4A
Wednesday, December 7, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Get out and support the women's basketball team
It has been a great week for Kansas basketball, and everyone seems to be getting in the mood for a great season. Crimson and blue are becoming popular colors on campus.
But in the mad rush to push the men's team to No. 1, students often forget to support another fabulous group of athletes: the women's basketball team.
The Editorial Board in the past has urged students to attend these games, but attendance is still sadly lacking. So, it seems the encouragement bears repeating.
With a team that is so wellrecognized nationally, every seat should be filled at every home game, especially because there is no admission for students with a KUID.
LADY JAYHAWKS They deserve respect, support
Most students do not get a
chance to see this much action on television, unless they pay for ESPN. Let alone a chance to see live action for free.
Whatever the reason, students should support women's athletic programs as much as the men's.
The young women on the teamwork overtime to maintain a good reputation for KU while they maintain their course work.
It is time for students to come out and support the women who work hard to put KU on the lips of people around the country.
Students should take advantage of an excellent opportunity to see some phenomenal basketball.
DONELLA HEARNE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
Clinton is right to appoint a bioethics committee
President Clinton recently echoed the concerns of many people by blocking the use of federal funds for the creation of human embryos to be used in research.
He made the point that there are too many ethical problems yet to be solved to allow scientists to create and destroy human life in a petri dish, even if the research could aid in increasing in vitro fertilization success rates or in finding a cure for cancer.
But more important than refusing to allow federal funding of this project is Clinton's proposal to create a committee on bioethics to study such questions.
As bioethics and the scientific manufacture of life forms become more and more possible technologically, there also should be more thought given to whether we should play with biology.
Soon enough we will see tomatoes injected with frog DNA in our supermarkets, which seems dangerous
EMBRYO RESEARCH
EMBRYO RESEARCH Ethical dilemas remain
enough in itself. But how willing are we to allow human embryos to be injected with foreign matter? And if we allow it for short-term experiments, won't scientists eventually want to record the long-term effects? The administration, although long overdue, seems interested in making a conscious effort to address these concerns.
And though the Food and Drug Administration is generally in charge of food product safety, it does not exercise any control over the ethical issues involved. The nation definitely needs a separate committee to address the many questions that arise when dealing with the ever-increasing capabilities of bioengineering.
To protect our environment and our society Clinton must make good on the proposal and put a bioethics committee into place as soon as possible.
DONELLA HEARNE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO Editor
JEN CARR Business manager
CHRISTOPH FUHRMANS Managing editor
CAMERON DEATH Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH Systems coordinator
Business Staff
News ... Sara Bennett
Editorial ... Donnelley Heame
Campus ... Mark Martin
Sports ... Brian Jamese
Photo ... Daron Bennett
... Mellissa Lacey
Features ... Traed Carl
Planning Editor ... Susan White
Design ... Noah Musser
Assistant to the editor .. Robbie Johnson
Campus mgr ... Mark Masto
Regional mgr ... Laura Guth
National mgr ... Mark Masto
Coop mgr ... Emily Gibson
Special Sections mgr ... Jen Perrier
Production mgrs ... Holly Boren
... Regan Overy
Marketing director ... Alan Stiglic
Creative director ... Dan Gier
Classified mgr ... Heather Niahou
Editors
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must mimic the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Michigan have written to us.
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Chinese law will destroy rights of disabled
Picture this: You and your mate want to have a baby, but when the doctor tells you you're pregnant, he advises you to have an abortion. He tells you that there is a chance your baby might have the wrong skin color, might be too tall or too short or might never be as valued a human being as other children.
Imagine a law that would forbid you to marry the person of your dreams because you might not have the perfect baby.
make suggestions that turn out to be wrong or even harmful because much of the research done on disabilities is based on assumptions formed in the context of a non-disabled world.
A similar law will be implemented in China next summer. It does not deal with color or height but rather with disability. This law will prohibit marriages between people who might have disabled children. The Chinese leadership has decided that it simply cannot afford to have less-than-perfect human beings in China. It has decided that anyone who is not "normal" is, by definition, less than perfect.
Horrible you say? Racist? Outrageous?
It is fair to ask then how such a law will be implemented in Chinese society?
Whose version of the truth will be used to determine who is fit to live or die?
In order to stem international criticism, China has left its new law vague, saying it only applies to diseases that
"totally or partially deprive the victim of the ability to live independently," according to Newsweek.
It is a dangerous precedent to set.
HEATHER KIRKWOOD
A society that would enact such a law in the first place is ill-equipped to make decisions about who can or cannot live independently.
If the same policies were carried out in Germany, alarm bells would be heard around the world, and parallels would be drawn to Germany's grisly past, yet what will happen in China?
I wonder how this works. A bureaucrat, whose knowledge about disabilities most likely comes from "experts" who are not disabled, will decide who is worthy of being born?
The Chinese will say it comes down to economics. They don't believe that people who don't live totally independently can contribute to society. They
What country will tangle with a nation like China? Not the United States. We have unlinked human rights to trade, remember?
Yet these same bureaucrats will fail to make the necessary investment so these disabled children could become productive citizens. Chances are, a large portion of the disabled Chinese community could contribute to society in meaningful ways but are not encouraged or expected to do so.
will argue that these children simply will be a life-long drain on society.
Discrimination against the disabled, anywhere in the world, is hard to fight.
It is a similar battle to those fought by many racial, ethnic or religious minorities everywhere. But disabled people often do not have the same social structures to fall back on.
If you are discriminated against because of the color of your skin or the country you come from, chances are at least the other members of your family have the same skin color or the same national background as you do.
However, if you are born with a disability, the same structures do not exist.
By the way, don't forget that no one is really perfect.
As a result, your parents consult experts who are not disabled to tell them what to do. These experts often
Yet, if such policies are allowed to casually become standard around the world, even grislier ones are not far behind.
Heather Kirkwood is a Wichita junior in Journalism.
MYTHS OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON:
Matt Hood/ KANSAN
Future brawlers get kick from learning martial arts
It was a remarkable sight for these times.
Sitting in groups on the gymnasium floor were 80 children from ages 6 to 8. As children are inclined to do, most were chattering, laughing, elbowing, gawking and generally creating a head-nounding racket.
Then a muscular man walked onto the floor and in a voice that was firm, but not loud, he said only one word. . . "tot."
"Quiet."
It was if he had plucked out their little tongues. They suddenly sat straight and looked at him like good bird dogs eager for a command.
One mother said, "Unbelievable. I'd have to stuff a dishrag in his mouth to make him that quiet."
Someone else said, "How does he do it?"
It was an exhibition and competition by students and teachers from a karate school. The man and all the kids were barefoot and wearing loose white pants and blouses, with belts of various colors showing what stage of
Just then, the muscular man turned and asked the spectators for silence. Their talking, he said, would disturb the children. Everybody shut up and the program began.
"Maybe he kicks them in the head if they don't shut up."
MIKE ROYKO
Whatever the reason, it made a convert out of me.
skill they had reached.
The teacher's belt was black. Maybe that was why the kids clamped up.
I had been troubled by the growing popularity of karate and other martial arts training among the nation's youths, especially those in the suburbs. It seemed un-American for kids to be leaping and twirling like a lot of little Japanese assassins. Our tradition had been to settle disputes with a punch in the chops, not a kick to the brow.
I'm told it's the result of their fondness for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is something else that troubled me. My generation would never have embraced some ugly,
But an entire generation is growing up believing that the way to fight is to squint, spin and kick an adversary's brow, while screaming: "Eeeeyaaach!"
green, pizza-eating, talking turtles who lived in sewers as heroes.
This could make for some strange looking barroom fights in the future, with everyone whirling, leaping and kicking this way and that. The winners will be whoever is soer enough to stand on one foot. And chances are, all these suburban-bred karate tots will be America's future barroom brawl losers, since a toe kick will never replace a well-aimed bottle.
There is also the problem of height. In Japan, most people are about the same size, short or shorter, except for their beer-bellied wrestlers. So it's usually an even match when the Japanese pummel their brows.
But our superior diet of hamburgers and fries has given us youths whose added heads brush the top of a door frame. What will happen when some stubby lad squares off against someone the size of Will Perdue? He'll find himself squashed under a size 19 triple D, that's what.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Parental discipline teaches respect
I was raised in a single income, 11 member, loving Islamic family. We did not have much money, but my brothers, sisters and I managed to stay out of trouble. We were able to pursue some type of higher education. We were able to attain certain goals because of good fortune and the teaching of respect and discipline by our parents.
My parents taught me at an early age how to respect them, the people around me and myself. One major problem with today's materialistic, nondisciplined and immoral society is that mothers and fathers do not instill in their children the important values of respect for self. If you don't respect yourself, how in the world can you respect someone else? Do you think the drug dealer has any respect for his victims? Or the white collar embezzler respects his company at all? The cold blooded murderer does not have a trace of respect for the gift of precious human life!
The idea of having proper discipline in the household is fading fast. Whatever happened to the old-fashioned beattings that I was accustomed to and remembered so vividly and frequently as a growing child? Whatever happened to responding to your parents or other adults with a quick and direct, "Yes, sir," or "No'ma am," an answer I was conditioned to give, instead of today's typical, "WHAT!"
A man needs to show a woman the respect he expects a person to give to his mother or sister. Men also need to show more respect for their bodies and minds and quit polluting the two with the excess of drugs, alcohol and profanities. Woman also need to start having more respect for themselves. Physical beauty should not be thought of as paramount. All of you are beautiful in a special way. So, you ladies should take off some of that makeup, loosen up some of those clothes and quit having sex with every guy you find semi-amusing. We all need to respect the dying. So, please take time out and say a prayer for them.
Many of today's problems stem from the past, when the majority group did not respect the minority group. We need to remember that respect should be a natural right and not a privilege. We all want to receive it, but we don't want to give it. So to all of my solitary brothers and sisters out there, I know there is still a part of you that wants to give, so treat others exactly the way you want to be treated.
Harun Hazim
Topeka senior