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September 25,1984 Page 4
OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kaanu (UNP) 60/640 is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuart Fell Hall Lawn, Kanu, 60/640; daily during the regular school year and Wednesday and Friday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second class postage paid at Kanu, Lawrence 60/640. Subscriptions by mail are for $1 six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student fees include a student fee of $5 per month and address changes to the University Daily Kaanu, 118 Stuart Fell Hall Lawn, Kanu, 60/640.
DON KNOX Editor
PAUL SEVART VINCE HESS Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM Campus Editor
DAVE WANAMAKER Business Manager
SUSANNE SHAW
SUSANNE SHAW
General Manager and News Adviser
LYNNE STARK MARY BERNICA Retail Sales National Sales Manager Manager
JILL GOLDBLATT Campus Sales Manager
JOHN OBERZAN Sales and Marketing Adviser
Beirut tragedy
The tragic terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut last week has unfortunately entered the political arena of presidential campaign politics.
Unwilling to accept the grim truth that the United States is vulnerable always and everywhere to acts of terrorism, House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill said that "somebody has to take the responsibility."
has to take the responsibility. Presidential candidate Walter Mondale, though he came out in support of any possible retaliatory actions, was nonetheless unable to resist the political football tossed out by O'Neill: "The evidence is getting clearer that this was a very serious breech of essential security on the part of this administration."
And James Johnson, head of the Democratic presidential campaign, said Sunday on "Meet the Press" that "there's a political issue for one reason, and that is (that) three times on Mr. Reagan's watch we have lost lives in Lebanon. That outrages the American people."
outages the American people. It is true that terrorist attacks on the United States outrage the American people, but contrary to what Johnson said, the Lebanese bombing is not a political issue.
The fact is that the United States, along with all nations of the world, and to a larger extent the free nations of the world, is unavoidably susceptible to terrorist attacks such as the one last week in Beirut.
Fortification of the embassy in Beirut to the teeth would do little to stem the success of terrorist attacks aimed at the United States. and would do much to prevent the embassy from being able to carry out its role in that country.
Furthermore, attempts to make the embassy invulnerable to primitive suicide truck bombings would offer no protection against the prospect of only slightly more sophisticated suicide plane bombings. Where does one draw the line?
The United States and its embassies around the world are of a free and open society. As such, it is unreasonable to assume that they can ever effectively prevent the determined actions of terrorists.
Stepped-up intelligence gathering, which perhaps offers the best defense, is extremely difficult to carry out within the realm of the Central Intelligence Agency's power. Extension of these powers raises the fear of how far the CIA would have to ignore civil liberties in order to achieve its objectives
To the limited extent to which terrorists can be singled out and dealt with, terrorist attacks such as the one last week in Beirut are an unfortunate fact of life, not a fortunate political football.
When I was a teen-ager, my friends and I used to want to go to "adult movies." Adult movies, of course, were dirty movies and were shown in "art theaters."
Teen sex comedies lack adult appeal
A person had to be a specific age to go to an adult movie, either 18 or 21
and we were only 15 or 16. If there were four of us, we stood on a corner just out of sight of the art theater's box office. We selected the tallest and huskiest of us and sent him to the theater.
In his blue jeans and madras shirt, he lowered his voice several octaves and said to the man in the ticket booth, "Four tickets, please."
This never worked, of course. The ticket takers at the art theaters — at least the art theaters in central Ohio — were savvy enough to know that something was fishy when one gangly surfer came up with a way and make his voice sound like James Mason's and was asking to purchase not one ticket, but four.
I shouldn't say that it never worked. Once, by chance, we got in. What we saw was a movie in which lounge-lizard type men and buxom women ended up at a cocktail party, drank some highballs, and danced to a slow jazz record. They started to kiss, and the women's sweaters eventually came undone after all those nights of waiting and learning, was a party in which the female guests were attired in bras and skirts.
This was the mid-1960s, before America's morality had gone
The reason I bring this up is that the other day I saw one of those "teen sex comedies." Teen sex comedies have become a profitable subcategory of the movie industry, during a given summer, a good percentage of the movies that make a lot of money will be teen sex comedies, and almost all of the tickets are sold to teen-agers.
the ways of sex than we were, and if we waited long enough, then we could legally watch all of the bra-clad women we desired.
The movie I saw was called "Hardbodies." The movie wasn't three minutes old before I realized that it was going to be far more explicit than that adult movie we finally been able to sneak into back in.
I assumed that a typical teen sex comedy was about teen-age boys who came of age in an awkward and humorous way. After all, these movies are targeted at youthful audiences, so they had to be pretty mild, right?
The nudity was only the first surprising thing. The second — and more significant — surprise was the attitude of the movie toward teenagers and adults.
Compared to the females in "Hardbodies," those bra-clad cocktail party women of my youth were severely overdressed.
If standing on the corner hoping to enter the art theater, we assumed that adults had all the answers about sex, and that teenagers had to wait. "Hardbodies" reversed that theory and that young people who that young people were sophisticated and cool about sex; adults were stupid, fumbling and laughable.
I'm told that this is a theme that runs through most of the successful teen sex comedies: If you're a teen-ager, you know everything there ever was to know about sex; if you're 35 or 40 or 45, you're a pathetic loser.
The whole plot of "Hardbodies" revolves around three middle-aged men who go to a California beach and are made almost dizzy by the beautiful young girls — known as hardbodies — that they see there. They hire a young man named Scotty to teach them the ropes. Scotty does
Boy, was I wrong.
his best, but the three men are such buffoons and idiots that most of the movie is spent with the boys and girls on the beach laughing at them.
through the changes that came with the sexual revolution. The lasting message I took from standing on the corner near the art theater all those nights was that adults were allowed to watch racy movies, and teenagers weren't. Adults were wiser in
That seems to be the whole premise behind selling tickets to movies like this one. Young audiences can laugh at the upoarious attempts of grown men to understand the nuances of sex. The teenagers do not know everything; the three men don't have a clue and can't even be taught.
I probably would have enjoyed "hardbodies" more if the three bumbling, inep men hadn't clearly been members of my own generation. Three those poor guys uninvented them, and they waited to get into art theaters.
I'd ask my friends, movie critics, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, what all of this means, but they are men of my generation, too. Their idea of a good cinematic time is undoubtedly the slow-paced, cocktail party. I don't mean to draw too dramatic a message out of this phenomenon, but we're all doomed.
Now, it seems, the dirty movies aren't being marketed with adults in mind. They're being marketed with teen-agers in mind. They're far more explicit than anything we ever saw in the art theaters #the 60% — and they'll appear in them next cast in the roles of godly, inept outsiders.
Well. I've looked at the statistics and still think that sobriety checkpoints are anathema to the Constitution.
Drunken-driving laws imperil liberty
NEW YORK — A decision in the New Jersey Supreme Court that holds a party host liable for guests who get involved in drunken driving accidents is the culmination of a disturbing national trend.
My generation, in effect, is still waiting on the corner trying to get into the movie.
Increasingly, and usually at the expense of civil liberties, well-meaning legislators are enacting laws that relieve individuals of responsibility for their own actions.
most of the legislative activity is designed to halt drunken driving, which has rightfully become an issue of national concern. Already, the concern has led to random sobriety checks by the police, proposed legislation to raise the national drinking age to 21 and New York state's mandatory seat-belt law, the first of its kind in the country.
Drunken driving is a serious problem. The question is how to best deal with the problem Random police checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment, which requires that the police have reasonable cause to stop and question a citizen.
Little public debate took place on any of these proposals. Instead, legislators tried to push the laws through under the gouse of "saving lives." Opponents just didn't look at the statistics.
tence
As for "emotional journalism" — over the last two weeks, a number of Azanian children have been murdered by the South African police. One was merely playing in his front yard. In a nearby house, another youngster went to a window to see
Under the Natives Act of 1952, all Azanians must "carry at all times passes containing proof of employment and permission to be in an urban area." If they look for jobs or wish to be with their displaced families, they often violate the pass regulations. The punishment is usually a fine or work as indentured servants for white farmers in exchange for food during their sentence
Facts show apartheid oppressive
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the editor:
tion. Based on South Africa (or Azania, as the revolutionalists call their country) does empty one of the highest overall standards in Africa. However, according to the Group Areas Act of 1950, under apartheid, the Azamians have been assigned to specific townships (based on the government's racial categories). The Azamians comprise 71.8 percent of the population, but must live on 12 to 13 percent of South African land, while the remaining 67 percent is owned by the minority whites. These "homelands" are plagued by poverty as well as a lack of jobs.
The plantation owners of the Old South often rationalized the institution of slavery, saying that they were doing a favor to the blacks by taking them out of a backyard society and placing them in "civilization." D.G. Muller wrote a letter (Sept. 19) concerning apartheid in South Africa, and his quote from Walter Williams is reminiscent of the slave owners' rationale for labor exploitation. How about a few facts?
Recently South Africa conducted elections. South Africa being what it is, presumably a white male was appointed to administer them. Let us suppose that he is a former member of the South African government who did all that he could to make these elections fair, and is a man of Faillos' other attainments. Finally, suppose that he was appointed to a named visiting professorship at the University of Kansas.
what was going on when "police sitting on top of a van and armed with rifles shot the child in the head."
Of course, these questions will make sense only to one who thinks that racist and Marxist revolutionary governments are both abominable.
The Kansan's news coverage of my objections to Mariano Fiallo's appointment to the Rose Morgan Professorship was accurate and fair. But your Sept 20 editorial ("Freedom"), invites two questions.
Muller also feels that "changes are in progress in the country at this very moment." True — a recent ban now exists on all "indoor meetings" critical of the government. Any more comment critical of the government is also forbidden.
Arthur L. Thomas
How much additional "time (and) compassion" is needed, D.G.?
Fiallos questions
To the editor:
D.B. Prueft
Topeka graduate student
What do you imagine would be the reaction of our university community? What would be the Kansan's editorial reaction?
Arthur Young Distinguished Professor of Business
Student rights
The Senate leadership should not allow the amending of its rules and should finally take a stand for student rights. The Senate should not allow itself to be shamelessly used by a president would promote bias and prejudice.
Perhaps Imber consciously selected only one group, the one he has a personal vendetta against. Furthermore, knowing that the highest percentage of students who bother to vote live in the very same places he circulated his petition, he could be reasonably assured of victory.
To the editor:
Has Imber selflessly taken upon himself the role of Student Senate watchdog." Surely, there ought to be at least one other organization that could support itself. Perhaps Imber was not thorough enough. Perhaps the entire student body should vote on funding for every organization.
I think that most students have no qualms about a small amount of their money being used to fund organizations to which they will never belong. Just such a system was established under Senate control to prevent prejudicial funding.
What has been presented as a "financial issue" by Steve Imber the de-funding of Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas, plainly is not that at all.
He would be surprised at how many people look out for their own lives without state coercion.
Why there has been little outey against such a move at this University baffles me. If Imber is successful in establishment of precedent, then all students and student organizations have reason to worry.
As New York Gov Mario Cuomo signed the mandatory seat belt measure, the bill's sponsor was reported as saying, "Thank you on behalf of the 400 people who will be saved."
safety and health, or do they need coercion from the state? Our legislators, by a surprising majority, seem to believe the latter.
What is the reasonable cause in stopping a person at a roadblock? The frequent assumption is just that
Jeff Miller
Overland Park graduate student
Michael Barry, who lives in Port Washington, N.Y., graduated recently from Fordham University.
The passage of laws such as these is dishearing.
MICHAEL BARRY
New York Times Syndicate
someone who is driving on a Saturday night is intoxicated. A statistic that seems to have caught on is that "one out of every 10 drivers on Saturday night is intoxicated."
However, as reported on a recent television news report, of the 890,000 drivers stopped at New York State roadblocks in the past year, only 2,500 were arrested for driving while
intoxicated You don't have to be a mathematician to realize that that is less than three-tenths of one percent
It is also true that exercise and a proper diet probably extend life expectancy. Perhaps the state should make it mandatory to run a mile a day and call for increased vegetable and fruit consumption.
Are the people intelligent enough to look out for their own interest in
Even if the news report is flawed, it would have to be off by 95,300 arrests to reach the magic level of 10 percent.
The mandatory seat belt law is an abomination. What the state is saying is: "We know what is best for you. Let us save your life."
Communication requires effort
W. Somerset Maugham was a very perceptive kind of guy
"Each one of us," quoth he, "is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
"We are like a people living in a country whose language they know so little that with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalties of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house."
Isn't that amusing?
Too bad he missed the point.
People often forget just how individual we are. None of us can ever know the complexity of human makeup unless we exchange places with another, our particular selves.
If there's any one thing we learn it, college, it's how completely ridiculous the gender gap in communication is. But what Maugham so eloquently put into words is only the side dish of the day. How many days are ruined when we talked to someone else? Sometimes we can express one thing and get quite another. Something goes awry somewhere between another's words and our perception. So maybe we run our own day.
LAURIE
McGHEE
Staff Columnist
are so diverse that no two people are ever going to perceive the same situation in the same way. This is most evident in the fact that we communicate differently with each person we know
This principle extends into the gender gap Don't you talk differently around your roommates from how you talk to someone you're dating?
r we've heard as many men as women complain about communication Women groan about the lack of it
Nothing can mess up your functioning like a communication gap between you and someone you care for. Communication is the stuff we are made of, but the stuff is as pure as New York snow and harder to travel in. We're all seeking perfection, and when something less than perfect shows up one day we assume all is
Men wish women wouldn't want so much of it. I have been guilty of both. And it doesn't happen until later that I finally see where the problem was. We all live and learn, but when we really learn to apply what we we learned to what's happening now"
Each of us has locked inside something we are desperate to communicate. How many of us keep that desperate thing locked where it stands because we feel we would be misunderstood?
What if we notice that the conversation is suddenly not as fascinating or fun as it used to be? We become so disappointed when we discover that the spark disappears after a short time.
If we're not having a "heavy conversation" at least once a week, we're not communicating. Then is the actual act of communicating more important than the feelings themselves? Communication isn't what we get into relationships for in the first place — if we want to express ourselves, we can go out on a mountain top and scream.
What we lose when we give up too soon is the kind of communication that becomes a kind of torch that never dies out. The kind of communication but never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says you need needs a manual, never says we really after.