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Wednesday, December 5, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Nightclub violations
Restrictive non-member law should be abolished so ABC can focus on more important violations
The Alcoholic Beverage Control Division has been very active in Lawrence recently, doing its best to enforce Kansas' liquor laws in the most challenging of places, a college town.
During the past three months, the Lawrence nightclub Pizazz has been cited for eight violations, and last week five additional clubs were charged with violations.
The key word to remember is club. All of the establishments charged with violations are licensed under Kansas law as Class B clubs, which allows only members and their guests to be admitted. Some of the clubs were cited for serious violations, such as the consumption of alcohol by a minor.
In addition, all were charged with nonmember access. ABC agents entered the
clubs and bought alcohol without being asked for proof of membership. For this grievous violation, the clubs face fines and possibly the loss of their licenses.
In Lawrence's highly competitive market, the non-member access law is virtually ignored because strict enforcement would eliminate too much business. Most clubs in Lawrence use memberships only as special privilege incentives. Non-members usually are asked to sign in as guests of either the doorman or someone they've never seen or met.
Clubs that violate more important laws get what they deserve when fined or temporarily closed, but the non-member access law is one law everyone could do without.
Bryan Swan for the editorial board
Troublesome oil
U.S. should not disregard environmental goals
il erases memory and blinds foresight.
During the past two years, overall
the first time in at least two decades. And although the latest advertisements have started touting fuel economy, petroleum producers are gearing up for production.
Short-sighted oil speculators, enticed by the coagulated flow of fuel from the Middle East, are eyeing Alaskan and Californian drilling sites again. Those sites are quiet now because environmentalists convinced the government that the land and water surrounding the sites deserved protection.
Already, some members of Congress have proposed that more drilling be permitted in those states on public lands now cradled by environmental laws.
That's a noble notion but a sorry strategy. Better use could be made of other oil sites and other energy sources. For example, some of the country's largest oil reserves lie beneath idle pumps near El Dorado, an area not so important to environmentalists. Those pumps should be revitalized.
More important, the United States must
learn at last from the intermittent oil crises it faces, as well as the panicked energy policies that stem from them. The cleanup of Alaska's Prince William Sound, tarnished in Spring 1989 by the Exxon Valdez spill, has yet to be completed. Experts expect some remnants to linger for decades.
After arduous national political debate, the United States in the late 1980s reached a series of rational decisions favoring environmental protection and nature conservation. Those progressive policies, formulated during a period relatively free from energy pressures, ought not be reversed in haste.
Our dependence upon petroleum is troublesome no matter where it comes from. Superior energy sources, including solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal and wind power, must be cultivated.
Crisis-related oil-market fluctuations should spur planning, not panic. The nation must not stray from its long-term environmental and energy interests. Crises are temporary, but someday, oil rigs will stop pumping forever.
Rich Cornell and Derek Schmidt for the editorial board
Escort service needs more campus publicity
There's been a lot of talk recently about inadequate lighting and how it increases violent crime on campus. The Women's Student Union has made increased lighting on campus one of its goals, but, according to recent a KU police report, that does not effectively deter violent crimes. Besides, the University doesn't have adequate finances to waste on ineffective, increased lighting.
So, what's the answer? An escort service.
I tried to call some people about the escort service, but they either didn't know anything about it or didn't return my calls. The guy at the department of student housing didn't even know that there was one, and KU Info told me that it had been discontinued. It is one operation out of Pearson Scholarship Hall, but it is only available to scholarship halls and sororities in the Alumni Place neighborhood. Like I say, it's not too
There is one here, although it does not enjoy widespread popularity. An article about the escort service here appeared in the Kansan Nov. 2, but it was on the next-to-last page above the classified ads, where everybody looks for a story. Before reading the article, I asked myself if an escort service at KU. In fact, I knew more about the one at Kansas State University.
Michael Paul Staff columnist
well-known, probably because they don't advertise (or return phone calls, it seems).
If they'd been on the ball, they'd have said something when Women's Student Union came out with their goal of increasing the number of lights on campus; they'd have said that increased lighting didn't deter crime, but that a campus-wide service might help. They should get Student Senate onto this. Instead of making moral statements by putting condoms in the candy machines, Senate could be put to better use by financing an escort service or expanding and better publicizing the one that exists so that it would be known and maybe even used.
I don't know how the one here works, so I'll use the information I got from K-State's escort service. I wrote Derek Jackson, the director of the K-State service, which the K-State service is run. He wrote telling me how it works:
'Each fall, Haymaker has a sign-up sheet for people interested in being an escort. We interview each applicant. . . We look for the reasons behind each applicant wanting to be an escort."
This obviously is to make certain that the escort is trustworthy and, if you use the service, you won't be surprised. Who who who w
"We then compose a list of escorts and the times they are available. This list is kept at the front desk reception area. When a woman who is wanting an escort calls the front desk, she is asked where the escort is to reach her, where the escort will be asked to go and the time the escort is needed.
"The escort then comes to the front desk before leaving the hall and picks up an escort clip-on identification badge, his departure time is logged in, and when the escort is done, he checks in at the desk and returns the badge, and the arrival time is logged in."
This is not meant to be all-inclusive, as I'm sure there's more to this issue than what I can include in a column. This is just meant as a statement that I am unable to mention the men at Pearson Scholarship Hall who have been doing this for the past decade. Good job you guys.
Our men may die in war
Michael Paul is a Manhattan junior majoring in political science and journalism.
cant marry a dead man.
Not that I want to, but I just
can't marry a dead man. Not
legally or morally could I do?
can't marry a dead man.
If my fiance dies, I cannot marry him, something I want very much to do. Naturally, I hope he does not die.
All of us die at some time. That is something I have accepted, yet I harbor hope that I might live to marry my fiance, and vice versa.
But sometimes people die out of turn — accidents happen, health problems occur, and war cuts down who should live out in many decades.
We seem to be headed into war with Iraq. Or at least, that is what it seems to me. Several things point toward war.
Amelia Beard
Staff columnist
Did I sav war?
Dick Cheney, our beloved Secretary of Defense, has increased the maximum number of reservists and National Guard members that can be called into active duty by 63,000, to increase the number of personnel to be drafted for war. Saddam Hussein seems determined not to back down, and George Bush shows the same
tenacity.
The statistics keep piling up and it is starting to get personal. I would be surprised to hear that any reader of this book would be affected by war.
My brother-in-law is in Saudi Arabia already, and a friend of a friend is on his way.
This is real folks. We may be headed for war, and that scares me. I hope it scares you too.
I've heard people begin to talk about the possibility of war. Friends, family, the press, and if what they say is true there is even more reason to be scared.
I'm scared for selfish reasons. I'm afraid I might lose my male, draft-potential friends, one of whom I'm to marry this summer.
Men and women are in Saudi Arabia now. Right now. It's not a
joke; it's not a scam. They are there to fight.
My fiance, my friends, your
friends, your brothers, your boy-
friends, they could go to war.
They would die there.
They could die there
That happens in war. They call a dead person a casualty — bureaucratic lingo that is supposed to be made dead a casual thing, I guess.
Death is not casual; it is permanent and ugly. The people who might go to war might also die.
I'd love to be able to suggest a solution to war and some easy way around it, but considering the circumstances. I can't do that.
All I can do is pray that the situation will be resolved somehow. That the hostility will stop before it gets too far. I love my country, but I don't my finance more, and I don't my money him or any of my other friends.
Start considering the situation. After all, you can't marry a dead man either.
Amelia Beard is an Atchison senior majoring in English and journalism.
THE BUTCHER, THE BAKER, THE CAN-DO SCHTICK MAKER
Pacifism is not a realistic view
I am not really into raising controversy in a college paper, nor do I like being sent hate mail because of my political views on the gulf crisis, but I have to get this done. I just think that some pacifists are not being realistic.
Pacifists (this is not directed toward any anti-war groups, just pacifists in general) raise their peace banners so high and so blindly that they don't see the forest for the trees.
These misinformed people do not understand the deeper philosophical meanings of war, nor do they comprehend basic components of human nature. They undeniably get very militant about our involvement in any war. They think that war is something that is totally avoidable. They are wrong.
As long as people occupy the Earth, there unfortunately will be wars. The reason for these ugly skirmishes is quite simple. Greed is the reason and just so happens to be the inept but truthful justification for them. There is no real justification for people ignorant about what they are protesting.
I have no problem with people who find war so objectionable because war is dead. Too much blood is shed, and too many lives are sacrificed to appease the enemy. But the right mind should want death, but that is the cost of war.
I can't completely help our nation can be totally justified for trying to stop pseudo-Hilfer from controlling world oil. Why is it necessarily our place to try to stop the oil industry? The reason shows up as another point of human nature.
To really understand the rather morbid concept of war, we first must try to understand human nature. Some people never will be satisfied with what they have, as Saddam's lust for control of the world's oil shows. We, as creatures, want more, even if that means stepping on people.
We, as human beings, think we can stick our nose in somebody's business if we feel there is injustice, i.e. the U.S. reaction to the gulr crisis. The Bush administration has made a conscious effort, so as result, we are sticking our noses into the gulf.
I am from a military family, and I really do appreciate
Mike
Sallee
Guest columnist
those people who have died so that I could be, and I also understand the importance of a strong military, but I personally am growing weary about this crisis because it really makes me scratch my head and think.
I am not trying to be malicious toward the military, but I think that most people would agree with this point. Wouldn't it be rather comforting to live in a world where everybody loved everybody else, and any racial, political, sexual, religious, ethnic or personal differences were overlooked?
This makes me think of the classic John Lennon song "Imagine." It is difficult to imagine a world without war because war is inevitable, and peace is not. Why does it matter that we must live to live in a world that required no military whatsoever?
But some people have the attitude that the best way to solve a conflict is by fighting instead of talking. Egos are the biggest reason people can't iron out their differences.*
I would be shocked if Saddam simply came out and said that he was wrong about occupying Kuwait and that he was sorry, immediately pulling out. Obviously, Saddam was wrong in those statements, and he also is a lot greeder than a normal person.
I think that war sucks. I just yearn that war did not have to be the solution. The problem is that, as mentioned, earlier, war is unavoidable. I wish that it wouldn't have to be that way.
consumer myself a pacifist, but I consider myself a realistic pacifist. I feel that people should campaign against greed just as much as they do against war itself.
KANSAN STAFF
Mike Sallee is a La Harpe junior majoring in business communications.
DEREK SCHMIDT
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Three Imaginary Girls
By Tom Avery