Opinion
Kansan
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Ann Premer, *Editor* Jamie Holman, *Business manager*
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Friday, February 26, 1999
Robert James Novak / KANSAN
Editorials
Senate attempt by Hillary Clinton important for political equality
Historically, major political jobs have been reserved for white males. As the millennium inches closer, it is important for the United States to have more women and minorities run for major political offices.
The movement of women in politics took a gigantic step in the right direction with the news that Elizabeth Dole may run for president in 2000. She would be a legitimate candidate, and her very presence in the election could motivate more women to enter major political elections.
Now, Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that she may run for a New York Senate seat. This also would be another gain for women in politics. Despite the fact that she would be a junior senator, she would have an extremely high profile. It would show that women can successfully have an
An endeavor by the first lady could encourage other women to seek public office.
upper-level political position.
Polls show that Hillary Clinton would win in a head-to-head election with either current mayor Rudolph Giuliani or New York Gov. George Pataki. Although polls do not always tell the full story, it is a positive sign to see that Hillary Clinton could be a strong candidate.
Questions surround the possibility of Hillary Clinton running for Senate. First, the Clintons have astronomical legal bills, rumored to be millions of dollars. Though being a senator is a high-profile job, it pays an annual salary of $133,600. Hillary Clinton most
likely would need to find a higher paying job, as public appearances could pay as much or likely more than work as a full year as a senator.
Also, it is not guaranteed that New York would embrace a candidate who has no true affiliation with the state. New York has very loose laws concerning who can run for Senate, which is the main reason why Clinton would run in New York.
With all the questions, and regardless of how Hillary Clinton's affiliation with her husband would affect her candidacy, the initiative is good for women who have political aspirations. There are not many women who are in high-profile political roles, and there will not be many until some of the barriers are broken. Hillary Clinton's running for senator would be a good start.
Emily Haverkamp for the editorial board
Eating disorders demand special help
Today marks the end of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Its purpose is to inform the public about disorders and what can be done to help those who are afflicted with it.
For example, a man or woman becomes anorexic when someone feels as if she has no control of his or her life. A person with anorexia believes that if his or her body weight were lower, problems would be alleviated. An anorexic does understand that he or she is too thin. This body-image distortion is hard to change.
Heightened awareness through media has had adverse effects. Disorders became a conversation topic with the success of models such as Kate Moss. More recently, television star Calista Flockhart has been scrutinized. Because of these womens'
Awareness Week ends today, but sufferers still need support.
role in pop culture, comedians play up the model who eats only two carrots a day.
Anorexia and bulimia are not a joke. However, if media continue to perpetuate this ideal, more women may think that it is a method for weight loss and success.
On college campuses, it is estimated that 15 percent of women have an eating disorder.
cocaine. When a person stops eating, they lose brain cells, muscle tissue and reproductive function. When a person binges and purges, they lose teeth, speech, and they harm internal organs.
No anorexic or bulimic individual is happy, or healthy. If someone knows about a friend who is anorexic or bulimic, the time to take action is now. Eating disorders are as addictive and deadly as
If it continues, they will die.
It may seem hard to tell a friend that they need to get help. Eating disorders are personal, and most anorexics are masters at keeping this disease a secret from everyone. However, others at the University of Kansas who have been in the same place and are on the road to recovery because they got help. Anyone who has questions or seeks help can contact Watkins Health Center at 864-9500 or Counseling and Psychological Services at 864-2277.
Now is the time to help a friend, or yourself, gain control.
Kathryn Jensen for the editorial board
Kansan staff
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.” —Napoleon I
Letterst: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Guest columns: Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staufer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Ryan Koerner or Jeromy Doherm at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Two Brooklyn teen-agers recently were playing with a gun they had bought on the black market when one shot the other in the head. The wounded teen lived and
Gun users, not makers responsible for safety
Perspective
Robert K.
Funk
opinion@kansan.com
sued the gun industry. A New York jury found several gun makers responsible for the accidental shooting.
The decision, although controversial, opens the door to similar lawsuits in other cities such as Chicago, New Orleans and Miami. It's not really important to understand why the decision was controversial or to evaluate its value as precedent for future suits. It is important to ask why the jury blamed the actions of an individual
can why the jury blamed manufacturers for the actions of an individual.
I'll make my point by telling a story. A boy started playing with toy guns (as most boys do), and his parents started to teach him the difference between toy guns and real guns. They told him that although it was OK to point and shoot play guns at the other kids, one must never do that with real guns.
"Toy guns don't hurt people," they said, "but real guns do." Real guns, like those in Dad's gun cabinet, were very dangerous and were not for kids.
When he got older, his dad (a former Army drill sergeant) carefully introduced him to real guns. The boy started out shooting a BB rifle. He was taught that you always keep the gun pointed at the ground and that you never, ever point it at people. He was taught to be very careful where he shot the gun and to study the background to see whether there was anything there that should be avoided. He was taught to keep the gun unloaded whenever possible and always to use the safety. He was taught that the gun was not to be shot in town. In fact, it never should be out of the gun cabinet except for appropriate use or cleaning. The young man was taught never to horse around with the gun or to show it off to friends.
speak. He began shooting a. 22-caliber rifle and a. 410-gauge shotgun. He started with bolt actions, then moved up to semiautomatics. He learned how to shoot a handgun, again starting with a BB pistol and working his way up. The young man did a lot of hunting and a lot of target shooting in those early years. By the time he was ready to move out of his parents' home, he was fairly well-versed in the responsible use and care of firearms.
He slowly moved up the gun ladder, so to
Living on his own, he continued to enjoy guns. He no longer enjoyed hunting, but he still enjoyed target shooting. He began collecting firearms. He bought handguns, rifles and shotguns. He got into more exotic weapons, such as TEC-9s, SKSs, AK-47s and tactical shotguns.
I don't belong to a militia. I'm not even a NRA member. In fact, I'm all for practical gun control such as waiting periods and background checks. Although I probably have enough "dangerous weapons" to make most persons nervous, that kid in Brooklyn with the stolen handgun is much more dangerous than I'll ever be. Why? Because my parents did their job.
The formative years of Timothy McVeigh,
perhaps? Nope. The stovy is autobiographical.
I'm just a mild-mannered student trudging through his final year of classes and preparing to start a career in business.
They taught me to own and use guns responsibly. They taught me to respect the property of others. Most importantly, they taught me to respect life.
One of two things happened in New York. Either the teen-ager's parents were AWOL when they should have been doing their job, or the kid knew about the dangers of firearms and simply put that information aside. If you want to hold someone responsible for what happened in Brooklyn, look to the parents or the kid, as appropriate. Don't blame an inanimate object, and don't blame the people who make them. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's an old cliché, but it still rings true. We can't make the world completely safe, no matter how hard we try. People need to take responsibility for their own actions, and we need to place that responsibility on them.
Funk is a Scott City graduate student in law and business.
Ability to speak simply shows devotion to truth
We all have had the feeling. We are trying to write a paper that's due the next day and have grown tired of strugling to find the right word or
Duane Wagler
opinion@kansan.com
of struggling to find in phrase. So we capitulate and use the cliché, tired of taxing our tired brain for fresh imagery.
No big deal, we might say. Surely one little imprecise word or phrase won't hurt the paper.
Wrong, says George Orwell in his remarkably up-to-date essay he wrote in 1946 titled "Politics and the English Language." Orwell argues that shoddy writing and
Orwell's comments came to mind recently when I heard a woman on the radio speaking about an art program for kids. Although the program she was describing sounded noble, her description did not, as she praised the program and its "empowerment through visualization." Poor kids — it's not good enough anymore to say that you just want to teach them how to paint.
He writes, "As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems to be able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of prefabricated hen houses."
The fascination with long-winded phrases is part of academe as well. Each discipline has its boundary of jargon to keep intruders out and to reassure the faithful. It makes sense to have a common reservoir of terms to have a foundation of basic knowledge.
But too often the languages of academe and government becomes clouds with what Orwell calls the Latinization of lan-
shoddy thinking are linked. With political rhetoric as the main target, Orwell maintains that two of the biggest sins in bad writing are imprecision and stale imagery.
So the next time we sit staring at our computer late at night, coaxing our brain for the perfect image or word, perhaps we should rethink our approach, and ... think. Orwell wouldn't have it any other way.
Orwell's rants against insincerity and imprecision, however, are not directed against sensitivity. What he finds disturbing is when language impedes what is meant.
"What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them," he writes.
Even Shakespearian-like eloquence, then, cannot remedy our writing if our thinking is cluttered.
Wagler is a Partridge graduate student in journalism.
guage. We cannot start a program — we have to initiate it. We can't solve a problem — we have to utilize our resources so we can facilitate change.
At best, this language obscures what a person is trying to say. At worst, it smacks of pretension. Orwell explains, "A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idiom, like a cuttlefish souiring out ink."
The obvious targets for insincerity are the government and politicians. Most of us agree that bureaucracy breeds insincerity and inexactness. But it seems that the same kind of language seeps into our personal life all too often. We try to soften our words by tossing in Latinized words. We don't want to end the relationship with our significant other — we want to terminate it.
4
The impulse to soften the blow often is well-intentioned. We want to be diplomatic so we are not labeled as insensitive. After all, sensitivity and diplomacy appear to be increasingly scarce these days.
Feedback
Simply Sex sends faulty message
Between "Gina", "Aly" and Dr. Dennis Dailey, we've got sex covered. KJHK's Simply Sex contains no mention of love, commitment or a future together. Just a satisfaction of a physical urge. It sounds
like even one-night stands are OK as long as they're "safe."
I have not listened to the program, so I may have misunderstood. However, from the article and the "What you might hear" sidebar in the Feb 11 University Daily Kansan, I doubt that "Aly's mom's wishes for a program
about abstinence will get much serious consideration
There's one thing a condom won't protect, and that's one's heart. Until they make a condom that covers the heart, I choose to wait until marriage.
Verna Froese
Watson library staff