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Tuesday, January 18, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
A
VIEWPOINT
Finney's linking of issues inappropriate strategy
Political blackmail is once again upon us. The issue this time is Gov. Joan Finney's attempt to link the entrance of Washburn University into the Board of Regents with the Partnership for Excellence.
Finney has said that the two plans are a package, and she will veto Washburn's entry into the Regents system if the Partnership doesn't pass. Because of Finney's political maneuverings, Washburn may become an unfortunate victim.
The plans are independent of one another. Washburn's entrance into the Board of Regents gives the school increased state funding. The Partnership raises faculty salaries at the Regents schools, partially through a tuition increase.
If passed, the Partnership will begin next the next fiscal year. But Washburn's entry into the Regents system will not be completed until 1997, further separating the plans.
Support for Washburn's entry into the Board of Regents is strong. The Partnership for Excellence, by contrast, is in serious jeopardy. Linking the two plans will force those legislators who support one plan and oppose the other to compromise their positions.
A better strategy would be to sell the two plans based on their own merits. This would allow legislators the opportunity to vote on the plans individually.
COLLEEN McCAIN AND NATHAN OLSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Cases of harassment call for clear-cut policy
Swarthmore College has done everyone a disservice in its mishandling of a recent sexual harassment case.
Last fall, Ewart Yearwood, a student at the suburban Philadelphia college, was accused of harassment by a female classmate, Alexis Clinansmith. After Yearwood violated an agreement to stay at least 40 feet away from Clinansmith, Swarthmore attempted to suspend him.
When he threatened to sue, the college cut a deal with Yearwood. Swarthmore agreed to pay Yearwood's tuition and book and transportation costs for this semester at the college of his choice — if he would attend college somewhere else.
Swarthmore claims credit for sending the message that "intimidation is not to be tolerated at Swarthmore College." But the message sent is that, in the absence of any ethical convictions, Swarthmore is primarily interested in appeasing and silencing potentially expensive troublemakers.
Swarthmore should stand behind its policies. If Yearwood's behavior violates those policies, he should be appropriately punished. If the college decides it is not its place to regulate such behavior, he should be left alone.
It is difficult to argue that this was much of a victory for Clinanssmith, whose allegations were completely undermined by the college's concessions to Yearwood. She may be immediately gratified that Yearwood is absent for the time being, but justice has not been served. In fact, this represents a step backward for the issue of sexual harassment. Almost any decision on Swarthmore's part would have been preferable to this ridiculous payoff.
MARGARET BECK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
BEN GROVE, Editor
BEN GROVE, Editor
LISA COSMILLO, Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET. Systems coordinator
Editom
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America must act before '1984' becomes political reality of 1994
I love my country. I fear my government. So read a bumper sticker I spotted on a car outside The Bottleneck not long ago.
Ajudge took a child from his mother because the mother is a lesbian.
The federal government attacked the home of the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas.
The state holds out its loving cup, singing power to the people, but their power's corrupt. So go the lyrics to a song, "In for the Kill," on Winger's new album.
COLUMNIST
There is a growing realization that we should fear an omnipotent government. Our government, more of a levianthan every day, is oppressing and terrorizing us. Happy New Year, and welcome to 1983.
I say 1983 because a little time remains. Fortunately, there exists a slim possibility that we can stop the expansion of the government and the erosion of our rights. Yes, I am idealistic, but I won't compromise my beliefs. There is still time for us — I am including you — to slow the emergence of a totalitarian American state. It is going to take some work, however. You are going to have to
learn how to think critically. In short, if we continue to let others do our thinking for us and if we continue to believe the unprincipled "leaders" of our day, tomorrow will dawn dark and gloomy when we sit in dungeons built with our labor.
an every day and to suggest some ways in which we can regain our freedom.
There is little new that I can say to the horrors of the huge, modern, monstrously evil state. George Orwell ("1984"), Ayn Rand ("Atlas Shrugged"), Aldous Huxley ("Brave New World"), Alexander Solzhenitsyn ("The Gulag Archipelago") and many other writers have chronicled and anticipated the innumerable evils of oppression. I will use this column to illustrate that our government is becoming more totalitarian.
I see little help coming from America's two largest and most entrenched political parties. For one thing, there is little difference between the Democrats/liberals and Republican/conservatives. I know of no candidates or proponents of these country-club affiliates whose actions show anything except an unquenchable desire to expand their own power.
Conservatives, in particular, seem sanctimonious to me. As they bemoan the liberals' rush to make the United States a socialist prison, which is a redundant description because socialist states are prisons, the conservatives have been no less willing to deny our rights.
So what should an idealist do? We can do something to fight back. When people tell us the state knows more about how to run our lives than we do, we must make them prove it. And if they can't, we must publicize it. We must tell our friends and neighbors that we can think for ourselves, that we are mature enough to take responsibility for our actions. Then we must write our elected representatives and tell them that we are not interested in their totalitarian, socialist state.
the penultimate sentence of Wilhelm von Humbolt's classic book, "The Limits of State Action," summarizes his feelings: "I have felt myself animated throughout with a sense of the deepest respect for the inherent dignity of human nature, and for freedom, which alone befits that dignity. I, too, feel such excitement and optimism when I speak about human rights."
Ultimately, oppressive states will fail because of their own "inherent" contradictions. "I do not wish to wait, however. I want to live freely now. Like you, I can make my own decisions about how I live my life, and I can take responsibility for my actions. I love my country, but I am beginning to fear my government. Now is the time to start the long process of changing our government into one that protects, rather than infringes on, our freedoms.
Allen Tiffany is a Lawrence graduate stu-
dent in English.
Love stranded on island
Recently, my wife and I decided to put some "zing" back into our marriage by going to a "couples only" resort. This is a popular new type of resort that does not allow you to bring your children, the theory being that it is difficult for you and your spousal unit to get into a romantic mood if one of you has to pause every 45 seconds to shout, "JASON! I TOLD YOU NOT TO SQUIRT SUN BLOCK INTO ASHLEY'S EAR!"
The resort we went to is in St. Lucia, a small and lovely island nation way out in the Caribbean, not far from Grenada, which is the island that Ronald Reagan rescued from the Communist Menace. Frankly, I am amazed that the Communist Menace was a problem in that area because to get there you have to spend all day scrunched up in various airplanes. I would have thought that by the time the Communist Menace finally arrived and located its luggage, all it would have wanted to do was lie down and enjoy a refreshing popular local beverage consisting of rum mixed with rum.
That's what we wanted to do when we got to St. Lucia, but we had to spend the first hour and a half riding in a small, couple-filled van from one end of the island to the other on the main road, which apparently also doubles as a strip mine. Technically, you're supposed to drive on the left-hand side in St. Lucia, but the drivers
swerve all over the place to avoid the holes, which means that sometimes both your vehicle and an oncoming vehicle are in the same lane.
At one point — I am not making this up — our van was driving down the middle of the road, and oncoming traffic was passing us ON BOTH SIDES. This occurred when we were making our way through a traffic jam caused by the largest banana spill I have ever seen. This was on a steep hill, where a massive load of bananas had slid off a truck, thus forming a tremendous natural defense in case the Communist Menace ever comes back to the area with tanks." (Drive down that hill, Comrade." "OK! Here we goooOOOONOOOO...")
Eventually we got to our resort. It is what the travel industry calls an "allinclusive" resort, which means that you pay a flat amount of money each day, and the resort sets out large amounts of food, and you try to include it all in your body. "Hey, I
PAID for this food," is what you are constantly telling yourself, to justify the fact that you are already mounding your plate with lunch even though you have not, technically, finished chewing your breakfast.
The food was served on a veranda next to a lovely, palm-fringed beach, so at every meal we enjoyed a breathtaking view of various guys' armpits. A lot of guys, when they are on vacation in a tropical climate, wear tank-style tops, so that if you happen to glance up from your food mound just as a guy at the next table raises his arm to signal the waiter for another rum and rum, you find yourself staring into his hairy armpit, hovering in front of you like some hideous mutant alien space rodent.
I think there should be a "No Armpits" section.
But getting back to our all-inclusive resort. For those brief interludes when we were not eating, we were encouraged to engage in a constant barrage of organized fun activities such as volleyball, water polo, sailing, hiking, sightseeing, windsurfing, snorkeling, scuba-diving, ball-hitting and bun-flexing. At night there were talent shows, newlywed games, group singing, movie-showing, limb-dancing and of course more food-eating. This level of fun takes a physical toll. If you are a middle-aged person such as myself, by the end of just one day, your marriage has about as much
zing as a severely over-steamed carrot, if you get my drift.
To avoid total exhaustion, we let the resort compound several times. On one day we courageously rented a car and drove around with another couple, Eileen and Steve. Steve likes to fish, a fact that produced the following actual dialogue:
EILEEN (looking at a guidebook
Steve, it says here that in this town,
you can sometimes see local fisher-
men gut their catch on the beach!
STEVEN YOUSS!
We drove to a village called Canaries, where we decided to stop, primarily because our route was blocked by a highway construction crew, probably constructing new holes in the road. We got out, went into a local establishment and purchased some beers from a bartender who was maybe 10 years old. Nearby, three elderly people, two men and a woman, were sitting by the side of the road, passing a bottle around. The woman laughed, leaned way back, and opened her mouth wide.
ULIUUVE, she sang, is a MANY
SPLENDORED thing...
The people in Canaries seemed very relaxed, despite the fact that they were not, technically, on vacation. I'm not sure what their secret is. Maybe it's an all-inclusive village.
Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald.
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Marijuana as medicine is decision for doctors
A Clinton administration spokesman said the Public Health Service is taking another look at its ban on marijuana for medical use. The review — and reversal of the
present policy — is long overdue.
From 1978 until 1992, Uncle Sam allowed certain patients to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to use marijuana to ease their pain and suffering. The Food and Drug Administration ought not be deciding which patients should be allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes;
the patients' doctors are best qualified to decide that.
There's no evidence that marijuana is a cure for cancer or AIDS and no one is promoting it as such. But there is evidence that it has a place
Three years ago, a survey of cancer specialists found that more than half of them agreed that marijuana should be legalized for medical use.
in the doctors' arsenal of drugs to alleviate their patients' discomfort
Legalizing marijuana for medical uses under the same prescription strictures that govern other, more powerful medications, is a sensible course.
The Sun-Herald Biloxi, Miss