OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
November 1, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daykan Kissan (USPS 60-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Sauffer Flint Hall, U.S.A., during the regular school year and twice weekly during the summer semester. Saturday, July 21, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the University Daykan Kissan; Sunday, bobby hall, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at $15 for six months or $7 a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $3 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a $4 semester paid through the student account fee. POSTMATH: Send address changes to the U.S. Postal Service, Box 2860, Washington, DC 20006.
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM STEVE CUSICK
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
DON KNOX Campus Editor
PAUL JESS
DAVE WANAMAKER
MARK MEARS
Bereal Sales
National Sales
Manager
PAUL JESS
General Manager and News Adviser
LYNNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Advertising Adviser
Fritz and Jesse
The Kansas National Education Association board of directors voted Saturday to endorse Walter Mondale for the presidency. By its 19-2 vote, it became the ninth state chapter of the National Education Association to endorse the former vice president.
A K-NEA official said yesterday that the board had endorsed Mondale because of his long-standing support of education. John Lloyd, K-NEA's executive director, said that as a senator, Mondale had backed federal programs that provided funds for bilingual education and for special educational programs for handicapped and low-income students.
The decision by the K-NEA to endorse Mondale should come as no surprise, especially because the NEA endorsed him in September. More surprising — and interesting is Lloyd's prediction that Mondale would select Jesse Jackson, the black civil rights leader from Chicago, as his running mate.
The choice would make sense for both Mondale and Jackson, who
announced on Sunday's "60 Minutes" broadcast that he would declare his own presidential candidacy this week.
In a sense Jackson has been running for political office already, having traveled around the country giving speeches that have galvanized voter registration drives among blacks. The drive has made politicians realize that the black vote is going to carry some clout this election.
And beating Reagan is the name of the game for blacks, who have suffered inordinately under the Reagan administration's sharp budget cuts.
The Jackson campaign would probably not make it past the Democratic convention, and unless Jackson decided to run as a third party candidate, it would not pose too much of a threat to the Democrats' hopes.
Together, Jackson and Mondale, with their diverse constituencies, have a better chance than most for defeating Reagan and the kind of policies that have been so devastating to these groups' lives.
A sane Halloween
It appears that, at least in Lawrence, children are still safe to walk the streets on Halloween, unmolested by muggers, robbers or child molesters, and without being subjected to candy contaminated by drugs or razor blades.
people, said that they, too, found no harmful items inserted in candy or other treats.
Lawrence and KU police and hospital officials reported, as of 11:30 p.m., no Halloween pranks or problems of any kind. In Kansas City, Kan., the Poison Control center at the University of Kansas Medical Center also reported no problems, and a nurse at Suburban Medical Center in Johnson County, which X-rayed the candy of about 700
Such news is a blessing, to be sure. If Halloween is still to survive as a holiday, and indeed we hope it shall, then kindness, not madness and perversion, must open the door to receive our children and the children of others. It is sad to say, but perhaps the reason for the lack of problems last night was that fewer children were roaming the streets, choosing to stay home because of fear. Or perhaps, truly, our society is getting Kinder, and saner. Let's pray it's the latter reason.
'Miss Lillian'
Lillian Carter died from cancer yesterday at the age of 85 after living a full and varied life that included a stint as a Peace Corps nurse in India at the "youthful" age of 67.
The mother of former President Jimmy Carter was a strong-minded and strong-willed individual who withstood the pressures of her small town in Georgia to concern herself about the problems of blacks.
Trained as a nurse, she healed white and black children alike, at a
time 50 years ago when most of her white friends "wouldn't even touch a black baby."
"Miss Lillian," as she was affectionately called by family and press alike, did not like being in the limelight. She avoided the White House during her son's four-year term as president, insisting that she was "a small-town person."
"This is where I am happiest," she once said. "And this is where I find peace — peace of mind and peace of body."
A chilling reminder
An observation of a U.S. Marine sniper in Beirut the other day was a chilling reminder of what war can do to the mind, even a mind educated in the most civilized nation on Earth:
crosshairs are on them and you know you are going to blow them away. But then, after a while, you see your buddies getting killed and it doesn't make any difference to you any more."
"It is strange at first. You see them through your scope and the
The Hartford (Conn.) Courant
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 office of the Kansan alsoInvites individuals and groups to submit guest 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
Marines sink deeper into Mideast conflict
BEIIRUT, Lebanon — Marine forces in Beirut gradually became more involved in Lebanon's internal warfare in the past 14 months — leading to last week's suicide bombing that killed at least 229 American soldiers.
The attack on the military headquarters of the 1,500-man American unit of the multinational peace-keeping force in the Lebanon capital was the blackout war for the Marines since two Jamaica.
"Now we realize that there are a lot of people in Lebanon who
SCOTT MACLEOD
For most of their first year in Lebanon, the Marines mainly kept out of trouble.
don't like us very much," said one Marine officer.
United Press International
And as the suicide raid makes clear, provocateurs and terror groups are stalking the Americans.
But on Aug. 28, U.S. troops fought a 90-minute firetight with Muslim militiamen after being shot at in south Beirut, thus moving from peace-keeping duty to combat.
Two key opposition groups, the National Salvation Front and the Shite Amal militia, appear to be moving toward a pact on the multinational force.
The Marine Rules of Engagement allow the peace-keeping troops to return fire if under attack. So it is plain battles U.S. troops and multia bands in Lebanon could proliferate.
President Reagan sent the force to Lebanon on Aug. 25, 1982, to oversee the withdrawal of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation organization guerrillas, who were exiled expelled by an Israeli siege.
The Marines left as planned after 18 days but returned soon to protect the Lebanese and Palestinians civilians of west Beirut and to bolster the Lebanese army's attempt to get a hold on the city, Israel's commander and chants massacre of Palestinians by rightist Christians.
Rather than operating a garrisoned compound as they do now, the Marines went out on patrol through the Muslim slums to help residents feel that stability had returned.
The Marine base was positioned at the Beirut International Airport for a good reason: It was the buffer between the Israeli army to the south and the Lebanese controlled districts to the north.
With the Marines already drawn into combat in August, their role as peace-keeping troops was made riskier in September with the withdrawal of Israeli forces to a new occupation line about 20 miles south.
This ended the buffer role and put the Marine compound squarely in the center between Lebanon's warring factions.
The U.S. forces thus took on the job, rather than just cushioning against the Israelis, of directly aiding the Lebanese army under attack by Drusen Muslim and Shiite militias.
At one point, U.S. warships unleashed an offensive — a 338-shell barrage at Syriain-backed anti-government troops — because the Lebanese army and the government of President Amin Gemayel appeared on the verge of collapse.
Looking back on the bloody chain of events over 14 months, U.S. diplomats in Beirut acknowledge the Marines have been deeper into quicksand — an involvement that no one expected.
Mondale does OK in Florida voting
WASHINGTON — When Florida Democrats gathered for their state convention last month, the smart money was on former Gov. Rubin Askew to walk away with the president, who wrote party officials had scheduled.
Straw votes are a political gimmick exploited this year by state and local politics to provoke interest in their conventions and other events. In terms of the 1984 elections, they have no official status, but they do seem to increase attendance at party functions.
They also have some meaning for the candidates. Sen. Alan Cranston,
ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International
D-Calif., wanted to demonstrate last summer that he had appeal outside his own state and so he went all out to beat former Vice President Walter Mondale in the Wisconsin Democratic convention straw vote.
Mondale was the favorite because he, like Humbert Humprey before him, comes from neighborring Minnesota and was identified with the strong populist liberal tradition that dominates the Democratic parties of both states. But Mondale didn't put in his best efforts in Wisconsin and got a nasty shock when the Californian won the straw vote.
In Florida, Mondale was trying to pull off a variation of the Craston't feat in Wisconsin. He didn't have to — or want to — win, because that might have mortality offended Askew loyalists, who constitute the establishment of the Florida Demo. In 2014, he finished a strong second and to leave Sen John Glenn, D-Ohio, in the dust.
He did both, getting more than 800 votes compared to Askew's 1,053 and Glenn's 400-plus.
In the process some interesting
facts of political life in 1983 were revealed.
First, Mondale got far more mileage out of his alliance with organized labor than anyone had thought possible in a right-to-work state in the South. Florida is not known as a state where labor has had major political influence, so it was assumed that, at the convention, Mondale would get little out of his endorsements by the AFL-CIO and the National Teachers Association.
Wrong. Especially in the big city counties, such as Miami's Dade, union activists — teachers as well as blue collar types — arrived well-organized and delivered some large blocks of votes to Mondale. As someone pointed out, there might not be unionized steelworkers or automakers in many states, but they all have teachers and government employees, many of whom are union members.
A second fact was pointed out by Askew himself. He estimated after the vote that 3 million people had moved into Florida since he left the governor's seat in the mid 1970s.
The people who remembered him as governor were intensely loyal, but there were plenty of delegates to the convention who knew Askew only by reputation. His hold on them was only through state party officials who worked hard on behalf of the state's favorite son.
When the straw vote was taken, every county but Dade was reported, and it took an hour to complete its canvass. Some people thought the Mondale supporters in the delegation were trying to switch enough votes so he could beat Askew, but there also was the suggestion that the delay was caused by an effort to make sure that enough Dade votes were cast for Askew to avoid humiliating the former governor, making state party leaders look bad and creating a lot of ill-feeling toward Mondale in the state.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
President Reagan now showing true colors
To the editor:
On election night 1980, I sat in my lab grading papers while I watched the returns of the election. I was frightened. I had thought the American public saw through the flimsy charade that Reagan presented.
This was the same man that had supported the Vietnam War to the very end. The same man that had created the enormous personal property tax burden in California that sparked the Proposition 13 Tax withdrawn that built, with tax dollars, the governor's mansion in Sacramento.
Now we have U.S. troops committed to combat in Grenada and Lebanon. We have military advisers in El Salvador to prop up a dictatorial government. The CIA is running a covert military operation in Nicaragua aimed at the violent removal of the existing government.
The president has cut social services back so far that they are now only a token gesture toward the middle class. The House on Civil Rights is following the
Human Rights Commission into extinction. All the progress that has been fought for over the past twenty years, and bought with the blood of civil rights activists, has led to a surge in troops in Southeast Asia, seems to have been in vain.
Ronald Reagan seems not to be a student of history. An introductory course in Western civilization would teach him that the course of human history has been toward promoting the rights of the individual. From the Magna Charity he was moved to ensure the rights of the individual to a decent life, free of political, spiritual and economic tyranny.
I believe the American people now see Ronald Reagan's true colors. He can no longer hide behind his acting skills.
This is a critical time in our history. With national elections just beginning, it is essential that we examine the answers that our candidates present us, and cast our votes for the candidates that we believe to have
Gary W. Mc Cullough.
Lawrence graduate student
Not Christian
the best solutions. For if we do not find answers to the problems that confront us today, there may not be a day after.
Not Christian
Gary W. Mc Cullough
19) . Second, the God of Christianity is a single God.
To the editor:
The Kansan reported in a story Thursday that Haitian Voodoo is similar to Christianity. Nothing can be further form the truth.
This is a contradiction within itself. First, it is these Greco-Roman gods that the Apostle Paul preached against in Athens (Acts 17) and was nearly killed for preaching against in Ephesus (Acts
In the article, Bryant Freeman, professor of French, asserts that "Voodoo is not far away from Catholicism" and that it "is not that different than Christianity." He claims that "the gods are the same as those in Greco-Roman mythology. Voodoo has one great god, Bondie, and other special gods to help him out."
Freeman then states that the people worship "the god Papa Lebga who is roughly the equivalent of St. Peter." I — a Protestant — know that Catholics do not worship St. Peter. That is a direct contradiction of monotheism and is therefore idolatry.
Freeman then speaks of an annual cleansing ceremony, in which "you mix the blood (of a pig) with rum and water and then clean yourself with the mixture." The Christian believes that Jesus Christ's blood was the final, perfect sacrifice necessary to cleanse us from our sin (Hebrews 10:12. 28; I Peter 2:24; J John 2:26; Ephrem 7:17; 6:9; Jesus cleansing sacrifice not be received in a ceremony, it can only be received by asking by faith through prayer for Jesus Christ to forgive you and to come into your life as your personal savior.
Douglas Hensley
Kansas City, Mo., sophomore
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