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Wednesday, October 7. 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Rodeo days
Kansas has an image problem.
It's not something new. The problem is that we can't seem to shake our past, from the memories of the cowboy galloping across the prairie to the tale of the tornado in "The Wizard of Oz."
Many out-of-staters think Kansas is flat in more ways than one. Continuing these delusions is a group that is supposed to promote the state's business environment.
o bring business back Yinnoo
The Kansas Cavalry is riding to New York this week, crusading to bring business back.
Two hundred forty volunteers, including business people economic development specialists and Chamber of Commerce executives, make up the Kansas Cavalry. Group members, traveling at their own expense, work to attract business to the state.
Gov. Mike Hayden will be included in the party that will wrangle business opportunities for the wheat state.
Yes, Kansas needs new economic opportunities, but promoting the image of galloping horsesmen is not the way to gain them.
Not many of the country's business people would jump at the chance to open businesses on streets where they picture only an occasional rolling tumbleweed.
No news
On Monday, eight U.S. Supreme Court justices filed into the high court's chamber to launch the 1987-88 session. One chair remains vacant.
In the 200th anniversary year of the Constitution, justices will define working usage of one of the document's basic principles. Freedom of the press
On Tuesday, justices will hear Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier, which will determine the right of public school officials to censor student newspapers.
The principal of Hazelwood High pulled two pages of material from the student newspaper, saying the series on teenage pregnancies invaded the rights of students. He reasoned that since only a few of the girls at the Missouri school were pregnant, they could easily be identified by passages in the stories.
The high court will hear a second freedom of the press case that borders on absurd. An Ohio mayor argues that newsracks on the streets blemish the city's appearance.
Each case involves the dissemination of news, a principle fostered by the founding fathers. Each case threatens that right.
Recent events, where reporters haphazardly stalked presidential candidates and entered hospital rooms of semi-conscious governmental officials reflect examples where members of the press exercised poor judgment or taste.
But to choke the distribution of information simply because it's considered in poor taste, unattractive or controversial would rape the meaning of freedom of press.
School officials maintain that chaos will result if the Supreme Court rules to allow the pregnancy series to run in the high school newspaper.
But the people should realize that if reporters are not allowed to investigate and write with verve and insight, it is then that chaos will result.
Take a break
The middle of week seven is upon us. There are many demands on each student, faculty member and staff person. There is much to do in connection with classes and activities. These days, little time is left for relaxation — for a break from the stress.
However, it is at this time of the year that KU erupts with color. Fall finds the University at its most impressive. October in Lawrence is a timely delight.
At this time, when athletic enthusiasm is low, the fall colors even show KU spirit, with "the crimson and the blue" displayed by trees against the sky.
The colors are changing all around us as we work and study and live. Intense involvement in the task at hand can blind us to our surroundings.
The uplifting news is that stress often subsides with a short walk along Jayhawk Boulevard or a moment spent at the edge of Potter Lake. Take a minute, or an hour, to notice one of our country's most stunning college campuses at its finest. Be encouraged by the beauty.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Jennifer Benjamin ... Editor
Juli Warren ... Managing editor
John Benner ... News editor
Beth Copeland ... Editorial editor
Sally Streff ... Campus editor
Brian Kubertline ... Sports editor
Dan Ruettimann ... Photo editor
Bill Skeet ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Bonnie J. Hardy         Business manager
Robert Hughes        Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer        Retail sales manager
Kurt Messeramith    Campus sales manager
Greg Knipp        Production
David Derwent      National sales manager
Angela Clark        Classified manager
Ron Weems          Director of marketing
Jeanne Hines        Sales and marketing adviser
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Trash blemishes Wescoe Beach
Wescoe Beach suffers from a disease that has plagued beaches from coast to coast in the United States. It is a disease that is caused by human beings and can only be stopped by them. It makes beaches look ugly, filthy and generally less than attractive.
Jon Gregor Staff Columnist
The disease is trash.
Every day after most everyone has finished going to classes, the remains of a day at the University of Kansas can be seen scattered over Wescoe Beach and in other areas of campus. Newspapers, fliers, candy wrappers, soda candies and an assortment of other items constantly bless us with their presence. There is trash everywhere, every day.
What is baffling why students who love this University would want to make it look filthy. It seems as though some students would rather not soil themselves by walking up a trash can and throwing something away. Instead, they prefer to leave whatever they were using on the steps or on the planters in front of Wescoe. I suppose that these same students lack the concept of wind and what it does to trash and debris. It spreads it all over campus, making the whole place look like a garbage dump.
Since many students cannot clean up after themselves, the University does it for them. It takes time and money to have University employees clean up after those little darlings who are off to class and couldn't take care of their own messes. Those aren't good Samaritans out there with trash bags every day. They get paid to clean up after us. While Joe Student grapes about University budgetary problems, he adds to them by dumping his Coke can on the ground at
Wescoe
Andy Pavich/KANSAN
The administration should not have to play mommy to students who have no time to take responsibility for themselves. This is not a college full of 12-year-olds; however, from the looks of this campus one couldn't be sure. Although this subject was brought up last year, nothing has changed. The campus is still thoroughly trashed every day of the week, and the students still don't seem to care.
It is unfortunate that visitors to this campus have to see such a pig sty, but that is exactly what they get. The University couldn't clean up fast enough for parents day. On the Friday night before the Kent State football game, there was trash on campus and clothes hangers in the trees at Wescow. In other words, a few students have
the ability to make the campus look awful.
Despite the valiant effort on the part of the University by taking the time to make the campus look beautiful through its landscaping and maintenance, the campus is a shambles. We the students try to run it daily - and succeed. It is up to the students to keep this campus clean, and we all should do our part to help keep it the most beautiful campus in the Midwest.
In other words, clean up after yourselves.
If oddet words, clean up utter y'oursurest.
The fall season is here. Beautiful autumn colors
winter will all over campus. Please
forse that you who haven't seen it during this
time of the year, is breath-taking. Let's not ruin it;
trash does not mix well with such a picture-
esque scene.
Jon Gregor is a laeworth junior double majoring in political science and broadcast journalism.
$25 buys tutors to unscramble Iowa's caucus
By RICHARD L. VERNACI
The Associated Press
The political stakes in Iowa's Democratic caucuses are so high and the process is so twisted that the state party has managed to cross an invisible threshold.
It can charge admission to explain how things work.
For $23 a head, some four dozen reporters in Washington spent an afternoon pretending they were at a Democratic precinct caucus in Waco, where about 100 miles amid farmland about 100 miles southwest of Des Moines.
The group included the usual gaggle from Washington and New York, but there were also a couple of others. There was even one from Iowa.
Iowa's importance draws not from its size — with 38 delegates, it ranks 25th among the states and territories — but from timing. Next Feb. 8 it will be the leadoff for Iowa in a presidential nominec at the national convention in Atlanta in July.
The caucus tradition in Iowa goes back to the last century. The state toyed with the idea of a horse, but it up after holding one in 1916.
The operation of an individual caucus is rather simple: It's like watching a cell divide. On a given signal, people sitting in a classroom or some other kind of meeting hall scatter to regroup in corners, doorways or near other landmarks to show how many of them support one presidential candidate or another and to pick a proportional number of delegates to the next highest level.
The process has endured over the years, and the paper to explain it has piled up, especially since the Democratic Party reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of the cases are 35 pages long; by contrast, the national party's rules for picking delegates take 16 pages.
The ersatz Iowans meeting in Washington last week chose
Analysis
among a field of five presidential candidates; two from the East, one from the Midwest and two from the South. Rumors circulated about the womanizing habits of at least three of them.
In the end, Thomas Jefferson carried 43 percent. Harry Truman had 33 percent and Grover Cleveland had 24 percent. Franklin Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson did not muster enough support to qualify for delegates from the previous convention. The Jefferson supporters were nothing if not eloquent in trying to draw the undecideds into their camp: "Oh, come on, he has a swallon monument."
In Iowa, something like this will happen 2,592 times in one night to pick some 15,000 people to attend 99 county conventions, where 3,001 delegates will be picked to go to congressional district and state convention; and the state's 88 delegates to the national convention will be chosen.
At each step, the process is similar. The arithmetic is a bit complicated, and when it's all done, the early events that drew so much attention may not count for much in terms of whom the state's national convention delegates will end up supporting.
Iowa, which opens the season with its precinct caucuses, will close it with a state convention June 25. Candidates that were hot in February may have cooled or collapsed by then.
But first impressions are important, and Iowa Democrats realize that many people will need a little schooling before taking part in their time-honored process. So in addition to tutoring reporters, the program also nothings inmigrants — presumably for free — for real lowlands.
There will be a quiz for every body on Feb. 8.
NOW YOU CAN
SEE
SOMETHING
NO MAN
HAS EVER
SEEN
BEFORE...
EXCEPT JIM BAKKER.
BLOOM COUNTY
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