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Monday, March 23. 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinions
I team still a winner
By now the reality has begun to set in, although some KU fans probably still don't want to accept it. The Jayhawks' men's basketball season is over, and there will be no Final Four appearance this year.
All season, fans and team members had one goal in mind
the goal in mind — to get back to the Final Four and, this year, win a national championship. But considering that Kansas lost three 1,000-point scorers from last season's dream team in Ron Kellogg, Calvin Thompson and Greg Dreiling, and a knee injury took sixth man Archie Marshall, the Jayhawks are to be congratulated on their accomplishments this season.
This season, the Jayhawks had only one consistent scoring threat, Danny Manning, and opposing teams knew it. Coach Larry Brown also had to rely more on freshmen than he would have liked. And at times, the Jayhawks' youth showed in their up and down
play.
Kansas didn't win a tournament or conference championship, yet the team extended its home-court winning streak to 48 games, tying the Big Eight Conference record. Kansas defeated defending national champion Louisville and St. John's on the road, but turned around and lost to Colorado and Nebraska.
At the end of an erratic season, Brown, who has never had a losing season as a coach, again had the Jayhawks ready for the NCAA tournament. Kansas defeated the University of Houston and Southwest Missouri State University and reached the "Sweet 16" before the Georgetown Hoyas brought an end to its 25-11 roller-coaster season.
While KU fans eagerly await the start of the next basketball season and another shot at the Final Four, they should not forget what this year's team accomplished.
The power of money
Praise the Lord! A man has been set free!
Yes, my friends, a man has been set free from the monetary bonds that have threatened his life. Bonds that have captive his very existence on this earth.
For you see, my friends, if he didn't reach a goal of $8 million by April 1, the good Lord in heaven would have called for the Reverend. But Saturday, out of the goodness of his heart, Jerry Collins, a Florida resident and millionaire who owns two greyhound racing tracks, donated that last little bit of money, a mere $1.3 million, to preserve the life of Oral Roberts.
And that money didn't come a bit too soon, either. As a last act of desperation, Roberts was going to retreat to a prayer tower to do some heavy-duty last minute praying and fasting until he reached his goal. Collins read about this
final attempt to raise the money in the Orlando Sentinel and was touched.
Well, it seems that Roberts did a superb job of carrying out Abraham Lincoln's adage, "You can fool some of the people some of the time . . ." with the help of a couple of tools — religion and God — a pretty potent combination.
It's a shame and somewhat of a shock to think that people actually would send money to a man who claims to be "holier than thou," yet is not above making a mockery of religion by using it to play on the emotions of his brainwashed followers.
The most interesting aspect of this whole ridiculous escape is his deadline, April 1. Suppose he missed his deadline but still wasn't called to heaven? Would he just write it off as a bad April Fools' Day joke? Something to consider for next year, probably.
Putting the issue on hold
The Lawrence City Commission should not waste any more time on the proposed downtown mall issue before the big vote on April 7.
Developing a plan for the proposed mall has been a continuous fight for the city. Now, a temporary cease-fire has been called until new and old commissioners re-engage in battle.
Howard Hill, who has been a strong supporter of the proposed mall, received support for his proposal to halt the allocation of any public funds for the mall until after the election. The commission passed the proposal 4-1, with David Longhurst opposed.
Their action postpones an $18,900 mall feasibility study. However, the commission did not support another of Hill's
proposals, which was that the Urban Renewal Agency also postpone meetings and action on the issue.
The commission placed a three-request referendum on the ballot to get the opinions of Lawrence voters.
The issues are whether the city should use public funds to help finance construction of the mall, whether Massachusetts Street and Vermont Street should be closed from Sixth Street to 11th Street and whether any of the streets in the downtown business district should be closed.
Maybe when a new commission convenes, it can clear up the mall controversy, make some decisions and start paying more attention to Lawrence's other needs.
News staff
Frank Hansel ... Editor
Jennifer Benjamin ... Managing editor
Juli Warriner ... News editor
Brian Kablerline ... Editorial editor
Sandra Engelland ... Campus editor
Mark Sibert ... Sports editor
Jane Outtimer ... Photo editor
Bill Skeet ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Lisa Weems ... Business manager
Bonnie Hardy ... Ad director
Denise Stephens ... Retail sales manager
Kelly Scherer ... Campus sales manager
Duncan Canbou ... Marketing manager
Lor Coppel ... Classified manager
Jennifer Lumianski ... Production manager
David Nixon ... National sales manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Parking services claims another victim
It was 6:48 p.m. One of the reporters hurriedly walked into the newsroom.
"He's here. Better go move your ear."
Barbara Shear
Associate editorial editor
I dropped my pencil and ruler.
Franciically, I began the search for
my keys. My desk quickly turned into
a disaster area as I tossed books and
papers out of my backpack in search
of my keys, but they weren't there.
OK, maybe they're in my purse.
Wallet, checkbook, pen, sunglasses,
paper, but no keys. I began to panic
praise,
"Oh, please Lord, not another one."
My heart began to beat faster.
Keys, keys, keys. Where are my damned keys? Just before I began to lose complete control. I ran to my coat. There, in my left pocket, the answer to my prayers.
ly raced out of the newsroom and down the hall towards the back door. I madly threw open the door and did my Superman imitation as I took the back stairs in a single bound.
Bent over, hands on my knees, panting while the sweat began to run down my face. I slowly looked up, only to see him drive away. His white jeep, only a memory now as it calmly ventured to its next destination.
I turned my head towards the sky.
The stars began to come into focus as
the sunset took to fade. I stood for
a moment before eagerly gazing at the
peaceful heavens.
Snapping back into reality, I quick-
"Maybe he missed my car. Maybe maybe he THOUGHT I had a stick or "
Feeling marginally confident, I turned to see my car, the dull light of the building reflecting off its maroon exterior. I began what I knew would be a painful journey to my front windshield.
As I readied myself for my inevitable fate, I was struck by one last glimmer of hope.
But my hopes were crushed as I saw that familiar, faded yellow card securely snuggled between my windshield and my wipers. Filled with despair, I pulled the paper from my car, but I didn't need to read it. I
"Maybe, just maybe . . ."
"Group I Violations." A checkmark was scribbled in the first box under that column. "No permit." The penalty — $7.50. I am only thankful that I ignored my inclination to back into the space, which would have been much easier to do. That would have cost me an extra $2.
knew what it said.
I took my car keys, opened the door and tossed the ticket into the back seat. It landed on a stack of other unpaid parking tickets. At least I had 15 business days to wait before my fine increased to $12.50. And believe me, I waited until that very last moment to pay the ticket.
When the 15th day arrived, I grudgingly went to Hoch Auditorium to make my weekly contribution to parking services. As I patiently waited behind a long line of students, also making involuntary contributions, I felt that I had some speech that I had given consistently during previous appearances.
"Ah, a familiar face," she said. Right then I knew my worn-out argument wouldn't stand a snowball's chance of getting me out of my fine.
"I know, it's a 24-hour-restricted lot behind Stauffer-Flint. But when I come to work, the spaces closest to the building are all taken. The closest space I can find is usually completely on the other side of campus. And since I usually don't get off work until late at night, I don't like walking across campus alone that late.
As I approached the window, I was greeted by a woman with a broad smile and dollar signs flashing in her eyes.
Besides, hardly anyone parks back there that late."
"You know you shouldn't park back there," she cackled.
"I know," I said while I returned her laughing gaze with a stone-cold glare.
She continued to giggle and shake her head while she took my money and filled out a piece of paper saying that I had indeed paid my ticket. After I signed the paper, she left me with a "have a nice day." That's easy for her to say.
I left Hoch and headed towards home, walking with my head down. That's when a friend approached. After I related my sad tale to him, he put his arm around me and patted my shoulder.
"Don't feel bad," he said. "You're not alone. Last year, I heard parking services gave out 36,000 tickets."
Thirty-six THOUSAND! Boy, I sure was glad I only had 39 more business days left at the University.
Costly health care plagues U.S. economy
The U.S. economy is being doctored to death. That seems to be the clearest diagnosis from the latest figures on medical costs in this country.
Paul Greenberg
Columnist
The cost of health care in the United States rose 7.7 percent last year. It would be different if that figure were being recorded in the midst of the Carter administration, when inflation was still rampant and a price increase of "only" 7.7 percent might go unnoticed. But in these Reaganized times, an annual increase of 7.7 percent is seven times higher than the Consumer Price Index, which rose only 1.1 percent in 1986, its smallest increase in a quarter century.
It's not as if 1986 were some exception to the rule in medical costs; the price of medical care has gone up faster than the general Consumer Price Index in every one of the last six years, but the trend was bigger and worse last year.
Talk about catastrophic illness, U.S. medicine has one. Call it hypertension. So what is the administration's reaction to these latest figures? More of the same. It has just come out for still another expansion of Medicaid, this time to cover the costs of catastrophic illness for some 30 million of the old and disabled. According to Otis Bowen, secretary of health and human services, it will be all paid for by another increases in premiums of only $4.92 a month. But how long will the price stay at $4.92 a month at the rate medical costs are climbing?
The administration talks a great game Listen to the president addressing a political rally not long ago. "The pundits told us we couldn't expect to get anything accomplished even before we got to Washington. Now they're trying to bring down the curtain even before the show is over. Well, I learned a lesson in my former profession, so let me give you a tip: We're saving the best stuff for the
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
last act . . . Our game plan is still the best one in town, "namely, a fight against "government controls, central planning and bureaucracy."
Uh huh But when it comes to medical costs, the administration can't produce anything but another extension of Medicaid, which doubtless will lead to another extension of prices. When it comes to proposing anything innovative, different or imaginative to fight medical costs, the White House is fresh out of new ideas. It's one more sign that the Reagan Revolution may be over.
Not that there aren't a lot of new ideas floating around. A couple of thinkers at the Heritage Foundation - Stuart Butler and Peter Ferrara - have suggested a variety of new approaches, and all of them would be getting more attention in Washington if the White House were still interested in mastering problems, not just drifting with them.
Butler and Ferrara use government only as a back-up against catastrophic illness. Private insurers would have the major responsibility for insuring patients and fighting inflation. Americans would be encouraged to buy their insurance competitively; those who opened savings accounts to pay medical bills would be eligible for tax credits. There would be more tax-deductible company health plans and state-created risk pools for the uninsurable ... and so on.
You don't have to like each and every one of these ideas for it to be evident that some minds have been at work on the problem - while this administration is still relying on nothing more than another extension of Medicare, and still another dose of inflation.
It ought to be clear by now that the economic problems of U.S. medicine are largely induced by the very systems designed to solve them. These two scholars warn that conti-
nuning to rely on government programs to insure against catastrophic illness "invites politicians to engage in a bidding contest to promise ever more generous benefits, leaving the next generation to pick up the tab.
Some experts, like Karen Davis, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, say there is no solution to this fiscal malady, that "the health-care industry is not subject to either marketplace or government control. You have extensive insurance coverage. Hospitals and doctors know they can raise their charges and someone will pay whatever they end up charging." This is but sophisticated defeatism.
The free market is a remarkably flexible and efficient mechanism, if government will use it. The Reagan administration used to believe as much; it says it still does. In that case, it needs to act on some of its rhetoric. Before this vital part of the economy gets any sicker.
katz
k. l. thorman
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed