OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
April 11, 1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
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The New York Times reported this week that Reagan administration officials and congressional sources have acknowledged that the CIA has been directing the operation.
Defining justice
Two months ago the CIA-backed rebels fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua began mining many of that country's most economically important waterways.
The Soviet Union formally protested the actions to the United States last month. And Nicaragua plans to bring charges against the United States in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The objective of the mining is to deplete Nicaragua's military and economic supplies by intimidating any ship wishing to set anchor in Nicaraguan ports.
Since the operation began, several ships, including the Soviet oil tanker the Lugansk, have been damaged by mines.
Now France and Britain, undoubtedly two of our traditionally
strongest allies, have joined the Soviets in their protest.
France has offered to help the Sandinistas clear the bombs from beneath their ports, and on Sunday Denis Healey, a British Labor party spokesman, labeled the mining as a "terrorist action" that violated international law.
The Reagan administration answered critics in its classically militaristic form when it announced Sunday that it would not accept World Court jurisdiction in disputes involving Central America for the next two years.
Opponents of the mining in the United States, including some State Department officials, said it represented a significant increase in American covert activities against Nicaragua undertaken without adequate consideration by Congress.
The administration's interpretation of world justice has thus been defined.
Choosing allies wisely
Little countries are starting to match up with the heavyweights in the arena of global politics.
The voters also could have chosen whether to become independent, and thus become the least populous nation in the world.
Last week, the 300 or so inhabitants of the Coco Islands, a group of coral atolls 1,500 miles west of Australia, officially ended more than 100 years of feudal rule by voting to become part of Australia.
protected, by the world's dominant powers.
Many other poor and sparsely populated countries, with nothing more to offer than a strategic location or a vote in the United Nations, have been catered to, and
The media attention given to a few hundred people on a chain of small islands illustrates the bigger role that tiny countries are playing in the world today.
Superpower involvement in small Central American countries such as El Salvador and Nicaragua, and in Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan are examples a more powerful nation trying to coax a smaller country to its side.
Having a nation on our side for political or strategic reasons is fine, so long as the government is not totalitarian, ignorant of human rights or generally unscrupulous.
Health and Welfare Services Secretary Margaret Heckler said that her agency's "overzealous" review of Social Security disability cases caused "hardships and heart-breaks" for deserving people who lost benefits.
Once we've decided to make a nation our ally, we must treat it fairly and equally. If changes for the worst occur within that nation, we cannot continue our support unless things are corrected.
Protecting compassion
In 1980, Congress called for thorough reviews of the disability rolls to purge malingerers. In 1981, the Reagan Administration seized upon the order to shrink the program's cost.
But that acknowledgement offers little solace to the victims. They need the tangible protections of a bill passed last week by the House. It would set strict new rules to ensure that future reviews are fair.
lenge the bureaucracy, the hit-or-miss scheme to detect fraud brought desperation, destitution and sometimes death. Under pressure, the administration last summer tinkered with procedures to prevent recurrence of the worst mistakes. But those changes don't go far enough.
For people too impaired to chal-
Review of the disability rolls is necessary to weed out fraud. But the pursuit of cheaters does not require an abandonment of compassion. The bill passed last week would enable the government to fight fraud while meeting its obligations to the disabled.
Minneapolis Tribune
The University Daily Kansan letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten on one sheet of paper, double-spaced and should not exceed 200 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or institution he would attend. The Kaplan also includes individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 StaFFER-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Two bags of garbage plus two more bags plus two more.
On April 22, many people throughout the United States will celebrate a special day.
It will be a religious time for them. They will remember an anniversary that, quite naturally, reaches to their hearts. The activities of the celebrants may even help them feel cleansed.
Since He's the Son of the One who is held responsible for the Earth's existence, it makes sense that we should celebrate them both on that
April 22, 1984, is the 13th anniversary of Earth Day. Of course, it is also the 1.8383 anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The first Earth Day was observed on April 22, 1970. The idea to establish a day in honor of our planet was presented by Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis. He spent Earth Day giving environmental speeches to students and teaching that a "polluted countryside represents the antithesis of freedom."
Then Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel backed the demonstration of American awareness of what was happening to the Earth through polluted neglect and industrial malpractice.
Denis Hayes, then 24, national coordinator of the environmental teach-in campaign, was probably responsible for the fact that I still remember exactly what I was doing on the first Earth Day. 14 years ago.
I was a student at Raub Junior High School in Allentown, Pa. Like most eighth-graders in 1970, my parents were used by the political and social
activity going on around us
But we didn't really understand, nor were we much involved with the new social order of the time.
Well, on April 22, 1970, a seed of caring was instilled in many of us in that class by our teacher, who taught us about environmental teach-in program.
All we wanted to do was to finish school each day and meet at a nearby park to play soccer or steal ball in the gym. Then grader in the city does after school
A week before Earth Day she began pre-empting our daily social studies class by giving us a lesson on man's relationship with the Earth.
We heard of Pennsylvania's own Lake Erie, at that time nearly void of aquatic life. They said that on a bad day you could almost walk to Canada on top of the discarded steel muck and the industrial sluder.
The day before Earth Day, our teacher closed her book on pollution.
"There will be no more lectures about how mankind has screwed up the Earth," she said. Instead, she told us it was now time for action.
"Tomorow afternoon each of you will be given two trash bags when you enter this room. We will take them down to the park, and we have finished we will have collected 60 bags of garbage.
"Thereafter, your park will become 60 bags full of garbage cleaner, and someday when you're in school you may decide to do more."
Our class, along with almost every other class of students in Allentown that day, collected tons of garbage
Since that time many of us have collectively lost sight of our environmental objectives. But the problems remain.
So, come Sunday the 22nd, I will take two heavy-duty plastic trash bags from my kitchen. I'm going to resurrect Earth Day, as I've done before. I'll be careful, by taking them down to the river and filling them up with trash.
Think about it. If just one other person took two trash bags to the Kaw River or to Clinton Reservoir that day and filled them up with trash, four fewer bags full of trash scattered about our woodlands.
If an entire organization or fraternal group were to give each of its members two trash bags to fill, it would be much cleaner Lawrence would be.
Hopefully, some Kansan readers will share the gratifying experience of at least a token attempt to remember and will clean up the mess. A polluted countryside still represents the antithesis of our freedom.
The Life Of . . .
Equality remains ignored
I've noticed a lot of hostility towards the Black Student Union since the conclusion of recent Student Senate elections.
An editorial in the March 26 University Daily Kansas accused the BSU of trying to set up a separate black senate primarily because of the BSU budget request of more than $19,000.
Let me first say that I have not become involved in any organization on campus, BSU or otherwise, since attending school here last semester.
The editorial then extolled the virtues of the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision, which states that state are not equal. The editorial thinly implied that blacks on campus were creating two separate campuses: one black, one white.
The 1954 Supreme Court ruling integrated only classrooms, lecture halls and other campus structures. It did not integrate the textbooks or curriculum, the two most important things in any school.
Whites, blacks, Hispanics and other ethnic groups can occupy the same classroom together, but the textbooks they read, on subjects such as American history or western civilization, are still segregated.
The contributions of all Americans, regardless of race and gender, are given token mention or are left out altogether.
The general "white" society sees and thinks there is integration because black and Hispanic-American history and American Indian history courses, as well as other cultures, are taught at many universities.
The only questions to people who think integration is complete are: Why are not black, Hispanic and American Indian history courses mandatory graduation requirements like Western civilization and American history in universities,
The theory of a well-rounded education loses its credibility when significant numbers of people are excluded from having their contributions mentioned because of skin color, religion or gender.
And, why aren't the contributions of all ethnic groups included in history courses?
high schools and elementary schools across the nation?
After the CBS mini-series "George Washington" ends this evening, remember how many black faces you saw in the Continental
Guest Columnist
MICHAEL JUDIE
Army, particularly at and after Valley Forge?
And did you count them at the surrender at Yorktown; I doubt if you saw all 3,215 blocks out of the 10,000 American troops, or the 1,000 blacks in the French contingent of 6,000.
The other issue discussed in the Kansan editorial that caused disgust for me was its total ignorance of the quality of education in black universities before the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision.
Universities such as Tuskegee in Alabama and Wilberforce in Ohio produced the likes of people such as Charles Drew. Many white fathers and grandfathers, and possibly brothers of people today, owe their lives to Tuskegee. They were perfected a process for preserving blood plasma before World War II.
Drew was educated at a segregated black university. The traditional
A good indication of a school's real integration might be the ratio of guest speakers that cater to 'white' society as a whole as opposed to speakers that cater to the interests of minorities.
problems for black schools, then and now, boils down to what makes this nation of ours tick — money and the equal access to it.
Last semester we had Reagan administration official Chester Crocker articulating administration policy goals on the African continent, particularly the Namibian and South African issue.
But why wasn't a Southwest African Peoples Organization or African National Congress spokesman also invited in the interest of fairness to present an opposing view?
As a college student, I am allegedly capable of gathering information, weighing both sides of any argument when reaching an opinion on my own.
All of this simply leads to the conclusion that integration isn't simply a law ordered by judges and lawyers ordered to by the general public.
Until there is a total integration of curriculum and textbooks anything short of that is a farce and is insincere.
I challenge the University's administration and faculty to make KU a truly integrated campus by not only placing black, yellow, red and white faces in a classroom and calling it equal.
Go one step further and prove that progression in all aspects of academics is the real priority at KU.
I shall be watching you; KU's minority population and the minorities of the nation shall be watching you.
Michael Judie, Kansas City, Kan.. junior, is majoring in journalism.
Our friends better not be Communists But it's dandy for them to be sleazy crooks
Like most people, I've had a few friends who were less than honest. I'm not talking about the politicians, but I don't care. My half-buddies I made from boyhood on.
Another was an aspiring writer who went to prison because, unfortunately, he applied his writing skills to bogus checks.
One wound up working for the crime syndicate, but had a dispute with his employers. Before he could get them off, he landed in the county morgue.
They weren't crooks when we became friends. They drilled into it because they thought it beat a 9-to-5 job.
MIKE ROYKO
Syndicated Columist
We're not. Maybe it's because they're afraid of being caught, but except for shaving a corner on income tax returns or trying to beat a traffic ticket, the majority of Americans are pretty straight.
But most of my friends are reasonably honest, as are most Americans. We hear so much about crime and crowded prisons that it's easy to get the impression that we're a nation of thieves and cushroads.
So I don't understand why, as a nation, we pick so many sleazy crooks and thugs to be our friends.
The Reagan administration was concerned because Martinez was the Reagan administration's best military pal in Central America.
A recent example was the concern in Washington when Gen Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, head of the military and the most powerful man in Honduras, was muscled out by his fellow officers.
He was also one of the biggest crooks, too, but they apparently have limits and some sense of discretion.
But Martinez, using his powerful position, was openly grabbing everything in sight. After taking power, he took a piece of one major industry after another. As a result, he managed to have two $50,000 accounts and three bounties benefits — all on a salary of $30,000 a year.
Now, you would think that this country would be overjoyed at hearing that a crook like Martinez was kicked out of his own country. After all, we're for goodness, honesty, morality and having the courage to stand aloud in the schools. Especially the crowd currently in the White House.
Why do we always wind up with such friends? In South Vietnam, we kept propping up one corrupt despot after another. South Korea has been run by people scary enough to turn a Mafiosi's hair white with one glance of pride and power from a boote, in not millions, but in billions. The government of South Africa is one of the most despotic in the world.
But no, we liked Martinez. That's because Martinez was anti-communist. And the Reagan foreign policy seems to boil down to that. A general can be a despot, a murderer, a crook, a bully and kick puppies, but as long as he is communist, he's our kind of guy.
Having grown up in a time when Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were symbols of all that is evil, it's been hard to accept that we choose as allies men who think the way they did. except on a smaller scale.
Is it really impossible for us to find friends who don't think that the way to rule is through secret police, death squads, torture rooms, murder, curfews, hunger and ignorance? Is that much of the world — especially where we say we have vital interests — really made up only of Communists and right wing murderers? Aren't there any decent middle-of-the road guys out there who want to be our pals?
The Reagantists will say we have no choice, that all the rebellions just about anywhere in the world are Moscow-inspired, so we must support the various juntas and dictators who are trying to stamp them out.
I don't know about that. Unless the history books are kidding us, there were rebellions against oppression, and they were taken out by warlord Karl Marx took his first breath.
As I recall, we had just such an uprising here. I wonder whose side we'd have been on in that one.
Would the CIA have ordered a hit on Tom Paine?