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Monday, September 14, 1992
OPINION
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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
23
IN OUR OPINION
Presidential candidates speak with false promises
The rhetoric that spills from the mouths of our presidential candidates rivals late-night cable
TV ads made for our something-for-nothing society. Put away your Abdomenizer. The candidates have something just for you — the magic checkbook.
Bill Clinton has promised that if he is elected, the government and his programs would provide national health care, more jobs, job training, better schools, child care and the rebuilding of hurricane-damaged Florida. What would all these improvements cost? Nothing! Wait, there's more. If you subscribe to Clinton's plan, he'll cut your taxes, and through the magic checkbook, only the richest 2 percent of the population will pay.
However, if you don't subscribe to the liberal philosophy, we have something just for you — George Bush. He'll slice and dice your taxes, but his supply-side blade won't cut spending a bit. There's more. He'll throw a billion to the farmers, seven more to the hurricane victims and still manage to get that deficit under control. Wouldn't you like a magic checkbook for your family?
Sure you would! Paul Tsongas and Ross Perot talked realistically about the economy. Look what it got them. You don't want to make that mistake, do you?
But hurry. You only have until Nov. 3 to subscribe Don't be surprised if by 1996 you're ready to put either candidate, and their magic checkbook, right back on the shelf by your dust-covered Abdomenizer.
JEFF REYNOLDS FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Violence in new Germany spurs memories of Nazis
Let us remember that at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, with the appearance of the oppressor Adolf Hitler, there were those
of the oppressor Adon Hieler, there were those who took lightly his words of hatred. The results are known.
Therefore, one must not take lightly what is happening today in Germany, and the sooner this infection is removed from the living body of united Germany, the better.
This duty falls primarily on the Bonn government, but the free world has a duty to warn against the revival of Nazism in Germany, especially when it has an effect on other countries. It is the right of the Jews to firmly demand that the German government uproot neo-Nazism from the body of Germany.
Hatzose, Tel Aviv, Israel
The recent wave of violent and organized attacks by German youth against hostels where foreign asylum-seekers were staying has given rise to comments about arebirth of Nazism in the European Community's largest country.
perhaps economic deprivation in the now defunct East Germany does not fully explain why racist movements have emerged there in recent years. It could well be that the legacy of the totalitarian regime that succeeded Hitler's reign of terror in East Germany has deprived the people of learning to respect the importance of plurality and toleration, attitudes which were certainly given plenty of room to blossom in the western part of the country.
It is economic impoverishment and youth frustration at the post-unification miracle that failed to materialize in the former East Germany that lies at the heart of the racial attacks rather than sociological theories about xenophobic Germans and their racist past.
Cyprus Mail, Nicosia, Cyprus
Unheroic acts await those who attack social issues
Those who we love, we kill. This paradox of heroism has overwhelmed Bono, the lead singer of the Irish rock group U2.
The role of the charismatic leader in society is to provide direction for a straying group, to be a heroic role model who the people can believe in. Bono is handsome, intelligent and poetic, a rugged individual with a social conscience to make anyone who has ever thrown a gum wrapper out of a car window crine. Bono admitted in an interview that we need heroes in our society. He said for years he had been playing that role. Now, he wants out. He knows what we do to the ones we love.
It's sad to realize that assassins in the '80s had no one better to pick on than Ronald Reagan.
John Lennon, John Kennedy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.: Some of the great leaders of the 20th century. They have one thing in common. We've killed them all. Other examples can be found throughout history, including the founder of one of the world's largest religions.
Maybe a fear of assassination is why when someone comes along who actually has ideals we label them "Fruitcake" - do not open till Christ.
So maybe it is rather intelligent of our presidential contenders to have lackluster careers, smattered with scandals and ever-present rumors of infidelity. If their records were any cleaner, they would be dead. Bill Clinton, next time you're on MTV, don't smile so nicely. It may cost you more than you bargained for.
STAFF COLUMNIST
MATT PATTERSON
So here we are, alone and corrupt in the absence of heroes. And to top things off, I hear DC Comics is going to kill Superman!
Imagine that! Add Superman to the list of assassinated heroes. To the comic readers who haven't supported him for the last few years: I see the smoking gun, or in this case Kryptonite, and it is in your hands. How could you do that to poor Lois Lane?
So who do we look up to now? I was discussing this with a friend of mine the other day. He said our heroes were those with power and guns — big guns. The bigger the gun, the more power the hero has over our children. Maybe if the writers of *Superman* had given him a gritter, more violent
But the usual hero isn't killed off by lack of readership. Why exactly do we kill our heroes? Many social scientists believe it is because we are afraid of the changes they represent.
persona and a portable nuclear missile, he would be sticking around a little longer.
And now Bono, the individual I have looked up to more than any other in my lifetime, has cast aside the mantel of hero. He has changed just as I have changed from the boy I was when I first started listening to his group's music. In a way, the person he once was is dead, but the new Bono is equally as charismatic, intriguing and intelligent as the old one. Maybe he has a guitar instead of a machine gun, a group of musicians instead of a platoon, but he is still, in a way, my hero
Gone is his booming voice of social protest, singing slow and haunting melodies. Now he'll唱 with his passionate and surging voice, celebrating life along with all its darkness and desires.
Perhaps a time comes in the life of a hero that has lived as long as Bono has in our modern world, when that hero looks inside himself or herself and sees that a hero, even Batman, is just a human being behind the mask.
I was thinking of this as I attended the U2 concert in Iowa, excited at the prospect of meeting my hero live, even if only from a distance across a crowded stadium.
Maybe we're all heroes and should take a look inside ourselves, like Bono did, and see what we can do for our world.
Matt Patterson is a Shawnee sophomore majoring in English and sociology.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Club's membership system slights users
The other afternoon I stopped by The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire, to get a schedule of the September shows, only to be accosted by the doorman asking me if I was a member. He proceeded to tell me that the club had been cited the day before for allowing nonmembers to enter.
Will this place ever get its act together?
On July 23, 1991, I had down 10 bucks for a year-long membership only to discover that my card wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Many times since then, I have gone to show there. Never once was I or the people I went with asked if we were members. To enter, all one had to do was pay for a ticket. The point is that membership should have its privileges and should not be some facade
to hide behind once a quota has been met.
Yes, I will once again give 10 bucks for another year's membership. In my opinion, that's a bargain for the amount of talent the club draws in. But if The Bottleneck is going to play by the rules, then make them apply to everyone. Otherwise, it will be the loyal cardholders who once again get ripped off in the end.
Michael Bell Leavenworth senior
KANSANSTAFF
There's nothing wrong with the shrine itself. Elvis was a great musical artist. His contribution to and influence on music has an impact even today. There is no crime in honoring the guy.
ERIC NELSON
Editor
GREG FARMER
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
In South Dakota, we have shrines carved into mountains. The heads of four former presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and the Theodore Roosevelt look out over the Black Hills. The famous chief of the Ogala Sioux Indians, Crazy Horse, is partially blasted into another mountain. We love to visit these sights and remember those famous men and the events they inspired.
The difference is, we know they are dead. I can't remember even one Lincoln sighting.
I know not all Tennesseees are Elvis spotters, and most did not expect to see real dinosaurs at the zoo either. It is always those few thousand nuts that get all the attention.
Before you native Tennessee get all riled up and write "I'm Offended" letters, let me explain. We're talking about the city that built a shrine to Elvis.
Now, now, I am just giving Tennessee a little light-hearted teasing. Many fine, upstanding people have hailed from the Volunteer State. I am sure most of them can distinguish that often fuzzy line between fantasy and reality. But I still don't think Memphis would be the best place to build the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot Historical Museum.
Kate Kelley is a Fort Leavenworth junior majoring in English.
Those people better stay away from Bedrock City, near Custer, D.S. This is an actual tourist trap, designed from chicken wire and plaster to resemble the cave-like structures of the Flintstone world. I spent a summer working there at the drive in burster stand, selling such delicacies as Brontoasaurus Burgers and Bam Bam Shakes. The place was inundated with tourists from all over the world who took obvious delight in the fantasy of a prehistoric community. However, to my knowledge, no one ever complained that they were not eating real dinosaur meat.
I suppose the Memphis zoo should have been more specific in their advertisement of the exhibit. One would think specificity would not be necessary, but this is Memphis, Tem.
The vice president of the Memphis zoo explained the misunderstanding: "People have watched too much Fred Flintstone."
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
While perusing the Leavenworth Times last week, I ran across this headline: "Zoogoers disappointed to find no live dinosaurs." An exhibit at a zoo in Memphis, Tenn., featured robotic dinosaurs. The robots could move and make noises like the ones someone imagined dinosaurs would have made.
But some of the exhibit's visitors apparently expected live dinosaurs and asked for a refund. It seems they felt misled after learning there hadn't been any living and breathing dinosaurs for more than 65 million years.
SCOTT HANNA
Business manager
BILL LEIBENGOOD
Retail sales manager
JEANNIE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
Editors Business Staff
Aest. Managing Campus sales mgr Angela Glewenger
News Campus sales mgr Melissa Teresa
Editorial Stephen Martino Abby Bawkin
Campus Co-op sales mgr Anastipa Smubro
Sports Shoely Solow Production mgr Brad Bron
Photograph Justin Knapp Clint Kimston
Features Marketing director Ashley Langford
Graphics Creative Director Valerie Sichler
Graphics Sean Toys/Michael Riles Classified mgr Justiand Stanley
KATE KELLEY Memphis: An enigma of illogical thinking
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501 Bluez
By Moses Smith
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