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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Thursday, Feb. 13, 1986
Keeping promises
We may never see the light.
For more than a decade, improved campus lighting has been brandished by student politicians as a campaign promise during Student Senate elections.
Study after study has shown that more illumination on our sidewalks, parking lots and throughways would decrease campus crime and make the Hill a safer place to be after dark.
The promises, statistics and needs are always there. Unfortunately, the money never is
The most recent developments show that Chancellor Gene A. Budig now supports the project. Of course he does. How does one come out against safe lighting?
more important, the Chancellor's support should help pull strings with the the Board of Regents and the Kansas Legislature. And their support needs to have dollar signs in front of it, not "Gee, this is a good idea. Why don't we study it?"
Best of luck
It shouldn't be that hard to convince the people in Topeka that more lights would stop many incidents of theft, vandalism and assault.
But it must be, because the lighting issue has been pondered and promised far too long. What we really need is some tangible sign of action.
So far, the issue has been placed on the Regents wish list and $25,000 has been allocated for campus lighting. Much more is needed and our current Student Senate administration has begun the arduous task of getting more funds from an already requestladen Legislature.
And more lights.
A suitable punishment
Retaliation — a primitive form of punishment, the eye for eye, tooth for tooth and disgusting apartment for disgusting apartment.
That form of punishment was used in a Kansas City landlord-tenant dispute last week when Allen Shaw, a landlord, was ordered by a Municipal Court judge to live for 30 days in his apartment building that was cited for extreme code violations.
The violations included: not providing a suitable bathtub or shower, bad plumbing, leaky ceilings and exposed sewage pipes.
Before sentencing, the judge said he asked Shaw whether he thought the apartment was a
safe and sanitary place to live.
Shaw answered yes and the judge ordered him to live up to his words.
Retaliation, although an ancient form of punishment, sometimes fits in modern-day cases.
It could be used to make perpetrators think twice before they commit offenses.
A rapist might think twice if he thought he might be raped, an embezzler might halt his embezzling if he thought that his pockets were being drained by someone else and a landlord might consider making his apartments livable if he thought he might be made to live there.
Ma Bell's latest offer
Southwestern Bell's own version of reversing the charges failed miserably last week.
Earlier this month, Bell "offered" customers a new phone repair service on little yellow cards sent out with the latest phone bills. In true Book-of-the-Month-Club form, customers would get the service at 90 cents a month unless they sent in a little yellow card saving they didn't want it.
Bell expected to automatically gain about 760,000 subscribers at $10.80 a year — an extra $2.2 million in the bank annually.
The name of the service — Optional Home Maintenance Service/Optional Maintenance Service — even helped it to sound more voluntary.
Those figures alone probably would have been enough to gain Southwestern Bell a flow of voluntary subscribers. Ninety cents a month is a mere pittance when compared with an $80-an-hour phone repair bill.
Unfortunately, Bell didn't give customers the opportunity as much as it tried to give them the service. Many people
The repair service idea is a good one. It saves the cost of visits from Bell repairmen, which Bell reminded customers costs $32 for the first 15 minutes of repair work, then $16 for each additional 15 minutes.
apparently felt they were being bullied, and voiced complaints with the Kansas Corporation Commission.
Others who didn't notice the yellow card jammed in with the rest of the pages of the phone bill would have been in for an unpleasant surprise when their next bill came and they discovered the new service to which they had unknowingly subscribed.
In fact, the move was so controversial that it spurred an investigation by the U.S. Postal Service examining whether Bell had violated domestic mail regulations on solicitations.
The company was right to revoke its generous offer last week. The program will now be offered only to customers who request it.
Company-officials now plan to promote the value of the service in hopes of gaining subscribers, opting for the old-fashioned positive response concept instead.
Bell officials insist the profit motive was not behind the move, pointing to their quick reversal as a sign of concern for customer reaction.
It's more likely that Bell realized customers can't be given a new program and told to pay, anymore than they can be given life insurance or a magazine subscription.
News staff
Michael Totty ... Editor
Lauretta McMillen ... Managing editor
Chris Barber ... Editorial editor
Cindy McCurry ... Campus editor
Daryl Giles ... Sports editor
Brice Waddill ... Photo editor
Susanne Shaw ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe ... Business manager
David Nixon ... Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson ... Campus manager
Lori Eckart ... Classified manager
Carolina Innside ... Production Manager
Pallen Lee ... National manager
John Oberzan ... Sales and marketing adviser
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White House would bring a fair price
President Reagan's proposal to sell government-run railroads and other "outmoded" federal assets indicates that he is out of stap with most Americans on this issue.
I don't mean people object to lowering the deficit and getting the government out of competition with private industry. I'm only saying the property the president wants to put on the block isn't exactly what we had in mind.
His new budget calls for the government to continue such programs as defense, AIDS research.
Dick West United Press International
If, for instance, we turned drug enforcement over to Rambo, that would clear up the problem in no time.
ant-terrorism campaigns and drug law enforcement. It is easy to see how private enterprise might do a better job in these fields.
One difficulty may be determining what would be a fair price. In addition to the headquarters building the State Department occupies in Foggy Bottom, there are all those embassies abroad. They should bring a pretty penny if sold.
And who among us does't have a foreign policy? Yet, the State Department isn't among the possessions Reagan recommends selling.
Or maybe Reagan would consider renting out the department for specified periods. How I would love to get my hands on the diplomatic establishment for a year. Or even for a month. Or a week. Or a day. Or an hour.
That brings up the question of how long renters should be in control.
Should there be an overnight rate or should State Department occupants be required to sign yearly leases?
At any rate, I hope there are no plans to divide the department into condominiums.
Even more complications could arise with respect to selling - or renting - Congress.
Constitutional arguments also could be raised against selling Congress or the Supreme Court.
However well the judiciary system might function in private hands, it must be remembered that the Founding Fathers created the courts as a separate branch of government, independent of the executive arm.
Sure the sale of federal courthouses could go a long way toward balancing the budget. But any such proposition probably would wind up in the laps of the justices. Thus, in effect, we would be back where we started.
If Reagan really wants to sell something without creating a controversy, perhaps he should put the White House on the market.
The executive department indisputably is owned by the government and I've heard there's a fortune to be made in real estate.
Go ahead. Make his day by making an offer he can't refuse.
--part of a sandwich — the middle part.
Solutions depend on caring
National borders, color, race and culture differences were forgotten recently as people of the United States and the world joined in a celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
In these days when such fundamental rights as equality, justice, freedom, peace and respect for human dignity are challenged, we remember King's wise advice, "If we don't learn to live together as brothers, we will perish together as tools."
At the same time we praise his support of such values, it is appropriate to make an account of the progress toward the fulfillment of his dream.
The advances made by blacks in the United States in 40 years are undeniable and are a motive of admiration for those in the world who are afflicted by injustices.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s brought on desegregation to public places and, at least apparently, it began demolishing racism from the social, political and economic life of the United States. Blacks, who were once considered an inferior race, now know that all humans were created equal, and complain if treated otherwise.
However, there is still much to be done. Blacks still ride greyhound and city buses because many cannot afford their own cars.
According to a Jan. 19 article in the Washington Post, black adult unemployment is twice that of whites. The annual median income of blacks is still about half what whites earn — 56 percent to be exact.
These percentages do not differ much from those of the 1960s. Forty percent of the U.S. prison population is black. Less than 14 percent of college-age blacks attend school. And obviously, there are more blacks (33.8 percent) living below the federally established poverty guidelines than whites (11.5 percent), a fact easily observable in relief centers and soup kitchens.
This was the unequal state of affairs when the first legal Martin
Constancio Garay
Guest columnist
Luther King Day remembered
King's birthday.
Many opposed the holiday — there were even a few white supremacists who marched against it.
How honored was the slain activist feel? Many think the essence of King's ideal was never well understood and all that he stood for was hindered by his death and the earlier death of John F. Kennedy, the president who coined the term "affirmative action" and submitted to Congress the Civil Rights Act that eventually passed in 1964.
Many agree that if King were alive, he would be staging sit-ins in support of the struggle of South African blacks or would be in jail for protesting Washington's double-standard policies in South Africa and Nicaragua.
The paramount significance of King's dream is that it transcends national boundaries and differences of races, languages and creeds. He is an inspiration and an example of heroism for those who share a common cause and struggle against oppression and injustice.
But for those who promote systems of covetous exploitation of nature and oppression of people of a certain color, culture, race, gender and class, Martin Luther King Jr. was a "communist agitator."
This type of dishonest and defamatory label also has been given to other activists fighting against intervention and discrimination, such as Father Luis Espinal in Bolivia, Maurice Bishop in Grenada, Salvador Allende in Chile, Augusto Cesar Sandino in Nicaragua, Archbishop Romero in El Salvador, Benigno Aquino in the Philippines and thousands of other heroes whose "crime" was to voice their opinion.
They spoke out in favor of the "silent cultures," as Brazilian exile
Paulo Freire calls the people of urban slums, ghettoes, rural communities and villages where media, schools, hospitals and technology hardly reach.
They protested against the discrimination and injustice in a "civilized" world still ruled by the laws of the jungle — where the gap between the three-fourths (with 77 percent GNP) of the poor and one-third of the rich (with 83 percent GNP) is ever widening.
Honoring a moral and pacifist leader such as Martin Luther King Jr. offers us all the opportunity to reconsider our social responsibilities as members of a nation and a world
Most of our contemporary social evils, from discrimination to poverty, from broken homes to drug abuse, from arms buildup to terrorism, have the same root. That common root is too much emphasis on individualism, the separation between the individual and the society from which he is undeniably a part.
Any solutions greatly depend on teaching ourselves and the new generations to respect and care for others. Individualism can become as oppressive and self-destructive as Nazism ever was.
Bishop Desmond Tutu has said, "We are really made for interdependence, because the absolutely self-sufficient human being is as intolerable as a so-called self-made man who worships his make-up."
It is a basic moral responsibility for us, the ordinary people, to be aware of the issues that concern our own neighborhoods and the world. We must get involved in activities that encourage sharing and caring for other people.
One admires the philosophy of life of Mahatma Gandhi, who taught us that "there is no limit to extending our service to our neighbors across state-made borders. God never made these borders."
However, we often forget to practice this. It is a lesson and a conviction Martin Luther King Jr. believed was worthy dying for.
Truckers unforgiving of minor goofs
Because I don't fly, I do a lot of cross-country driving. So I've developed a number of rules for getting there in one piece.
And if I have a cardinal rule, it's this: If a truck comes roaring up behind me, I get out of his way as quickly as I can. When I say *quickly* that's what I mean. I slam the gas pedal down and flee to the next lane.
While many truck drivers are courteous and professional, a certain percentage are psychotics who hate any and all cars and their occupants. They view us as a nuisance, a hindrance to their getting their load through in the fastest time possible.
For all I know, they might hate certain makes of cars more than others. Or colors, or license plates.
And I have no interest in antagonizing somebody who is revving up a machine that's 20 times as big as mine, at 70 or 75 miles an hour, only a few feet behind my hip pocket.
But no matter how careful you are,
if you're on the road long enough,
eventually you're going to make a mistake.
Traffic was light, the highway was smooth and I was doing about 60 or 65. Ahead of me was a truck that was kind of dawdling.
A week or so ago, while crossing central Florida, I made one. And the memory of it still makes me reach for the Manlox.
I pulled in' to the left lane to pass him. But as I drew even, I saw a car several hundred feet ahead parked on the shoulder.
Instinctively, I took my foot off the gas. I didn't put on the brakes, but I slowed enough so that in a few seconds ! dropped to the speed of the truck on my right, and stayed there.
A mental alarm went off: Cop. Radar.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
Then I heard the blast of an air horn. For a moment I wasn't sure where it came from. I was still looking ahead to what I thought was a police car.
Then it blasted again. I looked in my rear-view mirror, and there it was, so close to my bumper that I couldn't see anything more than his huge grill.
Apparently, the truck had been coming up fast, but at a distance, when I pulled out to pass. If I had kept going, there would have been no problem.
But because I thought I saw a cop and slowed down, I managed to get in his way.
I surged forward — cop or no cop — and swung into the right lane. As it turned out, it wasn't a cop.
The fast truck now had an open road, and he moved forward. But when he got next to me, he slowed. Then he began drifting to the right, as if to force me off the road.
I hit my brakes and he went by me,
but he swung into my land and dropped
For a few seconds I wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Then I glanced in my rear-view mirror and I understood.
That other truck was now coming up behind me fast. And I could see that it was the same kind of truck — same model, same pain job.
They were obviously traveling together and were probably on the CB talking about teaching the jerk in the Chevy a lesson. I was going to be
I decided not to join in their game. I swung to my left, intending to pass the truck and get as far ahead of him as possible, even if it meant doing 0.
He wouldn't allow it. He swerved and blocked the left lane. And his partner came out to keep me from dropping back.
By then, there couldn't have been more than 5 or 10 feet between my
While many truck drivers are courteous and professional, a certain percentage are psychotics who hate any and all cars.
I went back to the right lane. So did they
My wife said, "My God, what's going on?"
front bumper and a truck and my back bumper and another truck.
I said, "I think they're trying to kill us."
Now, if that sounds overly dramatic, it isn't. If a stranger came up to you on the street and held a knife to your throat, you could reasonably assume that he was threatening your life.
reacted quickly enough to keep me between them. Each time, the margin for error was only a few feet.
Two more times, I tried to get out and around. And both times they
So, here were two men, using giant machines as deadly weapons and threatening us with them. All I had to do was make a mistake — panic and hit my brakes — and one truck would have pleased me into the other.
I considered making for this
skidder. I'd be in a ditch on my side
skipped. I'd be in a ditch on my side
I'm not sure how scared I was. Ora
fright scale of one to 10, the night a
couple of street punks stuck a gun to
my nose I was about a nine. So P
Guess the trucks had me up to or
eight.
Then I got a break. The trucks were playing their sadistic game at about 45. This permitted a few cars to overtake us. I saw them in my side mirror. And as they went by, I snapped the wheel left, hit the gas and go on their tail.
I figured that if the maniac in the front truck wanted to swing out and get me, he'd have to take a piece of the guy in front of me, too.
It worked. And in a few seconds,
was speeding well ahead of them and
reached the finish line.
Now, I don't know if the drivers those trucks see any of the papers which my columns appear. Or they're capable of reading.
But on the outside chance that you do read this, I'd like you to consider what you almost did to a couple of strangers. You could have killed or maimed us. And that's seven punishment for the crime of having unintentionally delayed you by a few seconds.
I'm not going to preach to you about the way you should treat your fellow man — even those fellow men who don't get out of your way far enough.
I'd just like to say that I sincerely hope that both of you and your master practice birth control. Honest, we already have more than enough morons in this world.