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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Wednesday, April 2, 1986
This year's governor's race has Kansas Republicans jumping.
GOP heats race
It had Speaker of the House Mike Hayden, for one, jumping on this session's death penalty bandwagon. The campaign has spurred Republicans to jump on every misstep by state Democrats.
And one Republican candidate after another is jumping into the battle royal for their party's nomination for governor.
Secretary of State Jack Brier apparently will be the next to leap into the foray, challenging declared candidates Hayden, Larry Jones of Wichita, Barbara Pomeroy of Whitewater and Richard Peckham of Andover.
Brier's candidacy, if it occurs, is typical of Republican attempts at the governor's job.
Republicans in Kansas have little trouble sending their choice to the U.S. Senate or electing their own to Congress and the state Legislature. But in running for governor, they
This year is no different. Western Kansas Republicans want Hayden, the party's Wichita wing prefers Jones, and Lawrence, Topeka and Johnson County probably would back Brier.
seem happier bickering among themselves.
None so far has inspired much excitement in voters, although Hayden stays visible in the House and Jones has begun pumping money into television and newspaper advertising. All the while, Tom Docking, the Democratic lieutenant governor, quietly builds support for his virtually unopposed candidacy.
Who the Republicans — or the Democrats — finally nominate matters less now than the policies the candidates support. A devotion to higher education and a commitment to statewide economic development ought to be prerequisites.
Any candidate who passes this test will have cleared the most important hurdle.
The rally cry, "KU out of South Africa," now seems to be a whimper on campus.
To many KU students, the words divestment and apartheid are vague and foreign concepts. Some are ignorant of these concepts, and others simply don't care.
Issue still brewing
This is a pity, for apartheid is a drastic reality in South Africa. Black and white South Africans are killed every day in a land that is bloody with revolution.
Here at KU, that bloody reality is removed. But a few students, who seem to have dedicated themselves to keeping the issue alive, are camping out in front of Youngberg Hall, demanding that the Kansas University Endowment Association divest from companies doing business in South Africa.
Last spring, the campus was rich with cries for the Endowment Association to divest. Several protesters were arrested for trespassing at both the Endowment Association and in the chancellor's office.
This spring, all seems to have been quieted. But this calm does not indicate that the divestment issue is gone. This calm does not mean that KU students and faculty will continue to accept the Prudent Man Trust Management Law as an excuse by the Endowment Association that it cannot divest.
This Kansas law prevents fiduciaries, such as the Endowment Association, from investing or divesting based on political attitudes. The law says that fiduciaries should invest as a "prudent man"
This excuse no longer holds, for it is no longer prudent to invest in companies that do business in a land that is wrapped in bloody revolution.
A sneak attack
She should have checked out the facts first.
Ambush tactics have been employed — successfully — in the Kansas Senate.
Last week, as senators discussed the Regents schools budget, an amendment was slipped in which bans the use of state money for abortions at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
The amendment's sponsor, Norma Daniels, said she had been bothered for a long time by the thought that state money was being used to pay for abortions.
Although she didn't say how much money was spent or how many abortions were performed, Daniels wrote the amendment into the budget bill with the hope that it would end abortions at the Medical Center.
In fact, a private foundation, which rents space there, performs abortions at the Med
Center through private, not state, money. According to D. Kay Clawson, executive vice chancellor, state tax funds are kept separate from fees used to support the clinic.
Although Daniels still may have wished to propose the amendment, even knowing that state money is not used, she might have reconsidered sneaking it into a budget bill.
Abortion is a highly volatile issue and any legislation concerning it deserves full and attentive debate. Slipping antiabortion legislation into a budget discussion is underhanded; many senators might be reluctant to vote against the entire $695 million appropriations bill even though they opposed the amendment.
So, a specific ban on abortions might slide through the Senate on the tail of an unrelated bill. And that's exactly what happened.
News staff
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Best ignored in award nominations
But even if he had won, and even if "The Color Purple," which Spielberg directed, had been named "best picture," that still would not have closed the gap.
For some devotees of the cinematographical arts, this year's Academy Award ceremony was marred because Steven Spielberg wasn't nominated for a "best director" Oscar.
There were many other motion picture artisans and products that failed to get nominated in various categories. Take "sound effects editing," for example.
I thought it was ridiculous for the academy to nominate "Rambo: First Blood, Part II" while excluding "Police Academy 2" in that category.
I saw the latter, or one of those police academy movies, and the sound effects editing impressed me as first rate — some of the best
United Press International
Dick West
Hollywood had achieved in a long time.
Yet, the winner in this category was - of all flicks - "Back To The Future."
Admittedly, I didn't catch it myself. I was watching "Ahead To The Past — Part 4." But I have been told on good authority that the editing of sound effects couldn't compare with the careful – dare I say loving? – attention given to "Police Academy 2" sound effects by the head editor.
If that movie had any weakness — apart from the title — it was in the editing of sound effects.
Not to have nominated it was to overlook, or slight, some truly first-
rate sound effects editing, And directing and sound effects editing were by no means the only Oscar nominating goofs.
Nominated for "best foreign- language film" were pictures from West Germany, Hungary, Argentina, France and Yugoslavia.
Speaking of mistakes, how could the academy have nominated "Return To Oz" for "best visual effects" and ignored the visual effects of "Inside Desire Cousteau?"
I saw some of them and, frankly,
couldn't understand a word the cast was uttering. Compare the winner
(Argentina's "The Official Story") with some of the productions of British studios.
Although portions of these imports needed subtites, what they lacked in class they more than made up in clarity. At least to my ears.
I'm not sure her performance was thesplanian enough to have
prevented Don Ameche of the "Cocoon" cast from walking off with "best supporting actor" honors.
There is no doubt, however, that "Inside Desire Couseteau" had better, or anyway more attractive, visual effects than "Cocoon," the winner in that category. At least to my eyes.
I would match Cousteau's visual effects against those of Geraldine Page, who won the "best actress" award. (Desiree, not Jacques.)
In fact, I would have supported her film for "best sound effects editing," if it had been so nominated.
Perhaps the rating system invented by Jack Valenti accounts for the omission. It could be the nominators had children with them.
That, however, does not explain why "All Seats 99 Cents" wasn't nominated for "best picture."
'Bundle of sticks' incites feisty feud
I'm not going to use Norman's full name because he has enough problems. But his story should be a lesson that in this age of heightened consciousness, we must be sensitive to the feelings of others, even if they are strangers.
He pulled his truck into an alley and began unloading. A car pulled up, and the driver, who we will call Ron, said that Norman was blocking his private parking space, which was clearly marked with a sign.
Norman delivers furniture for a living. One day he was making a delivery to an office on Chicago's near North Side.
As they quarreled, Norman noticed that Ron's speech patterns and physical movements were, to his eye, quite effeminate.
Although Norman moved his truck, Ron berated him for his discourtesy, and angry words were exchanged.
So Norman asked, "Say, are you some kind of fagged?"
As Ron later put it, "When he said that, I saw red."
The two men began wrestling, and Ron grabbed Norman's little finger and twisted it so hard that the bone broke. Then he gave Norman, who was sitting on the ground and holding his painful pinky, a few punches and
After getting his finger treated, Norman called the cops and brought battery charges against Ron.
went to his office in an antique company.
They went to court, had a trial and Ron was found guilty, even though Norman admitted that he had called Ron a faggot.
Ron paid a fine and was ordered to give Norman money for the income he lost while his finger mended.
But the dispute was far from over. Some time later, Norman made another delivery in the same alley. Ron spotted him and ran out and took Norman's picture. He said he wanted it as evidence that Norman parked illegally.
Norman, saying he feared that he might get another broken finger, leaped into his truck and raced away, almost running down Ron.
Ron called the police and brought charges against Norman. Another trial was held, and this time Norman was found guilty and had to pay a fine.
But that still didn't end it. Ron was still terribly upset that Norman had called him a faggot.
cannot bear a fight.
"Well, he IS gay," says Norman.
"Anyone could see that. But I don't see what he's so upset about. I didn't
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
actually call him a faggot. I just asked him if he was a faggot."
A few days ago, Ron set out to get revenge. And did he get it.
It turns out that Norman, who is married and hrs a couple of kids, lives in the very heart of the city's gayet neighborhood. Gay bars, gay stores, gay just about everything.
This is also the neighborhood where Ron spends much of his social and recreational time.
At the top of the handbill is a picture of Norman. Beneath the picture is Norman's name, address and phone number. Beneath that is this message:
"THE ABOVE PERSON LIVING IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD REFERS TO PEOPLE AS BEING A FAGGOT.
So Ron had about a thousand handbills printed up and plastered the neighborhood with them, putting them under windshields and in restaurants and bars.
"I ASK YOU - SHOULD SUCH A PERSON BE ALLOWED TO BE A
RESIDENT OF THIS
COMMUNITY?"
And, boy, did the community respond. Norman's phone has been ringing day and night.
"I'm getting an endless stream of obscene phone calls," says Norman. "They refer to me in all kinds of gay sexual concepts."
Ron justifies his handball campaign against Norman by saying, "I wanted him to apologize for calling me a faggot. He had no business calling me a faggot. He has never seen me in a compromising position or in my bedroom."
And Norman says, "The thing is. I don't have anything against gays. I have some gay friends. But he's weird."
Although Norman's phone is still ringing, and strangers are screaming strange things at him, the feud has officially ended.
Both men made their final ap-
pearance in court last week, and Norm-
man formally apologized for calling
Ron a faggot. Ron accepted the
apology.
apology.
But Norman still says, "I don't know why he made such a big deal out of it. If you look in the dictionary, you'll see that a faggot is just a burnle of sticks."
Insurable risk is the crisis of the'80s
It is as if each decade brings its own crisis to challenge the way we Americans think and live. In the middle of the '60s, it was a war a world away that all but rent the nation.
Now it is, of all things, insurance. Across the country, business people, city council members and people who sit on the boards of corporations large and small are awakening to the profound effect of the insurance crisis.
In the middle 70s, it was the energy crisis and the realization that our way of life was threatened by foreign oil producers, almost total strangers.
In one ironic sense, the latest crisis does indeed share at least one characteristic with Vietnam and the energy crisis. Each in its turn took the society totally by surprise insofar as its consequences were concerned.
For many Americans, the true nature of the insurance liability crisis has yet to sink in. True, all the important media have covered the story to some degree. It was recently the cover story in Time magazine.
Still, most Americans have not fully fathomed the depth of the potential
Robert C.
Maynard
Oakland Tribune
effect of the latest crisis on the American way of life. It affects day care operators looking after a handful of children, huge corporations with sales in the billions, cities, doctors, lawyers, hospitals and even Yellowstone National Park.
The cost of liability insurance for all of those and many more has multiplied, and in some cases it has become unavailable at any price. That fact is subtly changing our way of life.
At a time when day care is vital to many two-career families, many centers are facing insurance costs so high they cannot afford to remain in business. Corporations that rely on outside directors to advise them are discovering they can no longer insure their directors against personal liability at any price.
Some forms of play equipment are
There are now literally dozens of cities across the country in which no doctor will deliver a baby at any price. They cannot afford the insurance premiums. Even lawyers, thought by some to be largely responsible for this crisis, are finding themselves at times virtually uninsurable.
Hogwash, cry the trial lawyers; this is a crisis of the insurance in-
disappearing from playgrounds in cities across the country. It is no longer permissible to bring a sled into the parks of Denver, and several cities have temporarily closed their jails. All because of suddenly uninsurable risk.
As for Yellowstone, the risk of bears mauling a citizen has caused officials there to close a quarter of the park. Officials are seriously considering shipping all the bears to Alaska.
THE insurance industry blames lawyers and the courts. The solution, it says, is tort reform. By that it means legislated caps on punitive damages and other limitations on how much citizens may recover for certain types of injury.
dusty's making. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, when interest rates were skyrocketing, the insurance industry decided to make a killing by investing premiums in that high yield environment.
Both sides agree that the insurance industry went out on a limb and wrote some high-risk policies in those days to garner lots of premiums. Now those chickens are coming home to roost in the form of big settlements and jury awards. The industry is fearful that its risk pool will shrink to the point of peril.
Foreign reinsurers, such as Lloyd of London, are walking away from the U.S. market in droves. They have suddenly become averse to risk, which used to be their business.
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Meanwhile, the number of unisurable risks is growing; Jeeps, ice skating rinks, the handling of certain toxic materials such as asbestos, and even possibly the display of fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Civil liability is the crisis of this decade, and it promises in its peculiar manner to be as challenging to our way of life as any other we have faced.