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Monday. September 29, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Corps seeks volunteers for overseas
By PATRICIA FEENY
Staff writer
The Peace Corps, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, will have representatives on campus today and tommorrow to recruit applicants for overseas positions.
Application forms will be available. On Oct. 15 and 16 applicants will be interviewed in the placement office at the Burge Union.
Mike McGirr, public affairs specialist for the Kansas City, Kan. regional office, said an information desk will be set up from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the third floor of the Kansas Union.
McGirr said positions were available in 62 developing countries. The Peace Corps currently has 5,700 volunteers. Sixty-eight of the volunteers are from Kansas.
President John F. Kennedy started the Peace Corps in 1961.
"The major emphasis is in sub-
Sabura Africa." McGirr said "There are 25 countries in that region and half of our volunteers are working there."
McGirr said the demand for volunteers was high. He also said the word volunteer scared some people away.
"It's a two-year commitment. Volunteers are compensated for their expenses," he said. "It depends on the area the volunteer is living in, but the monthly living allowance averages out to be about $300, which doesn't seem like a lot but in these countries it is."
McGirr also said volunteer received a re-adjustment payment of $4,500 when they returned to the United States. Student loans are deferred while the volunteers are working overseas. Transportation and medical costs are covered by the Peace Corps.
Almost any college graduate could qualify, McGirr said Languages such as Spanish and French were important to know, but not necessary. He said the areas in demand for volunteers were agriculture, science and math.
According to McGirr, 2,500 people are recruited each year.
He said most volunteers were ages 21 and 22, but some were in their 60s and 70s. The average age of a volunteer at the program's inception was 23; the average now is 30.
McGirr, who was a volunteer in west Africa from 1977 to 1980, taught agriculture in a secondary school. He graduated from the University of Michigan.
"At first someone has difficulties adjusting to the lack of certain luxuries, such as running water and electricity," he said. "But you quickly find that you can do without those things."
Fred Sadowski/KANSAN
Taking a load off
Gina Walkenhorst; Linwood High School drummer, takes a break during preparations for the Band Day parade. The band was one of 88 high school bands that marched in downtown Lawrence and performed during halftime at the KU-Indiana State football game Saturday.
Candidate fights residency charge
Staff and wire reports
Phill Kline, the Republican candidate for the Kansas 2nd district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Friday contested charges that he was not a serious 2nd District resident.
Renee Wessels, press secretary for Democratic incumbent Jim Slattery, has questioned whether Kline understands the issues of the 2nd District. She said that Kline didn't pay taxes in the district and didn't have a phone there in his name.
POLITICAL PULSE
Kline, a third-year law student at the University of Kansas, said that he had lived in Lawrence since last September and that the phone was in his roommate's name. Before moving to Lawrence, he commuted from Merriam, which is in the 3rd District.
Kline registered to vote in Douglas County on June 9, the day he filed for office.
Kline said he had visited with people in the district and understood the issues affecting them.
Wessels, however, said voters would realize that Kline didn't know the district.
Reagan to campaign
President Reagan is making a short stop in Kansas City, Mo., today to stump for Kit Bond, Republican candidate for a Missouri seat in the U.S. Senate.
Reagan is making a daylong trip to Missouri and South Dakota in an effort to tip the balance in two close races that figure prominently in the fight for control of the Senate in the last two years of his presidency.
An airport rally, complete with balloons, flags, marching bands and skydiveers, and a $1,000-a-couple reception is on tap in Kansas City, where Reagan is to campaign for Bond, former two-term governor of Missouri.
Bond is battling Lt. Gov. Harriet Woods for the seat being vacated by Democrat Thomas Eagleton. Woods has worked hard to blame Reagan — and the GOP — for the economic stump that has prevented farm states from sharing in the expansion under way on both coasts.
Recent polls give Bond the edge, but by margins that appear to rate the race too close to call. Bond is aligned with Reagan on issues such as a balanced-budget amendment and a line-item veto. Both he and Woods have spent a great deal of timewooing farmers. The race is projected to set a state record for spending at $8 million.
Director to visit
James C. Miller, national budget director, will speak Oct. 10 at the Economic Outlook Conference at the University of Kansas.
Gov. John Carlin is scheduled to speak, and gubernatorial candidates Tom Docking and Mike Hayden have been invited to address the conference.
Topics at the conference will include economic development strategies and programs to help small businesses in Kansas. Participants also will try to determine how economic programs approved by the Legislature can help Kansas communities.
Moore to speak
Dennis Moore, Democratic candidate for attorney general, is scheduled to speak at noon Thursday at the KU Law School.
Moore also has served as an assistant attorney general. He practiced law in Johnson County from 1973 to 1976.
Friendship teaches student plight of Kurdistan
Moore, a Wichita native,
graduated from KU and went on to
receive his law degree from
Washburn University Law School.
By SHANE A. HILLS
This year has opened Bianca Pfeifer's eyes to the light of the people of Kurdistan.
The year has also brought Pfeffer into friendship with a Kurdish man who in November escaped to West Germany from an Iraq prison.
Pfeiffer, an exchange student from Osnabruck,
West Germany, said last week that few Americans were aware of Kurdistan, a mountainous region that lies mostly in Turkey.
Pleiter, who speaks Arabic and German, acted as translator earlier this year for Davud Mahmud, a Kurdish man who escaped from prison in Iraq and sought political asylum in West Germany.
be sentenced to death," Pfeiter said.
Mahmud was incarcerated in Iraq for leading a group called the United Kurdish Revolutionaries, Pfeifer said. He spent nine years behind bars and escaped in November while being transported by ambulance to a hospital. Members of the UK attacked the ambulance and took Mahmud to safety.
Pfreier met Mahmud through Amnesty International, a worldumid organization that works to encourage the release of political and religious prisoners.
The UKR, a group of about 3.000 Kurds who reside in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, believe in the autonomy of the Kurdish people. Pfeifer said
Since World War I, most Kurds have refused to assimilate into countries in which they lived.
Amnesty had not tried to encourage the release of Mahmud, Pfeifer said. But the Amnesty chapter in West Germany does assist political refuges in the complicated process of obtaining asylum
The Kurds speak a language similar to Turkish. Their historical lineage can be traced back 3,000 years to the same mountainous region of the Middle East.
Pieiter and Mahmud occasionally talk on the telephone. He told her last week that the leader of the Turkish branch of the UKR had been killed in his sleep by the Turkish Army.
If he is forced to go back to Iraq, he will surely
Nader advocates stricter legislation
"Few frivolous cases go to trial," he said. "There are more insurance company executives that get more than they deserve in salary than there are victims who get more than they deserve in court."
Nader also said lawmakers should require insurance companies to disclose information on investment income earned and claims paid, and relax laws prohibiting self-insurance for cities and businesses.
Nader said a price war among insurance companies in the early 1980s led to huge liability insurance price increases in 1986 and that insurance companies blamed the increases on lawyers and judges.
He said lawmakers must toughen regulations on the insurance industry, allow for greater consumer representation and require insurance companies to disclose evidence of known defective products.
Nader spoke at the Holiday Inn Holidome, 200 McDonald Drive, at a news conference. He was in Lawrence Thursday and Friday for a conference for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association, where he delivered the keynote speech.
Nader cited as an example a study which found that 19 out of 20 people who bring malpractice lawsuits receive no settlement.
for cities where Nader said more money was needed for the Kansas Department of Insurance to do its job properly. He
"The insurance companies are charging increasing rates due to their own financial mismanagement," he said. "However, there is no evidence of a liability explosion."
Staff writer
By BILL RAYNOLDS
Kansas lawmakers must protect their constituents by enacting tougher legislation against increasing insurance rates, Ralph Nader, consumer activist, said Friday.
"There has been an insurance greed crisis by the insurance companies." Nader said. "Insurance companies have become cash cows instead of sentinels of safety."
However, Nader blamed the price increases on the insurance companies.
also lashed out at two Kansas politicians
Nader said Fletcher Bell, state insurance commissioner, was not a representative of Kansas consumers.
"Fletcher Bell is really working for the insurance industry," Nader said. "A wrinkle in Kansas law makes him a kind of adjuster for malpractice claims."
Yesterday, Bell said, "My record on consumer affairs is one of the best in the nation. I'll stand on my record of protection of the consumers.
Kelley Hayden said Mike Hayden voted for $1 million overall limit on awards and a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering awards because he thought victims received enough compensation.
Nader also criticized Mike Hayden, Republican gubernatorial candidate and House Speaker, for his support of a new law that would limit the amount of money victims of malpractice could receive in a lawsuit.
"He (Nader) doesn't represent the views of Kansans, Most Kansans favor caps on lawsuit awards."
Kelley Hayden, Mike Hayden's press secretary, dismissed Nader's criticism as a political endorsement for Lt. Gov. Tom Docking, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
BE READY FOR MIDTERMS
Attend the
PREPARING FOR EXAMS
Study Skills Workshop
FREE!
Wednesday, October 1
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
300 Strong Hall
Presented by the Student Assistance Center.
We went to Kansas City and compared our everyday prices to those of Half-Price Discount Stores and Direct Importers and found ours to be considerably less.
Chances are if you shop in Kansas City for diamonds, you'll pay too much.
If you want honest grading and better prices, please stop by.