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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Friday, Feb. 14, 1986
The problems with parking in the Daisy Field area need to be brought to light.
Parking in the dark
Since Jan. 1, there have been at least 15 burglaries in the Daisy Field parking lots, which cover McCollum, Ellsworth, Hashinger, Lewis and Templin halls. Eleven of these happened in one night, Jan. 30.
To reduce burglaries and vandalism, Sgt. John Brothers of KU police has said students should park in well-lit areas, keep their automobiles locked and lock valuables either in the trunk or not in the car at all.
Four students have organized a petition requesting improved security and lighting to help in reducing vandalism in the parking lots.
For years, parking has been at a premium in the Daisy Field area. There are not enough spaces adjacent to the halls to accommodate the demand. The Daisy Field extension lot across Iowa Street opposite Hashinger, also known as "East Topeka," handles the overflow.
The only suggestion of any worth is the last one. Locked doors usually don't stop someone who wants into a car. Ask any student with a
smashed-in car window.
But more important, it is often impossible for a student to park in a well-lit area. Although the extension lot does provide the necessary spaces, it is not well-lit, and it involves a long, dark walk back to the halls. Many of the spaces in the lots near the halls are not well-lit either.
Brothers said KU police "don't have the money or the people to put an officer there full-time." But when incidents of vandalism start hitting the level they did in January, it's time to take serious action.
Even the most conscientious student often has only one choice: to park in a poorly-lit area.
Brothers also said the residence halls and Jayhawker Towers had the largest concentration of parked vehicles and there was crime potential wherever the population is concentrated. Isn't this the logical place to concentrate security, and to beef it up if it's inadequate?
But that much money, which would have enabled the Lawrence Bus Co. to purchase four new buses, came with some unacceptable strings attached.
Inadequate it is. KU police may not have the money to put an officer there full-time. But students don't have the money to keep replacing broken windows and stolen belongings.
Normally, sound business decisions don't involve turning down half a million dollars in federal funds.
Good business
The funds would have come from the federal Urban Mass Transportation Act. The act requires that the money go to the city of Lawrence instead of the bus company or KU on Wheels, which pays the bus company to carry students from their residences to the campus.
Fine, said KU on Wheels. But the Student Senate Transportation Board would
But the city would not be just a conduit for the money. The grant also would have required the city to have control of the buses and their routes.
not, and could not because of state laws, pay for routes that did not serve students.
So the bus company turned its back on the deal. It feared the city could order it to run bus service to parts of the city the transportation board would not pay for.
Although the city assured all the parties that it had no intention to change any routes, the bus company remained wisely skeptical. City commissions, and its policies, can change with every election.
KU on Wheels could have used efficient and less-polluting buses to replace the vintage ones that now choke the campus. And the transportation board and the city ought to have been able to work out a deal to serve students and the community as a whole.
But given the legal rigidity it faced, the bus company made a prudent business decision.
Why bother?
A little preposterous.
Imagine the scene at a rock concert: People are passing around marijuana. "Are you over 18? Can I see some I.D.?" little preposterous
Or how about this one: A shady character lurks near the chain-link fence surrounding an elementary school. "Come here, little boy. Try this. It'll make you feel good. Now tomorrow, give me all your milk money and you can have some more."
This may be fodder for many imaginations, but it just doesn't work that way.
Drugs are expensive and not given away regularly. However, that is precisely the action the Kansas Legislature is trying to crack down on. A bill waiting to be approved by the Senate would make giving drugs to minors a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
Right now, the exchange of money must be proven before the first offense is a felony.
It's good to know the Legislature is trying to combat drug distribution, but this bill is a waste of its time.
Police admit that the number of drug-related arrests probably wouldn't increase under the new legislation.
At concerts — almost the only place drug freebies are found — police try to stop drugs at the door. But they simply don't have the manpower to keep watch over everyone inside.
Kansas legislators should not waste their time drafting, hearing and voting on bills that are useless on the books.
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Cindy McCurry ... Campus editor
David Giles ... Sports editor
Brie Waddell ... Photo editor
annie Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe ... Business manager
David Nixon ... Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson ... Campus manager
Lori Eckart ... Chessfield
Cortina Innes ... Production manager
Pallen Lee ... National manager
John Oberzan ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Reagan objects to 22nd Amendment
President Reagan has complained on several occasions since he was reelected that he thinks the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms is unfair.
He hastens on those occasions to say that he is not thinking of his own waning presidency with three more years to go, but believes the constitutional bar interferes with the democratic right of, the people to choose their own leaders.
Clearly, to Reagan the presidency is not the "splendid misery" that Thomas Jefferson bemoaned or the "loneliest job in the world" as described by many of Reagan's predecessors.
Nancy Reagan agrees with her husband that the amendment restricting a president to two terms is wrong.
One wonders whether the president is chafing at having to leave the White House that he obviously enjoys. His popularity is phenomenally high for a second-term lame duck president. He has a set agenda for the future and he told a gathering of high school students last week while celebrating his 75th birthday that he is so optimistic about the future that
Helen Thomas United Press International White House correspondent
"I'm going to stick around for a good part of" the 21st century.
Reagan also is miffed, to say the least, that the U.S. public is already in a guessing game and speculating on who will win the next presidential election.
He does not think of himself as a lame duck and is keeping a high profile to defy that label. He feels he has miles to go before he sleeps.
His latest comments on the subject were made in an interview with the Washington Post, specifically when he was asked about Vice President George Bush and Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., already going to it "hammer and tong" for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.
"See," he replied, "that's what's wrong with having a 22nd amendment. Everybody automatically, the minute the '84 election is over, everybody starts saying, What are we going to do in '88?" And focusing
the spotlight on it. I think that it's almost forced on anyone if they are interested in that direction. But I don't know what we can do to change it."
At the same time, Reagan told the interviews that "no president can
'But I do think this that we ought to take a serious look and see if we haven't interfered with the democratic rights of the people.'
President Reagan
ever come out for it with himself in mind. I think it's got to be held for whoever's going to be the next president. But I do this think, that we ought to take a serious look and see if we haven't interfered with the democratic rights of the people."
Part of the reason that the Constitution was amended was the feel
ing that Reagan's hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had amassed too much power in serving four terms. Republicans of the era were very much in favor of the limitation at the time.
If anything, there is a lot of political philosophizing in terms of more limitation rather than less since the subject of limiting a president to one six-year term is often debated.
Eighteen states limit the terms of their governors, but not among them California, where Reagan served two terms.
Roosevelt was the exception, and he did not want to turn over the reigns of government during World War II even though he was a sick man. And it appeared that members of his family and some administration officials wondered whether he would live through his fourth term. He lasted only a little over a month after his last inauguration.
George Washington said two terms was enough, and his successors agreed, and were only too happy to become private citizens again.
Speech offers hope for welfare class
Bipartisan battles neglect key point
One of the great problems in our way of governance is that big debates tend to obscure other important issues the way big trees block the sunlight.
A case in point is the familiar pattern that followed President Reagan's State of the Union address. The speech and the subsequent release of the administration's budget proposals for 1987 fired up the well-rehearsed debate: guns vs. butter.
That this administration wants to increase military spending, cut social programs and avoid raising taxes should come as a surprise to no one. Ronald Reagan would not be Ronald Reagan if the budget had said much else.
Sadly, little of the debate so far has explored a short passage in the president's speech. It concerned welfare and the passage presents a potentially enormous opportunity for this nation. The possibility is that the issue of welfare and poverty might be substantially depoliticized.
Nor could anyone claim surprise when some Democrats declared the president's budget "dead before arrival" on Capitol Hill. All are standard set pieces in the bipartisan booie.
After repeating his well-known frustration over the billions wasted
Robert C.
Maynard
Oakland Tribune
so far on welfare, the president said,
"We can ignore this terrible truth no longer.
As Franklin Roosevelt warned 51 years ago. . . Welfare is 'a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.' And we must now escape the spider's web of dependency."
The president then announced he was charging his domestic council to present a strategy for a new approach by Dec. 1 of this year.
Reagan said, "I am talking about real and lasting emancipation, because the success of welfare should be judged by how many of its recipients become independent of welfare."
He asked for a strategy for immediate action to meet the financial, educational, social and safety concerns of poor families.
Unfortunately, as the president and the nation know, welfare recipients are becoming anything but independent. The permanent underclass, which Reagan called "the welfare culture," is growing.
This underclass is a silent virus lodged in the spine of our nation. It has devastating, crippling potential.
It is too bad the rush to another round of debate about the cost of Star Wars obscured any substantive discussion of what the president meant by real and lasting emancipation.
'Unfortunately, as the president and the nation know, welfare recipients are becoming anything but independent. The permanent underclass, which Reagan called "'the welfare culture," is growing.'
If the White House is prepared to conduct a full study and present policy options, this might be a good time to stop the bipartisan wrangling and work toward national objectives.
Stopping the growth of the
underclass should be a non-partisan goal. It is a subject to which both parties should bring their best ideas.
As matters now stand, the Democrats have claimed an obligation to our society's unfortunate. Yet it must be clear that the party of Roosevelt has no program to speak of that addresses the spreading underclass.
The Republicans have no program either, except to blame the Democrats for the waste of welfare dollars which change nothing.
Because neither party has a plan and because the president is sending his staff back to the drawing board, perhaps now is the time for both parties to act as if they belonged to the same republic.
Fundamental changes in our approach must be made. The cycle of dependency can be broken only by a coordinated approach with a clearly established strategic plan.
Whether the White House staff fulfills the wishes of the president only time will tell. But it would be a breakthrough if both parties demonstrated a genuine commitment to the president's goal of real and lasting emancipation for the nation's poor.
Mailbox
Lack of dedication
I am very disappointed in the actions of those "fighting" for the divestment of Kansas University Endowment Association funds from companies doing business in South Africa (Kansan, Feb. 7).
So they believe apartheid is wrong and the KUEA should stop condoning discrimination through its investments? Great!
So they think students should speak out about this injustice unceasingly until KUEA funds are divested? Great!
So they think one way to achieve their goal is through protest rallies staged at Youngberg and Strong
halls, which resulted in several arrests for trespassing? Great!
I also believe apartheid is wrong, and I also believe in civil disobedience. However, the actions of these "protesters" subsequent to the rallies prove them to be nothing more than immature, irresponsible children unwilling to face the consequences of their actions.
By continuing to appeal court decisions until their convictions on charges of criminal trespassing were overturned, the "protesters" have violated one of the most important aspects of civil disobedience — that the civil disobedient breaks the law with complete knowledge of the punishment he faces, and in so breaking the law, shows that his commitment to his cause is so deep that he will knowingly and willingly accept the punishment.
I have much more respect for blacks and whites protest apartheid in South Africa, where the punishment for such protest is often imprisonment, torture, or death, than I do for KU students who yell a little, stand around a lot, and then whine when they must do 10 hours of community service and pay court costs.
Chris Shannon
I wonder how many of these students would be willing to go to South Africa to protest apartheid?
Golden, Colo., sophomore
Correction
Because of an editor's error, two paragraphs in a letter to the editor from Ray Velasquez, 1983 journalism graduate, were inaccurate (Kansan, Feb. 11). One paragraph should have read, "So who can blame KLZR, ZZ9, Q104 and all the other contemporary hit radio stations for providing the kind of radio entertainment the general public is able to enjoy?"
The other should have read,
"Those individuals who are interested in music will just have to stay close to their turntables until the mediocrity and impotence of pop music radio is removed."