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Tuesday, May 6, 1975
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Buck passed again
Another year has come and gone, and the questions about the University of Kansas' parking fees and fines system are still floating around unanswered.
The University Council has approved a few changes in the parking fees and regulations for next year, but unfortunately it passed the buck to the new SenEx to look for the answers to the questions and to reform the parking system.
The parking fee here probably isn't too high, considering the cost of parking lot maintenance. But beyond the fee schedule, the defects in the system are plentiful.
Fines are too high. Five dollars is too high for a simple parking ticket, and the $8 charge after 14 days is completely out of bounds.
Enforcement of the fines is inadequate and unfair. How many times have you, if you have a parking permit for a small lot up on the hill, been forced to park partially in a yellow curb because cars without permits were taking up the other spaces, then returned to find the other cars gone and yours with a ticket?
There are too many universal stickers issued. Too often people with these permits take advantage of them, using space in small lots when they don't really need to park there, thus forcing people who can't park elsewhere to park illegally.
And maintenance. Permits are
reasonably priced only if drivers get results in the form of filled-in potholes and decretely surfaced parking lots for their money.
Solutions? To start with, open up the details of where our money goes once we pay it. The KU Parking and Traffic Board says it doesn't even get such information, and it should. Decisions that affect students and faculty are being made without accountability for the people making them, and that must change.
Fines can simply be lowered, or better yet, return to the old graduated fee system.
Restrict the issuance of universal permits, and better yet, put a two-hour time limit on the ones that are issued. And authorize the board to revoke permits that are no longer justified.
In addition, a way must be found to force faculty and staff to pay parking fines. There are thousands of dollars in unpaid fines outstanding, and although students cannot graduate or enroll without paying their fines, faculty members can, for all practical purposes, toss their tickets without worry.
Perhaps the first thing to do is to encourage SenEx to open up this can of worms and try to straighten it out. Changes must be made for the good of the University and all of those who must drive and park around it. Please, no buck-passing again next year. —John Pike
Movie poorly timed
It's hard to say whether it was bad taste, bad judgment or simply indtention that was responsible for what KCMO-TV in Kansas City did Saturday night on their 10:30 p.m. movie. But whatever it was, it was bad.
Of all the movies the station might have run, it picked "The Green Berets," the 1968 John Wayne propaganda piece that purported to show how American technology, courage and ingenuity were actually giving the Viet Cong a licking in Vietnam.
How the station could run that particular film within a week of the fall of Saigon, when those helicopters that the movie Green Berets
were using to soundly defeat the Viet Cong were being used in real life to flee the victorious enemy, is beyond understanding.
Perhaps the station did us a favor, however, by running the film. If you watched it, you got a good lesson in the dangers of believing such things.
The film was made with the full blessing and cooperation of the military, and certainly portrayed their operations as they would like them portrayed. Those who watched should have taken note of the discrepancies between the Green Berets, and the military in general, as they were shown, and the truth as we now know it. Take note, and file it for future reference. —John Pike
And suddenly it is over. They are gone. The Best Years of my life. Today I finish my undergraduate college life. I am through.
End stirs mixed emotions
future graweed. But the last couple of years have been good ones, and I think I've grown into the atmosphere and the life of the school and the town. I am not anxious to leave.
It is difficult to see today as being much different from the other Last Days of my school life. I usually don't get sentimental about such things, but I am always wishing for the return of the good old days. This isn't a departure from that; I am not especially sentimental about my days here, and many of those days I wouldn't choose to relive. But still I feel that some things are better than others. It it's a strange feeling, one I don't know how to deal with.
I came to college mostly because it was planned for me. I was expected to go, although I suppose now that I wanted to go, to
But I must, and I do it with distinct feelings of frustration
By John Pike
Editor
fellow student, with his seeming inability to show the most basic consideration for those around him, his inability to perceive his individual existence as but one among the many, no less but certainly no greater. The last five years have shown me
I came here five years ago, nervous but hopeful about what it would be like. The first year was a good one, although my mind was still back home. The second year was difficult, as classes didn't go too well and anxieties about the present and
and hope, trepidation but confidence.
I leave here frustrated with the inability to learn what is here to learn, frustrated at the failure of learning frustrated at the things I have been unable to do, the compromises I have had to make. But I leave knowing the opportunities exist for learning and doing.
people at the worst that I have seen them, selfish, arrogant, oolish and hypocritical.
I leave frustrated with my
But I have found hope in the friendships I have made here, the occasions of warmth and humanity that restore faith, the good times with good people that make associations with people the most potentially useful. I love them. I love with tendrations.
when I came here what I wanted to do with my life or what the future held, but the future far away most of the time.
I leave still not knowing what the future holds or exactly what I want to do, but now the future is much closer and I am conscious, as I was't before, of the times of loss, of the time lost from you. There are decisions that must be made, difficult ones. They tell you decisions will be easier with the wisdom of education and maturity, but they don't tell you that the choices themselves have to influence your education and maturity may not be a match for them.
I am also frustrated at the inability I see around me of people and communicate their feelings to others, hear those of ours. We are all taught to talk, but we cannot say what we mean, what we mean.
It is sad to learn to interact and give input and rap and articulate and verbalize and express your thoughts by hear all of it punctuated with
"you know?" because the speaker can't get his message across to someone else. I had taken college could teach such things.
I have learned things, to be sure. I have learned, for example, that while grades don't always mean much, they are important. It is sad to see a junior or senior, mourning over the loss of a graduate marked to get him into a graduate school, who fell for the 'grades are meaningless!' sermon that too many of his instructors preached those first days of years. They had lost both their money and they were racing, and it wasn't always their fault.
I have an advantage over most of the people graduating this year because I have this opportunity to tell you what I feel about today and the past few years. I hope I have spoken, at least in part, for others as well. The experience for me has been, over-all, a challenge. I have learned it and I hope I have benefited from it. I hope you have, too.
An uncertain future
By STEVEN LEWIS Contributing Writer
Chancellor Archie R. Dykes has been speaking lately about the future of the University of Kansas. The chancellor's optimism indicates that he really wants to know what the future will bring.
During the past four years I've been meticulously noting trends as they develop about the University. Last week I fed all
Here, according to the computer, is the true history of KU's future:
my data into the University computer. The computer printout reveals that a convulsive future beckons.
May 22, 1975-Dykes complains that the six committees searching for new University instructors are working too slowly.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas weekdays during the academic year except holidays and excused on Monday through Friday. Lawrences, Kam 68453. Subscriptions to mail are $8.95. Admission is $13.15 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
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Accommodations, goods services and employment opportunities are needed to be available for students, especially those in grade IV, to receive necessities such as the Student Savings券, the Student Loan Discount Card, and the Federal Child Tax Credit.
Associate Editor John Paul
Craig Stock Campus Editor
Dennis Elsworth
Editor
John Dike
Associate Campus Editor Carl Young
Assistant Campus Editors Alan Masger,
Chief Photographer George Miller III
Sports Editor Mike Fingeride
Associate Sports Editor Ken Stuphens
Associate Sports Editor Ann Gardner, Roy Clevenger
Debbie Gumbel Roy Clevenger
Copy Chairs Bumpy Miller Smith, Katie Pickett
Wire Editors Hasegawa Betula, Rock Griffin
Contributing Writers John Brooks, Stephen Burn
Photographers Rod Milkburn, Barbara O'Brien
Business Manager
Dave Roesa
Advertising Manager Assistant Business Manager Deborah Arbionts Caroline Howe
Classified Advertising Manager Debby Lyasung
National Advertising Manager Ginger Bees
Advertising Manager Cindy Lodge
Assistant Classified Manager Gary Burch
Promotional Manager Nebel Nelson
Manager Mike Pollack
Business Adviser
Mel Adams
May 27—Harry Bucholz, director of the department of buildings and grounds, resigns from the University to supervise the replumbing of Gov. Robert F. Bennett's mansion. Points a search committee to find a replacement.
JUNE 23- The search committees unanimously reject Dykes's May 22 accusation they slowly.
June 27 - Dykes receives reports that the University is rapidly deteriorating from neglect. Restroom access across campus was limited in international and Wescoe Hall is without air conditioning. A new buildings and grounders still hasn't been selected, and confusion reigns among buildings and grounds personnel.
June 30—The chancellor's
juniar disappears. Dykes calls
buildings and grounds for a
replacement. No one answers.
Dykes asks Shankel to take out the trash.
July 1—Shankel resigns as
executive vice chancellor.
Dykes appoints two more
chancellors and a replacement for Shankel and the other to find a junitar.
JULY 2- THE deans meet with the chancellor to report disclosures among faculty members, toilet users and other in-convenences. The deans tell staff that they are confident in his leadership.
July 3—In deseration, Dykes issues an executive order appointing a vice chancellor for search committees. Dykes instructs his new vice chancellor to see that all search committees finish their work within a week.
July 5-Acting on several complaints, the University general counsel mullifies the chancellor's executive order because Dykes didn't follow affirmative action guidelines.
July 8—A right-wing coup, led by Athletic Director Clyde Walker, topples the Dykes and the Nets in an official statement is that student season football tickets will be raised to $25. Later, Walker promises the deans that he will make the toilet flush every time.
JULY 9—Walker orders the committee search for a new buildings and grounds director who will work on hours. Meanwhile, the University counsel rules that Walker didn't follow after action guidelines when he appointed himself chancellor.
July 12—Walker fairs town in the wake of a faculty revolution. Rejecting modernism, the faculty hails the three Pearson Humanities professors as their "philosopher-chancellors."
July 14—The University's new ruling triumvirate announces that Buchholz has consented to return to the University when he finishes working in September, and mansion in September. Until then, the University will be closed.
Readers respond
July 11—There is still no buildings and grounds director and the University is dysfunctional. The deans warn Walker that a revolution is brewing among faculty members.
July 10—Walker locks up the University counsel.
To the Editor:
Pat Lipnicky is right. Sauna baths are gaining popularity at KU. I took my first a month ago.
"Saua with a friend," says the sign in Robinson, but not because you might faint in the sauna. Rather, you might become a live lute exhibition for two boys, about 13 to 15-year-old, who were hiding in a shower stall outside the sauna door watching the action three weeks ago Sunday night.
Three weeks ago I took another sauna, but it may be my last unless more security precautions are put into effect at the sauna in Robinson Gymnasium.
THE FACT IS that the back door to the women's locker at Robinson doesn't have a lock on it that works 100 per cent of the time. You can enter the locker room from the back without going by the front desk, a perfect route for young volees.
Unfortunately, these particular young boys had more on their minds than voyeurism. What they were contemplating was rape in the women's locker room and they said so.
Believe the sign, KU women. Sauna with a friend.
Joan Davies Lawrence Junior
Watkins helpful
To the Editor:
Bringing to a close four years at KU, I have noticed that this column is usually used to describe the contention about the University.
As I leave, I wish to say something positive about Watkins Hospital, traditionally attacked for many reasons.
My contact with Watkins has been somewhat more than that of the average student in that I am an outpatient and am there for a few weeks. Though I often have to wait long hours, I am thankful that the service exists at all and is so convenient to students.
My experience at KU has been man in particular who has been an important part of my life, Byron Walters, physician.
This man deserves our thanks. He is a credit to his profession and to KU. He is always pleasant, always willing to help and takes much time to deal with patients, like an individual in dealing with him and was pleased to find that, unlike the general rumor that KU doctors are retired and out of touch, he is well read and constantly in need of medications. His abilities are outstanding and his kindness extends beyond the requirements of simply treating a patient. I have had to depend on him in some serious manner when I did not disappoint me, as a doctor or as a human being responding to another human being.
I SO WISH to thank him. And I think the KU student body will most, on closer scrutiny, that most of the doctors at Watkins are as competent and helpful. We should be pleased that this team is available to us and support it rather than denigrate it.
Name Withheld on Request
Logic lashed
Robinson saunas unsafe
To the Editor:
This is in response to the so-called "logic" of Judy Zook, which appeared in the April 9 Kansan.
Zook claims that it is a "simple fact that a woman wanting an abortion is going to obtain one" whether legal or not. In contrast to this claim, a survey by those not opposed to abortion published a few months ago in the Kansan and elsewhere estimated that of the 900,000 abortions that occurred year, two-thirds would have occurred had they been illegal. This means that 300,000 wouldn't have occurred.
The same survey revealed that legalizing abortions had decreased deaths among women who received abortions from 300 to 37 a year.
THUS, WE HAVE traded 300,000死 fetuses for 300 adult deaths. even if we somehow claim that the other disadults have more equivalent to 2,700 more adult deaths, we have traded 100 fetuses killed for every adult killed. Agnostic utilitarian logic says that to approve a fetus, one must think that the odds that a fetus is a human being are one per cent or less. The only logical defense of a claim that the odds are this low against someone who believes whether a fetus is a human being is a matter for arbitrary definition. I hope the slaughter that has too often resulted when some group claims the right to have children defy necessity would teach us reject this attitude.
THE CORRECT WAY to eliminate the butchery of the criminal abortion isn't be to substitute the greater butchery of legal abortion. The correct way to use logic isn't represented by Jook's letter.
Leo G. Choumard in
Instructor in mathematics
Story misleading To the Editor:
In the Kansan of April 21, in a story entitled, "Anteplopes, not titles, elken Kenyan runner," my friend Steve Boyce, the writer, wrote that I was once known as the best basketball champions whoI drank at home to earn the title. This is untrue, because at no time in my life have I participated in a beer drinking contest.
I met Steve and his wife April 16, soon after I arrived in Kansas for the relays, and we talked to him about conversation. In our private conversation, we talked about their wedding and I told them that a wedding in Iowa is in my town, and it can be celebration for 24 hours or more.
BESIDES MISQUOTING me, parts of the article suggest that Boyce thought that everything said in our joking conversation was true. He told me he was going to watch during the weekend on my training schedule, but he never showed up.
I have known Steve Boyce for the past two years, and I know he probably did not mean to hurt my feelings.
Eastern New Mexico University