KANU News Retention

[JIM MCLEAN]: ...senators against and 19 senators for a bill that would require doctors to inform at least one of the parents of any pregnant girl 17 or younger who came to them seeking an abortion. The bill's defeat was a surprise. Several senators who voted against the bill said they could support some kind of a parental notification measure, but the one before them yesterday, they said, was written poorly and contained possible constitutional flaws. Senate majority leader Fred Kerr says a motion to reconsider the vote may be made when the senate gathers for its morning session today. If such a motion is offered, and if it passes, it would put the notification bill back on the calendar for debate next week. Between now and then, Kerr says, amendments to clean up the bill would be drafted. I'm Jim McLean, at the statehouse. ***** [MALE SPEAKER]: And if force is used, then all bets are off. Then I would say the Soviets are going to be in real trouble in this country, because they'll not get a trade agreement, in my opinion. And we will not, then, what we call waive the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which simply means that we'll not give them any trade preferences. And I think it would be a severe blow to U.S.-Soviet relations. ***** [FRANCES INGEMANN]: The Committee on Tenure and Related Problems, after careful review of the evidence, finds that Dorothy Willner

failed in significant ways to carry out her academic responsibilities, and that she engaged in behavior that violates commonly accepted standards of professional ethics. The committee therefore concurs with the intent of Chancellor Gene A. Budig to dismiss Professor Willner from the University of Kansas. ***** [ROB HILTON]: The committee has decided it will revoke the tenure of Professor Dorothy Willner. The decision means university administration can now dismiss Willner of her duties at the university. Willner does have the opportunity to appeal the decision to Board of Regents, though there is no guarantee the Regents will hear the case. The decision comes in response to alleged misconduct that included suing other professors and accusing colleagues of unfounded crimes. Faculty in the Anthropology Department asked KU Chancellor Gene Budig to fire 62 year old Willner. In response, the chancellor proposed the hearings to remove her tenure in order to dismiss her. Willner was relieved of all duties at the university in August of 1988, but had been kept on the payroll pending the resolution of her case. She says she regrets the committee's decision, but is not surprised. She adds that the committee's decision means no tenured professor at KU is safe, and that she will appeal the decision. I'm Rob Hilton. ***** [FEMALE SPEAKER]: Caryl Smith, Dean of Student Life, said that her office is following up to provide appropriate assistance to the student. Marshall Jackson, Director of Minority Affairs, and Danny Kaiser, Assistant Dean of Student

Life are meeting with the student today to go over her options and to arrange whatever support services may be required. Margaret Miller, Coordinator of Greek Programs and Assistant Director of Organizations and Activities, is meeting with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house leadership today to discuss appropriate procedures for disciplinary action, should such action be warranted, and the house's responsibilities for dealing with the aftermath of the incident. ***** [SILENCE] [JIM MCLEAN]: The house has rejected two property tax relief constitutional amendments, one that

would have changed the current tax rates in the constitution, and then just last Friday, one that would have increased the state sales tax to pay for a roll-back of school district property tax levies. Senate majority leader Fred Kerr says the senate will pick up the issue this week. He says it's unlikely that lawmakers will pass a property tax relief plan, unless a compromise plan of some kind makes it through at least one house by the end of this week. On the abortion issue, the senate refused to reconsider its vote against a parental notification bill last Friday. Immediately after the senate adjourned, Federal and State Affairs Committee chairman Ed Reilly tried to get his committee to pass a less restrictive version of the bill on to the senate. It refused to do so, and a frustrated Reilly said the battle was over. [ED REILLY]: The issue is dead -- it's dead. As far as I'm concerned, the issue is dead. [JIM MCLEAN]: But when he was pressed further by reporters, Reilly said he might try to revive the issue this week. I'm Jim McLean at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: Friday was a big day at the statehouse. Not only did the senate refused to reconsider its vote to reject a parental notification abortion bill, but the house also rejected speaker Jim Braden's proposal to roll back school district

property taxes by raising the state sales tax. Braden's plan was resting comfortably at the bottom of the house's debate calendar. The speaker was holding it until a consensus developed on a compromise plan that he hoped would include elements of his proposal. But supporters of a rival constitutional amendment which had been defeated in the house a couple of weeks ago succeeded in forcing Braden's plan to the top of the calendar for debate -- and then they defeated it. The episode caused tempers to flare. Braden charged house Democrats who helped to defeat his plan with "playing games." House Democratic leader Marvin Barkis countered by saying- [AUDIO CUTS OFF] ***** [SILENCE] [JIM MCLEAN]: Friday was a big day at the statehouse. Not only did the senate refuse to reconsider its vote to reject a parental notification abortion bill, but the house also rejected speaker Jim Braden's proposal to roll back school district

property taxers by raising the state sales tax. Braden's plan was resting comfortably at the bottom of the house's debate calendar. The speaker was holding it until a consensus developed on a compromise plan that he hoped would include elements of his proposal. But supporters of a rival constitutional amendment, which had been defeated in the house a couple weeks ago, succeeded in forcing Braden's plan to the top of the calendar for debate -- and then they defeated it. The episode caused tempers to flare. Braden charged house Democrats who helped to defeat his plan with "playing games." House Democratic leader Marvin Barkis countered by saying that Braden had failed to offer leadership. Senate majority leader Fred Kerr says if the legislature is going to pass some kind of property tax relief plan, it's got to get busy. The plan must be through at least one house by the end of this week, Kerr says, to give lawmakers a chance to hammer out a compromise version when they return for a brief wrap-up session at the end of the month. Kerr is among the sponsors of a senate plan similar to Braden's proposal. It would increase the state sales tax by a penny and a half and dedicate the proceeds to rolling back school district property tax levies. After the senate refused to reconsider a vote to defeat the

parental notification abortion bill last Friday, Senator Ed Reilly, one of the bill's biggest supporters, hurriedly convened the Federal and State Affairs Committee, of which he is the chairman. [MALE REPORTER]: What are we doing, senator? [ED REILLY]: This will be consideration of what was in the governor's original bill, House Bill 2779. And I vote to expedite the situation so we don't have to meet Monday any more than necessary. We could decide right here and now if there's a desire to introduce the governor's bill, ok? Go ahead, Mary. [MARY]: Essentially the bill would require the notification of one parent. The notice could be written, or- [AUDIO FADES OUT] [JIM MCLEAN]: The governor's version of the bill was much less restrictive than the version that anti-abortion lawmakers tried to force through the senate. It would apply only to girls 16 and younger, and it would require a shorter waiting period between the time parents are notified and when the abortion could be performed. The bill rejected by the senate would've required a 72 hour waiting period -- the governor's bill, only 48 hours. But on Friday after the committee heard a brief explanation of the bill, members decided they had

heard enough. [ED REILLY]: Do I hear a discussion or any motion with regard to- [MALE COMMITTEE MEMBER]: Move we adjourn, Mr. Chairman. [MALE COMMITTEE MEMBER 2]: Second. [ED REILLY]: Do I hear any motions? Other motions? Very well. We're adjourned. [JIM MCLEAN]: Some on the committee were angry because they didn't think the compromise bill was restrictive enough. Others simply didn't want to consider any version of the notification measure. After the committee refused to pass a new bill on to the full senate, a frustrated Reilly proclaimed the battle over. [ED REILLY]: As far as I'm concerned, the issue is dead. Because if the committee does not want to introduce the governor's proposal, why then the issue is- [JIM MCLEAN]: But when he was pressed by reporters, Reilly said it was possible that he would try to revive the issue this week, meaning that anti-abortion and abortion rights advocates and reporters will be keeping an eye on Reilly's committee starting today. For Kansas Public Radio, I'm Jim McLean at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: The new plan designed by majority leader

Kerr combines the two approaches to property tax relief which have been rejected by the house, but with a couple of major differences. Kerr's proposal includes a constitutional amendment, which would change the tax rates currently in the constitution, but would not reimpose the inventory tax. Kerr is also proposing a one cent increase in the state sales tax to pay for a 28 percent rollback of school district property taxes. But unlike previous plans, it calls on the legislature to raise the sales tax. It does not require a constitutional amendment to do it. Kerr says his combination proposal would result in property tax reductions for most Kansans. But he says it's designed primarily to lessen the tax burden on small businesses. It would do that by lowering the tax rate on all commercial property by five percent, and then it would lower the tax rate further on the first $50,000 of business property's assessed value. That, Kerr says, would help small businesses, which were hit with big tax increases because of reappraisal and classification. Kerr would also increase the tax on utilities, but not as much as previous proposals would have. After Kerr presented the plan to members of the senate Tax Committee yesterday, several of them picked

it apart. Many of the Democrats said they would rather repeal sales tax exemptions than increase the tax. Others wanted to put a property tax lid in the constitutional amendment. Kerr urged committee members to come together on a proposal quickly, saying if a plan isn't on its way to the senate floor by late today, it might not be possible to consider one before the legislature reaches first adjournment at the end of the week. [FRED KERR]: Well, it's going to be very difficult, at best, to put this together. I think the committee members are really trying to work together, but there are so many different facets in changing this tax policy, that our chances are less than 50-50. I think that's an honest evaluation. But that doesn't mean we won't try. We certainly are going to try. [JIM MCLEAN]: Senator Marge Petty, a Topeka Democrat, says she is still optimistic that the legislature will ultimately approve some kind of a property tax relief plan. But, she says, it won't happen until the Republican leaders start listening to the Democrats and incorporating some of their suggestions. [MARGE PETTY]: It's real clear

that there's not the 27 votes needed for one, single constitutional amendment. And they're going to have to listen to some of our proposals, such as the sales tax exemption repeals, in order to get enough votes to get out a constitutional amendment. [JIM MCLEAN]: But, Kerr says, whenever something is added to a proposal to accommodate one group, it alienates another group. That's why when he's pressed, the majority leader just isn't very optimistic that a proposal can be designed which will get support from two-thirds of the members of the house and senate. And Kerr is issuing his familiar warning again. He says if a property tax relief plan has not passed out of at least one house by the end of this week, the issue will likely be lost -- because, he says, there simply won't be time in the four or five day wrap-up session at the end of the month to hammer out a compromise if lawmakers are forced to start from scratch. [FRED KERR]: The chances of adopting something, going totally through the process, in the veto session are not good at all. [JIM MCLEAN]: The Tax Committee met twice yesterday, but did not

act on Kerr's plan. There will be more discussion on it today. For Kansas Public Radio, I'm Jim McLean at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: To start with, the senate Tax Committee late yesterday afternoon met majority leader Fred Kerr's deadline by passing a property tax relief constitutional amendment and companion sales tax bill on to the full senate. The amendment would change some of the tax rates in the current classification amendment, with the intent being to lower the tax burden on small businesses that got hit with big property tax increases because of reappraisal and classification. A companion bill would increase the sales tax by a penny, and use the $210 million raised to reduce school district property taxes across the state. As the senate Tax Committee was struggling to produce its plan, the house Tax Committee was taking another approach -- one that many Democrats insist must be part of any comprehensive solution to the property tax problem. The house committee endorsed a bill by a narrow margin to repeal $98 million worth of sales tax exemptions and dedicate the money to property tax relief. The bill, which will be debated on the house floor later this week, would repeal sales tax exemptions for such things as interstate telephone calls,

new and used farm machinery, business equipment and machinery used in manufacturing, and lottery tickets. The bill that was recommended to the Tax Committee by a subcommittee would have also extended the sales tax to more than 60 services, from bookkeeping to pest control. That would have raised between $150 million and $175 million. But the full committee removed that provision from the bill. An attempt is expected, however, to put it back in when the measure is debated on the floor. Republican leaders are hoping to get some Democratic cooperation on other parts of the property tax relief package by allowing them a chance to vote on a sales tax exemption repeal bill. They're hoping that if the sales tax base is broadened, that some Democrats would be willing to vote for an increase in the tax, too. Representative Joan Wagnon, a Topeka Democrat and the chief sponsor of the sales tax exemptions repeal bill, said that's possible. [JOAN WAGNON]: We're beginning to see some compromising happening, and I'm not sure what the final form is going to take. I'm not sure that anybody can predict that very well right now. It's just that we're going to make one more run at

property tax relief this week. [JIM MCLEAN]: But it was clear that the house was in no mood to increase taxes yesterday. A bill to increase the cigarette tax by 5 cents a pack and use the $12 million it would raise to help fund higher education, which had already passed the senate, was rejected by the house by a wide margin. Large tobacco companies had mounted an intense lobbying campaign since the senate action, and apparently it had some effect. It combined with the politics of this election year to doom the cigarette tax bill. The measure's opponents killed it on a rare parliamentary move. They succeeded in removing the enacting clause from the bill. That, essentially, emasculated it. Hays Democrat Delbert Gross led the effort to kill the measure. [DELBERT GROSS]: Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don't smoke. But I firmly do believe that higher education, and education in Kansas, is a responsibility for all Kansans -- every Kansan. And to single out a group of people because they smoke, and put a tax on them to fund higher education, ladies and gentlemen, is wrong. It's a bandaid. It's wrong, because it's discriminatory. But, ladies and gentlemen, it's also wrong because we have other needs in the

state. [JIM MCLEAN]: Only 37 members of the house, members of the Republican leadership and Democrats from cities where Regents schools are located, voted to save the bill. Eighty-six members, including most of the Democrats voted to kill it. Topeka Democrat Kathleen Sebelius said the members of the minority party want to force Republican leaders and Republican governor Mike Hayden to "look at the big picture." She says they don't want to help the governor temporarily avoid budget problems by employing bandaid solutions to the state's revenue problems. [KATHLEEN SEBELIUS]: We have no overall tax package in front of us, where we can say, "This is how much of it hits the lower-income folks, this is how much hits middle income, this is how much hits higher income." We're piecemealing operations -- none of which fully funds anything. We're looking at a $100 million shortfall and a $12 million tax. Irrelevant! I mean, we need a broad-based program, and I think that's why the vote was the way it was. [JIM MCLEAN]: The house yesterday did approve a $1.11 billion budget for the Department of Education, the largest in state history, as the senate committee continued to work on revisions for the formula

for distributing the money to school districts across the state. And the house, after beating back more than a dozen attempts to increase the money contained in it, passed a funding bill for state universities. The bill increases Governor Hayden's Regents' funding recommendation by only $5 million. A couple of efforts to restore funding for the third and final year of the Margin of Excellence program failed, as did an amendment which would have had the effect of prohibiting all abortions at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Opponents of that amendment said such a prohibition would seriously harm the university hospital's ability to train medical students, and that it would deny abortions to those low-income women who couldn't afford to have them anywhere else. For Kansas Public Radio, I'm Jim McLean at the statehouse. ***** [APRIL HALEY]: The bill dealing with surrogate mother contracts may never make it to Governor Hayden's desk this session, and that would be just fine with Representative Mike O'Neal, a Hutchinson Republican. O'Neal is satisfied with the house version of the bill, which says that a surrogate mother

could change her mind and choose to keep the child, and that the contract she signed would be unenforceable. If she keeps the child, the father could file for custody, and the dispute would be resolved like in divorce cases. But the senate version would make surrogate mother contracts illegal. And everyone involved in creating the contract -- even counselors and doctors -- would be subject to criminal penalties. Senate committee members have suggested a compromise. They would take out the criminal penalty provision if house members would agree to make surrogate contracts illegal. House members aren't expected to make such a compromise, and apparently are willing to go home without passing any bill. Because, based on the Baby M case, they are confident the courts would not enforce surrogate contracts should disputes ever occur. I'm April Haley, at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: The bill, which provides funding for the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, is $56 million more than the governor recommended, and about $20 million more than the house version of the same bill. Like the house bill, it continues funding for scaled-back versions of the

MediKan and General Assistance welfare programs. But unlike the house version, the senate bill also restores part of the cut made by the governor in monthly payments to individuals on Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It restores $5 of that $9-per-month cut. Most of the additional spending, says Senator Wint Winter, Jr., a Lawrence Republican and vice-chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is necessary to pay for federally-mandated programs, such as medical assistance. [WINT WINTER]: If we were not to put this money in, it would be equivalent to not paying this month's mortgage and hoping that the bank forgot about it the next month. [JIM MCLEAN]: House Appropriations Committee chairman Bill Bunten says he will negotiate for reductions when the measure reaches a house-senate conference committee. But both he and senate president Bud Burke are predicting that Governor Hayden will be forced to use his veto to force lawmakers to reconsider the bill. I'm Jim McLean, at the statehouse. ***** [STEVE LICKTEIG]: Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, an education consultant from Chicago, spoke to a predominantly Black audience of about 400. Kunjufu's topic was the survival of the Black

race in the 21st century. Kunjufu was asked to speak at KU well in advance of the problems that occurred last weekend when a KU student delivered pizzas to a fraternity house, and allegedly had them knocked out of her hand and was racially slurred by one of the fraternity members. But Kunjufu still had an opinion on the incident. [DR. JAWANZA KUNJUFU]: There's some very serious problems going on on campus. I mean, when you have a sister trying to deliver pizzas to a fraternity, and she gets pushed down, and called "nigger," and the rest -- there's a need for Black men to come and respond to that kind of situation. [APPLAUSE] [STEVE LICKTEIG]: Kunjufu feels that Blacks need to unite and realize that keys to their success include self confidence and education. This is Steve Lickteig. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: Every year when the bill funding the Regents' budget comes up for debate, attempts are made to prohibit abortions at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Many times, such attempts fail on close votes. But yesterday's vote wasn't close. Opponents of the amendment argued it would seriously compromise the teaching hospital's ability to train medical students, and they said it would deny

abortions to low-income women who wouldn't be able to obtain them elsewhere. Neodesha Republican Rochelle Chronister lead the effort to defeat the amendment. [ROCHELLE CHRONISTER]: This is the most damaging amendment that has ever been offered on this floor, and I oppose it. [JIM MCLEAN]: Highland Republican Artie Lucas, speaking in favor of the amendment, said the medical center existed so that lives could be saved, not so that babies could be killed. Forty-two members of the house agreed with Lucas and voted for the amendment, but 81 members voted against it. Earlier in the day, an attempt to get a new parental notification bill out of a senate committee also failed. I'm Jim McLean, at the statehouse. ***** [MIKE MATSON]: The jury was in place and opening arguments were set to get underway this morning in Shawnee County District Court in the murder trial of 19 year old Tyrone Baker, charged in the December death of 72 year old Ida Mae Dougherty. But there will be no trial, at least not right now. The judge in the case granted a defense motion for a psychiatric evaluation of the defendant, meaning it'll be at least 30 days until the trial resumes. Baker's

facing first degree murder charges in the December death of Dougherty. He is also charged in neighboring Douglas County with murder in the deaths of Dougherty's neighbors, Lester and Nancy Haley. Police contend Baker and a cohort killed the three after a robbery in December. Mike Matson, Topeka. ***** [MALE SPEAKER]: And we'll be looking at different aspects of racism. We'll look at the violent effects. We have some footage of parents who have lost children as a result of a racist act, racial violence. We'll also look at historically what has happened to Blacks that have- situations that have put them in the condition that they're in today. And we'll also look at the psychology of racism. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: The measure says simply that attempts should be made when making appointments to boards and commissions to achieve a gender and racial balance. Representative Joan Wagnon, a Topeka Democrat, was one of the sponsors of the original gender balance bill. [JOAN WAGNON]: Remember the lessons that your mothers taught you. Your mother taught you to play nicely with other children,

to share your cookies, to share your milk, to share all kinds of things. That's all women want. They want to share. And we will share, not only in the power, but also in the burden of managing this society -- as equal partners. Not one ahead of the other with more advantage, but equal. Thank you, I hope you support this. [JIM MCLEAN]: And an overwhelming majority of the house did support the measure, which is now on its way to the senate for consideration. I'm Jim McLean, at the statehouse. ***** [APRIL HALEY]: Two-term senator John Strick, a Wyandotte County Democrat, announced today that he has formed an exploratory committee to look into a possible bid for governor. State treasurer Joan Finney, former governor John Carlin, and Topeka pastor Fred Phelphs, Sr., are already competing for the Democratic nomination. Strick says the current candidates don't offer enough options. [JOHN STRICK]: Another candidate is not going to hurt anything. And I feel that I can support the people of the state of Kansas in options and other ideas that are not prevalent right now in the state of Kansas. [APRIL HALEY]: Strick says he has not spoken to anyone from the Carlin or Finney camps,

and his intention is not to sabotage their efforts in heavily-Democratic Wyandotte County. Strick is the owner and president of a paper supply company and the part-owner of two investment companies. I'm April Haley, at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: The battle over the welfare budget dates back to before the session began, when Governor Hayden announced his intentions to eliminate the two basic state welfare programs, MediKan and General Assistance. The legislature objected, and in the first several weeks of the session, lawmakers appropriated millions of dollars to keep those programs going until the end of the current fiscal year. The bill passed by the senate yesterday would provide money to keep those same programs and other programs operated by the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services going through budget year 1991, which begins on July 1. The house passed an SRS appropriations bill that exceeded the governor's budget recommendations by a significant amount. The governor says house members were ignoring the state's budget problems, and he said he might have to use his veto to force them to reconsider the bill. But now the senate has taken the bill and increased it even more. It is now almost $56 million

above the governor's recommendation, and about $20 million more expensive than the house version. Representative Bill Bunten, a Topeka Republican, is the chairman of the house Appropriations Committee. He calls the senate version of the SRS funding bill irresponsible. Bunten will be a key figure on the house-senate conference committee that will be asked to negotiate a compromise version of the bill. [BILL BUNTEN]: I'm not going to sign any conference committee report that increases spending above what the house has. I mean, somebody may sign it, but I'm not going to do it -- at least that's my intention right now. And it's going to take a great change of position for me to sign any kind of a report that even resembles that kind of spending. It would be a waste of time anyway, because the governor's going to veto it. [JIM MCLEAN]: Both versions of the SRS bill continue the General Assistance and MediKan programs, but they've been scaled way back to save money. The senate version partially reverses a $9-a-month cut to individuals on the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program. It restores about $5 of that cut. The senate version, like the house version, continues a 10 percent increase in payments to foster care providers, but it also further increases payments to families caring for children four years old and younger.

Senator Wint Winter, Jr., a Lawrence Republican and the vice chairman of the senate Ways and Means Committee, says that most of the spending increases in the senate bill go to pay for federally-mandated programs -- programs for which the governor, in the senate's estimation, either underestimated the case loads or underfunded the budgets. [WINT WINTER]: There are credit cards, essentially issued by the federal government. The bill comes, 43 percent to us, and we must pay them. Even if we didn't think it was the right thing to do to take care of people who need medical care, and I think we all do believe it is the right thing to do, the federal government's telling us. So, there isn't runaway, wild, thoughtless spending here. It is spending that just makes sense, and which is required. [JIM MCLEAN]: A dozen senators voted against the spending bill, including senate president Bud Burke, who called it a budget buster. Burke also predicts the measure is headed for a veto. The governor, he says, has no choice. Democratic leaders, though, insist the governor did have a choice. They say he purposely underfunded the

SRS budget, knowing that the legislature would be forced to increase it -- which would allow him to campaign against the big-spending legislature in his bid for a second term in office. For Kansas Public Radio, I'm Jim Mclean at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: Last week, the senate rejected a bill that would have required doctors to notify the parents of pregnant teenagers who come to them seeking abortions. An attempt was made to have the senate reconsider that vote. It refused to do that, too. Earlier this week, the committee that sent the first notification bill to the floor got into a shouting match during a discussion of whether to create a new bill. It adjourned without doing so. But yesterday, the senate Ways and Means Committee, at the urging of Augusta Democrat Frank Gaines, resurrected Governor Hayden's version of the notification measure and sent it to the senate floor. It would require notification in cases where girls 16 and younger are planning abortions. It does, however, contain a judicial bypass provision, which means in some cases a judge could waive the notification requirement. The measure is much less strict than anti-abortion advocates want. They have often said that no bill is better than a bad bill. But Senator Gaines told them in a meeting late yesterday afternoon that only the less-restrictive version has a chance of passing the senate. [FRANK GAINES]: I said, you know, you've got to

measure the odds of a very delicate legislative process. If you fool with it very much, there won't be a law. [JIM MCLEAN]: Senate president Bud Burke will decide later today whether to refer the bill to another committee or put it on the senate's debate calendar for immediate consideration. I'm Jim McLean, at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: The bill would have done away with sales tax exemptions for a long list of things, among them farm equipment, machinery used by industry, airplanes sold to out-of-state buyers, out-of-state long distance phone calls, and lottery tickets. The bill would have raised more than $110 million, which would have been distributed to school districts in a couple of different ways to lessen their dependence on property taxes. Representative Joan Wagnon, a Topeka Democrat and the ranking minority member on the Tax Committee, was the primary sponsor of the bill. She touted it as a way to help solve the property tax problem when she opened the five hour debate yesterday morning.

[JOAN WAGNON]: This bill is not about sales tax exemption. This bill is about property tax relief. And as we begin to debate what exemptions should we retain and which ones can we revoke, keep in mind that we're not after any one segment or any one group. But we hope that by all sharing in a little bit of belt-tightening and broadening our sales tax base, that we can have a fairer system and bring some property tax relief. [JIM MCLEAN]: But the bill didn't have the support of the Republican leadership, and because of that, its chances of passing yesterday weren't very good from the beginning. House speaker Jim Braden. [JIM BRADEN]: I've said all along, it's much easier politically to raise the sales tax than it is to eliminate exemptions. Most exemptions have been placed in the statute books for a good reason. And these people kept talking about how they would

solve the property tax problem by eliminating loopholes, and I- I mean, I just knew they were just whistling in the wind. Because it's just not going to happen. [JIM MCLEAN]: Particularly when the Republican leadership had a different plan, and the Republicans who didn't support it were pushing yet another approach to solving the problem. Braden wants to increase the sales tax by a penny and send the money back to school districts. That proposal is now one of the components of a property tax relief plan that will be debated in the senate later today. During yesterday's house debates, some Democrats charged that those who opposed the exemption repeal bill did so because they were afraid to buck the special interest groups, which desperately wanted to keep their exemptions. Bill Reardon is a Kansas City, Kansas Democrat. [BILL REARDON]: If you vote, "YES," with special interests today on a roll call vote and vote to put sales tax on the working people in your district -- Saturday or at the end of this month -- I think you've got a legitimate political problem, and a

well-deserved one. [JIM MCLEAN]: Some of the biggest sales tax exemptions targeted for repeal in the bill were granted only a couple of years ago in economic development legislation. They were designed not only to bring business and industry to Kansas, but also to keep it here. And some of those who voted to retain those exemptions yesterday resented the charge that they were kowtowing to special interest groups. Again, house speaker Jim Braden. [JIM BRADEN]: We kowtow to special interest -- that's a bunch of baloney, but I guess it makes good political rhetoric. We- the exemption for manufacturing machinery and equipment, for example, is to help create jobs in this state and to keep jobs in this state. And every one of those exemptions, there's a reason for them. Some of them I don't happen to agree with, but most of them, I do. [JIM MCLEAN]: Braden says he is still hopeful that lawmakers will be able to agree on some kind of approach to providing property tax relief before the end of the session. But realistically, he says, there's still a good chance the legislature will not be to agree on anything. And he, like almost everyone else, says if something does eventually pass, it

won't happen until the final hours of the session. For Kansas Public Radio, I'm Jim Mclean at the statehouse. ***** [MALE SPEAKER]: ...to be held in Lawrence, Kansas, on July 27-29 of this year. It is a family-oriented sports competition, and it will highlight the importance of physical fitness to all Kansans. ***** [STEVE LICKTEIG]: The expulsion of the students involved and the revocation of the house's charter -- that is what a number of Black students want to have happen in response to last weekend's incident, when a Black KU co-ed delivering pizza to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity allegedly had it knocked from her hand and was racially slurred. Black students' anger and frustration was vented last night at a racism forum. Although the fraternity incident was the main topic of discussion, another issue that was addressed was the alleged harassment of Blacks by Lawrence and university police. Lawrence Police Chief Ron Olin and KU Police Director Jim Denney were present at the forum. They said they were not aware of any such

incidents. Mark McCormick of Black Men of Today, the group sponsoring the forum, says that the Black students are tired of committees being formed. He said that something better happen. A statement from the vice-chancellor of Student Affairs is expected to be issued on Monday concerning the fraternity incident and racism as a whole on campus. This is Steve Lickteig. ***** [APRIL HALEY]: Two-term senator John Strick, a Kansas City, Kansas Democrat, announced that he has formed an exploratory committee to look into a possible bid for governor. State treasurer Joan Finney, former governor John Carlin, and Topeka pastor Fred Phelphs, Sr., are already competing for the Democratic nomination. Strick says the current candidates don't offer enough options. [JOHN STRICK]: Another candidate is not going to hurt anything. And I feel that I can support the people of the state of Kansas in options and other ideas that are not prevalent right now in the state of Kansas. [APRIL HALEY]: Strick says he has not spoken to anyone from the Carlin or Finney

camps, and his intention is not to sabotage their efforts in heavily-Democratic Wyandotte County. Strick is the owner and president of a paper supply company and the part-owner of two investment companies. I'm April Haley, at the statehouse. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: The senate rejected a parental notification bill late last week after several members said it had constitutional problems. Repeated attempts to pass a new bill out of the Federal and State Affairs Committee failed, and so earlier this week, a new, less restrictive version of the bill -- very similar to one originally introduced by Governor Hayden -- was introduced by the senate Ways and Means Committee. That bill arrived in the senate yesterday, and president Bud Burke quickly referred it to yet another committee -- the Judiciary Committee chaired by Lawrence Republican Wint Winter, Jr. Winter says he has no immediate plans to work the bill. In fact, he says, he will simply hold it in his committee until the end of the session unless he is convinced that a majority of the senate really wants another chance to vote on the contentious issue. [WINT WINTER]: If it is clearly of no use and a waste of time on the senate floor for us to work it, then we're not going to work it. [JIM MCLEAN]: That doesn't necessarily mean the bill is dead, but time is running out. And the senate is apparently not at

all eager to consider the issue again. I'm Jim McLean, at the statehouse. ***** [MICHELLE CORUM]: With Easter this weekend, it's safe to assume that many a chocolate bunny is sitting on a store shelf or tucked away in the family closet for the Easter Bunny to find and distribute. One Lawrence-based chocolatier who's done their part in cranking out bunnies is Phillips Confections, makers of chocolate buttercreams, caramels, and white chocolate, which founder Marcus Phillips is quick to point out isn't really chocolate. The chocolate house is a wholesale distributor to 30 states in the eastern U.S. It employs three full time and 18 to 20 part timers during peak seasons. We talked with Marcus Phillips -- who attended Kansas University and, incidentally, doesn't really care for sweets -- about how far his company has come from the solid milk chocolate Jayhawks that gained them local fame. These days, Phillips talks of going up against the "Big 3." [MARCUS PHILLIPS]: There's basically three that we are targeted against, and that's Joseph Schmidt out in San Francisco, and they do a wonderful

piece that's a very minimalist design. And then you've got The Sweet Shop, based out of Fort Worth that does a traditional hand-dipped truffle. And then you've got The Candy Jar, again from San Francisco. [MICHELLE CORUM]: You talk about chocolates as "pieces," like they're artwork. Is that what they are to you? [MARCUS PHILLIPS]: That's pretty on target. I really think in terms of the person eating the confection, you know, and in terms of what that individual experience means to that person at that time. And yes, artwork is very important, or the aesthetic value of a piece of chocolate is very important to us, yeah. [MICHELLE CORUM]: What's the secret of great chocolate? [MARCUS PHILLIPS]: The secret of great chocolate is to use the simplest and the highest-quality ingredients possible, from my perspective, I think. I think when you try to start moving into areas where a lot of elements are combining, I think you lose things. You lose clusterings of flavors and things that you try to create. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Marcus' proudest accomplishment so far and the

most recent is that of Phillips Confections' Handmade Truffle Squares. [MARCUS PHILLIPS]: Specifically, the greatest point to them is that they have taken- we've taken a traditional confection, one that's in greatest demand in the upscale confection market, and that's the truffle -- and we've changed the shape. We've put it into a square, and we have- and that gives us the ability to have sort of a palette on the top, where we incorporate a very, very high level of aesthetic. [MICHELLE CORUM]: That is, colorful drizzles and dots and shapes, some with a personal touch. [MARCUS PHILLIPS]: One is taken from a black and white rabbit, with of course a red eye -- a friend of mine's rabbit, Mozart. And we took that one and put it into a truffle square. So you've got black, white, and red, so that's really- you know, the dark chocolate being the black, that's a really pretty one. [MICHELLE CORUM]: These truffles are making their way to most department stores around the nation. [MARCUS PHILLIPS]: The most notable would be Neiman Marcus, who has agreed to take them on and to

begin us in a limited number of stores in this region, and then to also incorporate us into their Christmas catalog, which in my estimation is a fairly substantial move on our part, considering that we're sitting in a barn right now in the middle of Kansas. [MICHELLE CORUM]: That's right -- an old limestone barn, remodeled with a shipping, packing, hot and cold rooms, and in the lofty reaches, offices and storage. Down the stairs we go to have Todd Jost show us how an Easter Bunny is made. The Phillips family of rabbits include Lenny, Eugene, and Floppy, the number one seller. They make thousands each season. [TODD JOST]: This is a shaker table, and what it does is as the chocolate is going into the mold, the mold vibrates very rapidly, and it drives the air bubbles that would ordinarily get trapped in the creases in the mold -- it drives them up and out and away from the exterior of it. They're taken from the hot room, where it's nice and warm, it's about an 80 degree climate, and they're moved in here to the cold room. And then they're put on this machine right here. And then it gets

clipped on, carries the molds around. And it just keeps them turning until the chocolate has set up completely, and the chocolate starts to release from the mold. Now, we call it "Sputnik," in that it's hanging from the ceiling, and, yeah, it looks somewhat Space Age. If you notice, there are four different racks, and each one will hold six of the rabbits in this thing. And during the peak season when we're running lots of hollow product, it never stops. And these are not just your average hollow bunny. They're hollow and filled with foiled chocolate Easter eggs. And we had the molds customized so that there would be this thin spot in the back of them, here. So we carefully trim out the tail piece,

and when it's trimmed out to a size that will accommodate the eggs, we slide them in. And here's what he looks like in the final stage -- a little name tag telling who he is, and colorful shredded paper behind him. We call it "Bunny Grass" -- it's actually just tissue packing paper. And it's got a cinch bow around it. And that's the process of making a hollow bunny. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Ooooh, what happened here? [TODD JOST]: Oh, it got stuck in a UPS truck over the weekend. It was a shipment that should have taken three days to ship, but due to various delays, sometimes they take four. Well, it wound up sitting through the weekend. So you notice his face drooping quite a bit there. [LAUGHTER] [MICHELLE CORUM]: Todd Jost of Phillips Confections. You won't find a droopy face on Marcus Phillips. His chocolate house has seen 700 percent growth since the first year and is now putting out 200 pounds of chocolate per day. For KANU's Morning Edition, I'm Michelle Corum. *****

[FRANCES INGEMANN]: The Committee on Tenure and Related Problems, after careful review of the evidence, finds that Dorothy Willner failed in significant ways to carry out her academic responsibilities, and that she engaged in behavior that violates commonly accepted standards of professional ethics. The committee therefore concurs with the intent of Chancellor Gene A. Budig to dismiss Professor Willner from the University of Kansas. The basis for the committee's decision is set forth in its report. [ROB HILTON]: Committee chairperson Frances Ingemann made the announcement before a crowded room of reporters and faculty members. The report she refers to is more than 100 pages long and outlines how the committee reached its decision. Though it cites numerous examples, charges against Willner are listed as just two. One, that she willfully failed to carry out her academic responsibilities, and two, that

her behavior at the university violated commonly accepted standards of professional ethics toward colleagues, chairpersons, administrators, classified staff, and students. Upon hearing the committee's decision, Willner -- as she had throughout the hearings -- defended her position at the university. [DOROTHY WILLNER]: They were well aware that the attempt to break my tenure involves a person whose achievements as a scholar and whose achievements as an anthropologist and as an educator have received recognition. I'm in Who's Who in America, I'm a president- past president of two anthropological societies, and as came out repeatedly at the hearing, I have had publications in the most prestigious anthropological outlets. [ROB HILTON]: But the questions raised by the committee and their decision against Willner deal with an issue much larger than any one person's problems with the university's administrators. How sacred is

tenure? What does the committee's decision mean to other tenured professors? Sid Shapiro is a former president of the KU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and he currently is a tenured professor of law at the university. He says the committee's decision is evidence that tenure does not always mean forever. [SID SHAPIRO]: Well, certainly one of the criticisms of the tenure process by those who choose to criticize it, is that it provides some sort of lifetime guarantee of employment, regardless of what a faculty member might do -- or, I guess more appropriately, might not do by way of meeting his or her responsibilities. I think a decision like this pretty clearly indicates that that type of criticism is erroneous. There's certainly not inconsistent with the idea of tenure or a tenure system that people can be fired. What tenure says is that people can only be fired for cause, relating to the fact

that they failed to carry out their duties in a way that a group of faculty members would recognize. And so I think the case is important, because it really does establish that this is not a guarantee that someone can have a job forever. What is says is that it limits the types and kinds of reasons that a faculty member can be fired to failure to perform their duties in a professional manner. [ROB HILTON]: And it's a lack of conducting herself in that professional manner that apparently got Dorothy Willner into trouble. According to the faculty handbook, tenure grants a professor academic freedom. But the committee makes it clear in its report they don't believe academic freedom is an issue in this case. Let me quote a passage from the final remarks of the committee's report. It says, "Tenure protects faculty members' rights of free expression in carrying out assigned academic responsibilities. Clearly, tenure does not protect faculty members who willfully fail to accept their academic

responsibilities, which by their very nature are broad and comprehensive. Academic freedom does not give a faculty member a right to place others at risk or to harm the ability of an academic program to carry out its assigned responsibilities. The committee regrets the necessity of dismissing a tenured faculty member, but it sees no alternative in this case. The committee notes that various attempts were made at various administrative levels to resolve problems involving Willner, and to encourage her to become a productive member of the faculty. Unfortunately, Willner remains steadfast in her unwillingness to compromise or modify her behavior." And to nobody's surprise, Willner has said she will appeal the committee's decision to the Board of Regents, though it's no guarantee they'll hear the case. If so, however, hearings on the issue could literally continue for years. But if the committee's decision stands as-is, Willner says administrators would be setting a lasting precedent. [DOROTHY WILLNER]: If the chancellor could try to break my tenure, this means that

nobody's tenure is exempt from this. Anyone can have the same thing happen at the University of Kansas. [ROB HILTON]: Willner says that that includes the committee members themselves, as well. For KANU's Morning Edition, I'm Rob Hilton. ***** [MALE SPEAKER]: Joseph Campbell, the late mythologist, in his hugely popular television interviews with Bill Moyers and in the book based on the series, described our society as having lost what he called its "unifying myth," that central idea which guides a culture and integrates all its endeavors. With the now widespread perception that the god Technology has turned on this children and is busy devouring them, I think he's right. However, in the heart of the English countryside lives a mild-mannered independent scientist who just might have created a new unifying myth --

or perhaps, more accurately, revived an ancient one. His name is James Lovelock, and his neighbor in the little Wiltshire village where they both live is the novelist Anthony Burgess, who suggested a name for Lovelock's hypothesis. That hypothesis is that by any definition of life you care to come up with, our planet as a whole exhibits behavior that suggests that it is alive. The name that Burgess suggested for this hypothesis was Gaia -- G A I A -- the ancient female name for the earth. Lovelock points to the absurdity of viewing the planet as an inert, insentient collection of resources waiting for us to harvest them. He points to the exquisitely complicated control mechanisms that our planet possesses, that allow it -- her, the rapidly more logical pronoun --

to continually adjust global conditions. He describes how, over the eons, although the amount of heat arriving from the sun has changed significantly, the earth has been able to alter the reflectivity of the surface, maintaining a more or less constant average global temperature -- adapt to her environment -- characteristic of something alive. He describes how, despite the natural tendency of the oceans to become progressively saltier over time as more and more salts are washed by rain from the land to the sea, Gaia has mechanisms that have allowed her to maintain her oceans at just the level of salinity needed for the creatures there to flourish -- internal regulation, suggestive of something living. Reading James Lovelock's book Gaia changed

forever my notions of man as lord of this planet, and of man as something separate from nature -- changed my world view to one in which I was inextricably part of a biosphere, riding through the cosmos on the back of an intelligent, self-regulating, planet-sized creature. And if that isn't a powerful myth whose time has come again, I don't know what is. ***** [TONE] [MELINDA OBERHELMAN]: Yes, and I can see the need for an increase already. Gerard House, the home in Wichita -- she turns away an average of 100 girls a year that's within her age range. And that's not counting the girls under 16 that she says, "We don't offer services to that age." We've had calls, three calls from Wichita -- two 14 year olds and

a 15- the 15 year old that we're going to get -- because there are no services. And one of the things that stops services for that age is financial reasons, because if they're under 16 they cannot be emancipated, and you can't get a medical card for them, and you can't get assistance for them, financial assistance. And if the parents have no way of helping, then basically, you have to take it on. And being a new organization, that's real difficult for us, because we're on a real, real tight budget at this time, because we just don't have the funding. The 15 year old that we have coming, we don't know how we're going to do it, yet. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Hannah's House will take pregnant girls ages 10 to 19 and can hold up to six residents, including infants. On other abortion-related legislation being proposed at the statehouse, Oberhelman had this to say. [MELINDA OBERHELMAN]: We as an organization do not take a stand as either pro-life or pro-choice, because each board member has a different stand, and everyone sees it differently.

What we are is an alternative to abortion, though. We see ourselves as an option for the girls. I know what I would like to see. I would like to see abortion, for the most part, banned. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Oberhelman believes there isn't enough counseling and education given to girls considering abortion. [MELINDA OBERHELMAN]: I don't think they're made aware of what's going to be happening, and the trauma, and what can happen to them after the abortion, both emotionally, physically, and mentally. I think a lot of parents, when they see their children in that situation, also go for the abortion, because they don't want to be embarrassed. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Tiffany did not consider abortion. She's a 19 year old resident of Hannah's House with a baby due any day that she plans to keep. [TIFFANY]: No. Never crossed my mind. It was either adoption or keeping it, and those were the two choices that I had to decide, you know, between. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Could you recount for us the sequence of events from the

time that you thought you might be pregnant -- who you told, how long it was before you notified anyone, your parents, the father? [TIFFANY]: Um, well I called my dad, because I didn't have the heart to tell my mother, because I didn't want to deal with her- I didn't know how she'd take it. I knew she wouldn't take it very well, so I didn't want to deal with it. And I told my dad, and- [MICHELLE CORUM]: And how far along were you at that point? [TIFFANY]: I was like, four weeks. I had just found out. And it was just, it was devastating. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I told the father, and he didn't take it very well. In fact, I don't know where he's at, so, you know, he just doesn't want to take on the responsibility, and I do. [MICHELLE CORUM]: What do you plan to do with your life after the baby comes, other than take care of the baby -- what else? [TIFFANY]: Well, I plan to get my GED, that's what I'm doing right now. And then after that, I'm signing up for secretarial school.

[MICHELLE CORUM]: But for now, Tiffany waits for her baby to arrive, the bassinet and her tidy room furnished and funded by private donations and pay-as-you-can fees from each girl in the home. In Kansas, there is a state-supported residence center in Topeka, Crittenton, with some maternity services for teens. But as far as private maternity homes in the state, there are only two -- Gerard House in Wichita and Hannah's House in Lawrence. Melinda Oberhelman says both homes have to turn girls away. [MELINDA OBERHELMAN]: If you have to turn some away, where do they go? There really isn't anywhere for them to go. Before we were open, just over last summer, I had eight phone calls for people who needed placements, for girls who needed placement. And it was real hard for me each time to say, "I'm sorry, I can't help." If we can't help, and Gerard House can't help, there really isn't anything else. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Melinda Oberhelman, director of Hannah's House, a private group boarding home for unwed pregnant teens in Lawrence. I'm Michelle Corum for KANU's Morning Edition. ***** [PATTI HACKNEY]: Step right

up, the circus is in town. Bring the kids, bring lunch, and please bring some sanity. Yes, sirree, the legislative circus is in its last full week before initial adjournment. Catch these exciting acts before they leave! In the main ring, see the Property Tax Do-si-do. No legislative proposal has enough votes to pass by itself, but everybody can jump in the act with their own solution. And watch the Special Interests rally outside the ring, throwing in questionable information to the participants. And look! Big Industry with Large Inventories is jumping up and down hysterically. See the Parental Notification Nightmare. For two bits, you, too, can view the bill that keeps rising from the deep. Those guys just keep trying to control women's bodies, no matter what their age. In a titillating sideshow, see Free Speech being threatened. The Obscene Bumper Sticker Bill is a doozy, and it passed the senate this week. How does the legislature think most of our kids will get their sex education without those signs? When they passed a similar bill in Florida, people had to resort to catchy sayings on bumpers like, "DOO-DOO OCCURS." Under the Kansas

bill, that might be illegal as well. The sad part is that it doesn't even touch the really obscene bumper stickers like, "I HEART MY DOG." Boy, some people are perverse. In another ring we have Civil Liberties walking a tightrope -- but wait! Drug and Crime Hysteria are shaking the rope! A whole slew of bills -- which allow hearsay in certain cases, which walk the fine line of presuming guilt over innocence, which vaguely and possibly unconstitutionally broaden definitions of crimes -- are threatening our basic civil liberties. Stop that, boys and girls! It is in times of public turmoil that our civil liberties are at most risk. Several of those bills are speeding through the legislature and taking yet another bite out of our Bill of Rights. Please don't look in the ring to the side. That's the bill that would allow 14 and 16 years olds to be tried as adults. So do we throw these young teens into adult prisons? Think about it. Is sodomy our state's new punishment for juvenile offenders in an already overcrowded adult prison system? But then there are the positive rings. See the Recycling Bills -- they are bright with

future possibilities of sanity in a trashed-out world. They bicycle around the ring eating oat bran. The legislature has a golden opportunity to help the environment just in time for Earth Day. These bipartisan bills sailed through the house. But wait! The head of the senate Energy Committee won't let them finish their swing around the ring. "We can't afford it," he says. Ross, have you priced landfills lately? And now, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the ringmaster of the festivities, the person who brings it all together, organizes, compromises, and leads the state with a coherent public policy -- the governor. Um, Mr. Ringmaster? Mr. Ringmaster? Well, I'm sorry -- direction here seems to be lacking. So just view whatever sideshow tickles your fancy, watch the confusion in a state with no clear, strong leader. But who cares? The circus is in town! The elephants are parading around, forgetting the rules and their manners, the donkeys are braying, and the lobbyists are throwing peanuts. What more can we ask? I'm Patti Hackney. *****

[BOB KIRBY]: We visited David von Goss about six months ago, right after he had installed a new PVC plastic material over his greenhouse frame. The plastic material is tinted a sort of a cheery pink color. [DAVID VON GOSS]: Well this is basically- what's it's doing is shifting the material or the wavelengths to wavelengths that the plants themselves can make more use of, because there are different wavelengths within the light spectrum that plants, like humans, have no use of, or make no use of. And this kind of shifts it over, and gives basically more raw energy to the plants. [BOB KIRBY]: The Horticulture Department at Kansas State University learned of this material, developed and made in Israel, and von Goss is participating in a study of the effects of this light wavelength-shifting material on plant growth. [DAVID VON GOSS]: The study is a comparison between using the two different types of covering as to the effects of the covering on the drains. They're all exactly the

same four ivies being used in both groups, with the same number, that were produced at the same time. And so at this point it's a simple comparison study -- which ones are doing better? And at this point, you can see that these are doing -- or at least in our view, seem to be doing -- much better than the other ones. They're bigger, they have more flowers, and they're healthier than the others. And in fact in some cases I kind of tend to give a little bit more care to the other ones, because they didn't seem to be doing as well as these are doing here. And as you can see, which no one on the radio can, but- [LAUGHS] [BOB KIRBY]: Well describe what's- what about these seems to be improved over the control group. [DAVID VON GOSS]: Well the anticipated difference was the number of branchings and the number of flower heads that have been produced. And the control group is doing what would be expected for those particular varieties, or what we already know what's happening with them. And with this experimental group,

you can see there is an increased production of flowers, there's more branching happening, and the colors tend to be a little bit stronger. So in that regard, it's showing up as a significant improvement. Foliage plants are those that are strictly grown strictly for the foliage. We've noticed that they have a healthier appearances, and there's a faster growth rate on them. The bromeliads that we moved out and put underneath the bench there went into bloom much earlier than they would normally, which is a little disconcerting, because they'll be bloomed out before people get here. [BOB KIRBY]: These plants in nature, I presume, are not used to getting this amount of light in the wavelengths that they can process. Does it where them out? I mean, do they grow too fast or are there too many blooms? [DAVID VON GOSS]: Oh, in some cases you might say you would get too many blooms. But if you're watching your material, the grower should be able to adjust his cycles. [BOB KIRBY]: Von Goss says tomato plants don't do well, because the color of the light transmitted through this material seems to want to cause too many

blossoms. But roses, he says, show a 20 percent increase in blooms. And he says the material saves energy. [DAVID VON GOSS]: We did notice a better heat saving in here than with the other material, and we've been pleased with that in comparison between the two. [BOB KIRBY]: You figure your savings in heating this past winter were something like 20, 25 percent over? [DAVID VON GOSS]: I'd say let's make it conservative and make it 20 percent over what we had figured it would be on it. And that was even with the bad December. [BOB KIRBY]: That's David von Goss with Baldwin Growers. We'll check back again in a few months. I'm Bob Kirby. ***** [MARC WILSON]: Because everyone knows how valuable Impressionist works are, and they've become so valuable, and putting together a great panoramic exhibition of Impressionism costs so much money, and the risks are so great, that this will never be done again. So this is it. This is it for the Midwest. Never again will be a show that tries to really show the range and scope of production of

21 Impressionist and post-Impressionist artists. [MICHELLE CORUM]: What precipitated the setting up of this exhibition? Why was it even started? [MARC WILSON]: Well, actually it's a kind of a bootstraps effort, if I would describe it that way. I think we all realized that New York, and Washington, and Los Angeles regularly get these very large exhibitions of Impressionist works. Smaller American cities, perfectly good with excellent museums never have an opportunity to- to show these big exhibitions, so we thought that we would give them what they wanted by pooling our resources. And because each of us was selected to be part of the consortium based our holdings, when you then do put those holdings together, you have a really magnificent, blockbuster exhibition. [MICHELLE CORUM]: And was it difficult at all pooling together all these five museums to participate in this? [MARC WILSON]: Well sometimes it is. You can imagine these museums are [LAUGHTER] sometimes rivals. But everyone saw the benefit to the communities immediately, and the benefit to the institutions. And so we set aside our own

practices and our own ways of doing things -- our own parochialisms, so to speak. And instead adopted, in many cases, other ways of doing things. And there was- obviously, we had to compromise and to defer. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Give us a little art lesson here. What is Impressionism as a style? How does it look? [MARC WILSON]: Well, let me first- every great school starts, it sets out to find a new truth in painting. And the Impressionists set out to experiment, to identify a new reality based on perceptions of things, in a way, and sensations of things -- the sensation a grove of trees might give you, the sensation and perception of a body of water with mountains beyond it. As opposed to earlier and traditional approaches, which were more what the mind thought it knew -- a combination of eye and mind thought to be truth. So this is what they were trying to do, and so they concentrated on using masses of small

strokes instead of drawing. They did not use the light and dark, chiaroscuro, and modeling of traditional European painting, but small daubs of very intense, pure color. And you have to remember how revolutionary these very colorful pictures were 100 years ago. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Impressionism has its roots in France, and initially was snubbed by the French- [MARC WILSON]: Oh! They just thought it was the worst thing that they'd ever seen! [MICHELL CORUM]: Why was that? [MARC WILSON]: Well, because a conservative and traditional mentality prevailed over art, and the critics were all academically oriented -- that is to say, oriented to the Academy and to the salons. And the Impressionist painters were refused exhibition at the official salons. And so they formed their own group shows called the Salons of the Indépendants, and that is those who are independent of a- of government patronage, independent of the Academy. [MICHELLE CORUM]: And then at the other end of the scale, it was first loved by Americans. Any reason why that was? [MARC WILSON]: Well, it wasn't first loved by Americans, they did have their French adherents. But interestingly enough, Americans and particularly Midwesterners.

And I'm not quite sure why. Maybe because they weren't steeped in tradition as was the east coast, and they were seeking something new. There is perhaps a little bit in fact, of the parvenu in some of this collecting. And they were the great grain merchants from the Midwest, and the great implement manufacturers who went to Paris for these exhibitions and bought Impressionist pictures. And probably didn't "know any better." And that's how it all started really with the Midwest having such great collections of Impressionism. [MICHELLE CORUM]: Ok, Marc Wilson, thank you for talking with us about Impressionism - Selections from Five American Museums. [MARC WILSON]: Thank you. ***** [JIM MCLEAN]: Most everyone has heard the old joke about the cynical, humorous man whose neighbor greets him with a hearty, "Good morning!" And the man says, "I wonder what he really meant by that." Well, that's the kind of paranoia that was at work in the closing hours of the session in the wee hours of Sunday morning. There were Republican plans, Democratic counter-plans, and plans by other Republicans to sabotage the plans put forth by the Republican leadership. In other words, there was general confusion and plenty of frustration. The

problem was the billion dollar appropriations bill for the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. It funds the operations of state hospitals for the mentally retarded and mentally ill, and of course it also funds state welfare programs. The legislature, early in the session, restored a couple of welfare programs that Governor Hayden wanted to eliminate to save money. Money to continue those programs and many others in the next fiscal year is in this SRS bill. The house and senate versions of the bill are millions of dollars apart. The senate bill is more expensive, but both bills are millions of dollars over the governor's budget recommendations. And he made it clear on Saturday morning that because of the state's budget problems, he intended to veto the compromise version of the bill. [MIKE HAYDEN]: The legislature currently is $70 million over the budget recommendations in the state General Fund, and over $100 million in all funds -- over the budget. Any appropriation bill with major overspending is a candidate for a veto. Any appropriation bill.

[JIM MCLEAN]: As the day wore on, it became apparent to legislative leaders that none of the versions of the SRS funding bill were going to be acceptable to the governor. And so late Saturday evening after meeting in house speaker Jim Braden's office, Republican and Democratic leaders of the senate huddled with their members on the floor to announce the game plan. Senate Democratic leader Mike Johnston said the plan was for the conference committee to agree on a bill that was identical to the original house version of the measure. Remember, it was the less expensive version. Johnston said the plan was for the legislature to send the governor the house version, even though he'd confirmed to legislative leaders he intended to veto it. That, Johnston said, would simply mean the legislature would have to start all over on the bill when they returned for the wrap-up session. [MIKE JOHNSTON]: This is the first time to me it's been confirmed the governor will veto it. So insofar as I'm concerned, it's kind of a moot exercise, and if that facilitates getting us out of here, then in my judgment that's not an unreasonable structure. [MALE REPORTER]: What form will the conference committee need to go back and meet-? [MIKE JOHNSTON]: They'll have to get a report, yes... [AUDIO FADES OUT] [JIM MCLEAN]: And so the senate went to work, and it approved the

conference committee report that contained the house version of the SRS funding bill. The house was expected to do the same. But members of both parties caucused, and it became clear that most of the Democrats and a group of conservative Republican dissidents were not going to vote for the bill. That angered house speaker Jim Braden, who accused the Democrats of playing political games, because many of them had voted for the bill three weeks ago when it originally passed the house. [JIM BRADEN]: Someone suggested I read off all of the names of the people that voted for this when it passed the first time -- but I won't do that. [CROWD CLAMORING] Do you think I should? No. [CROWD CLAMORING] [JIM BRADEN SIGHS] Well, it's obvious again that games are being played. [JIM MCLEAN]: Braden essentially accused house Democratic leader Marvin Barkis of going back on his word. Braden said Barkis told him the Democrats would vote for the bill, knowing the governor was going to veto it -- just so the legislature could adjourn. Barkis said he told Braden only

that he would carry the plan back to his members and suggest it to them. Barkis said he did that, and his members didn't like it. He said they didn't want to give the governor an opportunity to veto the bill and then spend the next two weeks attacking the legislature for overspending his budget -- a budget which many Democrats charge was purposely underfunded to put the legislature in a position where it had no choice but to increase it. [MARVIN BARKIS]: The governor really had one goal in this SRS budget. It wasn't to shape a product. It was to veto a product, so that he could be perceived in the political process as somehow the conservative who's made a real special hit on the social spending. You remember back at the early part of this session, he talked about tying property tax to welfare, and tried to make that connection. That may still be in the game plans. [JIM MCLEAN]: When it came time to vote on the bill, and the preliminary vote numbers went up on the tally boards in the house chamber, more than 30 Democrats who had voted for the bill earlier in the session were voting against it. Hoping to force some of them and some of the dissident

Republicans to change their votes, house leaders imposed a call of the house. That's when the members are required to be in their seats while attempts are made to locate members who aren't present and bring them back. Calls were made to the Highway Patrol, and efforts were begun to track down four house members. One was in Wichita, two others were in Kansas City, and the fourth was in Washington, D.C. He received a call in his hotel room, and was reportedly told to make arrangements to get on the first available plane back to Kansas City. He didn't have to come back. After more than an hour the call was raised, because it became clear that even if all the absent members were brought back and each voted in favor of the bill, it still wouldn't be enough to pass it. So the bill failed, and a disgusted speaker Jim Braden adjourned the house at 2:15 in the morning. [JIM BRADEN]: We could have been out of here at 9:00 if it wasn't for this type of game playing, and I'm very disgusted. [JIM MCLEAN]: But in 2 1/2 weeks, Braden and the other 164 members of the legislature will be back to try to wrap up the 1990 session. That, too, could be a very contentious affair, with several major spending bills

left to be resolved with veto threats hanging over them, and the issue of property tax relief yet to be settled. For Kansas Public Radio, I'm Jim McLean at the statehouse. ***** [BOB KIRBY]: In yesterday's news release, David Ambler, the vice chancellor for Student Affairs said, regarding the incident at the SAE house 10 days ago, that the fraternity would be reviewed by an advisory panel of students, administrative staff, and a faculty member. Ambler called for the review panel to issue a report on the fraternity's attitudes and behavior in relation to cultural and racial awareness. The panel will also recommend action to deal with problems that are identified, and that the report be completed by the end of the semester. The news release does not indicate what, if any, action could or might be taken against the fraternity. While it is clear that Black students feel a sense of outrage over the Ann Dean incident and their perception of how the university chooses to resolve it, just as clear is the resentment those students feel over an incident two years ago when members of the Ku Klux Klan spoke on campus. That incident resulted in

creation of a Minority Affairs Task Force. To sum up the feelings of many Black students, there's been a lot of meetings, and a lot of reports got prepared -- but there's been no action. Meanwhile, Black enrollment at KU continues to decline. Quoting now from yesterday's news release, Ambler announced the formation of a student advisory group for the KU Office of Minority Affairs. Leaders of student organizations will receive cultural diversity training beginning next fall. The news report states that Ambler unveiled a multi-faceted plan last Friday to student representatives. Mark McCormick is a leader of the student group Black Men of Today. [MARK MCCORMICK]: We came away from that meeting somewhat dissatisfied with what the university wanted to do. We felt like a lot more should be done, a lot more could be done. And if we wanted to avoid a violent situation, a lot more must be done by the administration to change the climate here. [BOB KIRBY]: Have you been involved with that Minority

Affairs Task Force that was formed as a result of the KKK visit? Or do you have any comment about what they have done? [MARK MCCORMICK]: Firstly, faculty members here, staff members here, people who don't go to school here, you know, people from other institutions, as well as people who served on the committee, on the Task Force, have said almost unanimously that it was a waste of time, that it didn't really address the issues, and that it was in all aspects an impotent piece of administrative -- how would you say it -- fluff? [BOB KIRBY]: Ok, so what could or should be done? Members of Black Men of Today say Black enrollment should increase, not slide, at KU. John Lewis serves on the Big Eight Council of Black Student Unions, and recently came away from a meeting with facts and statistics about what's being done at other Big Eight schools. [JOHN LEWIS]: Kansas State University has

set up an outreach program in Kansas City, which KU used to have, but has been lying dormant or defunct for, I would say, three years. And there has been no active commitment from the university to restart it. [BOB KIRBY]: According to Lewis, the K-State outreach resulted in a two percent enrollment increase of Blacks over a one year period. And, says Lewis, OU and OSU both have good programs for encouragement of Black enrollment and retention. Cash incentives are offered students who get other Blacks to enroll and to stay. But, according to Lewis, Mizzou has a multi-featured minority program that has resulted in a six percent increase of enrollment among Blacks -- six percent over two and a half years. Last night, the students listened to Bill Whitcomb, of the Kansas City office of the Department of Justice. Whitcomb is essentially a mediator, working to resolve ethnic tensions using existing institutional frameworks. He offered the students his services, as long as they are willing to work within existing grievance procedures. I'm Bob Kirby. *****

[MALE SPEAKER]: More and more, opening day is a bittersweet experience for me, a Yankee fan in Royal country. I was born in New York City, and despite the fact that my parents had the good sense to move when I was three years old, supporting the Bronx Bombers remains my only lifetime attachment in sports. Joe DiMaggio was the first ballplayer I ever recognized, and Mickey Mantle came up to the majors when I was five and stayed until I graduated from college. As a kid, I could look with scorn upon my friends who rooted for Cleveland or Pittsburgh. Their teams might win an occasional pennant, but the Yankees were an institution -- a pinstriped machine that would go on forever. Well, I didn't reckon on George Steinbrenner. In 1973, he became the Yanks' principal owner. And since then, it's been all downhill. Oh, during the 1970s

they won a World Series, and they continue to win their share of games. But increasingly, the press has come to pay more attention to George and his machinations than the players on the field. It was Steinbrenner who gave us Billy Martin as a continuing story of baseball brilliance, alcoholism, and mental imbalance. It was Steinbrenner who fired Dick Howser -- Dick Howser, for Lord's sake! -- when he had the Yankees in first place. It was Steinbrenner who chased off -- permanently -- Yogi Berra, perhaps the ultimate Yankee loyalist. And it is Steinbrenner who may well force Don Mattingly into free agency at the end of this season. If we judge a man by his enemies, anyone who alienates a Howser, a Berra, and a Mattingly -- three princes -- must be a complete fool, at best. Over the 1980s, I gradually became more distanced from George's team. I wouldn't look at the standings. I didn't know how Mattingly was doing. I never recognized their shortstop. It was some new guy every week. All the while, I had the counter-example of

the Royals to make the Yankees look all the worse. The Royals had long-term goals, winning ways on the field, and a benevolent owner. They were an easy team to like, if not to fall in love with. The Royals could hire Dick Howser, win with him, and treat him with grace and dignity during his fatal illness, while the Yankees fired Yogi and played footsie with Billy. Still, it's been difficult to put aside my Yankee partisanship. They have the best uniforms, the best stadium, and some of the best ball players in baseball. But last year, in the off season, George finally did it. He pushed me and thousands of other Yankee fans over the edge. At a time when the Royals were shelling out big bucks for some of the best pitching in baseball, George Steinbrenner was reaching for his checkbook to hire the legendary Pascual Pérez. Pascual Pérez -- $1.5 mil per year. Pascual Pérez, a wacko drug head, is now the Yankees' number one

pitcher. Pascual Pérez -- who had visa troubles, pitched a grand total of three ineffective innings in spring training, and the Yanks left him behind in Florida. When Yogi Berra was fired in 1985, he announced that he was finished with the Yankees until Steinbrenner was gone. Move over, Yogi. George is holding you, me, and millions of fans hostage to his overblown ego. Now he's embroiled with a gambler, and maybe the commissioner can find a way to suspend him, or better yet, to make him sell the team. Now I know I can't expect much sympathy from a bunch of Royal backers. But just think -- if George sells, who will buy? Donald Trump, of course! Now that would be a twosome -- The Donald plus Pascual Pérez. Maybe some Royals season tickets are now in order. ***** [MARK CREAMER]: Right now, a lot of people

might think it's just a joke that I would declare my candidacy for U.S. Representative, District 2. But hopefully, very soon, you know, it's going to become more believable, and my campaign will begin to snowball. And at some point, I think the Democrats, at least some, are going to realize that, you know, they want to get in on this. [BOB KIRBY]: You heard it here first. Mark Creamer plans on seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Representative from the 2nd Congressional District. Creamer says he'll run his campaign on no money. Rather than pay the filing fee of almost $1,000, Creamer is collecting petitions. The Kansas secretary of state's office says he'll need more than 1200 signatures -- and if he can collect them, he'll be on the August primary ballot against incumbent congressman Jim Slattery. [MARK CREAMER]: I don't have any money to spend on this campaign, and I'm- as a matter of fact, all my signs and placards are written, you know, magic marker on recycled cardboard. You know, people don't like that

idea, that if you have enough money, you're going to buy your way into winning an election. And I'm going to run on ideas, and I don't have to pound them and pound them into the public's head, because I think they're going to remember who I am. And if they hear what I say once, they'll remember it. [BOB KIRBY]: So, what about Mark Creamer's platform? Legalization of marijuana, for one thing. He says doing that would provide a $50 billion peace dividend. [MARK CREAMER]: Now that figure includes money that's now being spent on putting marijuana smokers in jail, or wasting that money pursuing marijuana users. Plus, there's money that we could be making by taking advantage of the marijuana or hemp crop. You know, farmers could make money growing marijuana -- not to get high, but for making clothes and for

making paper. [BOB KIRBY]: Creamer is also interested in environmental and recycling concerns that he plans to formulate into a campaign platform. [MARK CREAMER]: I have a family of eight, and- which makes me, really, pretty conservative, traditional, in a lot of my views, even though it may seem like I am liberal on this issue of marijuana. But my background, my working background, is one in actually working in the real world, the material world, and I'm a problem solver. I mean, when I went to college, in physics we solved problems of guys rowing boats across rivers with currents and winds blowing, and, you know, how long is it going to take them to get across the river. I was a problem solver in that way. And then as a plumber, I

solved real problems, where you go out and you diagnose what's wrong, and you fix it. And you don't get paid until the job's done and it works. So what I, what I feel is that I have experience in problem solving. And that that's what Congress needs desperately right now. They don't need people who can argue for or against different laws. They need somebody with some ideas on how to actually solve problems instead of just arguing about them. [BOB KIRBY]: Mark Creamer is married, has six children, a degree in social psychology from KU, and is a former plumbing contractor. Now he is a sculptor and house husband, and is preparing for a court appearance April 20 in connection with his apprehension last autumn, when he smoked an alleged marijuana cigarette at the police station. Creamer's attorney, Jerry Harper, will attempt to persuade a Douglas County district judge that prosecuting Creamer for smoking

marijuana is an invasion of First Amendment rights -- that smoking marijuana, at least as regards the incident September 5, was Mark Creamer's way of protesting existing law. I'm Bob Kirby. ***** [MALE SPEAKER]: For the past week, the Lawrence community, and the whole nation for that matter, have been focusing attention on AIDS as a part of AIDS Awareness Week. This will not be the last AIDS Awareness Week for sure, because AIDS will not be going away in the near future. I've been involved in the AIDS issue since the very beginning, which is really only for about 10 years. We have a very short history with this disease, so we have little idea how it will play itself out. I can say with some certainty that most people who are listening will be touched very personally by AIDS before this is all over, as many have already been touched. Some of our friends, colleagues, children, relatives, neighbors, et cetera, will die, and we will mourn those losses. AIDS, but more importantly HIV,

the human immunodeficiency virus, is a reality in our community. Nationally, there are well over 100,000 cases of AIDS, and in Kansas, over 300. But that is only the tip of the iceberg, and we have little to fear from those who are already suffering from AIDS or the 60 percent who have already died. Our concern needs to be with the 1.5 million to 3 million persons who are seropositive, that is, who have been exposed to the virus. The large bulk of these folks do not know that they have the HIV virus. Thus, they are the ones who might unwittingly pass on to each other and to us in unprotected sexual interactions, in sharing IV drug needles, or in giving birth to children, the HIV virus. There has been a lot of education about AIDS over the past five years, and lots of people in Lawrence know the facts. Unfortunately, knowing the facts will not necessarily prevent the transmission of the virus and its ultimate conversion to AIDS. We will be protected only if we learn how to avoid risk behaviors. Behavior is what prevents.

I know students who who get As on the AIDS test, yet are unwilling or unable to use condoms and spermicides in their sexual interactions. And it is in sexual interactions that the bulk of transmission is occurring, irrespective of erotic orientation -- although its incidence in IV drug use is going up, while sexual transmission is going down. Right now I have one major concern regarding the AIDS reality. We have to begin to put AIDS in its context. That context is human sexuality. We are teaching about AIDS, yet we are reluctant to teach openly, honestly, and comprehensively about the sexual interactions in which AIDS transmission occurs. If young people are not affirmed as sexual human beings, if they are not well informed about their sexuality, as well as the sexuality of others, if they are burdened by shame and guilt and myth, they will not be able to anticipate their experience of acting upon their sexual feelings -- and act they will. If you cannot anticipate

sexual interactions, if you deny your sexuality, if you suddenly change your mind about your commitment to virginity, then prevention will be impossible. Prevention requires knowing what you are- knowing that you- let me start that over. Prevention requires knowing that you are a sexual human being, and knowing how you would behave when faced with a sexual interaction that may contain significant risk of exposure to AIDS, or to STDs, or to pregnancy. If we do not get serious about teaching sexuality seriously, then AIDS will continue to plague young people. We will need to talk straight and behaviorally explicit in our teaching about AIDS and human sexuality. Without that, people have no basis on which to build behavioral change. All they have is ideas and facts, and that will never be enough, since ideas and facts are necessary, but not sufficient, in prevention. If you care about yourself and your children, you will need to be active and supportive in the

development of comprehensive and honest sex education, whether that education be in individual loving relationships, at home in the family, or in schools where each child is exposed to education throughout the entire learning process. ***** [MALE SPEAKER]: Optimists point to the off season acquisition of pitchers Mark Davis and Storm Davis, and call the Royals the team to beat in the American West. Pessimists, however, emphasize the pre-geriatric condition of regulars George Brett, Frank White, and Bob Boone, and foresee failure for the franchise that tossed money around this winter like snowflakes. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. I don't think, for instance, that The Davis and Davis Show assures a pennant. Nor do I believe that the long teeth of Brett, White, and Boone guarantee a flag-less summer. What I do think is that when the 1990 season is history, the names Bo Jackson and Danny Tartabull will be mentioned in the same sentence with Ruth and Gehrig,

Maris and Mantle, Aaron and Matthews, Canseco and McGwire, Mitchell and Clark. In other words, Jackson and Tartabull will blossom into baseball's next dynamic duo. Do you realize how much Jackson and Tartabull have in common? For example, they were born exactly a month apart in the fall of 1962, and were acquired by the Royals in 1986. Both bat right, throw right, and stand 6' 1." They played in both the same number of games, almost, last year -- Jackson was in 135, Tartabull, 133. They play the outfield in such a fashion that neither player's agent has ever sought contractual remuneration for winning a Gold Glove. They strike out about as often as newscasters trip over Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze's name. And they each earn about a million dollars a year, and they think they should be earning more. It's ironic that Tartabull's father Jose was a Major League outfielder in the '60s, because Danny is a

throwback to that era of slew-footed sluggers with so-so skills in the field. Young Tartabull, whose preen-ish personality hasn't always thrilled his teammates, isn't exactly a statue in the outfield, but I don't believe I've ever seen him catch a fly ball against the fence, either. His arm is pretty decent, though. Jackson may be twice as fast as Tartabull, and have twice as strong an arm, but he's not a better outfielder. Well, he isn't if you put a lot of stock in errors, but he is if you believe assists more important. Jackson led KC outfielders in both of those categories last season. Currently on the shelf with a leg injury, Tartabull might have to be used as the designated hitter when he returns, as he was in 55 games last year because of injuries. Regardless, I'm betting that if Jackson and Tartabull can remain relatively injury free, they're ready to burst on the national scene as baseball's next titanic tandem. *****

[SILENCE]