Tuesday, May 2, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Legislative overtime isn't conducive to government
Maybe the Legislature should consider a two-week session next year.
After all, year after year they have waited until the wrap-up session to debate major issues. If those bills can be resolved in a rushed two-week session, why should Kansans pay for three months during which legislators debate only minor issues?
The legislators cannot enjoy the two-week marathon debates. The House and Senate convene on weekends, and meetings last well into the night. This hardly seems conducive to level-headed decision making.
reservation.
This year, the Legislature didn't get serious about a highway or prison plan until the wrap-up session. Even then, the bills bounced from House to Senate to conference committee, back to the House, back to the Senate, etc.
Kansans have a right to expect better from their elected officials. They realize that compromise is a key to successful legislation. But the Legislature refuses to compromise.
legislation. But the lawWhile conference committees continue to try to iron out differences between the two chambers, representatives and senators remain bullheaded. Yesterday, the sixth day of the wrap-up session, the House rejected for a fourth time a Senate prison bill. The bill, although slightly altered in conference committee, was similar to a plan that the House had rejected on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The Kansas legislators seem unable to pass legislation, even in the extra time they have given themselves.
Jill Jess for the editorial board
House Republicans trash K-State for election results
Kansas House Republicans have found a creative way to get revenge on voters in Manhattan.
At the request of Speaker Jim Braden, R-Clay Center, Republicans used their majority in the House and decided not to fix a simple accounting mistake that will dupe Kansas State University out of $441,026. The money should have been theirs as part of the omnibus appropriations bill.
as part of the ominbs appropriation Braden confirmed that, at a calendar meeting Thursday, he and his cohorts discussed "trashing" the university because of the recent elections.
You see, in November, State Rep. Hochhauser, D-Manhattan, upset former House Majority Leader Joe Knopp, R-Manhattan, and State Rep. Katha Hurt, D-Manhattan, defeated former State Rep. Ivan Sand, R-Riley.
At the micropolitan House floor Friday, Braden said he told Republicans to vote against correcting the mistake because of the way the Democrats conducted the elections — as in, they won.
That poor soul, Braden. Those ruthless Manhattan voters weren't in his feelings, and they ought to get less money. What would almost a half million dollars buy anyway? It might mean a lot to a place such as little Clay Center, Braden's hometown, but it probably wouldn't much to a thriving university such as K-State.
What Braden and the other 66 Republicans who decided to cheat K-State may have forgotten is that lots of Republicans attend that school. Maybe a few of them are from Clay Center or its surrounding district. And maybe they'll report back home with news that their state representative and big-time speaker of the House cares more about avenging the defeat of fellow party members than he does about fairness.
tenh party members that are below party members that are Maybe then, when he is up for re-election next year, voters from that district will pick someone who is more loyal to the people who elected him.
James Farquhar for the editorial board
The editors in this column are the opinion of the editorial board. The editorial board consists of Julie Adam, Karen Boring, Jeef Euston, James Fearquar, Cindy Harger, Jennifer Hinkle, Grace Hobson, Jill Jess, Mark McCormick and Mark Tiltford.
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Chicago fights in black and white
I tdowned on me one hectic day last week that I'm in either the wrong line of work or the wrong city. Maybe both.
On the one hand, I had been listening to a black radio talk show, during which dozens of angry callers were comparing me unfavorably with the former Klausman who was elected as a state legislator in Louisiana.
state legislator.
That's because I had written a few columns about radio talk shows that permitted callers to go unchallenged when they made what, to me, sounded like hate-filled racial observations or bizarre and paranoid statements that they presented as fact.
they presented, Chicago recently experienced a bitter move to campaign in which race was the overriding element, the tempers of the callers seemed to be bubbling over.
tried to be bubbling over. At the same time, my office phone hardly stopped ringing. The remarks of one woman summed up what the many others said. Her voice was almost choking with fury. She said, "You know what you are? You're a nigger-loving bastard liberal." She elaborated, but it isn't publishable.
publishable.
She and others who shared her disapproval were angry because that day's column was sympathetic to a black postal worker who had been forced to flee from a white neighborhood on the South Side by a stick-wielding wedge.
So many people called to express that opinion, I barely had time to field calls from others with a different point of view. They were the blacks who couldn't get through to the radio show, so they called direct to let me know that I was a no-good white racist.
Mike
Royko
Syndicated columnist
Having written a column for more than 25 years, I've become accustomed to abuse. It's almost impossible to write anything without making someone angry. If I simply wrote that it was a nice day, I'm sure someone would call to say, "May it be it was nice for you, but it was a lousy day for me. Who are you to speak for others?" or maybe, "Listen. We all know it's a way, so why bore us with the obvious?"
And I've developed a thick hide. Or so I thought. But last week, I would have needed skin that was bone-deep. It was a first for me: being simultaneously called a white racist and a nigger-loving liberal.
nigger loving bohemia.
In a way, it was educational, showing that to many people, there are no in-betweenes, no gray areas. For them, life is in black and white.
But I really don't need any more education on that point. Since 1983, when Harold Washington broke the white grip on Chicago City Hall, the majority of whites have voted for white candidates, and virtually all blacks have voted for one of their own. Brotherly love in this town means the affection that exists between two guys who have the same parents,
have the same parents.
Some candidates and a few dewy-eyed preachers talk longingly of reaching out and bringing this city together. It has become a local elicite.
I'm more realistic. Like Harold Washington, I'd be satisfied if Chicagoans could just say, "Hey, we're all here, whether we like it or not, so why don't we just make the best of it and show a little restraint and do not or say anything goofy."
That's basically what I was trying to say in the columns that inspired such contrasting reactions. Actually, the reactions were the same. Both groups were telling me the same thing. "You're either with us or against us." There's less and less room in Chicago for those who aren't with anyone but themselves. Even organizations that call themselves independent take the position. "If you don't agree with everything you say, you are not an independent."
Day in and day out, California is probably the most demented of our population centers, with New York City just behind. But when local businesses like Chicago are second to pipe as a giant, packed cell.
More and more, I'm convinced that the best way to remain sane in this city, and maybe the entire country, is to find a quail little mouse, earn your living in a quail house, or call a phone number, don't watch television news or read newspapers and look out the peebole before opening your door.
thepleasure is going to start looking. And when I find it, it's just a matter of persuading my wife that we can make some lovely decorative touches to a cave and that there is much to be said for life as hermits. And bats should be no problem. I've become familiar with so much that is batty.
■ Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Chicago Tribune.
Famous British character actor tells all professional and personal tribulations
Grilling interview reveals Oscar winner's professional and personal tribulations
T today, we begin an exclusive five-part series of interviews with Sir Riley Quipster — Academy Award-winning actor, bovin vlant and raconteur. Riley
series of interviews with Sir Riley Quipster - Academy Award-winning actor, bon vivant and raconteur. Riley Hammersmith Quipster, you were born in Birkenpoint, England, in 1913, the only child of a suffrage movement speech disrupter and by yourself in school except when tested being given homework. Invented imaginary playstorms to test air. You parents often took you to plays in which the actors did the things that you had often done alone in your room, and when you saw the effect this had on audiences, you knew what you wanted to do with your life."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Once after, you joined a London repertory company. Even at a young age, your mature personality, developed voice, receiving hairline and wrinkled neck allowed you to play characters much older than you were. Movie producer Eddie Edwardelmhurst spotted this quality in you, and when you were 19 years old, you played the role of 'Mother' butler, in his 1932 motion picture 'The Coffee, Sir?' That performance led to the role of the butter in the 1933 comedy 'Maid In Japan.' You also played a butter in the 1933 drama 'At Your Service,' in the 1936 musical 'Floodwater Follies' and in your
Bill Kempin Staff columnist
next 26 movies after that. Did you think that you were being unfairly typecast?"
"Not really."
"Not really," "Nevertheless, it appeared that you were headed for a long list undistinguished career in motion pictures until 1952, when unexpected help came from your friend Skimmy McGinnis. McGinnis had been offered the title role in the film 'The New Adventures of Gunga Din,' but a previous movie commission prevented him from accepting part. He told the film's producers that would be perfect as the lead. The New Adventures of Gunga Din' turned out to be a runaway hit, and critics lauded you for your performance. It was no surprise that you were nominated for an Academy Award for best actor. Everyone expected you to win the Oscar away, but in a surprising upset, the statue instead went to your friend Skimmy McGinnis for his role as Jeaves, the butler in the 1952 comedy "One Lump Or Two?" Didn't you find that
incredibly ironic?"
"You took the words right out of my mouth." "After that, you played butlers in your next 34 films, to you duplicate Skimmy's success. Indeed, your career started down hillhill. Obsessed with winning an Oscar, you accepted any role as a manservant that came along, and in the process turned down parts that would have given you the Academy Award for best actor the next ten years in a row. When those awards offered to you anymore, were the talk of Hollywood. I have taken you, were any of those amazing stories about your wild antics true?" "I was some weren't."
"Some were, some weren't."
"Tomorrow, in the second part of this exclusive interview, how did this famous actor last lost his wife, his friends and his fortune before taking the role of Gerkin, the elderly man-depressive actor, in the motion picture 'Off my Rocker.' That role would win Quipster his long-hoped for Oscar. Well also hear more classic tales about the early days of Riley Quipster as career officer, told with the way that we come to expect from this superb conversationalist. That and much more tomorrow, when my talk with acting great Sir Riley Quipster continues."
Bill Kempin is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed