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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Friday, March 28, 1986
These are good days for trees in Lawrence, and fittingly so.
Trees get their day
Today is Arbor Day in Lawrence, and events on campus and around town during the last two weeks have shown a true measure of tree appreciation in the Lawrence area.
The science library and the tree have been at the center of a long-running battle between concerned students and the project's architects. Original plans called for the tree to be removed. Students protested with green ribbons on trees all over campus and staged sit-ins.
A compromise was needed, and it came through. The library will now be built a few feet east of the original site between Hoch Auditorium and
Closest to home, the director of facilities planning last week released the final architectural plans for the University's new $13.9 million science library, and a large old American elm tree on the west side of the site won out.
the military Science Building, and one of the campus's largest and most beautiful trees will be saved.
The city of Lawrence last week was named a "Tree City, U.S.A." for spending $5 per capita per year on tree care and generally taking care of the city's greenery.
For example, Lawrence will celebrate Arbor Day by replacing the trees damaged by vandals last month in Burch Park. The city will plant 30 "cottonless" cottonwood trees to replace the 33 trees broken in half last month.
With progress and growth, it sometimes becomes easy to forget the little things that help make the world a pleasant place. Green money can often replace the importance of green space.
By 1976, LaRouche had decided that the right wing offered more fruitful ground for his demagoguery. He formed the National Democratic Policy Committee and began running for president.
The lunatic fringe has never been much of a political threat in the United States. Hooded Ku Klux Klanmen and jackbooted neo-nazis have been unable to translate their meager support into election victories.
But it's nice to see the University and the city make the extra effort to protect and maintain some of the most beautiful attributes of Lawrence.
LaRoche has been on the political fringe for a long time. During the early 1970s, he called his group the U.S. Labor Party and wrote rambling, incomprehensible Marxist treatises under the name Lyn Marcus.
Celebrate Arbor Day...hug your favorite tree.
Election nightmare
But last week for the first time, two members of Lyndon LauRouche's ultra-rightist National Democratic Policy Committee won primary election victories. The group, hiding behind the Democratic Party label, won the nominations for lieutenant governor and secretary of state in Illinois.
One man told the Chicago Tribune that he had voted for the candidates because they had smooth-sounding names. Their opponents were named Sanmeister and Pucinski.
Now, Illinois democrats are scurrying to fix the blame for LaRouche's victory, naming low voter turnout and lackadaisical campaigning as causes.
The candidates attributed their victory to popular support for their platform, which included calling for citizen groups to hunt down drug dealers and mandatory screening for AIDS.
The combination of bigotry and hard times has propelled other extremists to power in the past. This is the danger, however slight it appears now, posed by LaRouche's party and his candidates.
But some suggest other, more disturbing possibilities.
And a Democratic Party pollster said that widespread dissatisfaction with the two main parties had contributed to the growth of support for LaRouche among voters who have no idea what he represents.
If a party can capture elections by disguising its anti-democratic nature while tapping ethnic prejudice and appealing to fears of crime and unemployment, then it is far more dangerous than its cross-burning counterparts in the Klan.
Problem runs deeper
The American Cancer Society is only scrapping the surface of the problem in its proposal for a ban on cigarette companies sponsoring sports and cultural events aimed at young people.
At first glance, the idea seems a good one. Recent studies have shown that more and more young people are beginning to smoke, and at earlier ages.
But the ACS' proposal is only superficial. Preventing tobacco companies from sponsoring events probably would do little to stop people from smoking. It probably would only cut down on the number of such events.
The real problem is not that tobacco companies sponsor events. It goes much deeper, right to the roots of the tobacco industry.
The problem is that the United States government, year after year continues to subsidize the tobacco industry, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's time the United States government quit supporting the tobacco industry. This government support is far more dangerous because it keeps alive an industry that sells a product that kills its users — an industry that might not survive otherwise.
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Craig McCurry ... Campaign editor
David Giles ... Sporta editor
Wilfredo Lee ... Photo editor
Susanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe            Business manager
David Nixon            Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson          Campus manager
Eckart Lori            Classified manager
Carolina Innes        Product manager
Pallen Lee              National manager
John Oberzan           Sales and marketing adviser
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MIRMINFWSE1906
Khadafv doesn't follow rules of reason
I have been contemplating an insane man named Moamarr Khadifay this week. I am concerned that this irrational animal may not react the way we rational animals think he should. And if Khadifay refuses to play by our rules, he is consequently free to do whatever his irrational mind devises.
But that logic only works on a person who thinks in rational terms. Wild men are free to play by any set of rules they choose. But when we ask them to use our rules, we are apt to misinterpret his responses.
We have deduced, and rationally so, that a bloody nose will make a person stop acting irritationally.
I know about misinterpretation.
When I was growing up in
Chanute, I ran into a person whom
I will call Bill. He was 71 and liked
The United States has decided to teach the father of terrorism a lesson. We are going to assert our international right to travel in the Gulf of Sidra. We realize this action will force Khadafy to react. When he reacts, we bloody his nose. We will continue to bloody his nose as often as he wants.
Tim Erickson Staff columnist
to jump people in the dark. He would attack them with his hairbrush and proceed to beat them mercilessly. He usually attacked younger kids, but as his reputation grew, so did his boldness.
I cooled down after about 10 minutes. I found out who had hit me and considered the source. I
One night Bill attacked me at a rural party. Before I knew what had happened, my feet were over my head and my glasses went flying off into parts unknown. Since I was legally blind without glasses, the situation quickly became serious.
I had no idea who attacked me but I figured my Buck knife was a great equalizer. I pulled it out of my left pocket and prepared to defend myself. The knife produced a sort of panic on the scene. Bill and I were quickly cordoned off by two separate groups.
figured that a fat lip and a black eye were relatively insignificant. I decided to forgive him and to turn the other cheek.
The next week, Bill attacked my twin brother, Tom. Tom was more of a pragmatist than I. He beat Bill fiercely with a big club. Tom made it clear he did not turn the other cheek. He also made it clear that Bill had better stay away from the Erickson family.
Bill, a true psychotic in every sense of the word, left us alone and continued to beat on people until he went off to prison.
I made a large tactical error with Bill. I assumed he could understand and receive the mercy and forgiveness I had shown him. I thought that because I was told the mercy level, he could receive it.
But Bill took my forgiveness as a sign of weakness. He interpreted it as a license to beat on other members of my family. He was not operating on any level of rationality, so my rational behavior meant to him.
I am afraid Khadafy is operating on that same "Bill principle." He does not respect A-6's or aircraft
carriers because they do not mean anything to him. He does not see them as lethal weapons to be feared.
I think Khadafy sees us and our weapons in terms of radical Islam. He, like all true fundamental Muslims, views the United States as the "Black Satan." He is a member of the Islamic Conference that declared Jihad, or holy war, on the United States in 1981. We are not a nation to be feared, but to be conquered. Strength and might are secondary to the will of Allah.
We think that Khadafy should respond rationally to our moves. But we fail to realize he plays with a different set of rules. He is free from rationality and can do whatever he wants.
If an error of logic is being made, it is by the United States. Khadafy does not think in terms of mercy. He does not think in terms of a bloody nose. He, like Bill, is a honest-to-gooodness psychotic.
If he ever gets hold of a nuclear bomb, he just must do the unthinkable and bomb a city or two. And there we will be, with fallout over our heads, wondering how he could do something as irrational as that.
U.S. aggression won't curb Khadafy
The massing of three aircraft carrier groups including 250 fighter planes in the Mediterranean to challenge Libya's Moammar Khadaby in his backyard, the Gulf of Difra, is a case in point.
President Reagan is teaching to flex U.S. military muscle in the Middle East and Central America where he thinks he can send a message or teach a lesson.
And Reagan's goal of overturning the Sandinista government in Nicaragua is another with permissive maneuvers next door in Honduras.
Khadafy has drawn the line at the mouth of the Gulf, but the United States declares anything beyond 12 miles is in international waters.
Deputy press secretary Larry Speakes said that Reagan was asserting his "rights to passage" and that the operation was in that context.
Khadafy rose to the bait and fired missiles on the fleet but did not manage to damage any of the U.S. forces.
He insisted all along that the United States was not trying to provoke or humiliate the man who had murdered his own kids "kay" and the new "Murder Ins."
All the casualties,including many fiery deaths,have been on
Helen Thomas United Press International
the Libyan side with their patrol boats blown up and sunk by U.S. firepower.
Some aides have privately acknowledged that while the right of "free navigation" is an important point to be made, Reagan also has in mind retaliating against what he claims is Libyan-sponsored terrorism around the world.
Since the Rome and Vienna incidents, the president and administration officials have been itching to teach Khadiya a lesson and bloody his nose but have not found a way up to the present.
The naval exercises fit into the formula to demonstrate U.S. military power to the Libyan and the Syrian forces serve as a warning for the future.
It is doubtful that Khadifa, although cowed temporarily by U.S. military might, will curb his own radical goals.
The Arabs in the area are ambivalent. They do not wang the United States attacking a sister nation in the region. But they have
oo love for Khadafy and his extremism.
Although the Soviets are friendly with Libya and have supplied it weapons, they apparently have no intention of getting involved directly in the Middle East or
The naval exercises fit into the formula to demonstrate U.S. military power to the Libyans and the Soviets, and to serve as a warning for the future.
Latin America, which are not in their post-World War II spheres.
However, the U.S. power display and challenges in both regions do not create an atmosphere likely to produce summit meetings.
Humiliation for Libya and Nicaragua in a sense reverberates on the Kremlin and the Soviet advisers who are posted in these Third World countries.
Reagan may be trying also to show in these latest plays that the
United States is not a "pitiful helpless giant." He has long tried to project a United States that is over the Vietnam syndrome and not adverse to overturning some of the leftist gains in recent years.
While his predecessors adopted a policy of "containment" of Soviet expansionism, Reagan is interested in sponsoring "wars of liberation."
When the Sandinistas poured over the Honduran border in pursuit of rebels known generally as contras, the president was able to bolster U.S. military involvement in the area by providing supplies and pilots.
So far, he had tread lightly, knowing the U.S. people's dread of military involvement unless they accept the goals and the policy. But the use of U.S. pilots changes the picture. They will be used to airlift Honduran troops to fight the Sandinistas who have invaded to fight the contra operating from Honduran soil.
White House officials say the U.S. pilots of troop airlift craft are expected to stay out of the danger zones. But wars are known to escalate and so is U.S. involvement.
Allocations comment
Cartoon: a drawing, often in caricature. Made as a commentary on current events.
Proposed budget allocations by the KU Student Senate:
The Commission on the Status of Women — $252
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Fan Club — $580
Ann Regan
Lawrence graduate student
Inaccuracies in article
In the March 26 issue of the Kansan there was a short article on the March 28 meeting of the University of Kansas Classified Senate. A few of the points in the article call for clarification.
classified pay plan — layoffs or salary cuts.
1. The subject of our dissatisfaction was a meeting on March 17 with three members of the House Ways and Means subcommittee, in which these members were only willing to discuss two options in next year's
2. The Classified Senate is not specifically seeking a 3 percent cost-of-living increase and 1 percent contribution to employee retirement. A portion of the costs of the Senate Ways and Means Committee for faculty and staff.
After years of coming up short, we want at least parity with other groups which have been receiving preferential treatment in pay issues
increases two years in a row). I there's money for them, there' money for us.
3. Two Republican legislative leaders said Friday that they have tentatively approved a 5.5 percent classified raise for the next fiscal year. So far, nothing has been presented in the House and, frankly, I'll believe it when I see it.
Ron Schorr
machine shop supervisor department of mechanical engineering
Classified Senate member
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