THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.100, NO.88
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
(USPS 650-640)
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 7, 1990
NEWS:864-4810
Activist stresses protests' potential
By Eric Gorski
Kansan staff writer
There is no greater challenge to society than to take an ideal environment and make it a reality. Christopher Childs said last night.
Childs spoke to an audience of about 800 in the Kansas Union Ballroom, opening the five-lecture 'Environment In Crisis' series, a course for Student Union Activities and the Environmental Studies program.
"We are at a time now where everyone on this Earth is affected by the spirit of change." Childs said.
Childs kicks off the five-part series, "Environment in Crisis."
Children said that changes in Eastern Europe and increased awareness of environmental issues during the past year were connected.
He said the U.S. government should assume a stronger role in protecting the environment by approving stricter clean air laws.
See ACTIVIST, p. 5
Steven Hamburg, assistant professor of environmental studies, said that Childs' speech was an appropriate beginning for the
About 800 people in the Kansas Union view a slide show about Greenpeace's history.
Gorbachev sent back to redraw blueprint
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Communist Party leaders added an unexpected third day to their pivotal meeting yesterday and sent Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the party's meeting patch holes in his plan for ending the party's monopoly on power.
The extension of the party session, which was supposed to end yesterday, was a clear sign of the controversy generated by Gorbachev's proposals to revamp the country's political structure.
It sharply contrasted with previous sessions, when the Central Committee automatically approved policies had been worked out at higher levels.
Central Committee sources say most speakers agreed with Gorbachev's proposal that the party in power should be the one involved in the Soviet Constitution, must end.
"All unanimously think it has become obsolete. It has no meaning," Central Committee member Vladimir P. Anishchev told reporters who gathered outside the Kremlin's Spasky Gate. The session was closed to journalists.
However, partial transcripts of two days of the session, in which 51 speakers took the floor, indicated that neither radical reformers nor hard-liners were satisfied with Gorbache's proposal.
Additional coverage
Delegates said that last night's Central Committee session was suspended so that a commission, headed by Gorbachev, could complete changes to his nearly 20-page platform. A Central Committee source quoted Gorbachev as saying that the 60-member commission was only half-finished, even though it met all night Monday.
He said the meeting would resume this morning.
Delegates interviewed Monday and yesterday as they filed out onto Red Square had a common objection. The form contains few specified, they said.
"A lot of its points, and this is what has been said by many speakers, need major changes and reinforcement, especially in the direction of stepping up decisive action," said
L. A. Bibin, a non-voting Central Committee member.
Bibin said he and others wanted the platform to stress that the party must remain united. The party's unity has been threatened in recent months by a breakaway of the party and Moscow radicals for formal factions.
Gorbache has placed himself in the middle and is trying to forge communication.
Still, the Soviet leader's platform has yielded to the demands of political reformers, including the thousands of people who gathered near the Kremlin wall Sunday, by removing the party's monopoly and advancing to this summer a party congress that will be empowered to clear out conservatives on the Central Committee.
Gorbachev is not likely to water down the platform for fear of displeasing the increasingly active and consolidated reformers. But he also wants to antagonize conservatives, who remain strong in the Central Committee.
Rash of calls harasses students
The Central Committee has the power to replace the party leader.
By Curtis Knapp
Kansan staff writer
Kerry Delay received a phone call about two weeks ago from a man interested in recruiting her for a modeling show he said was coming to Lawrence.
Before the man finished, she hung up in disgust.
Delay, Council Grove sophomore, said she realized the man was not a legitimate modeling representative when he asked her if she was sexually active. He then described various situations such as toppless dancing and nude sunbathing to see if he could arouse her, she said.
residents of Oliver Hall and Watkins Hall yesterday to inform them of the procedure for handling harassing phone calls.
"That's when I figured he was off and I knew that I lives in Walking Scholarship Hall."
More than 20 lewd phone harassments by a man claiming to represent a modeling agency have been reported in the past two weeks, said Sgt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU police department.
Nine calls were made to Oliver on Monday and about 10 were made to Watkins Hall during the two-week period, Bailey said.
All of the calls were received by women.
"If someone should receive a call like this, they should treat it as an obscene or a harassing call and just hang up," Bailey said. "This person, he wants someone to talk to. You should just deny him that."
Bailey said he didn't know whether more than one person was making the call.
KU police handed out fliers to
Chris Mulvenon, Lawrence police spokesman, said that harassing phone calls always should be taken seriously and reported.
He said it was difficult for police to catch someone involved in phone robbery.
response to repeated phone harassments, he said, is to change their phone numbers or request an unlisted number
The best thing people can do in
KU police suggested these actions for students living on campus:
Hang up immediately.
- Contact KU police immediately after receiving the call.
- Contact the University of Kansas Telecommunications Department and request either a phone number change or a line trap to aid in identifying the caller. A line trap lets the phone company record the number from which the phone call was made.
According to Kansas law, phone harassment is defined as making any comment, request, suggestion or proposal which is obscene, lewd, filthy or indecent. It is a misdemeanor and the county jail for a period not to exceed one year and/or a fine not to exceed $2,500.
House tentatively approves tax plan
Representatives advanced the measure to final action, which is expected today, on a voice vote.
The Associated Press
TOPEKA—A bill that would pump an additional $7.29 million into a program that provides property tax relief to homeowners and would allow the state Board of Tax Appeals to review the proposed tentative House approval yesterday.
The only debate on the measure came when Rep. David Miller, R-Eudora, attempted to reopen a debate about proposed cuts in the state's welfare budget.
The Legislature sent Gov. Mike Hayden a bill last week that would restore $13.9 million in welfare cuts. Hayden has not taken action on the bill.
"I'm not comfortable in leaving
me on an all-or-none basis."
Miller said.
Miller proposed an amendment that would appropriate $3.62 million to keep alive the Medikan supplemental medical program and the Attendant Care for independent Livestock program for handicapped Kansans
The largest item in the bill is the spending for the so-called residential circuit-breaker, which provides state refunds to homeowners whose property taxes increased 50 percent or more in 1989. The 1989 Legislature appropriated $10 million for the project, but its estimated cost increased.
The increase in the tax board's budget is designed to allow it to deal with an increased number of appeals from taxpayers. The agency would
Miller's amendment failed, 33-85.
after Rep. David Helenmann, R-Garden City, said amending the bill would slow its progress through the Legislature.
be allowed to spend about $310,000 in the current budget year to increase its staff from 20 members to 37 members.
In other action, proposals were introduced to;
introduced to:
- Prohibit advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products on billboards.
It is sponsored by Rep. Hank Turnbaugh, R-Kansas City, and 14 other legislators.
■ Require that state contracts for legal work in workers' compensation cases and debt collections be competed with by RL Leawood, sponsored the bill.
Bush seeks support for defense policy
The Associated Press
foreign policy address as he continues a cross-country trip mixing Republican politics with defense policy.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Bush, appealing for public backin' in his battle with Congress over defense, promises to miss no opportunity to cut the Pentagon budget but says he will only do so "prudently."
On Tuesday night, in a Los Angeles speech where he was beckoned by AIDS activists and critics of U.S. aid to El Salvador, Bush took a sharp jab at Democrats who say his proposed $292 billion Pentagon budget for
fiscal 1991 is too fat in view of the diminished Soviet threat.
Bush appealed to the crowd to back his go-slow approach to defense retrenchment.
"I'm in a big battle in Congress, and I'd like to have your support to keep reasonable levels of defense. I'm not going to miss an opportunity to cut, but I want to do it prudently
Bush was journeying to San Francisco today to visit a major Star Wars research laboratory and deliver a
Bush's first stop in the San Francisco area was at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, a division of the Strategic Defense Initiative research effort.
and I want to get something from the other side when we do it," he said.
Congress cut $1 billion this year from Bush's request for a $4.8 billion Star Wars budget.
Mandela's release hinges on his political demands
PAARL, South Africa — The government is delaying the release of Nelson Mandela to deal with his political demands, and that could lead to another activist said yesterday after conferring with Mandela.
The Rev. Allan Boesak said that Mandela wanted the government to lift the state of emergency and free all political prisoners, including those convicted of violent acts, but said she would not intervene if whether these demands were met.
The Associated Press
"His release is not in his own hands," Boesak said. "It is the responsibility of the South African government to release him."
If his demands aren't met, Mandela would still agree to leave prison, "but he will state his unhappiness with the government," said Boesak, who is president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
"If they come in here and they tell him, 'We are releasing you,' he will not hold onto the chairs and tables
The government has made clear that it wants Mandela, the most popular leader among South Africa's Blacks, to play a conciliatory role when he emerges after more than 27 years in prison "President F.W. de Klerk" had ordered his movements on power-sharing between Blacks and whites could be dashed if a freed Mandela were to take a tough stance against the government.
and kick and say, 'I won't come out.' But he will warn them: 'If you do release me, and the conditions that we have put have not been met, then I will be obliged to make a statement on those conditions.' " Boesak said
Boeak said that Mandela did not know when he could go free but was engaged in "intense contacts" with the government.
"He must be released soon, or de klerk will lose momentum," Boesak said after he and his wife, Dorothy, met with Mandela for more than three hours at the Victor Verster prison farm north of Cape Town.
Company tries to sell kit to parents by saying children may be using drugs
Kansan staff writer
Bv Chris Siron
Some Lawrence families received filers this week suggesting their children may be drug users.
The card listed a telephone number to call for further information
The National Drug Awareness and Detection Agency, a Houston company, recently mailed postcards nationwide that said, "We children then informed the children may be using illegal drugs."
Chris Mulvenon, Lawrence
police spokesman, said the police had received several calls concerning the postcards.
Shelly Meadows, an operator with the company, said the cards were meant to reach parents who were unaware their children might be using drugs. She said the cards were not meant to scare anyone.
People who call the number are offered a $99.95 "drug-test kit." The kit includes a 50-minute video tape, three audio cassettes, a testing light and a pupilometer, Meadows said.
Erv Sanchez, a sales manager
with the company, said the testing light was a penlight and the pupi-lometer was a chart with pictures of a normal eye and a drug user's eye.
The kit instructs parents to examine the child's eyes while shining the light into them and to examine the child's eyes to those in the picture.
Sanchez said the kit also contained a letter to be given to a physician if the test showed the child had used drugs.
Mulvenon called the company's mailing a scare tactic that implied
a family's children had used drugs. He said the company was trying to make money from drug terror in the United States.
Mulvenon said the company's operation was not illegal because callers got something for their money.
Meadows said the kits were a good way for parents to administer periodic drug tests to their children.
"These tests give kids a way out of their drug problem," she said.
Meadows said the test was endorsed by Athletes for a Strong
Sanchez said a total of 8,000 filers of three different types were
America, an organization she described as a "Christian, non-profit group working to stop drugs," she listed Tommy Lasorda, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, basketball coach and athletics administrator ASA members and supporters of the company's test.
Sanchez the test was designed by Forrest Tennant, a physician. He said Tennant did not win in the National Football League.
sent out nationwide. Fliers that suggested a child had used drugs were stopped after callers complained, he said.
Meadows said the company was a non-profit company. The post-card bears a first-class mail perforated rather than a non-profit permit.
Sancher said that Meadows, who takes orders for the company, was mistaken. He said the company was not non-profit.
Meadows also said the $99.95 cost of the kit was taken only to pay postage and handling.
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