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Wednesday, February 15, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Activists wrong to intrude
Opinion
When Martin Klein decided to abort his 17-week-old baby it was in the best interest of his family. His wife has been in a coma since December, and doctors have testified that the abortion could help her recover and possibly save her life.
But two anti-abortion activists decided it wasn't Klein's place to determine the fate of his own wife and child, and they intervened. In their quest to stop abortion, they took an already tragic situation and made the Klein family suffer even more.
Although Klein received permission from a judge, the two activists prolonged the ordeal by appealing the decisions at every court level until Feb. 11, when it reached the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court granted the abortion. It has been performed and she is in stable condition. Police had to guard the hospital under the threat that the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue might try to stop the abortion.
Operation Rescue Night At issue is not the anti-abortion activists' right to voice their opinions, but whether they have the right to interfere in a family tragedy as they did.
family tragedy as the actress. The activists made a circus out of an emotional ordeal that should have been dealt with privately and respectfully. Klein was not making any hasty, easy decisions about the path his family was taking. The last thing he needed or deserved was for strangers to tell him what was in his family's best interest.
Jennifer Hinkle for the editorial board
Medicare bill hurts elderly
When Congress passed a catastrophic Medicare bill in June, the elderly signed with relief. Now, they thought, we will be insured against the crippling bills that ensue from long-term illnesses.
illnesses.
Little did they know that they would have to pay for the aid themselves with increased taxes and a new supplemental premium. The burden of paying for the Medicare expansion rests entirely on our senior citizens; those whom the bill aims to help are being forced to pay for their own aid.
to help ill bill was designed to expand Medicare benefits to cover extended hospital stays, nursing home care, doctor's bills and prescription drugs. With our aging population, long-term health is becoming a necessity, Congress realized.
is becoming a necessity. But lawmakers made a crucial mistake in making senior citizens, instead of all taxpayers, finance the aid. Some may be able to pay as much as $800 this year, increasing in future years in a supplemental premium. In addition, people who participate in the Part B plan, which covers hospital care, will watch their premiums rise $48 this year and more in 1993.
The people affected by the bill are the ones whose voices count most. Congress must listen to the many senior citizens throughout the country who are actively protesting this act. But considering the overwhelming majority the bill received, Congress is not likely to listen now.
Congress passes the bill, Congress showed blatant disregard for its constituents. At the expense of our growing elderly population, Congress demonstrated what happens when the people are not considered fully in crucial decisions.
Grace Hobson for the editorial board
Other Voices
Justice impossible for North in trial
Jury selection is now complete for Oliver North's trial, but thanks to the 1987 Iran-contra hearings justice cannot be served, regardless of the verdict.
served, regenerated.
Judge Gerrish Gesell has found a 12-person jury from the Washington D.C. area that he believes is sufficiently ignorant of the Ircon-trace hearings — the North testimony in particular be impartial.
to be impartial Yet it seems hard to believe that these 12 residents of the city in which the Iran-contra scandal unfolded are oblivious of those events.
In the summer of 1887, it seemed imperative that the Iran-contra story be told to Congress and the U.S. people.
contrast story. But the tradeoff for that moment in history was that the chance for a fair trial was lost. As a result, the verdict in North's trial will inevitably lie on the wrong side of justice.
The Daily Iowan
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Not just another faceless statistic
WASHINGTON - The man had wrapped himself in so many blankets and pieces of clothing that he looked like a cocoon. He lay on a heating vent
on the sidewalk in front of the Department of Labor under a sheet of cardboard he had erected to trap some of the waste steam. It was a poor substitute for a sauna.
Tourists scurried along the sidewalk adjacent to the Washington Mall. They talked about exhibits at the Smithsonian and airline ticket prices and hotel accommodations, but mostly they talked about the cold. As was true throughout most of the country, the temperature had dropped from the 70s to the 20s in a couple of days. Nobody looked at the homeless man. Maybe they were too busy enjoying the view of the Capitol, which was only a few blocks away. Or maybe they were uncomfortable and found it easier to ignore the man.
The man would not tell me his name. Or where he came from. Or how he came to live on the street. He was, not eloquent, but he was literate. He only wanted me to go away, but who could blame him? I had barged into his bedroom and demanded a story. The paper told him stories for years, but the man still slept on the sidewalk. For him, stories were not the answer.
the answer.
I walked away from the man and sat down and pondered living without a home. I thought that I had been ignorant, but I knew the latest statistics on the homeless. Thirty-four percent are families with children. Redevelopment in cities since 1970 has reduced by 88 percent the number of low-income rooms available in New York, Portland
Derek Schmidt
Staff columnist
and Atlanta, and the scenario is similar elsewhere. In large cities, the average wait for assisted housing is 21 months, and in many cities the waiting lists are closed. What I had not known was how it felt to sit near a man who wore all the clothes he owned at one time and reeked because he did not shower.
because I thought I had been sheltered by growing up in a little town in southern Kansas, but then I remembered my hometown, with about 12,000 residents, had just opened a shelter for the homeless. In Kansas City, more than 10,000 people are homeless, and the rest of Kansas and Missouri is not immune.
I thought I had been blind, but then I remembered when I was in high school, and a woman came to my hometown and lived for a while under a bridge and for a while in an abandoned hotel with no windows. We called her the bag lady because she carried all her belongings in sacks, and we laughed at her and spread stories about who she was and why she lived as she did. The most popular story said that she actually was rich and eccentric and chose to live on the streets to gather material for a book. We had seen too many movies.
I thought he had been noble because for eight years the president had said the homeless chose
to live on the streets. But although one-quarter of the homeless are mentally ill, three-quarters are not. Although one-third of the homeless are unemployed and unemployable, 23 percent have jobs that do not pay enough for them to afford housing.
housing.
I had known; I had seen; and I had ignored.
Between 350,000 and 3 million people live on U.S. streets. That's somewhere between the population of Wichita and more than the population of Kansas.
"People are now forced to confront the issue," a Washington counsel for the National Coalition for the Homeless recently told the Washington Post. "The question for me is translating that sentiment into political pressure and then political action."
car action President Bush has pledged to help the "lost and roaming" but recognized that we have more will than wallet' to do so.
I stood up from the sidewalk and looked at the man on the gate. He had not moved, and he may have fallen asleep. People kept walking by, and I started to join them. Then a car with an Ontario license plate stopped at a nearby red light. The six people inside all were looking and pointing at the man on the grate. One of them pointed to the Washington Monument in a distance, then pointed to the man. They were chattering among each other while the man was smiling. That group will take a mixed impression of the United States home to Canada, and I was ashamed. And I should have been.
Derek Schmidt is an Independence, Kan., junior majoring in Journalism. He is on an internship in Washington, D.C.
'Real Life' is getting to be a real pain
As the United States stumbles into the 1900s, more and more Americans have decided to get a "real life." Force-fed media images of other war
Force-fed media images of other people's lives and conflicts through the hypnosis of television and the sponsor-driven pop publics of commercials, the average American is more to life than the experiences he now shares every day, and by God, he's going to get more.
of course, being an American, he's going to buy more.
A large, nationally known jeans company now peddles its wares on the tube with images of a young, beautiful model/actress lounging around a suitably urban street corner while a woman's voice calls Madison Avenue blues \over the soundtrack: "Ain't that just Real Life?"
To be frank, no, the above commercial is not real life. The only women I see lounging around on urban street corners these days have a rather hard look about them and get hourly rates at the local hotels. But I do feel sorry for the director of this particular piece:
DIRECTOR: Real Life, baby, Real Life.
MODEL/ACTRESS: But what do you want me to do?
MODEL/ACTRESS: But what's my motivatation?
Christopher Cunnyngham
Staff columnist
DIRECTOR. Just try to look . . . real. I want you to look really. Real
A recent cover of Seventeen magazine told us that this was the issue in which "fashion gets real." Excuse me, please. I'm not really hip on this stuff, but has fashion been unreal for the past few years? Have people been wearing solar collectors or large circuit boards at the Armiane haute couture fashion shows in Milan? I could understand if that crazy Fern Hat idea had taken off in the early 1980s, but Naney Reagan didn't borrow her whirling-davish outfit with matching gas mask from her big designer friends during the past eight years, not one. Oh sure, there was that hat with feathers, but she was just trying to keep up with Raisa Gorbachev.
keep up with raise Girls. This amazing Real Life approach could have limitless appeal if properly exploited, Real cars, Real dandrud shampoo, Real toupes, Real drain cleaner for really clogged drains. A Real candidate for Real Life. The possibilities are endless.
Even as we speak, some media-promulgated celebrity spokesman is in some Culver City studio staring into a camera and saying, with all seriousness "Beef. Real food for real people." The commercial even features Madeline Kahn in what supposedly is a New York City penthouse singing. "In Manhattan, you need comfort, you need not roast."
in Manhattan, pot roast sells for about 40 bucks a pound, and people feed it to their Dobermans.
But this, like all other trends, will happen eventually coming back to people. "Grandchild, children...had to put up with Madeline Kahn on TV, singing about beef! You punks got so easy!"
The larger question remains, though. Why does it work? Why are these concepts being used? Someone seems to think that the average consuming American needs more reality, as if reality had gotten too strange, two twisted. Maybe this Dan Quayle thing is sinking in. Soon, Real Life will lose its glory. Its fashion will fade. Real Life will get marked down and
Soon, Real Life will lose its glory. Its fashion will face. Real Life will get marked down and worn.
south Carolina.
Remember the word "freedom," after making such an auspicious start, is now used almost exclusively by politicians.
Chris Cunningham is a Leawood junior majoring in English.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed