OPINION
University Daily Kansan, April 22, 1985
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The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kansan (USPS) 650-640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Flint Hall. Lawrence, Kan. 6043; daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holiday and final periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 6043. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $2 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions pay $1.25 per student address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118 Stauffer Flint Hall. Lawrence, Kan. 6043.
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Filipino future
Conditions are deteriorating rapidly in the Philippines, one of the United States' staunchest allies. Columnist Georgie Anne Geyer recently described the players as a declining dictator claiming American support, a large democratic opposition growing increasingly more desperate but lacking military muscle, Soviets coming in at the last moment and an American administration that cannot get its act together.
But although the decadent regime of President Ferdinand Marcos has caused the crisis, American inaction has contributed indirectly to its intensity. After all, it was the United States that during a brief colonial presence established, nurtured and protected a thriving democratic ethos on that archipelago.
Communist insurgents are making steady gains in both the south and central regions, as well as on Luzon, home of Manila. The communists are attracting not only farmers and peasants, but also students and young professionals in increasing numbers.
As such, the United States has both a historical and a moral responsibility to help protect the rights of Filipinos. It is help that many Filipinos want. Time magazine correspondent Ross Murro reports many Filipinos as saying that if the United States does not pressure Marcos, there will be no improvement.
Besides the predominant issue of what is best for Philippine democracy, the just interests of the United States should be considered. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and other allies depend upon U.S. military presence in the Philippines to protect their supply lines.
Air and naval facilities at Subic Bay and elsewhere provide the United States with forward positions from which military power may be projected onto the Asian continent and into the Indian Ocean. In short, a communist government in Manila would be a tremendous setback to U.S. strategic interests in the hemisphere.
The time for U.S. action is overdue. Filipino political moderates, in the face of continued U.S. support for the corrupt Marcos regime, increasingly have little reason other than historical affinity to view America as a dependable friend.
The Reagan administration must start exerting its considerable influence to ensure a democratic future for the Philippines — for the sake of both countries.
A step for Peru
Amid the many crises facing Latin America, signs of hope and peaceful change are stirring.
One such sign is the recent presidential and congressional elections in Peru, where Alan Garcia of the Popular American Revolutionary Alliance appears assured of winning the presidency. His party will also enjoy a majority in Congress
The election is significant for two reasons. First, if Garcia is allowed to assume the presidency, it would be Peru's first fully democratic transfer of power in more than 60 years.
The governing party's candidate ran a poor fourth in the elections, yet President Fernando Belaude Terry acknowledged that the elections were fair and clean and promised to swear in his successor.
Equally important is the fact that Garcia, a 35-year-old legislator, is a new face in a continent whose political landscape is dominated by aging veterans of another era. He may well prove to be more capable than his predecessors in uniting the country and resolving the severe economic crisis Peru is facing.
The elections took place in spite of threats and terrorist bombings by the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement. An estimated 80 percent of the population voted.
If all goes as planned, Garcia's election will provide a crucial step toward consolidating democracy in Peru and other new democracies in Latin America.
Students invite the reactions they get
The party on Stewart Avenue went pretty well, and that's good. Skepteys may say it went well only because of that, that it's not entirely fair. It went well.
Whether or not the rain affected the party, it seems clear that the convoluted path toward approval of the election could have some effect. It was a sobering effect.
A fund-raising party should not have to be an occasion for contention, but the neighbors had and have a point. The instance is one more testimony to the way college students live in public apartments by the way they behave.
Because of the perceived history of adolescent drinking, the Kansas Legislature intends to raise the legal drinking age to 21. Certainly it is unfair, as we often hear, to say that people are old enough to marry, pay taxes, fight wars, vote, etc., and yet too young to buy a beer.
Again and again, students demand to exercise their rights, but they do not comprehend or care what having adult rights means. Publie drunkenness is a serious concern that has been considered a scandal, and it still should be. It is not a sport.
But right or wrong, that is the decision of established adult society. That decision stands whether or not
But that perception exists partly because young people outdo older folks in flaunting their drinking habits, drinking to annihilation and creating new groups. In other words, they ask for much of the image they have.
people between 18 and 21 really have worse problems of alcohol abuse and addiction.
A man I knew, who was wellversed in human character, used to
say, "When you deserve better, you'll get better."
I've thought about that statement often across eight years and I'm beginning to understand it. It describes the attitude of many adults toward the drinking and general behavior of college students.
For the most part, people treat other people the way they ask to be treated. But often what people want and demonstrate that they want
differs from what they would say they want. Young people often show a lot of ambivalence about assuming adult behavior.
For example, exhibitionistic drinking sends a clear message: Don't expect me to behave responsibly. But adult reactions to drinking and partying are not the only instances of college students suffer from alcoholism; they ask for poor treatment. Other examples may clarify my point.
The utilities and telephone company require deposits of students that some simply cannot搭起 up. They must have a higher age group or higher deposits?
Well, students generally are not established customers with their own credit history. And as a group, they leave tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills every year in Lawrence. If you were a utility, what approach would you use?
Landlords often require each person on a lease to be responsible for the whole rent. It isn't allogither fair, but it is about the only method of guaranteeing payment.
That is because so many roommates move out and leave their erstwhile friends bleeding red ink.
I've never been any place where I've heard so many stories of roommates financially stabbing each other in the back. Is that adult behavior?
The freedom to be responsible also is disappearing in academic requirements. After an era of challenge to the basic assumptions of higher education, the evidence shows that requirements tend to lower standards.
Because students did not make good use of their version of academic freedom, the powers-that-be are reinstating mandatory procedures where freedom and responsibility failed.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not thrilled with any of the steps I have mentioned. Some I don't like at all. But it's the way things are.
People who want to be treated like adults have at least one common trait: when they make an agreement — legally binding or not — with
The Stewart Avenue episode shows that students can recognize this fact. But painfully often, students get the treatment they do because too many of them cannot handle the responsibilities that go with adult rights.
When you deserve better, you'll get better.
Tourist season opens in Washington
Up the East Front's 36 steps they troop to see the legislative arm of their government.
WASHINGTON - It must be spring. I know because the buses are lined up, disgorging tourists at the Capitol.
But far too many arrive with little grounding in what they're seeing and with little apparent respect for the two centuries of representative democracy the domed building symbolizes.
If so far this sounds like a complaint about some of Washington's tourists, to some extent it is.
One of my older and wiser colleagues — after I fussed about the occasional crush in the halls and suggested putting a replica of the town in the countryside for tourists and protesters — reminded me that the Capitol belonged to the people.
Many visitors are reasonably dressed, knowledgeable and polite. But I just can't help but wonder why some come so ignorant of the basics of government and in costumes suited more for the stage than the street.
"Where's Congress?" asked a
couple after visiting both the House and Senate. The two chambers that collectively are the Congress of the United States
And then there was the man who stood outside the Capitol and proudly informed his wife and children, "There's the White House."
ELIOT BRENNER
Far too often, visitors come to the building looking as if they were on a
United Press International
Washington's summer heat an-
humidity are unpleasant, but some
might say hair curlers, fluorescent
jogging shorts and a tank-top with a
beer logo. I've seen various
combinations — are not proper dress
fashion for jury duty as the Senate
or House debates legislation that shapes our lives.
trip to an amusement park, headde
perhaps for the water slide
Some also might say smacking gum and wearing black high-top sneakers, gym shorts over long johns, a denim coat festooned with rock-band medals, a beret and a "Ghostbusters" T-shirt are a bit too
Now that I've vented my frustrations about the few, let me offer a few tips to make it easier for you, the well-dressed and well-mannered visitor, to get around in the Capitol!
much. Honest, folks, I saw that combination.
—The House of Representatives — with 435 voting members — is on the left as you face the building from the East Front. The Senate — with 100 members, two from each state — is on your right. If you approach from the Mall side (West Front), it's the other way around. The Rotunda is on the second floor, at the top of the East Front stairs.
—The parking spaces are for members, staff and press. Use the subway or take a cab $i$ far easier that way we can get to all shoes. Shoes will be $i$ full when you go.
—The people with ID cards on chains or clips work on Capitol Hill. The Capitol, after all, also is an office building. The tags denote whether the reporter is on the reporter and permit them to move through areas not open to the public.
—the flag over the center of the building ties all the time. The ones over each chamber fly only when that chamber is in session.
—Members sometimes wear a small, red and gold circular lapel pin, which helps the guards identify them without embarrassment.
—From the Senate side of the Capitol, in the basement, three separate troley lines run, one each to the Russell, Dirksen and Hartl buildings. Senators get first crack at the seats.
—From the southeast basement of the House wing, a tunnel goes to the Cannon and Longworth buildings. From the sub-basement on the southwest end, a subway runs to the Rayburn building. If you get lost in Rayburn, don't worry. Even congressmen get lost in Rayburn.
—Virtually everyone comes with a camera and stands in the middle of a parking lot to get a picture of the Capitol. You can get the same pictures, probably better than most amateur photographers can take. The Capitol Historical Society souvenir stand inside under the Earl Front steps.
—Enjoy the Capitol and Washington's other attractions. They're yours. But please remember, they're ours too.
Inventor of polio vaccine beats paralysis to walk, work
WASHINGTON - Sometimes in this life the news is good.
I was at a party to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the "Nightline" television show. There was a receiving line of ABC executives and about 500 guests, most of them from official Washington.
Occasionally it is good enough to bring a big smile to your face.
Walking across the room was an older, white bearded man who was maneuvering with the aid of a cane that was a woman, apparently his wife.
She seemed to be motoring to me I stopped, and they walked over. The woman said, "We are Dr. and Mrs. Sabin."
And it was true. Albert Sabin, the developer of the oral polio vaccine, was walking around on his own again.
Back in 1983, Sabin became paralyzed. He was totally unable to walk; he was confined to a hospital bed. Doctors diagnosed his condition as ascending paralysis, which was treated by splitting the lower parts of his body. There was no guarantee that he would ever recover.
I said that in this country we were quick to glorify the newest rock star or movie queen. A man like Albert Sabin, however, we tend to forget about. I said that the magnitude of what he had accomplished — helping the world of the terror of paralytic polio — was impossible to measure.
I wrote a column at the time. The column was about heroes.
The irony, of course, was that he himself had become paralyzed.
and especially those of us who are members of the first post-polio generation — to send him cards, to tell him that we did, indeed, remem
I asked readers of the column -
I printed the address of his hospital
BOB
GREENE
Syndicated
Columnist
room. More than 100,000 people sent cards and letters. They came from every part of the United States. The Sabins reported being overwhelmed and moved to tears by the expressions of gratitude from people.
We had spoken several times on the telephone, but I never had met the Sabins personally. And now, by chance, we were in the same room, and they were walking over to say hello.
"I can't say that I am completely recovered," said Sabin now 78. "I have resuscitated weakness in my neck and hand and is unstable. I am uneasy."
"It's probably not ever going to be a complete recovery, but who would have guessed that I would ever walk on my own again?"
diseases in the underdeveloped countries of the world.
"He even drives himself to work every morning," said his wife, Heloisa.
Sahn said he worked daily at the National Institutes of Health, dealing with what he calls "my unfinished business," the eradication of deadly
"When I was in great pain and in great misery, I didn't want to live my longer life because of the rest of the world I felt that my time was up. When I
"If I can do something further for humanity before the end comes, then that is what I want to do," he said. "I became tired at the end of the day — but by the morning I am all right again."
Of his surprising recovery, he said,
"There was a time when I did not know if I would ever recover. I must give the reason as the nature of the human body. How else do you explain it? As far as the role that my spirit played in the recovery, I don't know if there are such mechanisms. They are still in the realm of the unknown."
came to realize that I cared about the rest of the world again — that's when I knew that I was alive again."
Around us, the "Nighttime" party was in full swing. ABC publicists had put out the word that seven former Iran hostages would be in attendance at the party. "Nighttime" began as a satirical program and was called "America Held Hostage."
A photographer from the Washington Post came up to Sabin. The photographer did not recognize the man, but him. "Are you one of the hostages?"
Sabin smiled at his wife and then looked over at me. "You might say that recently I was, indeed, something of a hostage," he said.
The photographer, not understanding, walked away. And then we made our goodbyes, and Sabin, under his own power, walked away, too.
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