Opinion
University Daily Kansan, October 28, 1982
Budget worries persist
Rumors of pending layoffs at the University of Kansas have died down but have not died out. But the state's budget situation will have to remain murky for a few more weeks — at least until the Nov. 2 elections are over.
Last month, Gov. John Carlin set up a special committee of state employees to study alternatives to cutting back the state's workforce. The committee so far has discussed only procedures for laying off workers.
Carlin, running for re-election against Republican Sam Hardage, formed the committee after a shortfall in the state budget forced an initial round of budget cuts. Another $18 million shortfall was reported last month. That coupled with the first-quarter report showing receipts were $23.5 million lower than expected sparked a new round of rumors that deeper cuts were coming.
University officials will not receive further instructions from the governor until after Nov. 12, when Carlin receives the report from state budget
analysts projecting revenues for the rest of the fiscal year.
In the meantime, administrators have added to the speculation that the budget problem is getting worse by deciding not to turn on the heat on campus until mid-November and by discussing the possibility of reducing the operation of buildings during the winter break.
True, this frustrates the employees. But the administrators can't be all that satisfied with the way things are, either.
Administrators here and at other state schools have been told to cut back, and since August, they have been operating from one executive order to the next.
This late in the campaign, it is wise to put specific budget recommendations on the back burner. But the air of uncertainty has created a sticky situation for Carlin: these state employees will be going to the polls waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Antics of K-State fans go beyond usual rivalry
I most humbly apologize.
I'm serious; in a column last week, I held up KState fans as true examples of what loyalty is all about. I stated that Wildcat fans followed the team through its miserable seasons of the past with nary a complaint and that their patience bad paid off this season. The 'Cats are 4-2-1.'
it was right, and I was wrong. Yes, they are loyal. Yes, the 'Cats have repaid their fans with a good season. But I'd never again hold up those fans as examples of anything.
That column was obviously written before I heard the horrible tells the KU Banding Band
TRACEE HAMILTON
brought back from Manhattan. It was enough to make my stomach turn; it also made me change
I still think KU fans could be a little less critical, but, hey, I will take the snoot, silent types any day over the destructive, dangerous thugs that were lurking in the KSU stadium Saturday
Felting the band with fruit, unfortunately, is somewhat of a tradition, and that news didn't surprise me. But mussels accustomed band members, tried to rip the uniforms from their bodies, stole their hats and threatened them. It all goes beyond harmless rivalry.
And then to hear that five K-State students were arrested in Lawrence last Friday morning for vandalizing University property — isn't this all a little childish for college students?
Oh, sure, down in Manhattan they'll grouse. "Well we beat them, so it's sour grapes."
Nope, Wrong. The Wildcats most certainly did beat KU, and I doubt even the most ardent Jayhawk would take a Wildcat to task over which was the better football team that night.
But as embarrassing as the game may have been, what happened in the stands was a disrace.
I was even ready to bury the hatchet this season. I was getting ready to cheer for K-State if it managed to wangle a bowl invite — not a far-fetched possibility.
Forget it. And I hope administrators have learned an important lesson: the long you give
the fams to get good and drunk before the game, the rowder the crowd will be. Notice I didn't narrow fans to just "students", either: I'd bet the band members could tell stories about fans of
I also hope the K-State security people are red-faced. They should be. They should have immediately noticed the problem and beefed up security around the hand.
Band directors have said they will take more KU security officers along next time, but I don't think that's the band's problem. Ideally, there should be no need for security, but obviously there is. And that security should be provided by the host university. I hope KU officials make sure the Wildcat band is well-protected next fall, in case the fans here prove equally mindless.
Of course, I'm aware that not every student who attends K-State is a vandal, a thug and a brute. I, like many other KU students, have friends that go to school out west.
I just question the sanity of it all — from bombing the band with refrigerator refuse to throwing live chickens on the court at basketball games.
Band Director Robert Foster pointed out that it's not a problem confined to Manhattan. Much the same behavior is exhibited at Mizzuo. The Jayhawks face the Tigers in Columbia in a few weeks, so the band has to wake up rest. And we'll all rattle the day, if it ever comes, when KU plays Wichita State in Shocker Land. In New Orleans, after WSU stoked the KU in the NCAA games, the Native American tribes were so objectionable they attracted stares from the Bourbon Street crowd, the same people who live through Mardi Gras and hardly raise an eyebrow.
I hope KU fans are preparing for the K-State crowd's next visit to Lawrence. No, I'm not calling on the students to save their moulded heads in the classroom. A hill can show those folks a little more restraint.
None of the other Big Eight schools are this rude to KU, probably because no other rivalries are as intense as these. Nebraska and Oklahoma fans are too busy thinking of something else to dye red; the other schools seem to have too much class.
In the meantime, the band can save its pennies, now that it has new uniforms, for a method of better protecting itself. A howitzer is one such weapon, not available, how about a tube that shoots mace?
U.S. must freeze nuclear arms
Something big is happening in the world.
On June 12, 1982, more than 550,000 people converged on New York City's Central Park to show their support for a nuclear arms freeze. In recent months, thousands upon thousands of people have gathered for similar demonstrations in cities across the country and other lands. All have called for a stop to the skyrocketing amount of nuclear weapons being produced.
Something is wrong in the world.
A Gallup poll showed that nearly 75 percent of Americans favor a ban on the construction of nuclear weapons. Yet, the current defense budget is the largest in American history.
Our government thinks that in order to attain any sort of a freeze, our arsenal must be equal with the Soviet Union's, because right now, it has defenses are interior to the Soviets' defenses.
Hoowash
Together, the United States and the Soviet Union have more than 50,000 nuclear weapons. Just a fraction of that amount is enough to wipe out both countries.
We saw what two bombs did to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. They killed 200,000 people instantly. Another 100,000 were killed by radiation in the years before the attack that 7,000 Japanese are still dying every year from the after-effects of radiation poisoning.
Those two bombs were small in comparison with today's standards. Haven't we learned from that tragedy? The number of nuclear weapons we have—even if it is less than what the Russians have—is enough to annihilate the entire world many times over.
Technology has now produced the neutron bomb, yet another scientific marvel that destroys people but leaves buildings relatively intact. How thoughtful.
And now there is talk of surviving a "limited"
nuclear war — at the cost of "only" a few million
lives. Our conservative administration is rather
liberal when it comes to building dangerous toys.
Missile silos have been "strategically" placed in the mountains of Colorado and the flattlands of Kansas. We have so many nuclear warheads that they can be fired from anywhere. How many times can we blow each other up?
In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower said: "There comes a time, possibly, when a lead is not significant in the defensive arrangements of a country. If you get enough of a particular type of weapon, I doubt that it is particularly important to have a lot more of it."
In 1979, President Carter said that "just one of our relatively invulnerable Poseidon submarines carries enough warheads to destroy every large and medium-size city in the Soviet Union."
Undoubtedly, Russia has the same capabilities.
Former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev once warned that although the United States "may be able to destroy us two times over, we're
HAL KLOPPER
still capable of wiping out the United States,
even if it's only once."
In his book "The Fate of the Earth," Jonathan Schell warms, "The Soviet missiles closest to the United States, which are stationed on submarines several hundred miles from our shores, can deliver their warheads on coastal targets about 10 minutes after they are fired, and on inland targets a few minutes later. We must control and Disarm Agency, it requires 15 minutes after missiles have been launched for the earliest warnings to be given to the population."
People are frightened. Demonstrations are taking place because our government has not provided enough convincing information to calm these fears. That is why there are more than 170 people and organizations throughout the world to write about anti-nuclear movements. Opponents of nuclear weapons want answers and actions by our government.
These rallies are not merely a string of demonstrations. They have developed into a movement. And a movement usually has something important to say. Thomas Jefferson once said, "All authority belongs to the people." But in America, the government of the people.
by the people and for the people is not listening to the people.
The solution is not to build more so that we can achieve parity with the Soviets, having as many weapons of death and destruction as they do. A step in the right direction is to do what 75 percent of Americans want to do — ban the construction of nuclear weapons.
Public pressure is mounting on our government. Nationally, more than 2 million citizens have signed petitions asking to vote on similar resolutions. Locally, 130 KU professors have signed their names to a letter that supports the arms freeze.
On Nov. 2, Lawrence voters will be able to take a stance on this issue in a nuclear freeze resolution being conducted by the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice.
But a nuclear weapons freeze is only the first step in the war against nuclear war. Even if it were to be put into effect by our government, the military only hold the potential danger at a specific level.
Another recent Gallup poll showed that more than 75 percent of U.S. citizens would approve of President Reagan making a proposal to increase the number of weapons to reduce their nuclear weapons by one-half.
Disarmament is the key to ending this nightmare. President Reagan has proved his ability to bargain with Congress. Now, the true test of his power is to bargain with Russia.
An interesting cycle has developed from the nuclear age. In 1939, a Nobel Prize was given for the discovery of nuclear fission, which causes the explosion of a nuclear warhead. This year's Nobel Prize goes to activists for their role in international disarmament negotiations at the United Nations.
Schell wrote that nuclear weapons "grew out of history, yet they threatened to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man. Just as we have chosen to make nuclear weapons, we can choose to unmake them."
Both the Soviet Union and the United States have said that nuclear war would be nothing less than suicide.
Like a cancer, nuclear weapons must stop growing and be destroyed before they destroy
The University Daily
KANSAN
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