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Thursday, September 22, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Opinion
Ramaley takes both sides on right of groups to speak
It has been said that there are two sides to every issue, and the executive vice chancellor, her side depends on the prepapling of the issue.
"The fact that someone expresses an abhorrent view does not mean that they are a clear and present danger," Ramaley said.
But seven months ago, during a less peaceful time on campus, Ramaley and other administrators condoned the cancellation of a speaker with an abhorrent viewpoint, the Ku Klux Klan, because of security reasons.
Canning the postponement reasonable in a statement made Feb. 15, Ramaley said, "In the present circumstances, we must be sensitive to the concerns of our students, faculty and community. Educational objectives cannot be achieved in an atmosphere permeated with fear and anxiety." A fear, Ramaley said, generated by the Klan's beliefs.
She has, in the simplest terms, contradicted hersen. As KU's second-highest ranking administrator, Ramaley must be accountable for her words. But the question now is: Which words?
Which words:
Playing situational ethics is not a safe method for handling controversy. Nor is it an acceptable way of interpreting the right to free speech.
Two weeks ago, Ramaley said, "Freedom of speech and the provision of a forum for free debate are so vital to the central purposes of a university that we must continue to preserve that right, even when our actions are unpopular and even when the university is burdening such events. University is somehow endorsing or supporting the views of those who speak within our walls."
Seven months ago, she said, "A postponement is consistent with our institutional roles of encouraging the pursuit of knowledge and protecting that pursuit from threats and pressures from special interests."
Ramaley's new statement indicates that controversial groups are welcome on campus. That's a good policy. Let's hope the next time there's protest about the appearance of such a group Ramaley will remember what she said Sept. 7.
A boneheaded labeling plan
For more than a decade, just the use of mechanically separated meat (MSM) has been a simmering issue between consumer advocates and the industry. Now, manufacturers want to use the product and not label it.
Proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after petitions from the meat industry, this change in regulations would mean more ground bone and meat remnants in such staples of the student diet as hot dogs and bologna.
The proposal, which would allow up to 10 percent MSM in products without labeling, is open for public comment until
MSM, which began as MDM, or mechanically deboned meat, is the result of industry's effort to salvage as much meat as possible. It is produced by running the bones and attached muscles through a grinder. The mixture is then forced through sieves.
The final mixture, which can constitute up to 20 percent of the meat portion of products such as hot dogs, luncheon meats, sausage, scraple and canned spaghetti with meat sauce, contains some small bone particles.
the meat industry has complained in 1978 that the stricte regulations call too much attention to the finely ground bone, and that they are not effective.
Accurate labeling of all of a product's components protects the consumer and makes the industry more accountable. This move to avoid labeling MSM will revert consumer rights and industrial responsibilities.
This petition from meat manufacturers deserves no support. It means more money in their pockets and more crud in stock piles.
Muktha Jost for the editorial board
The editorial board consists of Michael Merschel, Mark Tilford, Todd Cohen, Michael Horak, Julie Adam, John MeMahon, Tony Balandran, Muktha Christ and Christian Martin.
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European virtues fool American student
The breezy little article by a graduate student at the University of Arkansas could have been titled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." Instead it was called, "Austrians Value Learning for Itself" — unlike Americans, according to the author. He mentioned how advanced his Austrian hosts this summer seemed in languages and culture in preparation for their pilgrimagezens of this Republic. It's a message Americans have been getting from the Old World at least since there have been Americans.
The most tiresome purveyors of this theme have been those Americans who might be described as upwardly mobile culturally. Among certain groups, these are as deeply ingrained as an inferiority complex.
After the country almost overdosed on patriotic oratory during the Democratic and Republican primaries, voters who do not welcome are welcome in a way — like a little bicarbonate of soda after an orgy of apple and hot dogs. But as a steady diet, America-bashing grows bo-ring, and people see the American epigones never seem to tire of it.
Paul Greenberg
Here is our student extolling Austrian culture:
"it wasn't only their fluency that impressed me. The Austrians talked with apparent ease about teaching. They could all easily be five-time champs on Jeopardy." I asked how everyone in one place could be so well-rounded, and the only answer I could come to was "their philosophy concerning education. They see education as an end in itself, but we americans see it as just a means to get a better job — something that is more difficult than anything else, instead of something pleasantly essential."
There's no doubting that Americans can learn much from Europe — including what to avoid in art, politics, literature, and things classical. Especially what to avoid in politics. One wonders if our leaders should not have given more than the president of that country was. Now there is a product of a European education. No one can
Svndicated columnist
doubt Kurt Waldheim's fluency in languages. When his checkered past was revealed, Herr Dr. President Waldheim tried to pass himself off as a translator of Italian in thealks.
What does his election as president of Austria, and his staying president of Austria, say of that country's appreciation of "art, politics, literature, and things classical?" Especially things classical. Justice, honor, virtue, truth. It says that such much of the European culture, are for display only.
History is not one of the specialties our American student cited in his paean to Austrian education. History on the European continent tends to change with the regime dictating it at the moment. But when Napoleon was wiped out by Revolution, which first denied the monarchy and then denied the republic itself when Napoleon came along—before a restored aristocracy denied all power to the monarchy of 1848 was wiped out by Europe's multiplicity of ideologies (facism, Communism, Nazism, your name it) which in turn were erased by conventional modern democracy. On the continent, politics is not so much the study of the past as its denial.
Certainly there is much that Americans can learn from Europe, including a facility for languages. An empty chauvinism is no more to be expected in Europe than in the United States. But let's not confuse a certain fluency in languages with a respect for the ideas they contain, nor mistake culture for dinner conversation. Let's hope that people do not want to despise those who are there because they want to learn something they can put into practice.
whether it be ideas or agriculture. That's the American way; it is no coincidence that pragmatism has been called the only original American philosophy.
The notion that ideas should be judged apart from their actual results is not very American, which may explain our happier history. Europeans constantly plan revolutions that will totally change man and society, yet find themselves back where they started; Americans are averse to vast plans that would leave the poor alone. Here change is so assumed that we may never notice it; familiarity breeds lack of attention.
If our student is interested in how Americans managed to bring off revolutions at regular intervals in almost an mind of mind, let him consult American art, politics and history with the students at paper shops, writings of Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison Americans, too, have our classic things.
Our student could delve into de Tocquervei. For the verisimilitude art can provide, he might consult Thomas Eakins and Edward Hopper, or settle back to an evening "Thundery in Blue"
if our student has the stamina for it, he might tackle Carl Sandburg or old Walt Whitman himself, raucous and elusive and alive as America itself.
You will hardly know what I am or what I mean. But I shall be good health you nevertheless.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me in one place search another,
Getting lost in the unknown.
Yes. Walt Whitman bellowing and laughing and reaching and singing — "Of life immense in the world." I recommend Walt Whitman to a student back from a summer in some small European country. That
Paul Greenberg is a syndicated columnist who wrote the New York Times Gazette. Copyright 1988, Los Angeles Times.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
A Hoosier thank-you
Several weeks ago I visited your campus to investigate several graduate programs. I remember awakening at sunrise just in time to receive a call from my professor of out of my bus window Perched on Mt. Orland, the University promises a proud sense of tradition and scholarship. And a bill later, on campus, issued by the university,叫 taxi let me off near the fountain, where I could see immediately that the University of Kansas has a beautiful campus with a balance of arduous and intimate, and intimacy, of manmade and the natural.
Almost as immediately perceptible as KU's physical beauty is the sense of school spirit, of enthusiasm for life and friendliness. I suspect not simply a back-to-school enthusiasm.
I attended Convocation, was welcomed warmly by several academic departments and was assisted readily with all of the trivial questions as visitor asks. I grudgingly toured the site of the site.
new national basketball champions. And I was hosted by a chlamming faculty family.
While journeying home, I was struck again by how fortunate in general we are in the U.S. to go to college anywhere and at any age and in particular how fortunate you are to attend KU. We are lucky that you can experience academic and athletic excellence and an enthusiastically friendly spirit of tradition.
Do you know that not all U.S. universities have all these ingredients? If you don't visit a few of them, you're out of luck. You can experience Kansas experience. And should you visit Indiana, I hope that we might be as cordial with and that we might be honored by being good alumni. I'll be sure the alma mater as you have reminded me of mine.
Thank you KU.
Clark Grown Indiana University graduate student Bloomington, Ind
Clark Brown
Inaccurate charges
I feel that I must respond to the ill-informed letter of Mr. Mohammad Alani (Sept. 19) informing us that the beleaguered Kardus does not desire the United States "insincere" concern
I must first say that I deplore the frightening and inexcessable use of chemical weapons by Iraq under any circumstances and that I don't believe that any of the players in the tragic and
pointess Gulf conflict have emerged unblemished.
I do believe, however, that it was irresponsible of Mr. Aliami carefully to name 'West European countries such as England and Germany without a shred of evidence. Though Great Britain is a major arms supplier, it does not export chemical weapons to any country. It has also, despite Iranian brutality toward a British soldier, continued to maintain good relations with that country.
He also made the statement that "these NATO countries won't even go to the bathroom without the United States." Was it not France that caused indignation in the United States when it refused to allow over-flight of U.S. bombers en route to Libya? Was it not Britain that allowed the bombing in the Persian Gulf, despite strong U.S. pressure, for fear of escalating the hostilities?
Mr. Aliani might do well to exercise his skills and substantiate his facts before making such baseless and preposterous claims. His attitude seems to be typical of the dogmatic and paranoid element in Iran that has turned an爱国 and respected nation into a global pariah.
Nick Waterson London graduate student
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed
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