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A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
TUESDAY,SEPT.25,2001
TALK TO US
Kursten Phelps editor 864-4854 or editor@kansan.com
Leita Schultes Christina Neff managing editors 864-4854 or editor@kansan.com
Erin Adamson Brendan Woodbury opinion editors 864-4810 or opinion@kansan.com
Jenny Moore business manager 864-4014 or adddirector@kansan.com
Kate Mariani retail sales manager 864-4462 or retailsales@kansan.com
Tom Eblen general manager and news adviser 864-7667 or tebileng@kansan.com
Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com
MATT GERTKEN/KANSAN
EDITORIAL
Students should view news with a wary eye
The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon changed the world in many ways. For those close to the attacks, including some policy makers, emotion often takes over from reason. For all Americans, basic instincts such as nationalism and self-preservation often govern their responses. In these times, students should take extra care to be discriminating consumers of the news.
Two weeks after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the attack — and the reaction it spawned — continue to dominate the news. The news has replayed the same images of the destruction over and over since Sept.11.
Some local and national news media have used reactionary headlines in order to catch the audience's attention. As students and informed citizens, we need to begin looking at the important issues and start weeding out the propaganda.
If students and citizens are to be considered so carefully, they can have enormous effects on our country and must be informed. What we need to do is find the facts in news stories and make our judgments based on them.
In times of national crisis, Americans are polled and asked whether they feel our country should go to war. The results of these polls are being looked at extensively by both the government and the President.
Some news agencies fuel the fire for war by showing the tapes of the crashes over and over again.
They use bold words like WAR, ATTACK, and DEVASTATION to reach deep inside readers and provoke emotions.
Readers need to push all this aside and look at the underlying issues in order to make an informed decision about what is best for our country and people.
Watching the news coverage and reading newspapers and magazines is an excellent way for students to gain knowledge and understanding about what has and will happen to our country.
It is important that we, as citizens, keep on top of all the news that is circulating about this horrible tragedy. But what is also important is that we do not believe every headline we read or every news story we see. We want to be educated about the situation but also cautious that our information is indeed fact.
Brett Norman for the editorial board
LETTERS AND GUEST COLUMNS:
Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Guest Columns: Should be double-spaced, typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
PERSPECTIVE
U.S. must retaliate to preserve liberties
For all those that glare with hatred, remember it is people like you, not people like me that commit these horrific acts."
These words were spoken in reference to the first attack on America in more than sixty years. Authored by my fellow student Fouzia Haq last week, they no doubt constitute one of the most profound sentiments ever published in this newspaper. And they are dead right.
The most common requests in these pages were to 1) refrain from judging fellow students/citizens based on ethnicity or religious belief and 2) refuse to give in to terrorism by curbing freedoms. A third principle—the acknowledgment of and resolve to carry out what it will take to defend these first two principles — was conspicuously absent.
In fact, our intolerance of prejudice and hate and our love of freedom are essentially the same principle, the latter being a derivative of the former. We are equal because we consider it self-evident that one person may not rightfully rule over another without his consent. We are free because we have, through the Constitution, ceded some of this natural liberty — stemming from our natural equality — to the government, while reserving other freedoms.
Our enemies think this is Godless, satanic blather. They hate our commerce, they hate our culture and they hate our ideals — particularly our belief in the equal dignity of all human beings.
Contrary opinion notwithstanding.
Andrew
Marino
Guest Columnist
opinionakansen.com
The actions of Yassar Arafat last week were instructive. The leader of the Palestinian Authority gave blood one afternoon last week on the same day his government-operated newspaper praised the tactics of suicide bombers. Arafat is among the mildest of a cadre of illegitimate, Middle Eastern dictators who have always been the enemy of governments that rule by the consent of the governed. Only now do Americans realize this.
they would hate us even if we did not "intermeddle" in world affairs. Our own President has said as much. They hate us because they have been taught to hate us. Their school textbooks, media, literature and political leaders form evil minds and twisted souls.
Our enemies think they have an advantage. They think our values — our way of life — have made us soft, timid, unwilling to pay the ultimate price in their defense. Our enemies have no such reservations. Perhaps we have given them reason to think this. In recent years they have bombed U.S. military barracks, embassies and the U.S.S. Cole. In retaliation, we have fired cruise missiles at some tents in the
Commentary
desert, blown up a pharmaceutical factory and held a few trials.
But now, American mercy has worn thin. Past enemies have also underestimated us. They have been humbled. Our political leaders now seem resolved to defend the United States, her principles and her way of life with the intensity they deserve. The words of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz are heartening. "It's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism." Ending states. There you have it, the only way to win the war against terrorism. Take the fight to them, on their soil, in their desert camps.
The alternative is this: erosion of civil liberties in our homeland, an increase in suspicion and mistrust among fellow citizens who simply do not look the same. Americans who attack Americans are exactly like those who are at war with the United States. That much is clear. The question of the hour is do those who believe in America's ideals still have the courage to pay a high price for their way of life, or has that way of life undermined the very qualities of character needed to defend it?
- Andrew Marino is a first-year grusate student in law and English from Prairie Village.
PERSPECTIVE
Travelers who doubt plane safety are also victims of terrorist attack
The attacks of Sept. 11 brought many fears to the surface. Confidence in our national security, our economy and our global superiority have been shaken.
Including me. After the attacks it will take a lot of money and armed escorts to get me on a plane. All because we have terrorists who are willing to kill themselves in order to kill Americans.
Furthermore, many Americans may never feel safe on a plane again.
In the last few years, my hometown hero Payne Stewart, members of the Oklahoma State University basketball team, and national icon John F. Kennedy Jr. were killed in a plane accidents.
And despite the already existing elements that went into making every flight safe and successful, my faith in flying was being tested long before Sept. 11.
Only a couple of weeks before the attack, the performer Aaliyah was killed during take-off in the Bahamas.
However, I kept my faith in commercial aviation because those accidents all involved small, private planes.
But every time I board a plane, I play it cool on the outside while inside my heart is beating as if I had just run a marathon.
I am an experienced flyer who has flown internationally several times.
Think about it, other than being a
Eric Borja
Columnist
opinionkansan.com
Commentary
There you are, strapping yourself into a tiny seat with other strangers who are just as nervous. And you are inside what is essentially a gigantic bullet with wings.
You actually pay to be guided in this bullet at 700 miles per hour —at 30,000 feet— by another human being.
vegetarian, air travel is the most unnatural act in the world.
That freaks me out. Humans were meant to be on the ground.
The whole process before flying is equally stressful.
You have to plan months ahead to get a reasonably priced ticket. Then you have to decide whether to get the cheap ticket on the flight where they only serve peanuts and provide leg room comparable to the backseat of a two-door Volkswagen, or pay more to get a meal prepared on an assembly line a year earlier and a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie in an equally small seat.
And then there's the security.
Usually, I would try to be politically correct in expressing the last statement, but the fact is that the FBI and CIA are convinced that the terrorists on the flights were crazy members of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda and that those terrorists hated America. There is no way to stop a madman who wants to die anyway.
The problem in American airports is
I will still continue to fly, although it will be an even more miserable experience than it was before. To me, the feeling of not knowing what is going to happen is the worst feeling in the world. As we move forward into uncertainty, America will keep flying and keep living, but how we go about it in the coming months will remain a mystery.
Despite all this other stress, the thing that worries me the most is that no matter how much we up the security at airports, you can't stop a crazy Saudi Arabian who hates America.
In Rome, there are military personnel walking around the airport with machine guns, staring down anyone who looked suspicious. Now, some airports in America will probably be the same way.
we trust people. In American airports, the security guards and metal detector workers are nice and go about their jobs in a casual manner.
Borja is a junior in journalism from Springfield, Mo.
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Not all of them will be published. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
I was at Lincoln last night to watch the Neb raska Huskers play, and I was thinking, "Man, if we could play like that, maybe we could win some games too."
This is just a question, but is there anybody cooler than James Bond? I didn't think so.
Hey you guys have to put this in because my friends Anne and Dave are getting married, and I just wanted to give a shout out to them. Thanks, bye!
What's up with KU "lack of" info this year? It used to be my favorite thing about KU but now it blows goat. What's up with that Eric Chenowith?
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Dude, what is up with the Kansansex column? I don't get it. Nobody plans to have friends with benefits anyway. Duh.
As the student who has attended three other colleges, I have to commend Watkins Health Center. It is wonderful, far beyond what I expected from a health facility at a university
I think that we should ban smoking on campus. Think of how much more wonderful our campus would smell. There'd be no stinky people sitting next to us in class, and—mostofall—you could walk into a building without having to breathe in a big fog of cancerous smoke.
So what the hell is the number for Gumby's?
That's all I'm saving.
I'd just like to say I don't see why people get drunk in their dorm rooms and sit there all night. Get out.
Is it just me or do quarters seem like a tool of the devil?
Every Wednesday there's Christian guy that tells stories out at Wescoe and does creative things to talk about God. And this last Wednesday there was a guy that walked by and spit all over him and wasn't even listening to what he was saying. I wish people like that would stop and listen to what people are really saying and that maybe he'd learn about what tolerance and love really mean.
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I called and said I think quarters are the tool of the devil, and I just found out I got a quarter raise so strike out. In fact, the opposite, I think that quarters are blessings from God.
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He-man, the master of the universe.
My sister is getting married in two weeks, and she just found out that she's pregnant. But shhh, don't tell her mother-in-law because my sister's getting married in a white dress.
Yeah, I just swam in Clinton Lake, and it was exhilarating. I feel great, I mean it's very early in the morning, and I just swam.
This is in response to the supporting KU Athletics editorial. It's nice that you're showing support for the teams that cut now, but if you really had KU spirit to begin with, you would have been to a KU swim meet last year. Go KU football!
I was kind of wondering about the two girls who were walking backwards up the hill on 11th Street by GSP. Was there a reason or were you just being kind of silly?
I know what the problem with KU football is. It's me. I walk into my room, I turn on the radio, we're up 16-13. Next thing I know, we're down 27-16. I'm going to turn my radio off and hope we can pull it.
Is it bad that I read the UDK only for the Free for All? I mean, you guys have do some other articles in there don't you? But I only read the Free for All. Sorry, don't mean to waste your paper.
I just want to get so wasted so that A, I pass out at the bar, or B, at Burrito King. Wait, what did you say? You work at Hooters? I gotta go.
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Does the fact that the professors call on you even register? They learn the first day of your class that your hand reacts faster than your brain. Think for the answer, then raise your hand. And if someone is called on, keeping your hand raised right in front of them ain't winning you any friends.
Hello children, I'm Bobo the magic seacow,
and I like to do stuff.
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For all those people who got an F last week,
I know how you feel. I got three.
There's a guy who runs around fast food joints wearing a mask and cape stealing fast food from cars. What's up with that?
Heyman, I like your shirt man.
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I'm really angry that KU does not offer a sand volleyball major.
I bought a book at the library book sale the other day and it has a class schedule and notes planning the prom of 1910.