevators, transports and terminals, health facilities, retail stores, grocery stores, restaurants, libraries, museums, theatres, enclosed sports arenas, and any area of a business open to the public. Smoky barrooms will remain just so; bars and taverns aren't included. That doesn't leave many places, short of a person's home, where he can light up.
And that's the point. Nonsmokers are tired of inhaling second-hand smoke which studies have found, is a significant health hazard for the
elderly and people with heart disease or impaired respiration. Not to mention a significant annoyance to many, many others.
Smokers may shout that their civil liberties are being violated by such an ordinance. But non-smokers will shout back, and with greater lung capacity, that their rights to fresh air are equally as valid. In anticipation of the shouting match such ordinances will inevitably bring, the American Civil Liberties Union for western Missouri began forming in September a policy statement on smoking restrictions. Without a policy statement, the ACLU cannot act on complaints against smoking ordinances.
If the city commissioners pass the ordinance, those who live in Lawrence may soon be able to breathe a little easier when they venture into public.
Who holds Dole's leash?
When Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was forced to choose between partisan politics and consistency in his stance on human rights, his choice was clear: GOP first, black South Africans second.
Dole had supported the latest round of sanctions against South Africa when they first passed through the Senate. He said a tough message should be sent to the South African government.
But after President Reagan vetoed the sanctions, saying that they would erode his bargaining position at the upcoming U.S.-Soviet "nonsummit" in Iceland. Dole backed away from his tough-guy stance.
Dole's spokesman said it was better to "rally behind the president and show support" for Reagan's foreign policy.
The president snapped Dole's chain and his response was swift. Does Dole believe in what he thinks or in what the president says?
It's always refreshing to find a politician with a mind of his own. In this case, though, the politician who kept her head was Sen. Nancy Kassbaum.
Kassebaum didn't try to preserve the presidential human rights facade. "To do anything else would be a breach of faith not only with the millions of blacks and whites in South Africa who want democracy, but the principles that each of us holds dear," Kassebaum said in her speech urging senators to vote for the sanctions.
She voted for the veto and probably would have done so twice if they'd have let her.
But, the president threw Dole a bone, patted him on the head and thanked him for being such a good boy. Never mind what goes on in South Africa. The White House has an image to maintain, and if Dole ever wants to live there he'd better do as he is told.
Whatever happened to pride?
Government cries wolf
Both the U.S. press and the government suffered blows to their credibility last week. The Washington Post story revealed Thursday that a Reagan administration plan to destabilize the Libyan government through deception was more deceiving to the U.S. media than to Moammar Gadhaf.
Opinions
The public did not learn until last week that the "collision
Reagan and other administration officials said the misinformation campaign didn't include plans to lie to the press. But Secretary of State George Shultz acknowledged that "somebody" lied, albeit "against policy." And the first press report containing false information about a new rash of Libyan-sponsored terrorist attacks, published by the Wall Street Journal in August, was confirmed as authoritative by White House spokesman Larry Speakes.
course” toward which the United States and Libya were reportedly headed in August had little or no basis in fact.
The media and the government must share the blame for the spread of this misinformation. Ever-zealous to uncover new and spectacular information, the press swallowed whole the stories about an impending coup to outst Gadhafi, more Libyan-sponsored terrorism, and subsequent U.S. military retaliation. More skepticism was in order.
But because they endorsed information they knew to be false, the government officials may have to face the fate of "the boy who cried wolf" — when Gadhafi really is up to something, no one will believe them. U.S. government officials aren't likely to have ethical qualms about misleading Gadhafi, but lying to the media is reprehensible.
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
Jacki Kelly ... Photo editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
David Nixon ... Business manager
Gregory Kaul ... Retail sales manager
Denise Stephens ... Campaign manager
Sally Depew ... Classified manager
Lassie Weermann ... Production manager
Duncan Calhoun ... National sales manager
Beverly Kastens ... Traffic manager
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Porno stakeout has violent reward
it was raining when I visited a local bookstore intent on staking out the pornographic magazine section. I had decided to brave the weather out of political and religious curiosity.
Many zealots of religion recently have been flexing their political
Gil Chavez
Columnist
muscles in a last-ditch effort to stop the unravelling of our morals. America is on the brink, they say; Women are thinking about careers instead of motherhood, school children have been forced to read the secular humanism philosophies of Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain, decadent MTV has reared its pink hair in homes across America and Ed Meese's commission has linked pornography to crime.
When I entered the bookstore, the woman behind the cash register smiled. I glared back — fallen woman.
Pat Robertson says these are dark times. As a result, he and Meese are leading a witch hunt against the infidels and heretics of pornography. And, as if in answer to their prayers, God has asked St. Robertson to be our next president.
In light of all of this, I had to see the destructive porn criminals for myself.
It it didn't take long. The first suspect was remarkably disguised as a normal person. I never would have suspected him to be a porn customer, except his nervousness betrayed him. He glanced about as if he ex-
Meandering through the bookshelves, I cased the joint. I feigned interest in a Jane Fonda biography while I waited for the criminals to return to the scene of the crime.
I took up a position nearby. I glanced through "Soldier of Fortune," impressed that they could actually make mercenaries appear heroic. Then I picked up a detective magazine that read: "Pretty blonde, ugly murder." It appeared that the recurring theme of the magazine was that attractive women always die violent deaths.
magazines.
While I was examining this month's issue of "Combat Karate," a magazine geared toward violent 12-year-olds, I heard the crinkling of
One would guess that in their idea of a truly moral society, sexual frustrations are properly released through violence rather than sex.
Vandalism. Meese was right. Pornography already had driven the man to crime.
pected his mother to be hiding in the bookstacks, waiting to catch him with the goods.
A tall fellow walked past the illicit section without even glancing at the porn. He picked up few rock music magazines and paged through them. Then, he made his flanking assault on the porn.
The taller man noticed that I was staring, so I reached for a "Ninja" magazine. It had a nice photograph of a man being choked with a chain while a sword was held to his throat. The text, however, did not do the photos justice.
He eased along the racks. Feinting ocasionally, he lingered at the outdoor section and then the military
celophane. The first man was tearing the wrapping from a porn magazine.
Mailbox
It wasn't a free-for-all
I have a question. What was I supposed to do with my ticket to Saturday's Southern Illinois football game? I bought it at the beginning of the year thinking I would have a use for it.
I understand the promotional idea behind free admission for faculty, students and their immediate families. But someone didn't take into consideration the several thousand students and faculty who paid money for all the football games this season
including Saturday's.
Can we bring our ticket stubs to the next game and redeem them for a couple of hot dogs or popcorn and a Coke? Or maybe, better yet, I should just frame it and stick it on the wall. We might even look a the possibility of a refund; we could all come down to the ticket office and collect.
If the Athletic Department wants to make money, they should bring back the Lite Beer Skydiving Team.
Kevin Gokmen Liberal, senior
I did not get to read what Don Kearns, director of parking services, said in the Sept. 24 issue of the Kansan. But if what Donald Brownstein mentioned about him in the Qet I issue was correct, then I would like to let Mr. Kearns and the KU community know of a parking "non-problem" I personally experienced.
Parking? No problem?
I have a red parking permit and my designated parking area is number 55. During the 10 working days between Sept. 15 and Sept. 26, I had to park in a metered parking
I cannot help but wonder what my $45 parking fee was for.
Probably Kearns defines "parking problem" differently, so to him there is no parking problem waiting to be solved.
Mon Yin Lung Director of Technical Services Law School Library
Mon Yin Lung
Fantastic solutions
Donald Brownstein must be commended for his proposed solution to the "parking problem," published in the Oct. 1 Kansas.
Unemployment would be eased by the creation of the several positions needed to stencil professors' names on their "assigned" parking spaces. The local economy would be stimulated by the flow of capital needed for "telephones in each lot." The beauty of campus would be much improved as parking lots would be cleared of the excess cars during those hours when all professors were not simultaneously on campus. Can world peace be far behind?
The following suggestions are presented in the hope that they will be found equally as rational and insightful as those provided by Brownstein:
1. A moped trail could be built from Baldwin City to KU. Professors could be provided mopeds (each with their own name stenciled on) . Professors could then park in Baldwin and enjoy
a brisk ride to campus.
2. If the Athletic Department could be convinced to switch to an eight-man football league and play their games in Anschutz Sports Pavilion, Memorial Stadium could be converted into a multilevel parking structure. A skyway could be built running from what is now the press box to the Campanile, and private ski-lift units could be routed to various campus buildings. Professors would receive an allotment of "E" tickets with each parking permit.
permit.
Come on Brownstein, get real. Is human existence preceded by the essence of parking? Shall we all share your philosophy: "I park therefore I am!"
John C. Epperson Lawrence graduate assistant
From the other side
Ben Bunner's letter about the Soviet mass murders in the 1930s that appeared in the Sept. 28 Kansan ends with the assertion that our only choice is between abandoning the megabuck Strategic Defense Initiative and developing it without sharing the knowledge with the "mad people" of the U.S.S.R.
This may confuse our president, whose policy it is to share our "soon to be announced" technology. But if, as he states, it is futile to conceal from espionage the results of such a massive investment, then our only logical alternative is to abandon Star Wars as an expensive and dangerous boondoggle.
Lagree with this.
Simple, radio-controlled explosive orbiters located near our lasers in space would cheaply negate any defensive use for Star Wars.
We are gambling that the Soviet Union will go bankrupt before we do by building a ballistic missile defense. That's a gamble with my future that I'd rather not make; especially if it meant having bombs orbiting over our heads every day.
The Soviets have a history of violence, tyranny and death. I am proud to be an American, but I am not blind to my country's similar history of tyranny, violence and death. We seem to subject to tyranny those people of another country or different color. I don't see that as making us any better than the Russians.
We are just as "mad" as the Russians in continuing to build weapons that can destroy the world.
Kurt Sigmon Lawrence senior
There were other martial arts magazines. One had a long account of how a Ninja had killed Franklin Roosevelt in retribution for bombing Hiroshima. It didn't explain why Harry Truman was left unscathed. Another issue had a fine cover; a tight shot of a man being struck in the head with a rifle butt.
If I were the type of person given to censoring, I would think these magazines were as objectionable as any. But I know that in popular culture, violence is nearly always acceptable, while sex is nearly always unacceptable.
It was then that I noticed my porn suspect was drifting away from the magazine rack. I chose not to continue my surveillance.
Why the zealots object to sex but not violence, I'm not sure. One would guess that in their idea of a truly moral society, sexual frustrations are properly released through violence rather than sex.
I had seen enough. It was hard to summon any kind of righteous wrath toward him.
As I was leaving, I had to admit to myself that it was harder to stomach "Soldier of Fortune" than the "skin" magazines that were on display. I guess St. Robertson and his disciple, Meese, are going to have to find someone else to gather the rocks for their public stonings.
One of the problems that worries people who worry about democracy is that a lot of citizens don't believe what their government tells them.
Honest talk works best in long run
This is not an occasional problem, although it gets worse during such periods as the Vietnam War, when repeated claims by government officials that the conflict was close to a
UPI Commentary
Arnold Sawislak
successful end created the "credibility gap."
But part of the problem comes from the inability of public officials to give the public credit for ordinary common sense.
But polls consistently show that a considerable number of people don't ever trust the government to tell the truth. The sardonic joke that one of the three biggest lies ever told is, "I'm from the government; I'm here to help you," reflects a deep-seated suspicion of government.
An example of this occurred when U.S. reporter Nicholas Daniloff was permitted to leave the Soviet Union without standing trial on spy charges brought against him in Moscow.
The next day, Gennadi Zakharov, a Soviet employee of the United Nations, pleaded no contest to espionage charges in New York and was told to leave the United States. At the same time, it was announced that Yuri Orlov, a Soviet dissident, would be permitted to leave Russia.
President Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz insisted that there was no connection between Daniloff and Zakharov, that Zakharow was swapped for Orlov.
It does not take a genius to figure out that Zakharov was traded for both Daniloff and Orlov. But the United States refused to trade one-for-one because that would appear to admit that Daniloff was a spy, which those of us who know him believe is not possible. In any case, Orlov was added to the deal so it could be said he, not Daniloff, was traded for Zakharov.
Is there anyone who believes Orlov would be coming to the United States and that Zakharov would have been freed if Nick Daniloff had not permitted to leave Moscow?
Deserving as he may be, Orlov was a wild card, the lucky beneficiary of the need of two governments to construct a story to settle a problem that was getting in the way of efforts to set up a U.S. Soviet summit meeting. So why couldn't the president simp-
iy Say:
1. Daniloff was no spy but the Soviets had trumped up a case against him.
2. To free him the United States had to spring Zakharov, who was a spy.
3. The United States was able to cut a deal which got Orlov out as well as Daniiloff.
4. All of this cleared the way for a face-to-face meeting between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Perhaps all of this is no big deal. After all, an honest American reporter is home and a courageous Russian dissenter is to be freed and the superpower leaders will be talking again soon in Iceland. That's good, no matter how it is explained.
But once again, the common sense of the U.S. people was downrated, and in the long run, that surely has a price.