VOL.100, NO.143
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
WEDNESDAY, May 2, 1990
(USPS 650-640)
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
NEWS: 864-4810
House OKs budget with military cuts
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The House yesterday adopted a Democratic $1.2 trillion budget for fiscal 1991 that would cut President Bush's defense program, and allow the government to abandon the administration's own spending plan.
On a 218-to-208 party-line vote, the Democratic-controlled House adopted a plan that would provide $295.5 billion for next year's military programs. That is $8.3 billion less than Bush proposed and $11.5 billion less. The need then was to keep pace with inflation, a step supported because it was merited by eased tensions with the Soviet bloc.
"The budget here provides for a transition from a Cold War economy to a peace-time economy, and that is what we need to do for the future," said the plan's Chairman Lean Penatty, D-Calif.
Republicans opposed the package en masse, criticizing it as weak on defense and arguing that any budget would be meaningless unless negotiations with the House first yielded agreements on its components.
“This is the Dukaik platform. This is the Mondale platform. This is the Carter presidency. This is the leadership of the president.”
Ga., the No. 2 GOP leader, recalling the ghosts of the recent Democratic past.
But much of the debate centered on the Republican decision not to offer Bush's own spending blueprint for a vote, reversing a customary practice. Rep. Bill Frenzel of Minnesota, ranking Republican on the floor of the House, said he would heart late Monday, saying the president's package had been "passed by economic and political events."
"Perhaps that speaks louder than even offering the president's budget. The governor is to push hard and hijack it in cop out."
Frenzel repel, "In our judgment, leadership
to negotiate a compromise budget"
Realizing they would not be able to rely on any GOP support, Democrats brought Speaker Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash, to the floor. He rallied his members and called for them that "we can march, not drift into the next century."
Aiming to re-shap Bush's defense plan, the Democratic budget places long-range constraints on Penta-
The plan shrinks defense budget authority to $283
Speaker opposes justices 'Gang of Five' weakens Bill of Rights, he says
By Sandra Moran
Kansan staff writer
The U.S. Supreme Court is weakening the Bill of Rights, a civil rights lawyer said last night.
William Kunstler, a trial counselor who has argued several U.S. Supreme Court cases, spoke to about people in the Kansas University Ballroom.
Kunstler said five Supreme Court justices, whom he calls the "Gang of Five," are making the Bill of Rights meaningless by banding together to make decisions that contradict the Bill of Rights.
The justices are Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehquist, Byron White, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia.
"They are squeezing the very breath out of a document that should be compared to the Magna Carta," he said.
Kuntsler cited 10 examples of recent Supreme Court rulings, including random drug testing. He was also struck as a violation of the right to privacy.
See KUNSTLER. n. 6
Civil Rights activist William Kunstler talks about the Bill of Rights.
May Day marchers protest in Red Square
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of protesters in Red Square unleashed their fury at Mikhail Gorbachev yesterday, turning the traditional May Day parade into an outpouring of complaints about the economy and the blockade of Lithuania.
The Soviet president has allowed free debate in the press and politics and has endured public criticism. But never before has he had to personally face such an outburst of discontent with his government.
The criticism included jeers to the faces of Soviet leaders.
Gorbachev, 59, tapped his fingers on the porapet of the red granite reviewing stand during the protest, showing his impatience, but otherwise was impassive. He and the other officials left after enduring the unofficial demonstrators for about 20 minutes, but it was
unclear whether they were leaving in response to the protests.
Neither Gorbachev nor any of the other communist or government leaders on the Donghai delegation were there.
Dozens of the demonstrators carried the yellow, red and green national flags of the breakaway Lithuanian republic and shouted "Shame!" and "Freedom For Lithuania!"
Some waved their fists at the leaders, numbering about two dozen, and shouted "Resign!" above the holiday music blaring from loudspeakers.
One caustic sign likened the Soviet leadership to Nicolae Ceaucescu, the Romanian dictator executed in December after a popular uprising. From Armchair to Prison Beds," it read.
The leaders clearly expected some criticism. They authorized the unofficial demonstration
and took control of the traditional parade that preceded it from local Communist Party and government officials.
Gorbachev's popularity has waned during his five years in office because he reforms have failed to resolve chronic economic problems. Many people believe supplies of food, housing and consumer goods actually are worse under Gorbachev.
He also is under fire for the blockade of oil, raw materials and other goods he imposed on Lithuania to force the Baltic republic to back off its March 11 declaration of independence.
For decades, the Red Square rally on May Day has been an orchestrated show of support for official policies. Entry onto Red Square was rigidly controlled. This year, there were no restrictions; anyone could join the march on the gray cobblestone stretching from the Historical Museum to the multicolored St. Basil's Cathedral.
"We are all so very tired of these formal galas, when long before the holiday the lists of demonstration participants were put out," said the official news agency Tass.
Soviet leaders went on record this year as preferring a parade like those before the 1917 revolution, when May Day was marked with the celebration of the anniversary of workers' grievances about the czarist regime.
What they got instead were posters that declared, "Down with the Empire of Red Fascism," and "Today a Blockade of Lithuania, Tomorrow a Blockade of Moscow." The black flags of an anarchist group stood out in the sea of colors.
The wave of protesters continued to file through Red Square, which seats about 50,000 marchers, for more than an hour after the leaders left.
Man wants to freeze his head
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A mathematician who filed a lawsof he can freeze his own head before he dies from a brain tumor said yesterday that the odds of achieving immortality weren't as bad as one might think.
"We think that everyone should be immortal. The purpose of medicine should be to bring about that immorality." Thomas Donaldson said from his home in Sunnyvale, a Silicon Valley town south of San Francisco.
Donaldson, 46, said he wanted his head quick-frozen while he was still alive, using a process known as cryonic preparation. He thinks that the best way to cure him is toway to cure the tumor and attach his head to a healthy body.
Cryonic suspension is a procedure in which all or part of the body supposedly is preserved in a deep freeze. Advocates of cryonics say waiting for legal brain death hurts the chances of successful awakening.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, Donaldson seeks to bar state and local officials from preventing his cryonic suspension before he is declared legally dead.
In California, legal death is defined as when a person's brain does not show signs of activity as recorded by an electronecencehalograph.
"I am dying and want to be cryingly suspended so that I might later be revived and continue to live," said Donaldson, member of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, based in Riverside.
so far, the procedure only has been performed after a patient has died of natural causes.
Alcor gained national attention in 1967 when the head of an elderly woman was frozen after she died at the lab. Authorities questioned whether her head was removed before she died.
Donaldson said he'd been planning on cryonic suspension since before he joined Alcor in 1975.
Sea story page 13
Marie Hibbard, Overland Park graduate student, left, plays ultimate trisbes with Lucy Graham, Leawood junior. See story page 18
Weekend will be warmer; rain possible
Ron Crandall, lead forecaster, said a cold, high-pressure system fingering over the Great Plains caused causing the lower temperatures.
Despite the recent cool Kansas weather, KU students can prepare for a warmer weekend, a spokeswoman said. Weather Service said yesterday.
Bv a Kansan reporter
Although the normal temperature for Kansas at the beginning of May is in the low 70, Cramand said it was lower weather was not unusual.
"This is not uncommon for a transition period," he said. "You can have very large swings of temperature."
Crandali said temperatures also had been cool throughout the
Great Lakes areas
Lawrence could have rain within 48 hours if precipitation continues to move east from the southwestern part of the country, Crandall
He said local temperatures should continue to be below normal this weekend but should be in the upper 65 by Sunday.
Becky Lord, Omaha junior, said
Brennan Burger, Minneapolis,
Minn., freshman, said he thought
the weather was too inconsistent.
"I'd like to get my jeans put away and take out my shorts," she said.
she liked the recent cool weather in the afternoons but thought the mornings were too cold.
"It's not good for fishing," he said.
KU seeks grant to develop diversity
Kansan staff writer
By Carol B. Shiney
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has applied for a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to establish an institute that will address cultural diversity.
KU was one of about 200 universities that received invitations from the foundation to apply for the grant, but only 15 will be selected, said Bill Andrews, co-project coordinator.
James Muyksens, dean of liberal arts and sciences, said, "I think it's fairly evident to all that one of the most important issues before us, not only at KU but at other universities, is how we're going to meet the challenge of cultural diversity. The Ford Foundation, if funding is giving us chance to test some of these ideas."
He said the foundation wanted to know what the University had done in the past before deciding whether the grant would be awarded. The grant is a one-time award that would be used during a university period. The grant would be tested for one year to determine whether they worked. If they worked, they would be implemented.
The college sent its application to the foundation Monday. The application included a summary of existing programs and nine proposed programs designed to strengthen the campus community, build community with Haskell Indian Junior College and improve community ties on and off campus.
Applications for the grants were due yesterday.
"We do recognize the need for these efforts," Andrews said. "We've been taking some steps in that direction. If we had more money, we could take more stews."
Andrews said, "The key word is community — building a sense of common idea and purpose."
Muyksen, who also is co-project coordinator, said that one of the main interests of the Ford Foundation was campus climate.
"I're premised on the idea that the only way we're going to have long-term change in society is to change people's attitudes," he said.
Although the grant would not finance all of the programs the college has proposed, it would make it quicker and easier to finance the-programs, Muyskens said.
“There are lots of new things that we want to do to whether we get the foundation's support or not,” she will do them with our own funds.
See FOHD, p. 6