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Thursday, September 18, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Speaking out of turn
In a blur of events that still has not cleared entirely, the students at the University of Kansas recently learned that the Rev. Jesse Jackson first would, and then most likely would not appear on campus.
That seems to be a massive understatement at this point.
The way David Epstein, student body president, put it, it was a case of "massive miscommunication."
Two weeks ago, Epstein said Jackson had accepted an invitation to speak here. The Kansan then ran a story across the top of the front page that said Jackson would make a KU appearance. Now, Jackson's press secretary says he had never even heard of any invitations from this University.
Opinions
In the end, everybody looks bad.
Student body officials look bad for opening their mouths too soon, the paper looks bad for not requiring more confirmation and Jackson's people
in Washington look even worse.
The Student Union Activities Forums Committee chairman has in his possession a letter from the Rainbow Coalition thankling him for his letter inviting Jackson to to KU. It seems someone forgot to inform the reverand's press secretary.
In transit between those two engagements he might even have passed within a few miles of the KU campus. But he didn't speak here.
In an unfortunate twist of irony, Jackson was within 50 miles of Lawrence last week. He spoke in Wichita and then in the Kansas City area.
We're all here to learn, and this situation gives us plenty of opportunity to do so.
From the sound of it, his people probably never even let him know we were interested.
The next time you can bet that no one will let any information out of the bag until the facts are nailed down.
Judges to be future shock
One small step for two men has become one giant leap backwards for the U.S. judicial system.
The Senate confirmation last night of conservatives William Hubbs Rehnquist as the chief justice of the United States and Antonin Scalia as his replacement as an associate justice marks the end of speculation about the high court's political and moral leanings as it moves toward the 21st century; it will be conservative and under a shadow of considerable doubt.
standards and continuum of case law precedent.
Throughout his confirmation hearings, Rehnquist's "steel trap" mind failed him. All too often he was unable to recount for his Senate inquisitors his position on civil rights, women's rights, the possibility that he intimidated voters in the late 1950s and early '60s and innumerable questions that cast doubt on his integrity and ability to maintain, as chief justice, the court's rigid
While there is no doubt that Rehnquist is brilliant, the measure of a good justice is his ability use that brilliance to wisely shape the law. Partisanship, so evident in his writings as a clerk and during his tenure in the Justice Department, has no place in an arena that should be void of his obvious political leanings.
Neutral prudence
President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica has taken a strong stand against allowing U.S.-backed rebels, or contras, who are fighting Nicaragua to use his country as a base for military operation.
He has made a wise decision.
He has made a wise decision.
Costa Rica has proclaimed neutrality in the war between Nicaragua's Sandinista government and the contra guerrillas who are trying to overthrow it.
Arias is going to stick to that neutrality, which is not easy considering that Nicaragua shares a large common border. That, coupled with pressure from U.S. diplomats who want Costa Rica to harbor the contras, has put Arias on the defensive.
Arias, who took office in May, knows he would have a lot to lose by becoming involved in the conflict.
Costa Rica has the only functional democracy in Central
America. It is the only country in the region without an army. It has Central America's highest literacy rate and a national budget that allots large amounts of money to health care and education.
It is the most stable country in Central America, and Arias wants it to stay that way. By becoming involved in Nicaragua's rebel war, that stability would be lost. However, Arias doesn't want to lose the friendship of the United States. It's a balance that is difficult to maintain.
"Friendship should not mean being servile," Arias said last week. "A friend who does everything you want is not a friend, but a slave."
Arias and his country should be admired for wanting to stay out of the Nicaraguan conflict. He is wise not to take sides. By sticking to his policies, Costa Rica will remain a stable, peaceful ally.
News staff
Lauretta McMillen...Editor
Kady McMaster...Managing editor
Troll Clarke...News editor
David Silverman...Editorial editor
John Hanna...Campus editor
Frank Hansel...Sports editor
Jacki Kelly...Photo editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
David Nixon...Business manager
Gregory Kaul...Retail sales manager
Denise Stephens...Campus sales manager
Sally Depew...Classified manager
Han Warnes...Production manager
Duncan Calhoun National sales manager
Beverly Kastens Traffic manager
News staff
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Bicycle race shows dedication
There are moments in sports in which heroism and tragedy elevate an athletic contest beyond its ordinary boundaries and reminds us that life, at times, is the highest form of art.
It is these moments that will draw true fans to an athletic contest, no matter where or under what conditions it takes place. Whether it's a football game in a blizzard or a marathon in a desert, they'll be there.
Fans were there from all over the world, Sept. 6 and 7, standing in the cold eight hours a day to witness the end of a two-week drama called the World Championships of Cycling. The performance was held at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the final act was the men's amateur road race of 105 miles.
After 4½ hours of riding up lung-
breaking hills in bitter fog, two
riders, Uwe Ampler of East German
and John Tallen of Holland
separated from the pack, disappearing
into the fog.
At the finish line, a tense crowd waited silently. The tension was warranted; midway through the race several riders were injured in a collision. One racer from Belgium continued for nearly 60 miles though his arm and leg were gashed and bleeding. He was too far back to catch the pack, but he continue
Gil Chavez
competing — his will against pain.
That hadn't been the only tragedy of the championships. In the morning, Rebecca Whitehead, three-time world champion, had crashed on the last lap of the women's race while fighting for the lead. She finished 31st.
So there was good reason to worry as the fog settled heavily onto the race course. The long wait finally was broken when headlights illuminated the final turn. It was the race marshals on motorcycles leading the way. Behind them, still hidden, was the new world champion. The headlights curved north, then west toward the finish line.
Breaking from the mist, a lone
rider accelerated down the stretch. It was Ampler, churning the crowd as he passed.
Tallen was fifty yards behind.
Ampler had crushed him in the mist.
Taken was iry yards behind. Ampler had crushed him in the mist. At that moment it did not matter where Ampler was from or that his triumph was smack in the middle of the Air Force Academy's concrete and stainless steel architecture, which loomed over the race course. He was no cold warrior, just a cold cyclist and world champion.
And for a moment, technology was no longer the modern monolith that produced polluted water and air. It was once again the human inventiveness that had produced the bicycle.
Big-time sports are getting a bad name. There's been much written about the corruption of the athletic ethic in both professional and amateur sports. Many of their champions seem to be powered by drugs and inspired by greed.
Actually, there was only one truly bad moment at the championships. It came when the race officials, worried about starting the men's race on time, tried to stop the last two-thirds of the women racers from reaching the finish line. The officials quickly ended the attempt when the generally good-natured crowd turned decidedly nasty. It was the only time in the two days that anything but applause was heard.
Events such as the cycling cham
pionships are becoming rare. It's getting harder to find large athletic contests that both the fan and the athlete can enjoy.
It isn't enough that the sports and their heroes are coming under attack; the use of technology to improve athletic performance also is drawing fire. Steroids, growth hormones and dope have emerged to tarnish the Olympic motto of "Citius, Altius, Fortius", or faster, higher, stronger.
Many in sports audiences also seem to have taken a turn for the worse They fight with not only each other but with the athletes.
It is enough to discourage any lover of sports, both fan and athlete. Except that still there are moments in sports that make it all worthwhile — when the contest releases an overture that rises above tumult of pettiness and plays to us the finer aspects of humanity.
Nicaragua already has democracy
President Reagan said this summer that he wanted to restore democracy to Nicaragua.
Since the revolution in 1979, Nicaragua has seen more democracy than it has in 130 years.
Our government will continue to
The U.S. government does not support democracy in Nicaragua. It says it is keeping the world safe for democracy by controlling the spread of Soviet communism. But U.S. troops have been in and out of Nicaragua since the 1830s, long before there was a Soviet Union.
In spite of what we are taught from grade school on, the government of the United States and the people of the United States are not the same. Most Americans believe in the type of democracy that is being destroyed by our own government in Nicaragua. Polls show that most of us oppose contra aid, yet our representatives in Congress have just approved the administration's request for $100 million in aid to the contras.
In 1927, 4,000 U.S. soldiers were sent to Nicaragua. Then, as now, most Americans opposed U.S. intervention. By 1936, the U.S. government established a fascist dictator, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, after having assassinated the opposition leader.
support and fund fascism until we let it know we won't stand for it — by electing politicians who do represent us, by letting them know what we think, and by protesting our government's war on Nicaragua.
Rhonda Neugebauer, a 1985 KU graduate, spent the first two weeks of August in Nicaragua. She witnessed the democracy that the Reagan administration claims does not exist.
Nicaragua has a participatory government, Neugebauer explained. Along with other scholars from the Latin American Studies Association, she interviewed about 50 Nicaraguans.
Neugubber also said Nicaraguaans openly criticize their government. In spite of the closing of the newspaper La Prensa — an act that the Reagan administration would have us believe meant the end of free speech in Nicaragua — the people are free to
She spoke with landholders, social workers, army officials, writers of Nicaragua's new constitution, grass roots organizers and a variety of other people.
Thomas Walker, author of several books on Nicaragua, estimates that half the population of Nicaragua is involved in a political organization of some kind. Our own country — in which only half of the eligible people even vote — does not have that kind of enthusiasm.
La Prensa, which advocated the overthrow of the Sandinista government and which allegedly was receiving CIA funds, was shut down in June.
voice their opinions about the government, she said.
Jan Underwood
Columnist
"One thing you cannot do in Nicaragua is advocate intervention by the U.S." Neugebauer said. "Most people would do anything to get rid of an invader, even the people who are critical of the Sandinista government."
Nonetheless, she said, the Sandinistas have wide popular support. Why? "Somoza's U.S.'s backed military dictatorship ruled through violence."
Sandinista agrarian reform has given back to the people land that was once concentrated in the hands of the ruling class. Illiteracy has dropped from 50 to 12 percent. The Sandinistas have built hospitals, vaccinated thousands of people against infectious diseases and lowered the infant mortality rate from 29 to 7 percent through improved sanitation and health care.
They lowered food prices. In 1984, they held the first fair election in decades. Our government's ideological labels attempt to hide the enormous improvement in the quality of life for the Nicaraguans.
Now the Nicaraguans know they can run their own country. The people and their new government do not want to pander to the interests of the United States. Since the revolution, the people have had a taste of national dignity.
But Sandinista funds earmarked for social reform now are paying for the war against the contrasts
A U.S. diplomat told Neugebauer and her associates that the U.S. government does not even believe the contras can win the war. The point is not to win, he told them, but to make the Nicaraguan people so weary of war that they will grow disillusioned with their own government.
The U.S. government wants to see the Sandinista revolution fail. If the U.S. people realized that a leftist political system was working in Nicaragua, our government would be caught in a whopping lie.
Nicaragua does not stand much of a chance against the United States government. "It's not the Nicaraguan people who are going to stop the war," Neugebauer said. "It's the American people."
Mailbox
Legally, he's innocent
The lead editorial, "Silence isn't golden," (Sept. 11, 1986) in the Kansas is particularly bothersome. You seem to have forgotten one very important value in American society — a man/woman is innocent until proven guilty.
Your editorial has von Ende's conviction signed, sealed, and delivered before the trial has even been held. Why do I draw this conclusion (which I hope was unintended)? It seems to be the only possible conclusion one can draw from the innuendo and references to the question you ask: "Why is von Ende still on the payroll?" Your position is guilty of the same misconception that seems to exist among a large portion of American society, that is, being arrested equals guilt.
Whether von Ende is guilty or not is not the important question. What is important is why do you condemn Chancellor Gene A. Budig? Budig should not be condemned; he should be commended. There should be no negative effect of being arrested, either to the individual or to the University. In this situation it would be inappropriate for Budig to make any comment about the von Ende case, especially to fire him (as you seem to suggest he should) or to suspend him without pay. To do either of these acts would be for Budig to pass judgment on von Ende, rather than a jury of his peers, or a single judge in a court of law. What you imply is that the moment someone is arrested for a crime, that person is automatically guilty.
Von Ende may be guilty. The point is, the judicial system, which protects American liberties, is what should decide guilt or innocence, not an editorial with overtones reminiscent of the worst days of the yellow press in America. Budig is right in remaining silent about this case until the case has received a fair trial
Bruce R. Daniel Springfield, Mo. graduate student
Counselors do help
Last Tuesday's column, "Counselors need guiding hands," by Gerald Stone, leaves me sad for Stone's apparent history with guidance counselors. As one involved in counseling students at the University, I have observed that many students are willing to let someone
else accept the responsibility for making decisions about their lives.
Here at the University there exist several resources for students who wish to learn more about the process of coming to understand themselves, their world, and how balancing the roles or worker, citizen, student, player, etc., will allow them to most effectively meet their own needs while contributing in a healthy way to that world The University Counseling Center offers career exploration groups and individual counseling. In addition, the University Placement Center and others assist students through parts of the career development process.
Thomas S. Krieshok Assistant professor, counseling psychology
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