4
Thursday, March 3, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Good music sounds better when profits help the needy
The rock, blues and jazz sounds echoing from Liberty Hall's ornate ceiling tonight will mean a good time for KU students and Lawrence residents who enjoy live music. But for some of Lawrence's less fortunate citizens, it will mean food in their stomachs and heat in their homes.
College students often think they don't have the money to donate to "good causes," but somehow paying four dollars, or three dollars and two cans of food, to hear live music doesn't hurt so much. That money will go to two Lawrence volunteer organizations: the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, or LINK, and Warm Hearts.
The problems of the underprivileged are not always readily visible. Fortunately, Lawrence's citizens, businesses, churches and clubs have not ignored them. LINK feeds an average of 80 hungry or lonely people, many of whom are children, each of the three days a week it operates. Warm Hearts helped pay heating bills for 315 needy households last year.
But Warm Hearts has run out of money this year. And winter is not over vet.
Tonight, the Art Band, the Homestead Grays, Lonnie Ray and the Blues All Stars, and Tommy Johnson will go onstage to raise money for the organizations. One band member said it was his way of paying back organizations that had helped him out in the past.
Cheers to the four bands for donating time, effort and talent to help out LINK and Warm Hearts. Cheers to those organizations for doing something good for the cold and hungry people in Lawrence. And finally, cheers to the people who attend the concert tonight. It may be the most enjoyable donation they could make.
Katy Monk for the editorial board
Here's to Rock Chalk Revue
Another opening, another
traight mark the success of the 38th annual Rock Chalk
Royale KILS variety show, exgravaganza.
This year's show features musical productions by five fraternity and sorority pairs and in-between acts that range from the juggling of Rex Boyd to the hymns of the KU Inspirational Gospel Voices.
"The overture is about to start . . ."
Rock Chalk has a tradition of providing an evening of entertainment and an opportunity to spotlight hidden talent. And all this is done for charity. Last year, Rock Chalk raised $12,000 for the United Way of Douglas County.
So cross your fingers and hold your heart. Participants and organizers have spent countless hours writing, planning and rehearsing this year's show — often at the expense of schoolwork and sleep. Their dedication is commendable. To all involved with Rock Chalk Revue — break a leg.
"It's curtain time and away we go. Another opening of another show!"
Alison Young for the editorial board
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
The editorial board consists of Alison Young, Todd Cohen, Alan Player, Jody Dickson, Katy Monk, Russell Gray and Van Jenerette.
Other Voices
Free speech applies to all groups
"Great universities, such as this one, serve as places where widely divergent views are expressed, debated and analyzed," University of Kansas Chancellor Gene A. Budig said in a statement last week.
However, the expression, debate and analysis of views held by two Ku Klux Klan members scheduled to appear on a University of Kansas student radio talk show and in a reporting class will be postponed. Reasons for the postponement of both appearances have been offered by different officials. But the underlying reason seems to be because of pressure from local black leadership.
Two of the main groups that have embraced the freedoms contained in the First Amendment are blacks and journalists. It is sad to see how quickly they can forget that the First Amendment applies to everyone and not just specific groups.
Kansas State Collegian Kansas State University
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
Todd Cohen...Managing editor
Rob Knapp...News editor
Alan Player...Editorial editor
Joseph Rebello...Campus editor
Jennifer Rowland...Planning editor
Anne Luscombe...Sports editor
Stephen Wade...Photo editor
Richard Stewart...Graphics editor
Tom Eben...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Kelly Scherer ... Business manager
Clark Massad ... Retail sales manager
Brad Lenhart ... Campus sales manager
Robert Hughes ... Marketing manager
Kurt Messersmith ... Production manager
Nellouma Knippe ... National Manager
Kris Schorno ... Traffic manager
Kimberly Coleman ... Classified manager
Jeane Hines ... Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and less than 200 words and must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University of Kansas, please include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and less than 700 words. The writer will be photocarried.
can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Filn Hall. Letters, guest columns and columns are the opinion of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University Daily Kansan. Editorials are the opinion of the Kansan editorial board.
writer will be photographed.
The Kansas reserves the right to reject or edit letters and guest columns. They
will be contacted by the Kansas University Press, 11 Stuart Fell Hall.
The University Daily Kansan (USPS 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 60404, daily during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods, and Wednesday during the summer session. Second-class postage is paid in Lawrence, Kan. 60444. Annual subscriptions by mail are $50. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118 Stauffer-Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 68045.
Gephardt can't maintain a stance
When opportunity knocks, Missouri congressman jumps to the door
It says something about American politics when Bruce Babbitt, a candidate who thinks and is willing to say what he thinks, is eliminated from the presidential race while Richard Gephardt comes out of two primaries still going strong. To call Congressman Gephardt an opportunist would be an understatement. The man doesn't have just a checkered past; he's got a plaid one.
When he was running for Congress in a blue-collar, largely Catholic district in South St. Louis, Mr. Gephardt's comments on abortion sounded like a papal encyclical: "Life begins with conception."
Of course that was in the 1970s; now it's the 1980s, and the candidate is out to win over a different constituency: voters in Democratic primaries nationwide. He knows which party is most influenced by feminist groups that have made abortion their measure of a candidate. Now the congressman tots "freedom of choice," and, to quote an item in U.S. News and World Report, says he won't veto bills with appropriations for abortion.
His demagogy on trade may be the best-known part of the congressman's appeal, but it shouldn't obscure the long list of his switches. When he was representing an anti-busing district, he was all in favor of one of those cocamarie constitutional amendments to ban this new Yellow Peril, the school bus. Now that he's seeking a presidential nomination and must play statesman, he's against such an amendment. It's an improvement, but one must wonder why enlightenment should have come only with presidential ambitions. He used to be for tuition tax credits — a handy way for the government to channel funds into parochial schools like the Catholic ones in his district. He's changed his mind, or at least what he says, about that proposal, too.
Only a little more than a year ago, the congressman was quite broad-minded about making some changes in the Social Security program — "When you put anything off bounds, saying you would not even think about it, you can often find yourself in a position where the other alternatives are as difficult. if not more difficult."
Paul Greenberg Syndicated Columnist
His comments on Social Security were decidedly different by the time of the Iowa primary. By then, it had become clear that he was dealing with the most sacred of sacred cows in national politics: "Ronald Reagan and his administration want to cut Social Security every chance they get, and that's why we need a Democratic president in 1988." No one should be under the illusion that Mr. Gephardt can demagogue only trade issues.
Congressman Gephardt used to be against an import tax on crude oil, a stand that doubtless pleased St. Louis consumers who saw only the short-term costs and not how an adjustable tariff could keep oil prices stable over the long haul and ease the threat of extortionate prices set by a foreign cartel. Candidate Gephardt is now in favor of a $5 tariff on every barrel of imported oil in order to support the domestic petroleum industry and give the country a measure of "energy security." His new position ought to help him in the oil states. In another candidate, this change might be considered growth. In one with Richard Gephardt's record of changing positions as he changes constituencies, it's hard to fight the susicion that it's only ambition.
At one time, Mr. Gephardt opposed allowing states to delay nuclear power plants within their borders. By the time the presidential campaign got to New Hampshire, where the nuclear plant at Seabrook has few political friends he was reborn as a States Righter on this issue.
With the exception of his about-face on abortion, Mr. Gephardt's most dramatic switch may have come on defense issues. Once upon a time, he was a mid-American hawk from McDonnell-Douglas country. Back in 1882, he got a 90 percent rating from the American Security Council, which has never met a weapons program it didn't
like. He was all for the development of nerve gas, the neutron bomb, and the MX missile.
Congressman Gephardt can still talk a good game: "The American people will not and should not put a Democrat in the White House if they believe we are the party of a weak America." But he no longer votes that way. He's now for a freeze on nuclear weaponry and has supported slashing the budgets for both the MX rail missile (by $250 million) and the Strategic Defense Initiative (from $7.7 to $3.1 billion.) He talks abut cutting the defense budget by $40 billion within three years and slowing or eliminating programs like the Stealth bomber, the MX missile, Star Wars, and maybe Trident II. His rating with the American Security Council has fallen from 90 to 10 percent, and he's trying to out-dove candidates like Michael Dukakis and Paul Simon. The hawk once was definitely has molted.
As a congressman, Dick Gephardt voted for the Reagan tax cuts in 1981. As a presidential candidate, he rails against such cuts as special favors for the rich and exploitation of the poor. It's as if he can't run across an issue without demagging it. He used to be against supporting farm prices, like many another congressman from an urban district. But in Iowa, he was bragging about sponsoring just such a price-program program. ("You've got to have supply-management. That's what the Harkin-Gephardt Save the Family Farm Act is about," he told a farm-belt audience.)
This guy is consistent only in agreeing with the particular electorate he's pandering to at the moment. Yet he's survived the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries handily. His success says something about the state of American politics, and what it says is not good. When a principled candidate like Paul Simon, who represents the best tradition of his party in his honest, low-key fashion, can be in deep trouble while Richard Gephardt prospers, something is wrong in American politics — and maybe with the American spirit. Or at least with the American mind. You can tell how healthy a country is by the kind of leaders it produces, and this candidate's success is not a good sign.
End U.S. aid to Israel
The recent kidnapping of Lt. Col. William Higgins in Beirut is one of the many consequences of stubborn U.S. policy in the Middle East. U.S. politicians who benefit from the U.S. Jewish lobby get money and votes and continue to look at the Middle East through Israeli interests rather than through U.S. interests.
capable element that could protect the U.S. embassy. After the PLO left Lebanon, count how many attacks were recorded against the U.S. embassy and how many Americans and Westerners have been kidnapped and taken hostage.
Before 1982, (when Israel invaded Lebanon and forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to leave Lebanon with her mighty U.S. weapons and through U.S. pressure on the PLO), there was no single incident of kidnapping of U.S. personnel or attacks on the U.S. embassy in Beirut. The PLO was the only
After the summer of 1982, when Israel occupied southern Lebanon, the U.S. Marines came to protect the occupiers, the Israelis. In a single night, more than 240 young Marines were sacrificed for the sake of Israel. That attack was just the start of U.S. sacrifices, and I am afraid that the kidnapping of Higgins is not the end of these sacrifices until the United States has an objective policy in the area.
In addition, even though Iran is a U.S. enemy in the area, the U.S. still sold weapons to her because the Israelis wanted it. Because it was Israel's idea, it was all right. The United States approved Israeli aid on her hand, selling weapons to Jordan Arabia, one of the U.S.'s best allies, the region, not suitable to the Israelis, so the United States, using Congress, objected to such a sale.
I think our government and our politicians should care more about U.S. lives abroad and our tax dollars. They should care about where the money goes, rather than getting money and votes for their own personal benefit. Or, we should abish lobbying for a foreign government so that we feel free to implement our own objectives efficiently and systematically.
spected to assist in Because of the Israeli lobby, our congress
men are very generous with Israel. They give Israel more privileges than any other country in the world. These privileges include free trade, sharing of high technology, access to the U.S. weapons market, tax deductions on private contributions and overall $3 billion annually in free military and economic aid. Ironically, all of these privileges don't seem to satisfy the Israelis; they still use spies to get more. Our congressmen get money and votes from the Israeli lobby, and we the people end up paying the Israelis from our tax dollars and with our national security.
Allison Scott
Paola sophomore
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed
CAN YOU THINK OF
ANYTHING THAT MAKES
YOU Wake UP IN A
COLD SWEET THESE