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Opinion
University Dallv Kansan, September 7, 1982
Beer to get tailgate test
After four years, the issue of serving beer in Memorial Stadium is still undecided. But that may change after Saturday, when the KU athletic department plans to open the football season with a tailgate party featuring this cereal malt concoction.
Turnout for the event, as well as participants' subsequent behavior, could change the minds of administrators and alumni still hesitant to approve regular beer sales at games. Student officials say they will be watching Saturday's party closely, in hopes of finding support for stadium beer sales.
Serving liquor on a college campus is bound to be a touchy issue, particularly when national alcoholism statistics are growing and when the Kansas Legislature has so recently enacted stiffer drunken driving penalties.
Nevertheless, those who would purchase the beer if it were served in the stadium are, by all indications, already bringing in their own liquor — usually hard liquor — discreetly tucked away.
There are opponents of the issue who maintain that by selling beer, the University would be officially condoning alcohol consumption. This philosophical argument loses its bite when considering that the University has been giving liquor its stamp of approval since it began serving beer in the Kansas Union seven years ago. Within five months after the Union began selling beer, the beverage's sales had netted $15,000.
The University should not let financial reasons be its only guide in policy-making. But if administrators and alumni are so determined that liquor not be consumed in the stadium, then perhaps they should be less hypocritical about present enforcement of liquor restrictions.
Someone is reaping the profits from the consumption of liquor that goes on openly in the alumni and student sections at football games. So long as the liquor continues to find its way into Memorial Stadium, those profits might as well go to the University.
New KU police cars indicate rather uneven budget cutting
University of Kansas police can be seen cruising campus, usually alone in one of the department's marked cruisers, virtually any hour of the day.
But this year the KU police have done themselves up with distinction—the they managed to acquire new Ford LTDs in the wake of budget left—the rest—of the University clamping.
There are four new $8,000 cars rolling through campus, and each one of the white Ford LTDs carries a full police package complete with
TOM HUTTON
heavy-duty suspension, wheels and radiator, and n V-W engine.
These new 2-ton vehicles replace the department's 1980 Chevrolet Miibus, which had about 60,000 miles on them, according to Jim Denney, Lawrence campus police director. Replacing a 2-year-old car at about half its useful life? It hardly seems like an economical proposition for the University to be spending funds this way in such difficult times.
Furthermore, this year's new cars could hardly be considered a wise choice for patrolling an area as small as the University campus. The campus's tight parking spots, narrow alleys and winding roads are better suited for bicycles and pedestrians than for 8-foot-long Fords.
Denney defended the decision to buy the Fords on the basis of a low bid offered by Landmark Ford of Lawrence. According to Denney, the department set its own specifications for the new patrol cars and asked area car dealers to submit bids as required by the state. Fuel consumption apparently was not considered when different models were compared. Denney said the new LTDs get an average of 12 miles per gallon. At about 3,000 miles monthly, it would not take long to realize the substantial savings of a smaller patrol car.
Denney said that smaller patrol cars with corresponding smaller engines could not stand up on the road.
Part of the reason the cars have such a short life span, he has, has to do with the campus
"We just don't have any freeways where we
can really go and blow them out," Denney said. "Stop-and-drive at around 10 to 30 mph, up and down winding roads, is really hard on cars. We can stop and go to with the police because since 1978."
The problem, he went on to say, is that American manufacturers only offer police officers the right to carry weapons.
"No American manufacturer manufactures a real police car with a six-cylinder engine," he said. "That engine might not wear out but the rest of the car will."
Nevertheless, couldn't the University police patrol the campus more effectively and economically in one of Detroit's smaller offerings? Much of the Campus Mail delivery is handled in Volkswagen Rabbits, and they cover the same area as the police cars do. Why couldn't the police manage to patrol the campus in similar Rabbitts or Chevrolet Citations, Ford Escorts or Dodge Relilians? All those cars have either four or six-cylinder engines and would surely get better gas mileage than the 302-cubic-inch V-8 engines of the new Fords.
Besides, it's very unusual to see a campus police car carry anyone but the driver. And does the campus police department really need 100 mile-an-hour pursuit capability?
I hope not — the day that KU has a high-speed pursuit through campus will be a sad one for the many pedestrians and cyclists likely to be in the wav.
smaller police cars are being tried in other Kansas cities, in particular, Kansas City, Kan., where the University of Kansas Medical Center is located.
Police there began replacing a few of their older, full-size Pontiac patrol cars with American-made versions.
So far, the replacement has caused no problems — wear-and-tear or otherwise — says Jim Kobe, Kansas City, Kan., Police Department garage supervisor.
"The cars are working out real well so far," Kobbe said. "The only problem so far is squeezing the car, and it's hard to find a seat."
Performance of the cars has been good, in fact, he said. And the smaller engines have more than enough power for large-city police work, he said.
It seems odd that smaller, more economical cars are being used in a much larger city while big and wasteful cars are used on the KU campus. It also is interesting to note that Kansas City, Kan., police will patrol Rainbow Boulevard, the main street in front of the Med Center, while campus police handle only the smaller side streets there in their new, large cars.
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Theaters losing their charm
The last movie I saw was "E.T.," in July, and it sourced me on the idea of attending another movie festival.
"E.T. T." was a wonderful movie, but the theater was depressing. It was a carbon copy of almost every theater in which I've been — clean, with soft chairs, new carpet in the lobby and deodorizers in the restrooms, flawless screens and soaky clean ticket-takers.
Today's theaters are modern and sterile — cloned cinemas that are indistinguishable except for the huge numeral affixed to the wall — ornate lounges with reclining chairs and quadraphonic
A great theater is one that is an entertaining as the movie itself. The Roach is a great theater
The Roach is its real name and has nothing to do with the little creatures that scuttle across its basement restroom floor. The red neon sign still glows the name, its reflection shining in empty store windows on the Main Street in my hometown.
That light would be on when our parents dumped my best friend and I off at 7:30 each Saturday night, and it would still be burning when they picked up us. The owners of the theater, the Finches (who actually were a bird) decided to be on hand in the window revealing, to the minute, the time the film would end. There would be no loitering on Main Street.
Usually, we would cause a commotion at the candy counter, and then my best friend and I
Once inside, however, we were free, or almost. Theater rules said you were supposed to be a certain age to be able to sit in the balcony. I can't remember what it was, but I was always several years too young.
It became our mission, our sole consuming desire, to sneak into that balcony. Crawling past Mrs. Finch, the ticket-taker, was not difficult, but the heavy red velvet curtains covering the balcony entrance would stir at our touch and we would be hustled to the front of the theater.
I'm not sure now what spurred our fascination with that balcony. Perhaps it was the high school couples necking. My sister, four years my senior, particularly resented this habitat of mine. Or maybe it was the projectionist. He would lure his girlfriend into the booth and sometimes become so distracted that he would either knock over the projector or forget to change reels.
Eventually, though, we would make it.
But the ladies restroom in The Roach was the
TRACEE HAMILTON
most ungetogether part of all. That was where the monster lived.
well, maybe it wasn't a monster. In that dank basement bathroom was a little door in the wall, padlocked shut. Strange sounds came from behind that door, and we would spend half our time — particularly during a Disney flick — down in that danger. We could have been caught through the crack in that door, or reading the graffit that engulfed the dank walls, pretending we understood what it meant.
When we did sit through an entire movie (a rare occurrence usually reserved for Robert Redford or John Wayne), it was in the classic movie-goer's position — perched on the base of our spines, knees on the back of the seat in front of us in the middle seats of the mid-row of the theater.
The screen we sat riveted to has been slashed in the same place for the 20-odd years I've been going there. Naturally, the rip was in such a
place that it would unwittingly appear on the faces of such stars as Clint Eastwood (where it looked just right) and Barba Streisand (where it didn’t).
And if you sat on the front row and unwittingly got up, you stood a good chance of being pampered to die by popcorn boxes. The row was so close to the front of the theater that the unlucky offender's upper torso would appear on the screen.
No New Year's Eve was complete without a trip to The Roach. Four or five movies would be shown, all wildly dissimilar. The biggest thrill any of us ever got in that theater was the night "Dracula" played and the theater bat—what theater would be complete without its own bat?—tore lose from wherever it lurked and soared over our heads and across the screen, adding a certain flavor that even Steven Spielberg would be hard-pressed to duplicate.
My best friend and I fell in and out of love thousands of times in The Roach. I had my first kiss there, appropriately during "2001: A Space Odyssey." It was everyone's weekend ritual: Friday night, a football or basketball game; Saturday night, The Roach.
Where else can you see a movie for $1.50 or 75 cents, if where you are under 12? I recall being totally incensed when, at 16, a date suggested that if I were 18, I would only have to shell out half-priced admission.
When I was home in May, the town was rife with rumors of The Roach's demise. It simply wasn't making enough money. I drove up and down Main Street starring at The Roach, trying to commit to mind every faded line of the tired building.
The Roach did not die. It opens now only on weekends. But it it's just a matter of time before the slashed screen goes black and the doors close. The camera, a bat and the ghosts of childhood to mourn it.
Former adviser gauges Reaganomics
New York Times Syndicate
By MURRAY L. WEIDENBAUM
WASHINGTON — On the basis of its first year and a half, it seems clear that the Reagan administration has achieved significant progress in reducing the number to which that not all its objectives have yet been realized.
As I viewed it when I first joined the administration — and as I still do today — the basic objective of Reaganomics is to shift the balance of power between the government and the rest of society. In its fundamentals, that shift is to be accomplished by allowing downscaling spending, cutting taxes, curtailing regulation and reducing the growth of the money supply.
The moral and conceptual foundations of this approach should not be ignored: the belief that economic liberty is a key requisite for personal liberty.
The Reagan four-point economic program was developed to strengthen the economy and to stabilize what had been a stop-and-go history of economic policy and performance.
Tens of billions of dollars in reductions (mainly reductions in proposed increases) have been made in proposed federal expenditures. At the same time, however, an extremely rapid expansion in military outlays has offset much of the civilian spending cuts. The continuing escalation of so-called entitlement outlays remains to be tackled. Meanwhile, many traditional subsidy programs — such as dairy-voice supports — continue to expand.
On the revenue side, the basic tax program has been enacted – a 25 percent across-the-board reduction in personal income tax rates over three years (instead of the original 30 percent) plus liberalization of business depreciation allowances. But during the legislative period, special interest legislation were added, such as the ineffective "All-Savers Certificates."
in the regulatory area, for the first time in decades, no new major regulatory activities were promulgated. In fact, many burdensome regulations were modified or rescinded. But the most important potential action has not yet been enacted. And, as the cost of the most economically for-reaching regulatory law on the statute books, the act deserves to be renewed. Yet there are many opportunities for
Thus, progress in carrying out the four elements of the Reagan economic program has been uneven. On the positive side, the inflation rate has been halved, from about 12 percent in 1980 to less than 6 percent so far this year. This has been accompanied in the short run by recession and a rise in unemployment to 9.8 percent.
Surely the administration never claimed that it could eliminate the business cycle. But some overly optimistic early rhetoric may have contributed to that expectation. In any event, a contraction of average size imposed on an consumer could lead to an increase in employment in the highest unemployment rate since the 1980s, hardy an accomplishment to crow about.
Another aspect of government intervention in business took a backward step in the past year and a half. Protectionist sentiment plus foreign-policy considerations have led to further governmental intrusions into foreign trade. These have ranged from informal limits on imports of Japanese cars to an embargo on U.S. firms participating in the Gulf oil gas pipeline with the Soviet Union. Pressures for further import limits and export subsidies are very strong, and they have been exacerbated by recession and the rising value of the dollar on foreign exchanges.
constructive change, especially to introduce incentives to encourage regulators to seek the least costly alternative, an approach that rarely surfaces in environmental regulation.
Simultaneously, interest rates have remained much higher than expected. The prime rate has declined moderately, from 21 percent in January 1961 to 14 percent. Long-term interest rates have moved even more sluggishly. Closely associated, at least for much of the financial community, has been the rise in current and prospective budget deficits. The modest reductions in budget outlays do not come close to offsetting the generosity of the tax cuts. Although helpful, the tax bill passed by Congress will not fundamentally change things.
As for monetary policy, the administration has supported the Federal Reserve System's effort to slow down rapid growth in the money supply. The Fed has in general accomplished that objective. But the unusual short-term volatility of the major measure of money aggregate may have contributed to the depth of the 1981-82 recession.
The basic imbalance in the budget is truly troublesome. For the next several years, federal revenues are likely to be 19 percent of the gross national product, while federal outlays will be 22 percent or more. Given the many burdens of taxation, this is not as much a justification for tax increases as it is for curtailment of a magnitude comparable to the 181 tax cuts.
There is no guarantee that lower budget deficits will automatically result in lower interest rates or faster economic growth and, thus, lower unemployment. Nevertheless, many actions that reduce budget deficits would help on at least one of these fronts. Surely, smaller governmental outlays mean less diversion of resources from the private to the public sector and diminished pressures on interest rates. Similarly, eliminating subsidies and other forms of protection for various producer groups (business, labor, agriculture) in an economy with a deficit afflicted yields more competitive in world markets. But each of these actions means facing opposition from beneficiaries of the status quo in the federal budget — and facing them down.
For the next several years, the prospective triple-digit deficits are likely to be a serious impediment to growth. Those deficits compete for investment funds that otherwise would finance private-sector expansion. Those deficits also create great uncertainty. Few can be sure that their favorite spending program won't be cut or their taxes raised or the deficits financed by printing money, thus raising inflationary pressures.
As a participant in the budget review process, I am convinced that there are numerous opportunities for further economies in virtually every department and agency activity - military and civilian, urban and rural - potential cuts involving guns, butter and fat.
Looking back at the first blush of enthusiasm on the part of supply-siders and monetarists alike a year and a half ago, I must report that recent experience confirms traditional wisdom; there are no easy answers but only hard choices in economic policy-making. Yet, the more promptly and decisively those choices are made, the brighter the future prospects are likely to be.
Murray Weidenaum was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors until resuming his post as distinguished professor at Washington University, St. Louis, last week.
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