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Wednesday, February 16, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Trade restrictions hurt Japan and United States
Watch your head. The United States and Japan once again are throwing rotten eggs at each other over the latest trade dispute. Unfortunately the citizens on both sides are caught in the crossfire.
The latest disagreement came after trade talks between the world's two largest trading nations ended abruptly Saturday. Both countries are right, but both countries are also wrong.
The United States claims that Japan unfairly restricts trade into their island nation. This is largely true. Subsidies and trade restrictions put rice prices seven times higher in Japan than in the United States. Similar restrictions hold true for a variety of goods ranging from vegetables to electronics.
However, the United States is wrong to demand that Japan buy certain numbers of cars, parts and other goods. Forced trade really is not trade at all. The best example involves car sales to Japan. When President Bush went to Japan with the Big Three automotive presidents, they demanded that Japan buy more U.S. cars. Too bad the U.S. companies were not building any with the steering wheel on the right side. Otherwise the Japanese might want them.
For a nation based on trade, Japan should not have such extreme trade barriers. However they should not be expected to abide by the forced trade guidelines that the United States is demanding.
Both sides need to adjust their position and move closer to "true" free trade. This means a reduction or elimination of trade barriers by both sides as well as eliminating the so-called "numerical indicators" that the United States demands.
If these changes are made the impending trade war will be avoided. Otherwise the consumers of both nations will pay the price, with egg all over their faces.
RICHARD BOYD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
War crimes must wait; ending war is priority
Most people know of the horrors in Bosnia. More than 200,000 people dead. Rapes and executions of civilians. One response by the United Nations is the establishment of a war crimes tribunal. Unfortunately, the tribunal is wallowing in its own internal problems.
In February 1993, the U.N. Secretary Council unanimously voted to establish the tribunal. Its hope was to redress the wrongs incurred by victims of the war and to punish those responsible for the "ethnic cleansing."
A year later, the tribunal lacks a chief prosecutor. Its compromise choice, Ramon Escovar Salom, quit before beginning the job. In addition, the tribunal has no investigators and no final budget.
The problems cut deeper when the tribunal is compared with the last War Crimes Tribunal, which took place in Nuremberg after World War II. The investigations involved about 1,000 prosecutors and investigators. The present tribunal has an initial staff of 45. A more general problem with the tribunal concerns timing. How will the accused be brought to trial while war continues? It is doubtful that criminals will emerge peacefully and wait to be sentenced to life in jail.
Also, who is to be tried? Evidence suggests that war crimes in the Bosnian conflict have been committed on both sides. Do we punish both sides, or only the side that loses?
No one would dispute the notion that war crimes need to be punished. But spending time and money on issues that cannot be resolved effectively until after the war does not help end the war.
NATHAN OLSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Belching is an art form for some, but others don't have the talent
COLUMNIST
Greetings, fellow Earthlings. As you may have noticed by now, our Biosphere is in the grip of a deadly social malaise, a faux pas that is as widespread and common as pocket lint. You know what I'm talking about. Yes, it's The Belch.
Belches are apparently man's way of expressing his innermost feelings and something akin to armpit noises. There is the self-satisfied, resounding belch; the disgruntled, angry belch; the surprised, amused belch (which is usually higher in pitch than the other two), and so on and so forth. But belches are not confined to the masculine sphere. Women can do the deed as well as men no matter how hard Miss Manners pleads.
Belches can make or break a relationship. I know of a rocky relationship that finally broke up over belching habits. She did, and he didn't.
I personally am a nonbelicher, much to my gastrointestinal relief. I cannot make myself "expel gas noisily from the stomach through the mouth," as the American Heritage Dictionary
being modest. You can't just learn something like that. You've got to have it in you. And she definitely has something.
defines the occurrence.
My roommate, on the other hand, is an avid belcher. She belches whenever she can, honing her talent and transforming it into an art form. No less dedicated than Picasso, no less prolific than Shakespeare, she zealously coaxes her digestive tract into bubbling, melodious expulsions of gas that vary dramatically in tone and pitch. My roommate is the only person in the world that I know who can burp the ABCs. She said that she learned it from a childhood friend and that anyone can do it. She even offered to teach me. But I think she's
I remember one particular morning when my Marvin the Martian alarm clock couldn't blast through the dense fog surrounding my skull. My roommate, irate at being woken up two hours early by a little Martian belowing, "WAKE UP EARTHLING! YOU HAVEN'T GOT ALL LIGHT YEAR!" screamed at me (politely, I'm sure) to turn it off. I still didn't wake up.
So my ever resourceful roommate opened her mouth and let loose a belch loud enough, deep enough and long enough to leave cracks in the walls and a funky smell in the closets. I woke up.
Another friend of mine has the most amazing ability to let forth horrendous belches without even being aware of it. I don't think Fred notices because he doesn't even let it break his rhythm if he burps while he's talking.
FRED: Yeah, I was so hungry, I ate two bags of stuff from Taco Bell in B-E-L-C-H less than a minute. Ahh.
ME (cringing) : Oh. Did it taste?
good?
FRED : B-U-R-P. Are you kidding? I didn't taste any of it. Wait, now I kind of do.
It's not that I don't enjoy hurrying people's stomach contents gurgling in the recesses of their digestive tracts. I realize, that eructation, as the sport is called by the National Belching Association, is a natural process. $ ^{4} $
I suppose that belching contests may be a vital form of entertainment in parts of the world where eating utensils are unknown. But it just tends to startle and disgust me.
I guess the problem is that I'm jealous. I cannot belch effectively, and that makes me feel like less of a per son around believers. So, I'll stop complaining now. I've got a date with a six-pack of Dr. Pepper.
Allisha Arora is an Overland Park freshman in biology and English.
Lack of integrity an inexcusable trait
The integrity, or lack thereof, of a future commander-in-chief was not on my mind as I lay on a tank's frontal armor. I wanted to get some sleep before the predawn attack, and I had wrapped my poncho around myself to stay warm. The Mojave Desert's cold night wind tugged at me. The tank's gunner worked quietly. He was making sure the gun and sight were properly aligned.
COLUMNIST
The gunner also had a little radio set up so I could hear, appropriately enough, U2's "The Joshua Tree." In the distance we could hear the muffled booms of artillery simulators exploding in an attempt to make the pre-attack artillery barrage as realistic as possible.
Another soldier walked over, and we started talking. He told me he was from Wisconsin. After I told him I had attended KU in the early '80s, he said he knew a woman who had gone to school there. I was surprised to find out that I knew her well. We agreed that she was an impressive person who everyone had liked. He told me she had been on their high school's student council. I was not surprised.
This woman had a long and consistent record of honesty and integrity.
A few months later, I was sitting in Berlin's Olympic Stadium watching the Germans around me cheering the cheerleaders on the sidelines of one of the NFL exhibition games. I was there with an old friend who was working in Berlin. He asked me if I knew a certain fellow who had gone to KU many years ago. I was surprised to find that, again, I did. He bluntly stated that he had no respect for this man. He said that my old alumnus was a liar, was unreliable and, apparently, an alcoholic. I reported that the fellow had not changed much. The man we were talking about had a long and
These experiences reaffirmed several things I have long believed. First, people are not inclined to change their basic nature. It also reminded me that when a person compromises his or her integrity, there is little prospect of salvaging one's reputation. This is especially true precisely because it is such a small world.
More important and to the point, lying and unethical conduct by adults can never be tolerated or reinforced.
consistent history of sordid behavior.
So, I am perplexed by those who thought that Bill Clinton would change his nature once in office. Many people have told me they voted for Slick Willie because he was the least distasteful of the three major candidates last time around. Though I find that argument compelling, it does not excuse the wishful, nearly delusional thinking of those who thought Clinton would inherit a greater degree of integrity and intellectual fidelity when he inherited the Presidential Seal.
Now, the question must be whether Clinton is capable of intellectual integrity. He seems no more wedded
to any philosophy than he is to his wife. It seems the only thing Clinton, like Bush before him, may believe is that it is acceptable to do whatever it takes to remain in power.
Whether you agree with the particular policies of the candidates from the party you normally support, I think it an inexcusable act to vote for one who is known to lack integrity. Though I normally vote for Libertarian candidates, I would not vote for a Libertarian I knew to lack integrity. It is my hope that in future elections such embarrassing individuals as Clinton will not be elected.
What we need in this country is some good, old-fashioned intolerance for those who transgress basic ethical standards. And I am not talking about some sophisticated, complex and convoluted, culturally- or religiously-defined ethical paradigm. It seems to me the succinct, good, old-fashioned standard will do: "I will not lie, cheat or steal. Nor will I tolerate those who do."
Allen Tiffany is a Lawrence graduate student in English.
KANSAN STAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Systems coordinator
JUSTIN GARBERG Business manager
JENNIFER BLOWEY Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Best Managing Editor...Dan England
Assistant to the editor...J.R. Clairborne
News...Krietl Fogner, Katie Greenwald
Todd Selart
Editorial...Colleen McCain
Nathan Olson
Campus...Jess DeHaven
Sports...David Dorsey
Photo...Doug Hesse
Fentures...Sara Bennett
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr...Jason Eberly
Regional Sales mgr...Troy Tawervor
National at Coops sales mgr...Robin King
Coops sales mgr...Shelley McConnell
Production mgr...Julian
Gretchen Kootterbeilrich
Marketing director...Shannon Reilly
Creative director...John Carlton
Classified mgr...Kelly Connexy
Tearheads mgr...Wing Chan
Business Staff
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Format changes don't serve KJHK's purpose
I join the growing numbers of students, faculty, staff and community members who are appalled by the policy changes affecting KJHK's play list. Jay Berberick, program director, stated in the *Kansan*, "We have to pay attention to the LAZER [KLZR], but we don't have to let them tell us how to program." It seems to me that Jay has misunderstood the popularity of the LAZER and is in fact allowing it to influence KJHK's programming.
The LAZER plays Top 40 alternative-lite music. Nothing offensive, nothing thought-provoking. The success of KLZR is due to the ground breaking college radio stations have done in the last 15 years to bring alternative music to the mainstream.
Ispoke with Jay about the play list.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
and he told me KJHK cut it to single out "the best of the best alternative music." (Hmm, like the LAZER?) College radio should not be following commercial radio's lead. It is the other way around.
Jay's defender, Scott Parks, stated in the Feb. 10 Kansan, "He [Jay] is forced to compete with the newly-found cross-town rival KLZR for the 'alternative market.' I'm not sure I understand why would we want two similar "alternative" stations playing the best of the best.
To further his case, Scott also states that KJHK "should be a model for the students of what they may find on the outside, a world where the program directors tell you what song to play and when..." Wait a minute. When was college ever like the real world? Where does individual expression, experimentation and, oh yes, learning come into the college experience?
The disc jockeys are the people
who put Lawrence and KJHK on the map. Each DJ has brought to the station personal preferences, moods and dissimilar backgrounds that made them grow into individuals with style. (And by the way, adults capable of making choices for listeners.)
To strip the play list at KJHK is to lose the very essence of college radio, the non-commercial freedom enjoyed by the DJs to play a lot of music no one has ever heard before.
If you also disagree with the new
I understand you're working hard Jay, but if you want to run a radio station, perhaps you should go get a job in the real world where you can, as your friend Scott put it, ".tell [DJS] what to play and when, what to say and how to say it."
I may bit a bit biased in all this, being a radio-television-film graduate and an avid listener for 15 years, but I believe these new policies have no place on a progressive campus.
programming, let someone know.
Drop a line to the general manager,
Tim Mensenick, at 2073 Dole, or
call 864.0603
Let KJHK remain the sound alternative.
Laura Green
Academic User Services Consultant, Computer Center
Ploy to deflect attention from gun control 'clever'
It is not so bizarre for Bob Dole to advocate gun buybacks. Gun buybacks deflect the average citizen from the real problem, which is needed gun control.
The Republicans can point to the way gun buybacks seem to be working so well and therefore, there is no need for gun control. Very clever.
Ann Blackhurst
Lawrence resident