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Tuesday, February 17, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
A ridiculous request
Kansas Crew made a ridiculous request to the Student Senate and the Senate honored it.
The Senate allocated $24,800 so that the crew team could buy two eight-man shells.
This ludicrous amount was almost $13,000 less than the Kansas Crew requested. Kansas Crew is a club sport, not a varsity sport. This means that it doesn't receive a penny from the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation. KUAC can't afford to take the team under its wing because the corporation's own non-revenue sports are grossly under financed.
The burden therefore falls on the shoulders of the Student Senate. Crew is an expensive sport. KU students shouldn't be expected to finance the sport with an outrageous proportion of the $28 activity fee that they pay each semester.
Other campus organizations need money too. In fact, the Senate plans to cut money to some social service groups, such as Women's Transitional Care Services.
How can the Senate justly giving Kansas Canse $24,800 more than the club usually receives? If Crew receives the extra money, the Senate will be giving Crew a total of $31,000 this year, which is more than three times the amount that five other sports clubs combined receive from the Senate. Each student would pay $1.10 this year to support the team.
Brady Stanton, student body president, has said that he might veto the bill. Stanton is on the right track. The Senate cannot afford to give Kansas Crew extra money — not at the expense of other student organizations.
Helping stamp out drugs
All Kansans should pay taxes on their income, whether they bring in the dollars legally or illegally.
Kansas legislators are supporting this principle by supporting a tax that won't affect those who live within the law, but could increase the chances of criminals being successfully prosecuted.
The Kansas House last week passed a bill that would impose a state tax on dealers of marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs. The bill, which passed 120-2, now rests in the hands of the Kansas Senate.
The bill, designed after a Minnesota law that took effect about six months ago, would give law enforcement officers additional power to catch and prosecute drug dealers in the state.
The bill would protect the
privacy of drug dealers who chose to pay their taxes on revenue from the sale of illegal drugs. The dealers could pay these taxes by buying tax stamps. If dealers decided to evade taxes, the bill would be double trouble.
If law enforcement officials failed to prosecute a suspected drug dealer on criminal charges, the officials could nab the dealer on tax evasion.
Drug dealers in the state make money illegally and aren't forced to pay a dime on it. A law taxing drug dealers would be a positive attempt to make dealers pay their dues. And these dues could help to bring a few extra dollars into the state, at a time when Kansas needs all the money it can get.
One way or another, these criminals should be brought to justice.
Later that day, Gov. Mike
Allowing fair competition
An apparent victory for consumers in Kansas was negated last week as mandatory minimum price markups for liquor were declared illegal, but the state continued to enforce them.
The law in question calls for a mandatory price markup of 28.5 percent for spirits, 31.5 percent for cordials and liqueurs, and 40.5 percent for wine. Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan issued an opinion last week that said that the law was illegal. The opinion was based on a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar New York law which was found to be unconstitutional. The Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control then said it would discontinue enforcing the law
Hayden said he would like to see the law enforced until the law was specifically struck down by a court or repealed by the Legislature.
The state Legislature should initiate swift action to take this burden off the backs of Kansas residents. If there is truly fair, free trade, then the market, not the state, should decide what mark-up is put on liquor. Let the consumers decide which liquor stores should remain open and which should close, as they do for other stores.
It also would be a terrible injustice and dereliction of duty if the state had reason to believe that one of its laws was unconstitutional and failed to take action to clear up the matter.
News staff
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David Nixon ... National sales manager
Jeanne Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
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Opinions
Abortion argument calls for logic
Anywhere you go, the issue of abortion is bound to raise both eyebrows and tempers. Yet, the latest propaganda weapon produced by anti-abortion advocates is bound to raise some lunches.
Jon Gregor Columnist
"more agonizing" than the first. What Nathanson failed to point out is that it also is not a rational argument against abortion. If a viewer regards a fetus as nothing more than tissue and nerves, then a disgusting film on pulling teeth would be just as effective.
The on-going battle over abortion has led both sides to use scare tactics instead of logic to present their views and to gain allies. However, anti-abortion advocates have reached a new high in low with their latest attention getter.
since the decline of the graphic abortion film, "Silent Scream," as an effective persuasive device; anti-abortion advocates have unveiled a new film that has an increased shock value. It is ironic that its title is "Eclipse of Reason," because reason is the main ingredient that is lacking in this production.
The film, according to its narrator, Bernard Nathanson, is "more graphic, more bloody" and
What is missing is a logical explanation of why abortion is wrong. As a result, the viewer cannot label abortion according to his or her knowledge of the subject, but may base the decision only on the heavily biased material presented. The film is inherently useless as an educational tool because it is designed to terrorize the viewer into an anti-abortion stance. Education is the key to discerning truth and gaining an understanding of a subject, not shock treatment.
Nathanson also admits that many abortions were taped but only the most graphic were selected for the film. The producers now are making more changes to make the film "better cinema." This alone should make many people question the film's true purpose. It would be just as irresponsible if pro-choice groups produced a film that depicted abortion as painless and easy. However, they, too, are guilty of misleading the
public.
Some pro-choice advocates base their definition of life as the time of a fetus' viability, or the point at which a fetus can live outside of the mother's womb with or without artificial aid. What they usually fail to say is that this is merely a theory that has not been proven. Basically, many groups are presenting theory as fact to the general public.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
Both sides of the issue are cluttered with this type of emotional appeal. Usually, the most radical groups utilize blatant misinformation and as a result, they grab the public spotlight better than any other groups, and little is being done to stop them.
Informing the public of the issues surrounding abortion is necessary for a clear understanding of the arguments put forth by both sides. It is time for pro-choice advocates and especially anti-abortion groups to use facts and argumentation in a respectable manner. By perplexing the issue, they are breeding ignorance and narrow-mindedness.
Until groups such as the one that produced "Eclipse of Reason" present their ideas both fairly and responsibly, they should only be held in contempt.
The Hiami Herald
"BEHOLD, COMRADE! UNCLE GORBY'S SOVIET DEMOCRACY!"
Pasta has gone from cheap to chic
An invitation from an old friend arrived in the mail.
It said, "You are invited to a pasta party."
Mike Royko Columnist
I immediately phoned him and said, "Look, I don't know what's going on, but I want to help."
He said, "Good. You can bring some Parmesan or a bottle of red wine."
"I'm serious," I said. "I'm right here. What can I do?"
"Level with me," I said. "Have you been fired?"
"OK, you can make the garlic bread," he said.
I said, "Don't be proud. What do you need? A loan? Food? A cosigner? Just name it and you got it. Believe me, the kids will be all right."
He said, "What are you talking about?"
"said," "this pasta thing"
"What about?" he said. "I just
bought a pasta machine. I want to
it out. What do you like?"
Fettucine!"
"I've just been promoted," he said.
"Then you're getting squeezed by your bookie." I said. "Don't panic." I wouldn't be surprised.
"Look, you can confide in me.
What's wrong?"
"I told you I bought a pasta
What do you like?" it makes
krisztina.
I could tell he was serious. "You bought a pasta machine?"
"Sure. It's the latest thing. Electric. That's why I'm having the party. To try it out."
"But you're not Italian," I said.
"You really have a pasta machine?"
"Of course not. It was Italian, my mother would make pasta for me."
"Sure. It's right next to my Cusinart."
"But you don't even live in Lincoln Park. You're from the Southwest Side."
When Slats Grobnik was a kid, he always knew when the old man was having a losing streak at the racetrack.
Obviously, he was another victim of the pasta chic, a craze that has gripped the city and the nation.
"We ate spaghetti every day," he said. "Or maceran. Or some of those."
"What has that to do with it?"
If the streak was prolonged — and old man Grobnik had a fondness for
horses that ran backward — Slats would start moaning. "The only fresh meat in the house is our dog. And I'm too weak to chase 'im."
It was that way all over the neighborhood. You knew when the paycheck was running out. The nochaper was no cheaper way to feed a family
Poverty meant starch Prosperity meant meat. That's why so many poor people are fat.
But now that has been reversed. Pasta is in. Meat is out. (At least red meat. You are still fashionable if you are the flesh of a dead fish or chicken.)
It probably began along the lakefront.
Maybe it was a broker who had bet on the wrong pork belly and went broke, causing his wife to face the anguish of cancelling a dinner party because she couldn't afford to buy a sirion tip.
"Let them eat pasta," the broker may have said.
Or maybe it was a jogger, seeking the ultimate carbohydrate high and faced with the rising cost of Adidas shoes.
It might have been an offshoot of Italian chic, which preceeded pasta chic Italian chic happened when the chef and De Niro unveiled their pectorals.
Whatever caused it, you can't
escape the noodle
Restaurant owners recognize a good thing when they see it. There was a time when no one except Italianes ate pasta. People ate spaghetti. You could get a huge plate of it, including mealtables, for about a buck and a half.
No more. Now you go into almost any greasy spoon and they offer a pasta course. Toss 40 cents worth of vegetables into 60 cents worth of spaghetti, add 10 cents worth of ham, and somebody puts an $8 tag on it
Worse, it has invaded the home. There was a time when people invited you over and you ate pot roast, baked chicken, roast beef or meat loaf, which made the trip worth the price of the gas.
Now you get noodles, covered with olive oil and powdered garlic.
A friend of Italian ancestry told me:
"I never accept invitations to dinner anymore. I can't stand it. Last week I went to a pal's house. And his wife, who is of Norwegian-Irish descent, served linguine with a sauce made of herrings and potatoes."
Incidentally, I did accept the invitation to the pasta party that my friend had.
But his machine broke down and we sent out for Chinese food.
BLOOM COUNTY
IT WAS FINALLY TIME FOR A TRIX
FRANK ARTICLE ON THE PUBLIC
HEALTH THREAT OF AIDS. AND
CHIEF EPICT ARMAND DIPHON
KNEW THAT WHAT HIS REAKERS
NEEDED WAIT. BRUTELY EXPLICIT
SEXUAL ADVICE..
by Berke Breathed