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Tuesday, September 23, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Better late than never
By late yesterday afternoon, it began to seem as though the entire University community finally could breath a huge sigh of relief.
The sordid mess of the Richard von Ende cocaine case finally has come to a head, and it seems that the whole situation may be nearing a resolution.
In U.S. District Court, Von Ende yesterday pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and one charge of distributing cocaine. Both are federal drug trafficking charges that carry a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment or a fine of up to $125,000, or both.
The same morning, von Ende resigned from his post as University executive secretary.
It was a long time coming, but von Ende's resignation and admission of guilt were moves that needed to be made.
In a prepared statement, Chancellor Gene A. Budig said that he had accepted von Ende's resignation, but his comments went further than ever before in referring to von Ende's case and to drug abuse problems in general.
"Then drugs entered the picture." Budig said.
Budig said the von Ende case represented a tragedy, and that von Ende "knew the powerful of Kansas. He was respected by them. . .
But Budig's most important and far-reaching comments had to do with his hopes that something positive would result from this situation.
"It is my hope that others will learn from this sad event," Budig said. "It is my hope that this unfortunate case will serve as a significant deterrent."
"Perhaps something good can come out of this tragedy."
Perhaps something can.
Mission accomplished?
An 11-member delegation from Lawrence returned from Washington, D.C., on Thursday night saying it had accomplished its mission.
Well, that's a matter of opinion. It depends on exactly what its mission was. The delegation of KU students and Lawrence residents delivered 6,000 postcards addressed to President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, inviting the leaders to attend a summit in Lawrence.
Well, good for them. At least the members of the delegation actually followed through with a plan that had some skeptics wondering whether the campaign was just a publicity stunt. The delegation didn't take its mission lightly.
Upon their return, members of the delegation said they were denied an audience with
the president, but were received warmly by the Russians. What did they expect?
Oleg Sokolov, the Russian embassy's minister-counselor, gave the delegation an elaborate reception, while the United States received them in a corner of a lobby.
Were the postcard presenters really surprised that U.S. government officials only sent a National Security Council member? Did they really expect President Reagan to take time out of his schedule to meet with them? Do they think Reagan is reading each postcard one by one before he goes to bed at night?
True, the Russians received the delegation with open arms. It was an easy way to make the United States look bad. So, did the delegation really accomplish its mission?
Tapping reserves
The Lawrence City Commission recently approved the use of a mere $7,750 to be used to tap into millions of dollars.
The best part of this bit of alchemy is that the money will go toward starting small businesses in Douglas County.
Opinions
Last Tuesday, the City Commission unanimously voted to put up $7,750 to help establish a Certified Development Corporation (CDC) in Douglas County. The corporation would handle small business loan applications, taking over much of the process from the federal Small Business Administration and commercial banks. This would make it easier to tap into the $240 million statewide fund for loans to small businesses.
The Douglas County Commission also is expected to appropriate $7,750 and the state to match with $15,500 if the city and county form a development corporation. Once this is accomplished, the county must get approval for the CDC from the federal government.
What this eventually leads to
is greater accessibility for those wanting to start a small business to the money that makes it possible. Usually the Small Business Administration favors making loans to those wanting to expand an already-existing business rather than chance it on a new venture.
The CDC helps to grease the wheels of the small business loan process. The CDC handles the paperwork and background research and usually knows the local parties involved. When a project is approved by the CDC, it stands a much greater chance of securing Small Business Administration and bank loans.
Small businesses are the heart of Lawrence's economic community.
Douglas County is one of only six Kansas counties that have yet to set up a CDC. Although it is not in the forefront of economic development, Douglas County obviously is making strides to catch up.
News staff
News staff
Lauretta McMillen...Editor
Kady McMaster...Managing editor
Tad Charles...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...Cempus sales manager
Sally Depew...Classifier
Lisa Wemma...Production manager
Duncan Calhoun...National sales manager
Beverly Kastens...Traffic manager
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Media in a mousetrap
From time to time, you've read stories about politicians being caught taking free luxury-vacation trips.
taking it a little more serious.
When this happens, the press grumps and huffs about such freebies. As it should.
Those who provide the trips aren't doing so out of any sense of gracious hospitality. A rich businessman doesn't say, "Gosh, that congressman looks a little tired. Why don't we fly him to a resort and let him unwind from the daily grind for a while. It's our patriotic duty."
It's unlikely that anyone from the nation's biggest papers and the networks and the major magazines will accept a free ride. Most, if not all, have strict rules about accepting even tiny gifts.
What they're thinking is: 'Let's get him down there, put him up in a luxury suite, stoke him up with good food and booze, lose to him on the golf
But the fact that Disney has already had more than 2,500 takers shows that there are a considerable number of smaller publications or broadcasters that have no qualms about grabbing a freebie.
I'm not sure that such trips can be called bribes. That might be a little harsh. But they're less innocent than, say, a drink after work or a Christmas card.
Mike Royko
Chicago
Tribune
Their size is no excuse. If you read the financial pages, you've seen that even small papers and television stations are being sold these days for tens of millions of dollars and up. They're better than oil wells.
And I'm sure that if they discovered that their local politicians were going off for a similar luxury weekend on the expense account of a special interest group, they'd display appropriate indignation.
So when Senator Snatch, Governor Grabb or Mayor Filch is found to have been taken in somebody's corporate jet to the Kentucky Derby, the news media doesn't hesitate to make an issue of it.
course and maybe we can talk him into slipping something into the tax law that will let us depreciate our wives' wardrobe bills.
So my advice to them is: Pay your own way.
That's why it's only fair that we take note of the multimillion-dollar freelooad that is being planned by Walt Disney World, the sprawling
much of my working life, and most othem are OK. But even if I could aford it, I wouldn't invite 15,000 of them to my birthday party. The law of averages says that some of them would spill stuff on my rugs and step on the cats.
Florida resort and amusement empire.
They'll stay at Disney hotels, attend special parties, see big-name stars perform and pretty well have the run of the place. Most or all of it will be free, including their air transportation.
The Disney organization is going to spend several million dollars on at least 5,000 guests for a long weekend in October.
No, there can only be one motive for picking up so huge a check for so many news people. And that, obviously, is publicity.
As for the Disney people — those symbols of clean family fun — I'm shocked, shocked, shocked.
Naturally, the Disney organization says there are no strings attached to its generosity. It doesn't expect those people to return home and write or broadcast glowing reports about what a fine place Disney World is to visit. Of course not.
So it sent invitations to 15,000 news organizations and individuals. At least 2,500 have said they'd be glad to join in the celebration.
And who are these freeloaders? Congressmen, governors, mayors and other politicians?
No. They are news people — representatives of newspapers, magazines and broadcasting outlets. And each will be invited to bring a wife, sweetie or other object of their affections.
The Disney organization decided that this huge bash would be a nice way to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Disney World.
Disney's corporate people just enjoy throwing multimillion-dollar parties and think it would be nice if all these editors, writers, broadcasters and disc jockeys shared the joy of their anniversary.
Who ever thought Mickey Mouse would be acting like a Chicago alderman?
I've been around news people
you can't find a parking space, just create one.
Balance is at heart of appeal
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett gave a speech on the same night last week that evangelist Pat Robertson said that God wanted him to run for president in 1988.
Bennett spoke on the role of religion in the U.S. democratic process, tying his address at the University of Missouri to the 199th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. What he said didn't get as much attention as Robertson's closed-circuit TV speech, but it bore examination.
Robertson said he would wait to see whether 3 million registered voters would sign up to back his campaign, but added, "Let me assure you that deep in my heart, I know God's will for me in this crucial decision."
Arnold
Sawislak
UPI Commentary
The first argument that Bennett proposed, complete with historical background and quotations, was that the men who wrote the Constitution and other early U.S. leaders embraced religious values in laying the groundwork for the new nation.
"All of the founders intended religion to provide a moral anchor for our liberty in democracy." Bennett said He called religion "a wellspring of the civic virtues that democracy requires to flourish," promoting "hard work, individual responsibility and concern for community and country."
Bennett criticized "secularists" who objected to any reference to religion in public life, but, in the second point of his argument, was just as tough on "sectarians" who "assert, wrongly, that the Constitution was designed, first and foremost, to perpetuate a Christian order."
He paraphrased an earlier statement by Robertson (without naming him) to the effect that "Christians feel more strongly about love of country, love of God and support of the traditional family than do non-Christians," and added:
"This sort of invidious sectarianism must be renounced in the strongest terms. The vibrant families and warm patriotism of millions upon millions of non-Christian and non-religious Americans give it the lie.
"Those who claim their religious faith gives them a monopoly on political truth make democratic discourse difficult. Disagree with me and you're damned, they seem to suggest. In doing so, they insult the common sense and the tolerant spirit of the American people."
Bennett's first point — that the nation can and should be responsive to the moral values taught by religion and to its place in the molding of the American character — may still worry those who see a growing movement toward government ruled or influenced by one church or another.
His second point was the essence of the First Amendment — that in the United States no church or sect may have a favored place and that all Americans have an absolute guarantee of freedom to practice any religion or no religion. That may dismay some who feel the United States is in trouble because it has turned its back on organized religion.
But Bennett stated the terms of a compromise, the kind of value-balancing that had been described as the genius of the Constitution. In doing so, he denounced the extremists on both ends of the church-state argument and made his appeal to the great American middle. As any good politician knows, it is there that the really big issues of national life are decided.
Mailbox
South African bias
First, he said that blacks in South Africa had a higher standard of living than blacks on the rest of the continent. Even if that were true, smacks of a paternalistic attitude reminiscent of pre-civil war America; namely, the attitude that "our slaves live better than your free blacks."
Unless one only measures human happiness with a bank book, the observation is irrelevant to the discussion of the political situation in South Africa.
greater than white-on-black violence leads to the paternalistic conclusion that whites should run the country for them.
Thirdly, Goodpasture's labeling of Nelson Mandela as a "confessed terrorist" turns, of course, on his criteria for "freedom fighter" and "terrorist," which are decided by his perception of U.S. interests.
Finally, I am unsure that it is reasonable to expect the media to be completely objective, because even in our most rigorous disciplines (e.g. science), subjectivity plays a part. As the above statements demonstrate, Goodpasture himself brings his own subjectivity to bear on the facts. Was it thus his intention to even-out the scales of media bias, or merely to push a little harder on the right-hand side?
Jonathan Olsen
Jonathan Olsen Kansas City, Kan., graduate student
The answer isn't wit
Cunnyngham seems to imply that the Reagans' drug war is also a war on liberal philosophy.
Cunnyngham said that "you cannot make a person stop doing drugs unless you take away the reason
The drug problem is, quite possibly, the biggest dilemma the children of our time have ever been confronted with. Conservatives and liberals alike must apply their different philosophies to solve a common problem.
In response to Christopher Cunnyngham the Sept. 16 column on the Reagans' drug war — Cunningham should spend less time taking his revolutionary stand against the Reagans' and the so-called "knee-jerk reactionary conservatives," and spend more time and effort seeking answers to a nationwide drug problem.
behind their use." Studies have shown that of the people who try drugs, many do so out of curiosity. It is these people that Nancy Reagan can reach when she simply suggests to "say no."
As for the regular user, I'm sure many will resent Nancy Reagan's naive and simplistic approach to something she knows little about firsthand. But the first step in dealing with the problem is to bring it out of the closet. What actually is going on in the heads of these people?
I'm curious as to how Cunningham would advocate reaching the people who supposedly have reason to do drugs. How about going to the Soviet Union or some other oppressed nation; and I might suggest that they take their drugs with them, especially if their problem is dealing with reality.
John Jerome Lawrence graduate student
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