4a
Opinion
Tuesday, October 3, 2000
For comments, contact Ben Embry or Emily Hughey at 864-4924 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com
Perspective United States needs strong missile defense
If you've read these pages for the past few weeks, it would be difficult not to get the impression that George W. Bush was some gunlsinger with a happy nuclear trigger finger and testosterone squirting out of his well-endowed ears. This is unfortunate.
All one has to do is pick up a newspaper (something people assume writers who write about such topics do on a regular basis) to learn that Bush has proposed that the United States unilaterally
— by itself, without securing commitment to do the same from other countries — reduce its nuclear arsenal. At the same time, Bush has proposed developing and deploying a defense against incoming nuclear missiles as soon as possible.
Such a radical, morally sound departure from Cold War nuclear policies usually would have the folks down at the local chapter of Food Not Bombs jumping in their bare feet for joy. But Bush, you see, is a Republican, therefore students of the self-professed "open-minded" persuasion find their thinking closed on the matter.
They object to Bush's less-threatening, more-protective nuclear posture on the most spurious of grounds:
It would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty — a treaty signed in 1972 with a country that no longer exists (the Soviet Union). Nevermind that the United States could legally withdraw by giving six months notice.
Andrew Marino columnist opinion@kansan.com
It would spark a new arms race. With whom? Russia feeds its soldiers dog food (when not killing them aboard submarines), is ravaged by alcoholism and disease, and nurses a struggling economy the size of Denmark's — all while its missiles rot in their silos.
China (for now), North Korea, Iran and Iraq are on a whole other level. They will attempt to acquire or build their arsenals no matter what the United States does, so we need a defense against them.
These countries could just smuggle a bomb in, using nothing more sophisticated than a suitcase. Granted. But do you see them spending millions developing super-sneaky Samsonites? They do, however, badly want to get missile technology — China just steals it from the United States. If the countries build weapons with the only conceivable purpose being to level or threaten to level American cities, America should build a defense against those weapons.
We should rely on diplomacy instead. This would be nice in Super-Duper Fairy Land, but in our world, bad guys have guns, too. It's possible that people who advance this argument have not done much thinking on the subject at all, so I will do it for them.
What is the point of diplomacy? The goal is to assert our influence and get our way (democracy, human rights, free trade). The object is the same for all other countries. China, North Korea and Iraq want to influence the world around them, to make it safer for their interests (communism, tuggerg, repression).
The reason these countries want weap ons is to make their diplomacy stronger and ours relatively weaker. When China wants to invade Taiwan, or North Korea to attack South Korea, they want a United States free of missile defenses and vulnerable to nuclear attack so that we will think twice about coming to the aid of our allied democracies.
Those against Bush and his foreign policy want the same thing. They see no difference, morally speaking, between U.S. influence in the world and that of our foes. A difference does exist, however. It is large and those who think it silly for the United States to defend itself are wrong.
Mastroi in a Prairie Village senior in political science.
AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED INTERNATIONAL EVENTS:
Shaun Morrell / KANSAN
By the Numbers
101. 000 Number of dogs and cats used in medical research in the US annually
3 million Estimated number of dogs and cats killed in US animal shelter annually
shelters annually
Source: JAMA
322 Number of words devoted to the Great Depression in Houghton Mifflin's fifth-grade history book, Build Our Nation
339 Number devoted to the baseball career of Cal Ripken Jr.
Source: www.harpers.org
8. 000 Average number of murders a U.S. child sees on television by the end of elementary school
+474 Percentage change since 1990 in the number of net work evening news stories on homicide
Source: www.harpers.org
Perspective
Mr. Wong perpetuates degrading stereotypes
Let's get one thing straight right from the beginning. Don't call me an Oriental. I'm not your damn rug and I do not love you long time.
Sorry if I sound a little harsh, but I'm just trying to break out of my Asian-American "mild-mannered and quiet minority" stereotype. It's that passive nature that icebox.com is relying on.
Mr. Wong and icebox.com are not new things. They have been a topic of discussion within the Asian-American
community for a few months now.
I first heard of Mr. Wong this summer and promptly checked it out. I found the humor not that funny and the whole thing just stupid. I didn't really take it that seriously because that's what icebox.com wants. It is specifically trying to draw attention to its Web site with this controversial character.
The thing that bothers me most about icebox.com is that it doesn't have the guts to go after other ethnicities aside from Asian Americans. It knew that if it had done a similar series with an African-American servant, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the entire African-American community would be pounding down its doors.
I ignored this issue before, but things have changed now. Mr. Wong and icebox.com are on my campus and influencing those around me. The Mr. Wong cartoon series may be stupid, but it's
Binh Thai
guest columnist
oianer@kanan.com
also degrading and outright offensive to me.
I'm from a small rural town in which I encountered ignorance and racism daily. I hoped to get away from that type of childish behavior at the University.
In the Kanson's Free for All section Friday, one individual said, "I don't think the article on Mr. Wong was racial. You see that type of thing on SNL, Howard Stern and John Daley. I find that stuff funny, and they should do more of it."
I'm not going to get into the argument about whether icebox.com has the right to do things like this or if it's okay just because Howard Stern does it. My point is this: Mr. Wong is a step backward in achieving multiculturalism here at the University of Kansas.
This character may be hilarious to some as it elicits "chong chong" noises from them. Some of these same people also believe Asian Americans all talk with thick accents, fight like Bruce Lee and crunch integrals like Einstein.
I'll let you decide for yourself if the Mr. Wong series is inappropriate or just a good laugh, but just remember that this is exactly what the creators want you to do.
For others, material like this makes them go around thinking it's fine to make jokes about other cultures.
Personally, I will tear down and cut up any Mr. Wong or icebox.com advertisement that I see on campus. If no one stops icebox.com from putting it up, no one better stop me from taking it down.
Look at Mr. Wong's unnatural yellow skin, hunchback and buckteeth. If you find a mock menu with cats and pandas offensive, the cartoons are even worse.
Binh Thai is a Larned senior in chemical engineering.
Editorial
"Pass/fail extension aids students
Two-week extension will boost students' overall grade point averages.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway approved the two-week "pass/fail" extension last week. Students now have until Oct. 6 to decide whether to take a course for credit or no credit.
This 14-day extension will greatly help students who are unsure of whether to use the pass/fail option. The extension also will help strengthen the overall grade point average of the University, thereby heightening the University's academic image.
Students electing to take the University's credit/no-credit option traditionally had to do so in the first four weeks of class. At the end of the semester, a grade of C or better results in credit for the class, while a D or lower results in no credit. Whatever the outcome, the student's grade point average is not affected
Most classes at the University follow a similar schedule
Midterm examinations for classes usually are assigned between the fourth and sixth weeks of the semester. With midterms usually accounting for 25 percent to 50 percent of the course's final grade, a high mark on a midterm exam most likely means a high mark for the semester. The new extension now will give students the opportunity to take midterms before deciding whether the option is the best choice.
In addition to helping individual student GPAs, the extension, if used effectively, will help to raise the University's overall grade point average. Overall GPA is taken into consideration by many prospective students and is listed in publications specializing in university rankings, such as Barron's and the Princeton Review. A higher University GPA definitely will improve our school's image.
The two-week extension helps everyone at the University, as well as the University itself, and for that we should all be appreciative of Chancellor Hemenway's decision.
Eric Taylor
for the editorial board
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. The Kansan reserves the right to edit submissions, and not all of them will be published. Slanderous statements will not be printed. To read more, go to www.kansan.com.
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The conservative right will never make news on this campus; it goes against the very nature of conservatism.
Liberal is about being nosy, not about helping.
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Legalizing RU-486 was one of the most dangerous and dumbest things the FDA has approved, because now it allows women to kill more people without feeling guilty.
Women shouldn't have to be subjected to surgical abortions, so I'm glad the government approved RU-486 because it offers a safer way for women to have abortions.
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Do all the teachers get together and plan for all their tests and projects to be done in the same week, or am I really unlucky?
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How can you be a biology major and not expect to dissect animals?
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The United States should take a smaller role in global policy.
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To the bikers on campus:
Those stop signs are for you, too.
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How can you dissect humans in medical school, if you object to dissecting animals in biology?
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RU-486 is the devil.
So the Olympics are on a 24-hour tape delay. No wonder everyone I gamble with beats me.
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RU-486 can't be good.
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How did Oklahoma pass 350 yards when we proclaim to have the best cornerback in the league?
医
The lawn in front of McCollum Hall looks like a landfill.
What's with all these songs about Kryptonite and Superman? Why doesn't anyone sing about Batman?
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