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Friday, March 29, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Final Four Rock Chalk Jayhawk! GO KU!
Discrimination
Administration's refusal to act on ROTC policy threatens anti-discrimination policy's credibility
Forty U.S. Representatives sent President Bush a letter last week that called for him to eliminate a military policy that bans gays and lesbians from enlisting in the services.
Not surprisingly, military policy remains as archaic as before. But the letter, initiated by Rep. Gerry Studds, D—Mass., is the latest of several episodes in which public officials have taken steps to force a change in the policy.
Earlier this month, University administration and student government representatives went to Washington to pressure Congressmen to force the military to allow gay and lesbian ROTC cadets to become commissioned officers.
Gay and lesbian activists began last semester to push for a reconciliation between the University policy that outlaws discrimination and the military policy that permits it.
The University would prefer to wait several years for other schools and the military to introduce equality into the armed services than to act now on this campus. Administrators fear losing the ROTC programs, the dollars they bring to the University and a few of its students.
The ROTC programs threaten the credibility of the University and its unenforced antidiscrimination policy.
So gay and lesbian activists on campus are as right as the administration is safe. But judging from the responses of Kansas' delegates to Washington, the administration's solution is more likely to happen.
Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., hasn't responded to letters from GLSOK lobbyists, said Chris Craig, GLSOK adviser.
Nen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., has said little more.
Rep. Jim Slattery, D-Topeka, has been the most supportive toward the lobbyists. Yet he didn't sign Studds' letter. An aide said yesterday that Slattery never was given a copy to sign and hadn't known about it.
All three have been more receptive to the goals of the administration. They or their aides met the University's representatives in Washington.
Enforcement of the University anti-discrimination policy seems likely to come only after the Congress, White House and military are comfortable with the idea.
Rich Cornell for the editorial board
L.A. victim grateful to Gates Rodney King able to start new life thanks to hefty settlement
The police chief of Los Angeles is being widely condemned because of the now-famous videostand flogging of a traffic offender
But Chief Daryl Galey, while refusing to resign, suggests that the brutal beating might have been an upbiting result for the victim. It would indicate results for the beating victim.
As the police chief put it at a news conference March 18:
I hadn't thought of it that way, but there could be something in what Chef Gates says.
"We regret what took place. I hope he (the beating victim) gets his life straightened out. Perhaps this will be the vehicle to move him down the road to a good life instead of the life he's been involved in for such a long time."
There's no doubt that Rodney King, 25, had not been an exemplary citizen, although he's no John Dillinger. When the police stopped him for speeding, he was on parole for using a tire iron to threaten and rob a job
But as Chief Gates says, the experience of being beaten, kicked and shot with an electric gun gun might be worse. He move him down the road to a good life.
Who knows — in a few years, when all of this is forgotten, a reporter might drive out to a nice house in California suburb and find a peaceful Rodney King pushing a mower across his lawn.
The reporter might ask, “Mr. kevin you moved you down the road to a taffel life.”
"That's a good question," Mr. King might reply, "and I'll be glad to explain it to you. You'll have to excuse me if I wobble and drola a bit; my face has nerve damage, and my coordination hasn't been the same
Mike Royko Syndicated columnist
since they damaged my brain." "Of course."
"But to get back to your question. I think it was after LA.'s finest hit me about 50 or 55 times with their clubs. As you recall, some of the fillings flew out of my teeth and one of my eye socket's exploded."
"Must have been a tad uncomfortable."
"Yes. And at that point, I'm pretty sure that those nine skull fractures and internal injuries had already occurred, my cheekbone was fractured, one of my legs was broken, and I had this burning sensation from beingrapped with that electric stun gun. I was feeling kind of low."
"Yes. I thought: 'Well, one of my legs isn't broken; one of my eye sockets isn't fractured; one of my cheekbones isn't broken. And although my skull is fractured, my head remains attached to my body; and while hairs have popped out of my teeth, I still have the teeth.' And I said to myself: 'Half a body is better than none.'"
"Right. But as $\bar{1}$ was lying there, and they were getting in a few final kicks and some sort of hog-tying my hands to my legs and dragging me inside the ground, I said to myself 'Why n't you try to look at the bright side?'
"That's to be expected.
"Thank you. And I had a chance to think about why the police were
"And vou did?"
"Very inspiring."
treating me that way. It was their way of telling me that speeding is an act of anti-social behavior and I had been very bad, bad, bad."
"You have unusual insight," "I try. And I thought that if only I had the life of a model citizen, this could have happened to me. Let's face it. We have never fracture the skull of the president of the Chamber of Commerce, the chief antler in the Loyal Order of Moose or the head of the PTA. No, it was my past history of anti-social behavior that brought it on."
"But they had no way of knowing you were on parole."
"Yes, but I'm sure they could guess just by the look of me. Be honest, I don't look at all like the head of the PTA, do I?"
"True."
"Then, later, when Police Chief Gates said that the beating, although regretful, could be the vehicle that would get me on the road to the good life, everything became clear. I realized that the beating would turn my life around and be a one-way ticket to the good life."
the chief's words inspired you?" "Not exactly. to be honest. Chief Gates' words convinced me that he had to be asd an SOB as ever to open his mouth at a press conference."
"The chief's words inspired you?"
"But you said he helped you to a good life."
"When I took his police department to court, that jury awarded me a couple of million in damages, and then leading the good life ever since."
"That's right, he did."
"How?"
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
KU parking officials can be students' worst nightmares
Do you ever get the feeling you're being followed? Well, for the last week I've had that sneaking suspicion. Except I'm not being followed by your typical psychotic lunatic who is between prison stays and does things like write on himself with an X-acto knife and spell his favorite speed-metal band on his arm with the blood that scabs up. No, the people who follow me are far more deranged.
The people I speak of are the fine, upstanding members of KU's parking services, people whom I hold in the same regard as I do pond sludge. These people are my worst nightmares. Some people are chased by slimy lizards or obscenely harrying cats, and some I love. For me, the image of a white pickup will wake me up screaming faster than you can say red permit.
It's my belief that the evil beings who drive those white trucks are equipped with a radar, which tracks my car at all times. That way, even if I leave my car in an illegal location for just a split second, they can be on the scene instantaneously to issue me a ticket.
These folks will stop at nothing to give someone a ticket. I read recently that several KU parking officials had been spotted selling their first-born children just for the opportunity to give someone a ticket.
Rich Bennett
Staff columnist
Seriously though — OK, probably not — in the last week I have received three tickets, or violation notices as the parking department ephemistically calls them. I estimate that since I started attending KU I've received more than a dozen tickets, and that's a lot of tickets; there's a violation out there to be committed, trust me, I've been "notified" about it.
Even if I park several time zones away from campus, as mandated by parking department regulations, I still manage to commit a violation of some sort. Failure to park between the lines, failure to signal before pulling into a space, failure to whatever, don't worry, I'll fail to do so. Most of the time, it's my failure to read the posted signs that causes my ticket woes. Of course, the fact that the restrictions on the signs are rarely much bigger than the type you see here doesn't help
Although, to be entirely unbiased and fair, I must point out that I just made this up.
parking department, as outlined in their 1990-91 handbook, is to use the available parking space in the best interests of the total university. Unfortunately for students, in the parking department's 1990-91 handbook of synonyms, it says that total university is simply another word for faculty. This leaves us students out in the cold, usually the cold of Iceland, where we then park our cars and trek to class.
Even though I am a qualified expert in the specialized field of receiving violation notices, I'm not sure of a solution to the problem of limited parking space. The only thing I'm sure of is that carving, "You're slime," onto a few parked officials with an X-actor knife might make me feel a whole lot better. However, I m told by rational human beings, who keep in mind, haven't received three tickets in the last week, such actions are probably a bad idea. So I guess I'll come up with something else.
Maybe I'll switch my major to education and become a professor so I can get the good spaces. Or, maybe if the parking services changed the name of their building to the Rich Building, I wouldn't would case my pain a little. After all, my paid tickets are largely responsible for that building's existence.
One of the stated goals of the
Rich Bennett is an Overland Park junior majoring in journalism.
Other Voices
German reunification
Euphoria has a price. When Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised that no one in the eastern wing would be left worse off from German unification, he effectively legitimized the euphoria gripping Germans as they moved toward becoming a single country . . .
When Germany as a whole gets its act together, it will be a dominant economic and political force in Europe and a formidable one globally. . . Bonn's ability to guide the transition in the east will be tested sorely in the process. As euphoria quickly gives way to realism, the need is to try and achieve a balance between economic imperatives and social justice. . . A balance is especially necessary if anti-democratic forces are not to take advantage of the fluidity of the situation.
Consider a U.N. army
While the United Nations is still basking in international goodwill, consideration should be given to ways in which the military burden of international law enforcement could be shared more equitably. The legal framework already exists in articles 43 and 49 of the U.N. Charter. These
provide not only for the contribution of military contingents by member states to international enforcement operations, but a joint command structure in the form of a military staff committee, composed of the chiefs of staff of the permanent members of the Security Council.
It is probably unrealistic to think in terms of a sizeable standing U.N. army. But what can be envisaged is the formation of a rapid international deployment force, which could be sent, on the instructions of the Security Council, to trouble spots to prevent hostilities.
There are other aspects of the organization's structure and practices which need to be reviewed. It is an anomaly that two of the world's biggest economic powers, Germany and Japan, do not have a permanent seat on the Security Council. Whatever the complications of upsetting the balance of the council's permanent membership . . . this is a nettle which must surely be grazed soon.
From The Financial Times, London.
Enact the Brady Bill
Congress should enact, and President Bush should sign, the so-called Brady Bill, which would require a weeklong waiting period before dealers could deliver handguns to buyers. During this delay, police could check records to see if the purchaser had a criminal record. And some people would be stopped from acting on violent, momentary impulses.
More than 20,000 Americans are killed by handguns every year. Common sense tells us that some of those lives could have been saved if legislation similar to the Brady Bill had been on the books. Most American gun owners have shown that 90 percent of the people support this measure.
Unhappily, that relentless and well-heeled lobbyist, the National Rifle Association, along with two of its most prominent members, President Bush and House Speaker Thomas Foley, oppose the bill. The NRA cites the Second Amendment, which either permits everybody to possess a gun or authorizes armed militias. The Supreme Court can decide whether the Brady Bill; in the meantime, however, let us hope Congress and the President recognize that a brief waiting period infringes on no responsible gun owner's rights, and may actually save some lives in the future.
KANSAN STAFF
CHRIS SIRON
Editor
From the Providence (R.I.) Sunday Journal.
CHRIS SIRON
Editor
RICH CORNELL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
AUDRA LANGFORD Business manager
by Tom Michaud
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