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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Wednesday, April 16, 1986
Legislature butting in
The Kansas Legislature has found another way to stick its nose where it doesn't belong.
The Legislature has called for a student petition drive and possibly a referendum on the proposed $5 increase in student fees that would help finance the Kansas Union renovation.
The Student Senate already has approved the increase and this bill steps on the authority of our student government. Student leaders are rightfully concerned about what the Legislature might decide to overrule in the future.
Petitions favoring the increase will be circulated on campus Thursday and Friday. If 7.5 percent of the students do not sign the petition, a student vote on the increase will be required before the University will receive the bonds needed to pay for the renovation.
Because our student senators are elected by the
students, they ought to be able to make decisions necessary in carrying out the Senate's business.
The legislators in Topeka soon may feel the need to step in whenever we have a controversial issue on campus. But the KU student government system has plenty of ways built in for students to express their discontent with student senators if the need arises.
The proposed fee increase is only $5, and the Union badly needs renovation. The increase should be supported by the student body, administrators and the state Legislature.
For that reason, students should sign the petitions later this week to ensure the fee increase is approved.
But we never should have been asked to in the first place.
Muddying the waters
On the surface, last week's proposal requiring the state to take custody of infants born alive after an abortion was a move by anti-abortion forces to make a statement about the horrors of that procedure.
The argument appears straightforward. Parents who make the decision to abort a developing infant should have no right to that child in the event that it survives.
But the issue involves a lot more than abortion. It touches on the sensitive area of state intervention in the agonizing decisions made by physicians and parents about babies that are malformed.
The proposal does not deal with first trimester abortions where survival is unlikely and when most abortions are performed. The proposal can do little about back-street second and third trimester abortions which the state welfare agency is quite unlikely to discover.
What the proposal addresses are the rare cases when parents decide not to go through with a pregnancy at a late stage for serious medical reasons that involve the health of the child or the mother.
How else can you explain the fact that many of the same legislators who felt so strongly about the lives of the few infants who survive abortions also voted down seat belt legislation last week? Requiring seat belts would have saved the lives of hundreds of Kansans and prevented many accident-related injuries.
These are painfully difficult questions that never should be dealt with in an election year when legislators are more likely to act out of fear of the powerful anti-abortion lobby than out of consideration for the welfare of infants and the rights of their parents.
The proposal that went through the House and Senate last week was essentially a piece of "Baby Doe" legislation. It involved the thorny question of whether every effort should be made to keep babies alive no matter what the extent of their abnormalities. It involved the question of what kind of life a malformed infant can expect.
Some people have a very narrow definition of what it means to be "pro-life."
Stop the scalpers
A bill before the Kansas Senate would help protect innocent fans from ticket scalpers and the high prices they generate.
Winter introduced the bill last year without success and he has reintroduced it this year almost too late.
although too late.
Both the Senate and the House will have to do some last-minute pushing to get the bill through before the end of this session, and they should.
Ticket scalpers rob money from the Athletic Department.
It's frustrating to be a true fan with a strong desire to attend a basketball game and see someone selling his ticket for an exorbitant price. Those scalpers stand in line, in front of fans who want to see a game, and resell the tickets on the open market where students can rarely afford to buy them.
which must sell the tickets at face value. Those people who sell tickets on their own should face at least the same constraints.
A bill prohibiting scalping would help keep the money at the University and let fans all pay the same price to sit in the stands and cheer on the Jayhawks.
News staff
News staff
Michael Totty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editor
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Pallen Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National manager
John Oberzan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sales and marketing adviser
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Politics shouldn't end movie career
Clint Eastwood didn't make my day.
Lesswood has discussed many of Carmel-By-The Sea, Calif., last week. And, of course, the media were there in full force, covering every possible angle and using every "Dirty Harry" and "Make-My-Day" cliche in the book.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a reporter for every two citizens in that small coastal town of 4,300.
I expect to see a significant increase of tourism in Carmel and at least a two-fold increase of sightseeing near city hall to catch a glimpse of the world's most famous mayor.
One simple reason — he's promised to slow down or even stop making movies in office.
I eagerly await every new film he makes. Now my wait is prolonged because of his stint as a small-town mayor.
An ironic twist to this whole series
Clint is my favorite movie star. So why shouldn't I be happy for him?
Victor Goodpasture Staff columnist
of events is that throughout many of his movies. Eastwood has battled city administrators, especially the mayor. Now he is one of them.
However, he's the type of guy who will get the job done. He doesn't know how to make a bad movie. His popularity is so great that his name alone guarantees a box office success.
Now, his calling of civic duty threatens future success.
Eastwood is 55 years old, and as he gets older, he will slow his pace even faster.
He told the townfolk that he didn't
want to be called Mr. Mayor
Well, Clint, most newspaper and television stories mentioned your role as a tough-guy detective and the "Man-With-No-Name" in spaghetti Westerns
"Just Clint " he said.
1 remember another type of character you have played.
It is of a man living out his version of the American dream. A man who hasn't much money but succeeds at making children and adults laugh. A man whose only concern is the well-being of others.
The movie is "Bronco Billy." In one of Eastwood's best performance, he plays a former shoe salesman who sells his store and puts all of his money into a small traveling Wild West Rodeo show.
He travels around the country to small fairs, churches, orphanages and homes for the handicapped. He and his small band of vagabonds live their version of the American dream. Even though their futures seem bleak, their attitudes remain positive
Sure most of us love it when Eastwood guns down the bad guys without breaking into a sweat. But with the releases of "Bronco Billy," "Honkytonk Man" and "Pale Rider," Eastwood seems to focus more toward character development than in previous films.
and their hopes for "making it big"
one day, remain high
This is the type of film I hope Fastwood will continue to make.
Most critics now give Eastwood fairly good reviews — a far cry from his earlier days when critics pushed aside his spaghetti Westerns and said "Dirty Harry" promoted police fascism.
But now the "Stranger-With-No Name" is a mayor
At the end of "Magnum Force." Eastwood, playing Inspector Harry Callahan, says, "A man's got to know his limitations."
I hope Eastwood doesn't think he's reached his.
Todav's students becoming 'duckies'
I didn't raise my child to be a yuppie. The timing just worked out that way.
In an earlier incarnation, she might have been a yippie, a hippie or even - God forbid! - a beatnik. But she happened to have reached college age at a time when it was fashionable for young women to get married and have a career. Not necessarily in that order.
My daughter did both In that order. That's how she became an upwardly mobile professional.
As to how long she remains young — the other adjective from which the term yuppie was derived — depends on several factors, including her husband. Presumably, both eventually will outgrow yuppiness.
I recall a time when she was only a slip of a girl and I took my family out to dinner. It must have been the first time she had seen a beard "live." so
Dick West
United Press International
to speak, for she cried out, loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear. "Look! There's a beatnik!"
I have no idea what the bearded man then passing our table did for a living, but he apparently was not strongly associated with the Beat Generation. Anyway, my daughter missed that era.
Had she been born a few years earlier, she might have been a "flower child" in San Francisco, or played bongos in the streets of Denver. She might even have frequented a coffeehouse somewhere, reciting — God forbid! — poetry.
As to the persons she and her college classmates might have considered national heroes. I can only guess. We didn't have a campus survey to enlighten us in those days.
According to one segment of the report, a majority of the students surveyed on 15 college campuses regard Bill Cosby as the most admired man in the United States and the most傲慢 caro as the most admired woman.
The second Molson Golden College Report indicates many of today's young women are in danger of becoming duckies, a term I made up to embrace Democratic Urban Comedy Krazies.
Cosby, as we know, appears in a weekly television sitcom, whereas Ferraro, who ran on the 1984 Democratic ticket, was the first woman candidate for vice president. Where were the winners?
Well, President Reagan was mentioned, as were Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacoco, Barbara Walters, Steven
Spielberg, Jane Fonda, Ted Koppel, Tina Turner, Henry Kissinger, Betty Ford, Jesse Jackson, Gloria Steinem, Pete Rose, Diahann Carroll and Elizabeth Taylor.
But nowhere on the most admired
list did I see the name of Vice Presi-
dent
In fact, no strong presidential candidates for 1988 emerged from the poll.
Compare that, if you please with the 24 percent that Galeridine Ferraro polled in the most admired category.
Although Bush is not yet a formal candidate, he was the front-runner, backed by 20 percent of the students surveyed. He beat out the leading Democrat, Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, by five percentage points.
Maybe she should change her mind and get back into politics. She obviously could count on the duckie vote.
Mailbox
Group isn't Democrat
Richard White flunked his very own current events quiz in Friday's Kansan by listing ultra-conservative, neo-fascist Lyndon LaRouche as a Democrat.
Absolutely false. LaRouche and his fellow humacies are not Democrats.
LaRouché displays his cowardice of his convictions by hiding behind the good name of the Democratic Party to achieve his perverted goals. Unfortunately, that tactic worked last month in Illinois when two LaRouchians won Democratic primary elections.
LaRouchians are running in both Democratic and Republican primaries across the country, and voters must be wary of them. LaRouch cannot be dismissed as a powerless nut. He is well-financed and has many followers. His ideas are outright and his tactics are unethical.
White also was confused when he accused the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Democratic Reps, Stephen Solarz, Thomas Downey, Patricia Schroeder and Ronald Dellums of bashing logic to inflame public opinion.
Bashing logic is Idi Amin espousing human rights, Vladimir Lenin discussing the virtues of capitalism, Edwin Meese defending the Bill of Rights, Ronald Reagan promoting student aid and LaRoche hugging
Henry Kissinger.
Todd Cohen
Pontiac
Alta Vista sophomore
Kansas Young Democrat
state vice president
It is not illogical for Democrats to criticize President Reagan for wanting to hire contras to start a war in Central America that U.S. troops would have to finish. It also is not illogical to criticize Pat Buchanan for questioning the patriotism of Americans who oppose aiding the contras. It is merely common sense.
Considering joining
Lately, the Kansan opinion page has been printing letters concerning the conflict in the Middle East. Although both sides have made good points, the members of Total Response Agenda should be congratulated for a point well stated.
Their letter was a bit emotional, but they did manage to convey a truthful message that those of us who are not as familiar with the problem should listen to.
Although most of the points made
It is true that the General Union of Palestinian Students appears on the Palestine Liberation Organization organizational chart. During the Palestinian land celebration, I was able to look at a copy of the organization's own literature; it bears Herman. Geller and Bouzid out.
An unwarranted wave of antiIsrael sentiment has swept the campus, at least in some circles. Israel is, and will continue to be, the only democracy in the Middle East and the United States' best ally in the region and maybe the world.
during the letter-writing exchange were well taken, I don't agree with the letter by Dalaq, Ali and Hussein which states that the PLO is not a terrorist organization (Kansan, April 11). This is antithetical to the PLO, which is the root of most of the world's terrorist activity.
I was not a member of Total Response Agenda, but the events of the past couple of weeks have led me to believe that I should become one quickly.
Jay Gerber Chicago freshman
'Christianity' defined
Cruz seems at least interested in Christianity, so I'll make an assumption and call him a Christian. Cruz is a prime example of what Erickson was talking about. He is one of the Christians who obviously doesn't understand the word Christian means. It means "Christ-like."
When I read Tim Erickson's column (Kansan, April 8) expressing some of his observations of Christianity in the 80s, I was pleased. I applauded, smiled and thought of my new friend. Tim just won one for the Gipper.
I then checked the ink in my pen because I knew I would have to defend my new good friend. I knew that human nature would rear its ugly head. And in a letter from B.D. Cruz (Kansan, April 14).
Is Cruz interested in being Christ-like? He seems to have studied the scriptures but still doesn't know what Christianity is. He is the type who studies the scriptures to find out how far away from Christ he can be and still wear the label "Christian," instead of studying to find out how Christ-like he can become.
Jesus may not have talked about oral sex, but he did warn of attitudes such as this. The Pharisees knew the legalistic rights and wrongs of the Old Law but didn't turn their hearts toward God.
I can't find any scriptures that refer to oral sex either, but there are a lot of references to lust, fornication and incest — three of Prince's favorite topics. I don't say this to judge Prince but to encourage Cruz to know what he's talking about.
If used properly, the scriptures are able to save our souls. I think Erickson understands this and Cruz does not.
.
Paul Hahn Lawrence senior