October 17. 1984
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kanan, USP$ 600-640 is published at the University of Kansas, I185 Stauffer Fint Hall. Lawen, Kanan $6045, daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, final periods. Second class postage payable at Lawen, Kanan $6044. Subscripts by mail are #43 for six months or longer. Third class postage payable at Lawen, Kanan $6044. Subscripts are $1 cents are paid through the student activity fee. POSTMASTER Send address changes to the University Daily Kanan, I185 StauFFER Fint Hall. Lawen, Kanan $6045
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
JILL GOLDBLATT
Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
SUSANNE SHAW General Manager and News Adviser
Accountability
It's hard to say what most Amsterdamers thought about the "white bikes" mode of transportation.
It is unusual. It is simplistic.
But that doesn't mean it is difficult to support the idea, which is now being peddled by Carla Vogel, student body president, and Dennis "Boog" Highberger, student body vice president,
The plan is for a fleet of bicycles — all painted entirely white — to be on campus for every student to use. The proposal is patterned after a system started in the late 1960s in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The student leaders have recognized that their plan has several flaws, the most important of which is legal: Would Student Senate, or the University of Kansas, be liable for injuries?
Proponents of the plan, Highberger said yesterday, think that to avoid legal problems they'll have to pursue the idea underground.
The white bikes are a good idea. They will promote camaraderie among students. They might ease problems during peak traffic periods now associated with the campus bus system. Still, it's troubling that the white bikes probably won't be pursued openly and that someone won't be held publicly accountable for their maintenance.
Imitation of KGB
The Associated Press has reported that last year the CIA produced a manual, "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla War," that was made available to members of the U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua.
If the story is accurate, the CIA will be hard pressed to explain some of the contents of this innocuous-sounding manual.
For example, does the American public really advocate "selective use of violence" against Nicaraguan officials?
It is no secret that the CIA is involved in covert activities all over the world, and that the agency's classified history includes operations at which even the most hawkish supporter would recoil.But more recently the agency has tried to persuade Congress and the public that it has cleaned up its act.
The manual even instructs rebels what to do in the event that a civilian is shot while trying to flee. Such a shooting shall be explained by saying that the civilian was "an enemy of the people."
The CIA must think that the best way to beat the KGB is to compete with the KGB on its own level.
Lonelv mailbox bothers columnist
My mailbox is the inanimate equivalent of the Maytag repairman. My mailbox is lonely.
This column is seven weeks old. In seven weeks, I have produced more than 150 inches of copy and more than 4,000 words in composing seven profound works of literary and editorial excellence ("Git h' shovels," Boss Knox yells down the rows of cotton to his slaves).
But I have received no reader mail.
No letters. No telegrams. No postcards. No flowers. No cakes. No cookies. No green needlepoint designs of Pennsylvania. No dead squirrels. No hate mail. No ticking packages. Not even a letter bomb from Mom.
My mailbox is lonely
It does. Really. Aside from the people who know me and the two strangers who have accosted me in hallways and cafeterias to tell me how much they agreed with my columns (1 swear on a stack of Associated Press Stylebooks), I have no auege of how I'm doing.
severe the mailman's hernia gets.
Please understand that I don't want to be accused of pomposity. Many people have complimented me in person for writing sparkling, provocative, lively columns, but I'm not fishing for compliments.
Now even fewer of you will recognize me because I shaved off my beard, but that's another matter. Please send mail. I don't care how
I love being complimented in person, but most of those compliments have come from people who know me. Most of you don't know me.
Wanna hear it again? Please send mail .
This matters.
Some may think that I'm shooting myself in the foot by making this plea. I don't think so. Part of maturing as a journalist involves realizing that some people won't like me or what I have to say.
BRUCE F
HONOMICHL
Staff Columnist
I take it for granted that some rug rat will send me a package containing something akin to 3,000 miniature KG agents.
I can handle practical jokes, but I expect most of you to send me your thoughts.
Talk show hosts die without calls.
Cats die without claws. Columnists die without feedback, flak, hugs and karate chops. Having brilliant thoughts and brilliant writing skills is only one part of a successful column reader. The reader's thro' shovels," Boss Knox yells). Reader response is also important.
In case you haven't written to your parents in a while and have forgotten how to write letters, here are examples of both hate mail and fan mail. You may use your own favorite phrases ("Make' em obscene", Boss Koxn yells from a distance).
Please send mail.
Dear Mr. Honomichl, you iurk:
Dear Mr. Honomichi, you go
'I thou your column on green bananas stinked. When are you going
F. E. Bloom Lexington, Ky., graduate student
to turn that green banana fields are at threat to democracy. Lite Roosky spies hide in them and watch as people try to capture your pet giraffe catch poison ivy
LOVE. Muffv
SUPER!!!! I LOVE you!!! Have a NICE DAY!!!!
Dear Sweetie:
I thought your column on green bananas was THE MOST!!!! I LOVE green bananas!!! Your column is
Ozona, Fla., freshman
You ought to be able to come up with something between those extremes. Read the columns, think about them and send lots of mail. Oh, yeah — we also need a name for the column. Suggestions will be welcome. I may even give a prize for the best one.
Readers who think never bore me
Reactions in Europe show vote is important
BERLIN - Europeans are at a loss to understand U.S. politics, particularly the presidency.
Why indeed.
'Why do you elect someone with no foreign affairs experience, and then let him exercise that foreign affairs power virtually alone and unre strained?' they ask
I have had the opportunity to be in Europe during the two most recent campaigns for the White House, campaigns that, however boring to watch, are still of great interest from abroad, and this year with more than a little fear.
Europeans fear that they are being caught in an increasingly heated and irreconcilable U.S. conflict with the Soviets, a conflict that the European allies neither understand nor support. The East West tension has been greatly increased under the Reagan administration, with its talk of a nuclear war, which is jokes about the bombing of the Soviets, its plan to take the arms race into outer space and the deployment of new, highly accurate cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe.
accurate missiles less than a half hour from Moscow? Is it any wonder that Europeans are beginning to view their U.S. protectors as more of a threat to their continued existence than the Soviets?
The recent talks between President Reagan, U.S. Secretary of State, George Shultz and Soviet Foreign
Is it any wonder that the Soviets are edgy, with these extremely
M.J.
Willoughby
Guest Columnist
rebels in Nicaragua, and the mining of Nicaraguan harbors are more than a national embarrassment
Minister, Andrei Gromyko, represent more of a symbolic gesture, a token election-year effort by the administration, than a real effort. Is a symbolic gesture enough when the missiles are all too real?
The aggressive — and more than a little meek — behavior of the Reagan administration in the countries of Latin America is no more comforting. The US has the best training and supplying of government troops in El Salvador and of
They illustrate the administration's lack of hesitancy to use military power, wherever and whenever, no matter how ill-conceived the operation or how great the cost in terms of taxpaver dollars. U.S. lives (as in Beirut) and credibility abroad in pursuit of some illusory goal. The goal is to halt some supposed communist menace, wherever it exists perhaps only in Reagan's mind?
Older Europeans, who had a positive view of America based on U.S. aid during and after World War II, are disappointed and disillusioned about what America has come to mean, particularly under Reagan: the abuse of U.S. power. Younger Europeans are simply frightened and angry. I, as an American, am ashamed.
Many times I was, and am, held responsible for the actions of the current administration, actions that I always, and with great difficulty, try to distinguish from what America is, and what Americans are.
"But you Americans elected him!" they argue. Then they say, "We don't see how."
Forced by the perversely mescapable logic of their argument, I had to admit that yes, some Americans, somewhere, had been guilty of a lapse in critical judgment.
More likely, however, is that, beyond the many just plain anti-Carter votes Reagan received, the vote was not representative. Many people did not vote at all, about one-half of the eligible population.
Reagan, in fact, won his mandate with votes from only about one-fourth of all eligible U.S. voters. A victory is a victory, however, and the result is the same. An ex-cowboy wins the presidency and the power and the inclination to act on his own White Hat vs Black Hat saga, on a dangerously large scale.
Even worse than a pro-Reagan vote, then, is to passively sit by and let someone else — and think about who those someones are — decide for you. Vote on Nov. 6, because we are all, like it or not, responsible.
M. J. Willoughby 82, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, is doing research for her dissertation as an exchange student at the Free University in West Berlin.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Campus festival for Oct. 10 disregards traditions of manv Chinese
To the editor:
I read the Oct. 11 article "Festival to mark Chinese holiday" with both appreciation and apprehension: appreciative to know that some Taiwanese students are preparing to commemorate Oct. 10, but apprehensive of the direction of the Chinese Student Association.
Some corrections: "Taiwanese and Chinese everywhere celebrate. . . ." No! Not all Chinese everywhere revere Oct. 10 as much as the secretary of the association seems to portray.
In fact, students of Chinese origin from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and even Chinese students of the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong regard Oct. 10 as just another historical day in the struggles of the country is remarkable and important, but normally not traditional held high.
The Chinese Student Association is an organization to which all students of Chinese origin belong. There are 149 students from Taiwan (not 200), 45 from the People's Republic, 73 from Malaysia, 3 from Singapore, 15 from Indonesia, and 13 from India. At least 146 of us Chinese do not, by tradition, elevate Oct. 10.
Therefore, this extravaganza by the association on Oct. 10 — while neglecting the Moon Cake Festival (Chinese Lunar, Aug. 15), which we Chinese everywhere share by tradition — suggests a celebration for a fraction of the association body. The association's consultant says it as its principal goal: to unite all students of Chinese origin . . .
Such an undertaking and assertion by the current committee of the association is not contributing to the
best interests of all concerned Chinese students.
Ahw Wah Lai
Ipoh, Malaysia, senior
former CSA officer
for public relations
Dispute over day
To the editor:
For the past several years, never once has the Kansan had an entirely correct report about celebrations organized by the KU Chinese Student Association every year around Oct. 10.
The "independence day" never existed in China's history because China, a multi-national country that has more than 50 minority nations, has always been an independent country for hundreds of years.
Oct. 10 has been the National Day of the Republic of China since 1912, after an attempted democratic revolution led by Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the minority monarch home of the Manchu dynasty in 1911.
In an Oct. 11 story, "Festival to mark Chinese holiday," Chrisy Cleary writes, "Although the People's Republic of China is communist ruled today, the people still celebrate Oct. 10 as their independence day." This remark and some others in the report are erroneous, according to the following historical facts:
Oct. 1, however, has been the National Day of the People's Republic of China for the past 35 years after WWII and since 1949 as a result of civil war.
Nevertheless, Oct. 10 is still celebrated as the 1911 Revolutionary Day throughout mainland China.
The government on the island of Taiwan, which says it is the sole legitimate government of China, including the mainland, still considers Oct. 10 as the National Day for all Chinese, as if the People's Republic of China did not exist. The Taiwanese government is recognized by only about 30 countries, but not by the United States.
Worst violators
Jie Liu
Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, senior
In response to Mark Gillem's letter (Oct. 11, "An ironic bill"), let me point out that I, as chairman of the Student Senate Ad Hoc Committee on South Africa, organized the demonstration of support at the Senate Finance Committee meeting. The supporters of the bill were outliers, but students; As a prophet, I would group to attend the meeting, and let it to the learned opposition to mobilize its support.
To the editor:
Gillen's substantive attack on the bill, though well considered, misses the point. The South African regime is not the only oppressive government in the world, but it is at very least the worst case. No other country that I know of has racism written into its constitution and laws.
Although the South African government might consider itself capitalistic, that is clearly not the case. A new report from members of its society to freely participate
pate in its economic life; in South Africa, the laws of the land prohibit such free participation.
Finally, Gillem should not fall into the logical fallacy of presuming that condensation of one form of oppression is exoneration of another. Through condensation of one form of oppression, a person has lost his talent, at least at the University of Kansas, we neither approve nor deny any such actions.
I think that I can fairly speak for the committee when I say that we oppose the violation of basic human rights everywhere. Bill 1984-030 merely expresses our belief that we should start an attack on the problem through denunciation of the worst violators.
Chris Bunker Prairie Village first year law student
Terrifying truth
To the editor:
I reckon I'm just another of them sad-eyed liberals who has defective facial muscles, because I can't seem to force a smile every time Ronald Reagan or Vince Whesne wants me to (Oct. 10.) "Liberals in sad condition over Reagan are many and are our beautiful people," said that make me want to smile, but Reagan's re-election bid is not one of them.
For years bank tellers have been telling me to have a nice day, and somehow I manage to handle it. But when a highly misinformed president, and a hopelessly naive columnist tell me to smile, I say, "Give me a good reason." I haven't come across one yet.
- Our nation's outlook isn't all Wonder Bread. Where Reagan sees amber waves of grain, I see a growing number of toxic waste sites. Where Reagan sees purple mounts of cancer, discorcelated remains of strip-mining.
When Reagan lagged to 100 million viewers by saying during the debate that he had never planned to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits to the elderly. I didn't smile and neither did Walter Monroe Reagan. We all knew how to address the truth of the matter instead of wearing a happy face.
"Mondale's terrifying the old folks." Reagan said. Yes, the truth of Reagan's plans is often terrifying.
replete with tragedy and pain and foreboding. However, his examples and exhortations only prove that his characters both unsubstantiated and virginous.
Discovering the truth is something that makes me smile, and it made Monday smile as he elequently exposed the truth of his opponent. Do you recall seeing Reagan smile during the debate? I think not.
Rick Frydman
Lawrence
first-year law studen
However, after the debate, after the spotlights had faded, Reagan found time to put on his happy face once again. The following morning, he met with some of his debate had gone. He was quoted as saying, "I'm smiling. I'm smiling."
To the editor:
Facts on Reagan
The column by Vince Hess presented a perception of contemporary liberal politicians in a misleading and contradictory format.
Hess depicted liberals as regretting the state of the nation in general and living in a fantasy world
For example, is it a fantasy or a foreboding to recognize the fact that U.S. farmers are currently suffering through their worst year yet in terms of constant dollar farm income? By definition this statement is simply a fear. We begin to savor that we offer a possible explanation for their might
In a related vein, it is a fact that economic recoveries are threatened by high real interest rates. Although we cannot prove or disprove Mondeale's claim that $200 billion budget defenses under Reagan are threaten ing future generations of America's economy, these deficits potentially devastating effect these defics can inflict on our current economic recovery
Now, it is a fact that Reagan's re-election would likely afford the president an opportunity to choose a few Supreme Court justices. Jerry Falwell would admittedly be instrumental in the process.
Reagan has an obligation to tell Americans what his plans are if he is re-elected. His failure to do so makes any debate of the issues meaningless. The president does not have a "prerogative" as all presidents have in debates or those issues. If He likes the tolerance to listen, that is his problem.
Module is not speaking "against the spector of Herbert Hoover" but is raising valid questions that must be discussed in a public forum.
Sean Redmond Merriam senior