OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
March 8,1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University of Dayton (USPS 60-649) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Shaffer Finst Hall, Lawrence, KS 60045, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays, and final periods. Seeded classes are taught by a third instructor who is a licensed teacher for six months or £3 for six months or £5 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a $1 semester paid through the student activity fee. POSTMASTER. Send address changes to: USPS 60-649, Dayton, KS 60045.
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
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Managing Editor
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PROBLEMS
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Looking for facts
The State Department made a wise decision in denying a U.S. visa to rightist Salvadoran presidential candidate Roberto d'Abuisson last week.
In the face of mounting evidence that d'Aubuisson has had a significant role in the right-wing death squads operating in the Latin American country, the Reagan administration would do well to further scrutinize his past.
And they now have some things to scrutinize that are impossible to overlook.
Massachusetts congressional members Sen. Paul Tsongas and Rep. James Shannon recently received information from a former Salvadoran military official that supports claims that others have been making for several months about d'Aubuisson.
about a Abduction. According to a story in the New York Times, both congressional members are confident of the
Congressional staff members and Central American specialists, who interviewed the former official at length, are also confident of his credibility.
former Salvadoran official's veracity.
Tsongas has gone a step further and vowed to investigate each of the former official's charges.
The senator is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is well-known for his deep concern for human rights. His commitment to check out claims that high-ranking Salvadoran officials and civilians have been critically involved in acts of terrorism in El Salvador is encouraging.
Denying a visa to the Salvadoran presidential candidate shows that the Reagan administration is at last questioning the role d'Aubuisson plays in Latin America.
A thorough investigation by Tsongas could give them reason to do even more than that.
Time to end civil war
By renouncing its May 17 agreement with Israel, the Lebanese government has pleased the Syrians and released much of the tension in the war-torn Middle-Eastern nation.
Proposed negotiations in Switzerland between the various warring factions in the region may also have positive consequences. It is certainly time to end the civil war.
Yet, however positive the consequences of abandoning the May peace accord and establishing negotiations may seem, there may be as yet unforeseen side effects.
Obviously the Israelis are not pleased with the denunciation of the May 17 agreement for now there is nothing to force the Syrians to withdraw from Lebanon.
And since the Israelis have no guarantee that the Lebanese will keep the Syrians away from southern Lebanon and Israel, the chances are good that the Israelis will become even more wary of the Syrians.
The Israeli fear of the Syrian military force in Lebanon helped bring about the Israeli invasion of the country in the first place.
And because Syria strongly desires to reclaim its old empire, the Israelis think that their nation is in greater danger after Lebanon's denunciation of the May agreement and its closer ties with Syria.
The Israeli fear may not be valid Yet the rivalry between the Arab nations and Israel is an old one.
On the surface, Syria seems to be a unifier. The Druse militia has actually praised the Lebanese government because of the government's recent actions. This indicates that some progress is being made.
But in doing what Syria wants the Lebanese government may be inviting further conflict. Amin Gemayel's government must take steps to end its civil war. But at the same time, it must take care not to start a regional one.
Dance law not needed
Of all things, city commissioners in one California city are worried about break-dancing.
The craze involves a combination of handsprings, headstands and other assorted gymnastics.
In San Bernadino, the youthful hobby has attracted the attention of city politicians. Not that the politicians would want to join in the activity, mind you.
The merchants there have complained that the break-dancers' audiences interfered with shoppers.
Heaven forbid that anything should stop the steady progression of dollars into the merchants' cash registers.
Registrar The city council already has taken some action on the matter. Last month it tentatively approved an
However, present San Bernadino ordinances should be sufficient to take care of any public disturbances, as should the regulations in most cities.
Certainly the merchants have a small argument. If crowds gather and interfere with the orderly activities of shoppers, or interfere with traffic, then perhaps something should be done.
ordinance that would have made break-dancing on any city property punishable by a $100 fine for the first offense.
The councilmen there should forget about regulating what probably is only a temporary dancing craze. To pass an ordinance now would be unneeded and would accomplish little.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 300 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 faculty or staff position. The Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest comments. The letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
Prayer in public schools
'Prayer in school does not usurp liberty. Prayer enhances liberty. True freedom comes with peace of mind. And religion gives people that solace.'
YES
American society will not immediately crumble. Nor will communists infiltrate our school system within the next few months.
But regardless of whether our nation will deteriorate in the near future, prohibiting prayer in schools is fundamentally wrong.
prohibiting prayer in schools *is usurp* liberty. Prayer enhances liberty. True
Prayer in school does not usurp liberty. And religion gives people that solace.
LETTERS POLICY
freedom comes with peace of mind. And religion gives people the soffice
The skeptics also argue that onexistent religion into our schools, we open
our schools to nonexistent religious bigotry.
ourselves to book banning and religious restriction. This absurd argument is much like the saying that once a person smokes a cigarette, it must be attached to her heenon adict.
martjiana, he is desistent. Opponents also point to the Supreme Court's constitutional justification for borne writer in school in the early 1960s.
banning prayer in school in the early 1960s.
However, one must not bow to every judicial decision. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said this week, Americans must question the court and its decisions.
And as polls indicate, a majority of Americans favor some type of school prayer.
**NOTES**
Americans must be skeptical — especially when the court tramples on the will of the majority.
Despite the backing for school prayer across the land, the minority against school prayer argues that it is not a moral question no meaning when recited routinely.
Prayer, like multiplication tables.
But history, math and the social sciences are also not fully appreciated by children.
MICHAEL BECK Staff Columnist
gives children a foundation on which to build later in life. The impact is not immediate.
Opponents of school prayer also argue that by saying a God-oriented prayer, the children of Muslims, Buddhists or Zenists would be criticized.
By refusing to say a prayer in school, the children would be outcasts, opponents say, and would therefore be the butt of children's iokes.
However, their minority children, as a result of their parents' religious and ethnic background, are already different, and the prayer issue would only be a small reason for peer ridicule.
And the chances are slim that all children would pray at home as all parents don't take the time to instruct their children in any religion.
Refusing every point of the opponents' stand against prayer in school is not enough. And although the arguments for school prayer are more emotional than logical, school prayer does have its benefits.
no statistics prove that a bit of religion in school will improve students' grades or rid the system of drugs and truancy.
Yet without school prayer, many
Yet without school play, our children will lack a religious and moral foundation, which I think is important to our country's future freedom and stability.
tion to our country's future freedom and stability. Many argue that such foundations are unnecessary, that individuals don't need such guidance in their lives. With these people there can be no resolution, for they cannot see beyond their own existence.
NO
Perhaps the issue bolts down to faith. Those adults who lack religious foundation see school prayer as an intrusion and usurpation of liberty.
But with school prayer, perhaps we will be a stronger, more unified nation. For I have seen strong faith strengthen and unify.
'Allowing states to decide whether their schools will have organized prayer, whether silent or vocal, undermines the nation's tradition of pluralism.'
It is here that children learn that the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock to escape religious persecution in tynanical England.
The United States is a nation in which children attempt to settle dispute with the eighty-seven reclamation. "It's a free country."
However, these are not a religious background see school prayer as giving a gift of guidance to our nation's youth who would otherwise not have it. I find myself defending God and religion with this column. It is a shame that it must come to this.
Lack of school prayer will not destroy the nation. We have lived 29 years without it.
And it is here that President Reagan and the New Right want to allow states to permit organized prayer in public schools.
A permit organized institutionalized, government-sponsored prayer in a community serves itself on the「beef nation」in the world.
They are sending a confusing message to the children — one that should be disturbing for all of us. Allowing states to decide whether their schools will have organized prayer, whether silent or vocal, undermines the nation's tradition of nurbulsip.
tradition of palestine.
Those who advocate school prayer have the advantage of claiming that God is on their side. They merely want to let God back into the classroom, they say.
They want to provide the religious training they tear is lacking at nome Most of them, however, don't want the schools to take over for the home when it comes to sex education. )
Some try to make their plans palatable by proposing that the prayers be written by governors, officers and in school principals and teachers.
They say that reciting a prayer, or even setting aside a time for silent prayer, would not be the same as establishing a state religion.
But any spoken prayer, no matter how bland, would be colored by
DEBORAH
BAER
Staff Columnist
some religion, and in the United States, that religion would be Christianity. Even a period of silent meditation would discriminate against some, for few Muslim children would be willing to attract the attention to themselves that turning toward Mecca and prostrating themselves would surely bring.
Reagan's proposal states that "no person shall be required by the United States or any state to participate in prayer," but not participating would be awkward in a society in which "peer pressure" is a part of the average fifth-grader's vocabulary.
Perhaps we are a nation founded on religion, as school-prayer proponents sav.
nets say.
But that doesn't mean that the religion of the majority should become the religion of majority rule. Some things must be above legislation.
They say that their children should be free to pray in school.
proponents of an amendment allowing prayer in the public schools argue that religion has been legislated out of public schools, and they use the same argument their opponents use — that of freedom — to push their cause through Congress.
They say that their children should learn what they do not grasp is that their children are already free to do so, privately. The desire to make worship a classroom activity, with a scheduled time and perhaps even a specially composed prayer, is offensive.
time and perhaps even a specially composed one. An amendment allowing scheduled, organized school prayer would be an infringement on the rights of those for whom the chosen prayer, or any prayer, is invalid
And in a country that has yet to shake misunderstandings and prejudices based on religion, prayer is best left a private, personal matter.
The Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment to mean that organized prayer does not belong in the schools. Congress may be about to challenge that interpretation, and thus the country risks losing its status as a haven for free thought.
School prayer would not be a return to the country's true tradition, but it would be a step back.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Understanding true art
To the editor:
underscores their importance.
Art objects and art criticism deserve and involve more than self-righteous flaunting of unstudied personal taste.
In assigning the "Salina Piece." Barbara Paris demonstrated not only that she knows what she likes (or doesn't like), but also that she doesn't understand much about art.
Neither naive aesthetic experiences nor virtuoso feats of craftsmanship are everything that art has to offer idea, meaning and new ways of thinking and seeing are also involved, and they have to be perceived before the experience can come together for the viewer. Only after this can the viewer truly decide if the work is successful and meaningful or not.
An observation made a century ago by Gaugin applies perfectly:
"You have beforehand a ready-made idea, that of the man of letters, and have too high an opinion of your own thoughts to examine those of others. It takes intelligence and knowledge in order to judge these texts, their painting and music requisite special skills, nature besides intelligence and artistic science."
some works are less immediately self-evident in meaning than others, and this is no fault. If it were, we would have to count out many works of literature in derision and are now considered masterpieces.
To say, however, that one should not criticize art because it is a reflection of the times and tastes change, would be as naive as blind criticism. Especially in our individualistic society, art is more a reflection of the spirit of the artist than of society as a whole.
I should also hope that there are underly ing standards more permanent than those demonstrated by the arbitrary tastes of time.
Kathleen League
Salina graduate student
Closet needs to be large
To the editor:
TO the editor:
A recent editorial by Lawrence resident Joe Vusch depicts the general attitude which has pushed the Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas into wanting recognition as a minority group at the University of Kansas.
the University of Raleigh.
Mr. Vusich maintains that Ruth Lichtwacht will not demonstrate her "alternative lifestyle" in front of the Minority Affairs Committee. Will Mr. Vusich demonstrate his "lifestyle?" The comment is ludicrous.
is ludicrous.
Mr. Vusich also states that there "is no way a homosexual can prove that he/she is intrinsically different from any other heterosexual person. Period. . . homosexuals may act different from normal people. . ." These statements imply that homosexuals are misguided heterosexuals and abnormal.
Unfortunately, our already overburdened legal system could not stand this!
To the editor:
The closest Mr. Vusich wants to shut "Li-
abnormal.
It is this attitude about and fear of homosexuality that proves that GLSOK needs protection from discrimination.
from instruktion.
If Mr. Virush wishes to begin enforcing the laws outlawing sodomy, he should begin on the doorsteps of most heterosexuals. Fellatio and cunnilingus are both practiced by most heterosexuals and both fit in the heading of sodomy
chtardw't's gang" into had better be a large one. A lot of heterosexuals will want to get in too — so they can shake hands with their friends.
I think you showed extremely poor taste in your March 5, editorial cartoon depicting the Rev. Jesse Jackson in front of a podium subtitled "From the White House to the Outhouse."
Ellen T. Wright
Lawrence graduate student
Give both sides of issue
From the White House, Rev. Jackson publicly apologized to the entire country for having made that "racial slur." I might also add that he showed great courage by doing so, when he simply could have denied that he said it.
he sahir could be noted that on several occasions Rev. Jackson has been booed and hissed at and called names by irate Jewish protesters. Why don't you denict this in one of your cartoons?
The bottom line is this: There is no excuse for Rev. Jackson's comment, and he didn't try to make one. He realized he was wrong and he apologized. But there is obvious hostility on both sides, and this should be equally illustrated.
In my opinion, the really good journalists do not feed on the mistakes of others by exhibiting their bad points and virtually ignoring their good in the face of one error!
face or one elf.
We all should remember that when you point a finger at someone, you have three pointing back at you.
Janine Kaye Woods Wichita junior