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Monday, February 13, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: SURGEON GENERAL DEBATE
Nomination needs intensive care
The embattled nomination of Henry Foster for surgeon general is yet another lesson for the Clinton administration in the game of political posturing. And it is a lesson that the White House and Foster are paying for needlessly.
There is a distinct danger inherent in giving unclear information to the press about "hot-button" issues such as abortion. And after the White House fudged on the precise number of abortions Foster had performed, the members of the media began to hover over him like hungry vultures.
Then, during an interview on ABC's Nightline, Foster said he had been pressured last week by administration officials to come up with an abortion estimate. A hospital records search showed that he was listed as the physician on 39 cases. This admission came after he put the number at fewer than a dozen the day after the nomination was announced by Clinton on Feb.2.
Regardless of which side of the abortion debate an opinion comes from, the issue elicits an extremely heated response. Politicians can win or lose large segments of public support
The debate over the number of abortions performed by Henry Foster shifts the focus from his overall record.
based on their abortion stance. And the surgeon general must have the skills of a politician, not just of a doctor. Jocelyn Elders demonstrated that.
Whether this topic should grab so much of the political spotlight is irrelevant. Abortion issues inevitably raise the eyebrows of the public. The Clinton administration should have known this. President Clinton himself had to deal with questions about pot smoking and draft dodging.
It seems that we are left to suppose that the White House staff, while sitting in the Oval Office discussing Foster's nomination, was saying things like, "Naw, the media and the public won't care if he performed a few minor fetus-removal procedures. Tell him to say, 'A few,' or, 'Less than a dozen.' They probably won't even ask him about it."
Obviously, people did. Now Foster looks like a liar, and the White House staff looks like a group of bungling fools.
MATT GOWEN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
Fall of HIV from headlines not a message to put guard down
THE ISSUE: THE UNRELENTING VIRUS
News about the HIV virus might be drifting from the headlines, but it still has a drastic impact on our lives.
College students are especially at risk. Recent studies show that HIV-related illness has become the No. 1 cause of death for people ages 25-44.In 1993,28,090 people died of HIV-related causes. The study also showed that heterosexual women, as a group, have had the largest increase in HIV diagnoses.
The University of Kansas is recognizing these statistics by putting more money into HIV education and prevention. This positive trend should continue and may help slow the increase in HIV-related deaths.
These statistics prove that people still need to take
Recent studies indicate that younger age groups, heterosexual women suffering most drastic increase in HIV.
care of themselves and their partners by using condoms or by practicing generally safe behavior.
No one is immune from HIV and the rise in the number of people infected show that not everyone has paid heed to the warnings. There has been much progress in increasing AIDS education in the last few years. We need to continue that progress in our media and in our classrooms.
If there continues to be heightened awareness, perhaps the next study will show that the number of people with HIV has decreased.
HEATHER LAWRENZ FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Robert Tapley / KANSAN
Holy month puts food, clothing and shelter into perspective
It is 5 a.m.
Someone has shaken me awake. It is my brother. He tells me it is time to eat. Rubbing my eyes and barely able to stand straight, I stagger to the dining table and begin eating. It is hard to fill myself up so early in the morning, but I have to. Because the next time I will eat will be around sunset. Until then I will neither eat nor drink.
That is how myself and nearly a billion other Muslims around the world will spend Ramadan, which began Feb. 1.
Ramadan, a holy month, is one of the five pillars of Islam. It involves abstinence from eating, drinking, having sex and other indulgences from sunrise to sunset. That is not all. A Muslim cannot smoke a cigarette, chew gum, eat candy or even take a sip of water. A Muslim must say all the five obligatory prayers during the day and commit oneself to worshiping God. It is a spiritual month during which Muslims all across the world come together with the knowledge that every Muslim is enduring the same hunger and the same thirst at the same time.
Each day during Ramadan, I put myself in the shoes of a homeless, poverty-stricken person, and I feel what hanger is about.
STAFF COLUMNIST
By midday my stomach burns and the thirst makes it impossible for me to focus on any given task. It gets
harder to concentrate in class or to study. I see my friends devouring their taco salads in Wescoe cafeteria or students sipping an ice-cold soda in class.
As I sit there watching them, I imagine a penniless person sitting there watching someone else eat
as their own stomach growls and burns.
I have also seen homeless families sleeping by the curbside. The children hold on to their mother's dress as she walks up to people begging for food or money. She endures the humiliation because her children's bellies are swollen; their bones stick out, and flies stick to their dirty hair. This is just one of the many reasons why it is important to put yourself in a poor, hungry person's shoes. Because hunger exists, like it or not. It is our reality.
I remember the television image of a Somali woman who had a few grains of rice in her hand that she was feeding to her malnourished child. The CNN reporter pointed out that this woman had run behind a food convoy and picked up the tiny grains
of rice as they fell onto the ground.
These are things I say to myself knowing that I am not perfect. But I know that there are those among us who have no feelings for others. Like that group of giggling students whom I encountered in an elevator one day. They had stolen some bagels from their residence hall cafeteria and were so amused by their escapade that they were laughing uncontrollably. One girl dropped a bagel on the elevator floor. When she didn't pick it up, I asked her if she was going to pick it up. She laughingly said, "No." So I picked up the bagel, thrust it between her folded arms and said, "There are people dying in Somalia," and walked out the elevator. She didn't reply.
Although Ramadan serves many spiritual and communal purposes, to me it is a constant reminder of life and its inequality. I always say to myself, "I could have been that hungry child on the street or the begging mother. But somehow, God took mercy on me and gave me food, clothing, shelter, education, a loving healthy family and other luxuries."
So as you sleep tonight, thank God or your lucky stars for all your blessings.
A happy. blissful Ramadan to all.
Muneera Naseer is a Lawrence senior in journalism and political science.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"KILLING IS FUN ONLY FROM AN AIRPLANE"
"KILLING IS FUN ONLY FROM AN AIRPLANE"
—Author Kurt Vonnegut during his Feb. 9 speech at the Lied Center, referring to the Persian Gulf War and to former President George Bush's history as a pilot.
"THE SECOND ONE WASN'T HIS BEST. I MIGHT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BLOCK IT." Kansas men's basketball coach Roy Williams on Greg Ostertag's Big Eight Conference record-tying 228th blocked shot Feb. 4 against Iowa State. With 3:58 remaining in the first half, Ostertag got his 229th blocked shot, becoming the conference's all-time leader.
"HER LIFE GOAL WAS TO HELP CHILDREN, ESPECIALLY SPANISH-SPEAKING CHILDREN."
—Max Stewart, about his daughter, Heather Stewart, a 20-year-old Kansas State student, who was struck by a bus and killed Feb.4 in Spain, where she was studying abroad.
"IT'S GOING TO BE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT HEALTH PROBLEM THE WORLD HAS TO FACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY."
KANSAN STAFF
—Charles Yockey, Watkins health center physician, on the proliferation of HIV.
compiled from Kansan staff reports the week of Feb. 6
Republicans could take some niceness lessons from Sesame Street
Well, the Republicans have had control of Congress for more than a month, and they've shown all the emotional maturity and self-control of a third-grade bully who's finally
STAFF COLUMNIST
managed to chase all the other kids out of the sand-box.
First came the revelation by the mother of our esteemed speaker of the House that her "Newtie" had referred to Hillary Clinton as the bword. What kind of mother lets her kid get away with that kind of language and then on
top of that, goes around giggling about it with Connie Chung? If my mother had ever heard me call someone a name like that, I would have gotten a mouthful of Irish Spring. No wonder Newt acts like a spoiled child so much of the time. Mrs. Gingrich probably never sent him to bed without supper, which might explain why he has no qualms about doing just that to our nation's poor.
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
The name-calling continued with House Majority Leader Dick Arney. In a radio interview, he referred to openly gay Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts as "Barney fag" and then had the nerve to say that he had just mispronounced Frank's last name. Anyone named Dick should know better than to make cracks about people's names.
Another highlight was a dispute between some members of Congressional Black Caucus and the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Republican Gerald Solomon of New York. Solomon hung a picture of the late Howard Smith in the committee chambers. Smith was a former Rules Committee chairman who is remembered as a staunch segregationist and enemy of civil rights legislation. I suppose Solomon was unable to locate a painting of George Wallace or David Duke.
Arney's comment came just days after Republican Rep. Robert Dornan of California was banned from speaking on the House floor for 24 hours. He had given a speech in which he accused President Clinton of giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" during the Vietnam War. I was not aware that exercising one's right to free speech was equivalent to sending milk and cookies to the other side. All this Republican kvetching about Clinton's college activist past really chafes my hide. So many students these days can't even be bothered to watch the news unless they've misplaced the remote control, and they're too drunk to find it. We should be happy to have a president who demonstrated some blance of brain activity during his college years.
This Republican bullying has begun to spill out of Washington into other parts of the country as well. The other day, I ran across a newspaper article about a bill in the Tennessee Legislature that would make vandalism, burglary and flag burning (does the "one of these things is not like the other" song from Sesame Street come to mind here?) punishable by public caning on the courthouse steps. Care to guess what party the bill's authors belong to?
Maybe I should call up my 3-year-old niece and have her talk with these guys about how to play nice.
Chris Hampton is a Lawrence graduate student in higher education.
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HUBIE
By Greg Hardin