OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
March 7,1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daykan Kamen (USP$ 600-649) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer-First Hall, Lawrence, Ks. 60045, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excused for holidays, holidays, and final periods. Second class posting paid at Law School by mail are $15 for each student and $25 for a year outside the county Student subscription are $8 a semester paid through the student activity fee. POSTMASTER: address changes to
DOUG CUNNINGHAM
Editor
DON KNOX
Managing Editor
SARA KEMPIN
Editorial Editor
JEFF TAYLOR
Campus Editor
ANDREW HARTLEY
News Editor
PAUL JESS
General Manager, and News Advisor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
CORT GORMAN JILL MITCHELL
Retail Sales Manager National Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
JANICE PHILIPS
Campus Sales Manager
DUNCAN CALIHOU
Classified Manager
The name game
Just when Gary Hart began to write songs that made voters dance, a few of his opponents attempted a not-so-successful campaign to trip his increasingly promising chances of waltzing away with the Democratic nomination for president.
The senator from Colorado barely had two days to celebrate his victory in the New Hampshire primary when the press began to reciculate a story that charged that Hart had shortened his last name — Hartpence — for purely political reasons.
The story, which was published last month in the Washington Post, also implied that Hart had intentionally lied about his age. Kansas birth records show that Hart was born a year before the birthdate published in his campaign literature: Nov. 28, 1937.
Supporters of former Vice President Walter Mondale and of Sen John Glenn immediately seized upon the media's resurrection of a story that had outlived its newsworthiness.
Americans have the right to ask the courts to change their names, for whatever reason. The decision most often is a personal request — Hart's immediate family asked for the name change because the original family name had been Hart, not Hartpence.
Their intent was clear. Instead of battling Hart on issues and ideas, the Mondale and Glenn camps began a superficial campaign to destroy Hart's credibility.
Hart attributes the one-year discrepancy in his age to his campaign staff. Says Hart: "I can't account for every piece of paper that's been written by my campaign staff or anyone else."
The discussion matters little anyway.
Hart would be no less of a presidential contender at either age. And he would be just as popular among Democratic voters were his name changed to Mondale, Glenn, Jackson, McGovern or even Reagan.
Caution needed
The bloody 42-month Persian Gulf war has escalated into a conflict demanding world attention, and it promises to keep that attention for some time to come.
In the past several weeks, Iran has launched a massive offensive relying on waves of religiously fanatic Iranians to drive into Iraqi territory.
The Iranians have been promised salvation for their lives, and their determined victories have pushed both sides into a difficult position because this nasty war now threatens a vital waterway.
Iran has said it would close the Strait of Hormuz if Iraq begins its threatened bombing raids on Iranian oil depots, or if American ships stationed in the Gulf impede Iranian forces in the war.
President Reagan said that "there was no way that we could allow that
channel to be closed" because 20 percent of all Western oil flows through the strait.
Iranian President Ali Khamenei said, "If the Americans want to compensate for their disgrace in Lebanon with adventurism and support of Iraq, it is impossible for us to permit even a drop of oil to leave the gulf."
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has vowed to fight on, "even if it means World War III."
All three sides must cool their political fervor to avert a devas tating conclusion to this crisis.
Iraq and Iran, now entangled in heated warfare, cannot be depended on to act rationally and calmly.
President Reagan must remain wary of the nations' short fuses, and exercise extreme caution in the Persian Gulf crisis. Military force should be used only as a last resort.
Election meaningless
Voter apathy is bad, but ideological conformity is even worse.
Poor election turnout in the United States, which some say is a criticism of our democracy, is unfortunate. But even worse is the travesty of elections in the Soviet Union.
At least in the United States, as well as in other democratic countries, the people, even if they choose not to exercise their right to vote, have a chance to choose their nation's leaders.
But the election in the U.S.S.R. Sunday was an empty gesture for the average Soviet citizen. As they stuffed pre-printed ballots into a box, they already knew Konstantin U. Chernenko would be elected as the new leader of the Soviet Union.
The election was an ideological rubber stamp.
Before a single voter went to the polls, Chernenko had already proclaimed the election as "a living witness to the unshakable unity of a party and people."
The Soviet media made an extravagant display of the event, showing ballot boxes being flown to remote settlements and providing fantastic election return figures.
But as closing time neared, some election workers privately said that many of the names of people who had not yet voted were simply checked off.
Getting voters interested is a challenge, not a problem. But something is wrong when the masses of people who vote are given no choice in the election.
Four hours before the polls closed, officials boasted a 99.59 percent turnout.
The University Daily Kansas 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 to submit their columns. Columns and 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.
LETTERS POLICY
Complacency replaces activism
"Come mothers and fathers all over the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command . . . And the times, they are 'a changin'."
Bob Dylan
Campus activism has crumbled into memories captured on faded photographs and clippings brittle with lost idealism.
In the early '70s, the University of Kansas shook as hundreds of students took to the streets to protest the wars and evils of their
In the early '80s, the University lies still and silent, as Lawrence residents provide a few rallies against rape, abortion, the right to choose and nuclear war.
The Woodstock nation's legacy of
KIESA HARRIS
Staff Columnist
idealism has become a laughing-stock. Students seek employability, spurring the dreams of the past generation in favor of a comfortable but ignorant lack of questioning.
Draft registration, federal aid cutbacks, and a government unresponsive to the needs of minorities and poor people have not shaken the students out of their private little beer-sodden domains.
They don't want to change the
Central America burns as students sit behind textbooks. The Middle East broils as students dance. Instead of questioning the United States' right to manipulate governments and insert its own rule, students accept the injustices with a cow-like compacency.
world. They want to fit into the materialistic success patterns of their parents. They buy into the two-car garage mentality that tells them the only appropriate change is a corporate one that will bring them closer.
Even when Americans fight and die in wars not their own, U.S. students fail to shout for the cause of freedom in civil dismissions with no chance of success.
Without questioning the decisions of authority figures, progress and learning will not occur. Mute acceptance leads the lemmings to death.
Silently, students scuttle across campus with bowed heads. On weekends, many of them work for money to pay school bills. Others drink themselves into a comfortable, ignorant, ignorant state sure that God and Reagan are on their side, make much noise at all.
The '80s are hard for students.
former student body president David Abrey says. The issues at hand do not strike at the core of students' lives.
The warring activities of the U.S. government are apparent throughout Central America and the Caribbean, focused in one place like Vietnam.
Likewise, strong possibilities for protest have become scattered as students sacrifice idealism for realism.
Advisory boards ask for student help with certain decisions, and students who might otherwise protest the administration become a part of it. Students no longer strike to see that their favorite professors get tenure. They don't seem to care.
The Lawrence community has taken up the slack in some areas. Some activists of days past maintain a certain idealism, and show it by organizing peaceful groups and social programs.
But even here, activism is but a flickering shadow of its past strength. Only a handful of students and residents actively have protested Wolf Creek nuclear power plant, a sinkhole for Kansan dollars that could endanger lives if anything goes wrong.
The last "Women Take Back the Night" rally attracted about 75 people, but hardly any were men. With so many causes and so few activists, participants often find themselves over-extended.
Students no longer plant bombs, but neither do they strive for change. No one wants to be deemed a troublemaker when jobs seem so fierce. They want jobs, no matter what kind of world surrounds those jobs.
A few students, particularly people who study social welfare, psychology, counseling and women's studies, participate in making Lawrence one of the country's most livable places.
U.S.S.R. is the big villain in arms race
They are still at it. Protesters in West Germany, England and the rest of Western Europe still resist Nato's most hostile NATO missile distribution.
While shouting and condemning the United States, they keep a blind eye to the ruthless aggressions of the Soviet Union. Some actually think that the United States is the "main threat to peace."
One only has to see what is going on in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan to that this assumption is wrong.
During the past 15 years, there has been an arms race in which the Soviet Union has been the only contender. When the Reagan administration took office in a speech to Congress in 1980, he rebuild the United States' defenses. Those defenses had been severely neglected.
The Soviet response was, to say the least, hypocritical. The KGB-sponsored peace movements failed to destabilize the NATO alliance. The Soviets had hoped
that their massive propaganda campaign would destabilize the West long enough to halt missile distribution.
In 1977, the Soviet Union began distributing a three-warhead monster known as the S20. Suppose a British jet would enter French and British missiles.
But by the end of 1978, the Soviets passed the French and British in number of warheads and they continued to distribute more warheads, with a total of 1,134 warheads. Who is the aggressor?
To counter this buildup, NATO decided to distribute 572 cruise and Pershing 2 missiles. It was
also decided that the United States should start arms reduction talks, which might cancel the NATO distribution.
The Soviets, on the other hand, stalled at the talks hoping that their propaganda campaign would halt the distribution without having to make any concessions. The soldiers they were never serious about arms reductions, they just walked out of the talks.
Those who advocate a nuclear freeze may be surprised to learn that in 1970 the United States froze its ICBMs at 1,054 and SLBMs at 656. Now the United States is doe is to 1,043 ICBMs and 560 SLBMs.
The Soviets, though, continued to build way past its need for an adequate defense. They outnumber us in both ICBMs and SLBMs and have three ICBM production lines in use now. The peacekeeper missile should finally reverse this trend.
Although the United States leads in warheads (9,480 to 8,040), the Soviet Union more than
doubles the number of megatons (7.868 to 3.505).
In 1980, the Soviet Union spent $188 billion on defense while the United States spent $131 billion. The Soviets exported a whopping $6 billion worth of arms while the U.S. bought only $6 billion worth of arms.
The Soviets' intentions are clear. They seek to expand the Soviet Union's aggressive influence anywhere there is no determined resistance to stop them.
U. S. policy must remain one of "peace through strength."
The Soviets were never serious about arms control. But now they see that the NATO alliance is firm in its commitment and that it is to their advantage to return to the negotiating table and finally start some serious reductions in nuclear arms.
Arms control cannot be on U.S. terms or Soviet terms but on equal terms.
Victor Goodposture is a Topeka sonhomore.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Role of 'noble' Syrians
To the editor:
In response to Mr. Ther Laham's letter in the University Daily Kansan, (Feb. 20, 1964), I would like to agree with his statement that, concerning American involvement in Lebanon, "where political decisions are made, noble considerations are usually dismissed."
"however, it would have been more enlightening and had he focused on the questionably noble" role.
Was it the "noble consideration" that made the Syrian army bomb every major town and city in Lebanon? Was it the "brotherhood consideration" that directed their intelligence bureau to kidnap and persecute any Lebanese who recognized the dangerous Syrian role in Lebanon?
It is a political motive that is behind the Syrian involvement in Lebanon, a policy of aggrandizement spurred by a historical myth that Lebanon is a part of "Greater Syria."
Was it the "Arabian Solidarity" that made the Syrian army stand aside and witness the death of 30,000 Lebanese civilians during the Israeli invasion?
Lanam claims that the Syrians were "invited into Lebanon to help restore peace." However, the Lebanese government has repeatedly and explicitly indicated to the Syrians that such a coerced "invitation" has long since been withdrawn.
It is not surprising that American involvement in Lebanon has been characterized as "national interest" rather than "mobile gestures."
To the editor:
But why should the Americans be criticized while our "bigger sister," as Lebanon used to call Syria, bombed, demolished and persecuted Lebanese — all in the name of Arabian Brotherhood!
Please, for the sake of thousands of Lebanese whose lives and property have been destroyed in the name of fraternity, let us not have any perfidious illusions of "Brotherhood."
Ralph ElChami
Ralph Eichmann
Beirut, Lebanon, graduate student
Apathy was ignorant
To the editor:
Naive wasn't the word for Student Senate presidential and vice-presidential candidates Bob Swain and Robb Murphy of the Apathy Coalition.
I think a more appropriate adjective would have been ignorant. It amazed me at how readily they condemned Student Senate, because if they really were ignorant, it wouldn't have been said Senate had a "country club attitude."
My response to Ms. Coffee's Feb. 7 letter and the following delegation of indigent respons offers the following:
Senate certainly doesn't sit in meetings for $3^{1/2}$ hours discussing what time to tee-off.
Granted, the credibility of Senate has been destroyed by last semester's elections, but that doesn't give anyone license to say Senate doesn't care.
other ways. But though it is common
Senate may leave something to be desired but in
The slandering of Senate may be justified in some ways. But enough is enough.
The only way to build bridges between senators and students is to take a real look at Senate. Anyone is invited to attend Senate meetings, which are usually in the Kansas Room or the Big 8 Room of the Kansas Union every other Wednesday night.
Above all Senate doesn't need incentive in representing the students. Senate is trying to deal effectively in the best interest of the students but it also puts the students at risk to students when they don't believe in what you stand for.
return so does the involvement and concern of the students. Robyn Marriott St. Louis freshman
In defense of Lawrence
view of something I am one of about three or four Lawrence natives attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I attended Lawrence High School and my parents both teach at the University of Kansas.
My Lawrence comrades and I have often noticed that our fellow students smile knowingly when we tell them where we are from. "Oh, isn't that surprising?" I surpriSED that you decided to come here instead!
This provokes a reaction to enthusiastically describe our hometown. We all cite many of the points brought out in the letters in this column such as academic standing and prestige, culture, high employment and a big-city atmosphere in a small-town environment.
But then I have to be careful that my praise of Lawrence isn't taken in the same way as Ms. Coffey's was. I think that it is interesting that most of the letters in the University Daily Kansan defending Lawrence were written by people originally from other communities.
There is a lesson here — one that should be kept in mind wherever one's former and present home may be. By the way, did you all know that Mad City, Wisconsin is the most fantastic, exciting, great and . . .
Jim Lande
University of Wisconsin, Madison, freshman