4 Tuesday, August 25, 1987 / University Daily Kansan Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Practice safe sex
Condoms are no longer just another form of birth control. They are no longer important only in pregnancy and venereal disease prevention.
Condoms could save your life
Conditions could save your life.
For years, men and women have played Russian roulette. The nightmare of the game has been an unwanted pregnancy. Now the gun is real. The nightmare is death.
Condoms have gained nationwide attention as the best way, other than abstinence, to stop the spread of AIDS.
AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, attacks the body's immune system, allowing cancers and other diseases to destroy the body. AIDS can spread through sexual contact and through contaminated blood.
Education about AIDS and condoms needs to begin running as rampant through society as the disease itself. AIDS awareness campaigns have sprouted at universities nationwide. Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., began distributing safe sex kits to all incoming students.
The University of Kansas has its own schemes. The office of admissions sponsored a workshop on AIDS and other sexual health issues last week. KU officials also plan to form an AIDS task force. Education on the facts could keep false assumptions and hysteria about the disease from spreading.
Education, awareness and publicity about AIDS can inform you about the disease. The rest is up to you. It's your life. Be responsible.
A coach with a reputation for class, both on court and off, has pulled a tacky move.
Think of it this way: If you buckle up every time you get into a car, then you should take the same measures to save your life every time you have sexual intercourse.
In a recent advertisement for a local bank, basketball coach Larry Brown is shown grinning and holding a camera that the bank offers to new customers.
Get the picture?
The bank has a well-known face to toit its services, but Brown's face is known for accomplishments such as last year's 25-11 season, four consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament and taking the team's victories and losses with style.
Brown is a figure who represents the University, and with that recognition comes responsibility. University representatives should not represent commercial enterprises publicly.
The NCAA has no rule prohibiting coaches from making paid public appearances. The rule limiting public appearances that prohibited student athletes from appearing at last year's Jell-O jump to benefit the March of Dimes only applied to team members, and it was recently changed to allow participation in charitable projects.
And Brown has worked to support the Special Olympics. These doors are admirable. the ad is not
the NCAA does not limit the coaches in this way, but coaches' outside income must be reported to the chancellor through the athletic director, according to the NCAA.
It may not be against the rules, but it is still a disappointment to those who admire Brown's style.
Fall of the Third Reich
A 93-year-old man — his life snuffed out by strangulation — represents for some the end of the Third Reich.
Rudolf Hess, the one-time deputy to Adolf Hitler and the last-surviving member of his inner circle, strangled himself last week with an electrical cord — reportedly a fourth attempt to take his life.
At the Nuremberg war-crimes trials, Hess was convicted of helping launch a war of aggression but not of genocide. Yet his self-inflicted death pales in comparison to the tortured deaths of the more than 6 million Jews killed in Hitler's Germany in World War II.
Now the jail in the Spandau district of West Berlin stands empty. Its sole inmate of two decades is dead.
Yet the motivation behind his atrocities remains as deeply rooted today as it was 40 years ago. Examples of racism toward minorities, not just Jews, still permeate news pages.
The four powers that jailed Hess cannot join forces now to end racism. Violence toward blacks, Asians or Jews is not a problem quelled by sweeping legislation.
Unfortunately, the problem rests with attitudes. And just as Hess remained proud of his role in the Third Reich up to his death, many will refuse to renounce the ugly attitude of racism.
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KU can dump the bargain table
For too long the University of Kansas has been known to out-of-staters as a "best-buy, surething" college. And for too long, Kansans have thought that was a compliment. In truth, what it means is that out-of-staters know that by coming to Kansas they can get more than they paid for or are qualified for.
How can this image be corrected? The University can either give out-of-state students less of an education or charge them more, while raising standards for admission. Obviously, we can't create special bad classes for non-Kansans, so the logical plan would be to raise non-resident tuition and entrance requirements significantly. Although the University has taken steps in this direction, it seems that much larger strides are necessary.
The impact of such a policy change could be dramatic. Total tuition income would increase over time, the student body would be smaller and stronger and Kansas' sacred institution of open admissions would be protected.
Some might claim that significantly higher tuition and standards would discourage non-resident students, decreasing KU's revenue in the long run. But the examples of other universities indicate otherwise. At the University of Michigan, the model on which KU was built, and the University of Colorado, with which KU competes
for good students, higher tuition seems simply to shift the cost of education to those families that can afford it, allowing a much higher percentage of students access to financial aid.
Raising standards for admission is important as well. Presently, KU has trouble attracting some of the best and brightest out-of-staters because of a general perception that "anyone can get into Kansas." If the Office of Admissions would take its title less literally, KU could shed the stigma of being just another big state school. We could shoot for Chicago's best graduates. We could drop our subscription to the rejection mailing list of the University of Illinois.
The increased availability of financial aid creates obvious benefits. The University could entice brighter students by offering more scholarships, and at the same time increase KU's low minority population.
According to Edward B. Fiske's "Best Buys in Higher Education," the university presents asks $1,750 per semester for non-residents, has only seven percent minority students and provides financial aid to a third of all students. The University of Michigan, on the other hand, charges $3,300 per semester, with 10 percent minorities and 44 percent of students on financial aid. An even more dramatic example is the University of Colorado. At $2,700 per semester, CU attracts 15 percent minorities, with nearly half of all students on financial aid.
Finally, increasing demands on non-resident students would serve to protect the sacred, if somewhat outdated, policy of open admissions. The extra money provided by wealthy, intelligent Missourians could provide remedial classes for those Kansans not content with the social life over in Manhattan.
Wone side am I on? Well, I'm an out-of-state student who plans to leave Kansas immediately after graduating. I plan to take my cheap but respected degree and run, and contribute to the economy of a neighboring state. So I don't know. Maybe I just feel guilty about taking advantage of that famous Kansas hospitality.
How do Kansans feel about being taken advantage of?
Vague laws triggered illegal arms deal
Dan Houston is a junior from Tuka,
Okla., majoring in advertising and politi-
With the merciful conclusion of the Iran-contra hearings, what is there left to say? I take as my text today Oliver North's lecture to the congressional committee that was supposed to investigate him and instead was reduced to a collection of potted palms while he mesmerized the nation. As Colonel North told the congressmen:
"Plain and simple, you are to blame because of the fickle, vacillating, unpredictable, on-again, off-again policy toward the Nicaraguan democratic resistance — the contras. . . Armies need consistent help. They need a consistent flow of money, arms, food, clothing and medical supplies. The Congress of the United States encouraged the freedom fighters to do battle and then abandoned them. The Congress of the United States left soldiers in the field unsupported and vulnerable to their communist enemies. . . You then have this investigation to blame the problem on the executive branch. It doesn't make sense to me. Who will investigate Congress?"
Colonel North may have intended this speech to justify his deceiving Congress. It doesn't, but it does explain it. Robert McFarlane, the colonel's superior, made it clear that he regretted his role in this fiasco and would continue to regret it. But he, too, noted the moras of contradictory policies Congress imposed on support for the Nicaraguan resistance. As he put it in his testimony, concisely and pointedly: "The policymakers who create conditions like this must bear some of the moral responsibility for the failures that follow."
The record of Congress's vacillations is clear from the special compilation of congressional debates on granting or withholding aid to the contras commissioned by Congressman Bill Alexander of Arkansas for an estimated $197,000 in public funds. Vacillation is about the only thing clear from this expensive piece of duplication.
Congressman Alexander claimed the text would prove that the President and the National Security Council were barred by the Boland Amendment from aiding the contrasts. Perhaps he thought no one would actually read all this small type. But one student of the record, L. Gordon Cravitz of the Wall Street Journal, has concluded
that Bill Alexander ought to ask for his money back — that the debates "included an express intent to limit the president or his NSC staff from aiding the contras."
The only correction such a conclusion requires is that it wasn't his money Bill Alexander wasted on printing this mass of murk but ours, and it is the public that ought to get the refund.
The reason the Boland Amendment passed without opposition (411 to 0) was that it represented the milder restriction on the executive branch. To quote Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who at the time was trying to eliminate all aid to the contrasts, there were "any number of ways of circumventing" the Bolland Amendment. "It is going to provide a green light for the continued activity that we have seen reported over and over again in the last several weeks and months, suggesting that we are already deeply involved in a broader conflict in Central America."
No wonder the president signed the Boland Amendment and the administration agreed to abide by it. What Bill Alexander has done in compiling this mass of material is succeed in putting his own version of the Boland Amendment in the greatest doubt. He has imagined in the record what Congressman Boland didn't claim at the time — indeed, what the record reveals the congressman explicitly denied, namely, that his amendment barred all aid to the contrast, not just help from intelligence agencies.
The Library of Congress, which compiled these debates, would seem to agree that the Boland Amendment was not an absolute ban on aid to the contras.
Lt. Col. Oliver North
This murky amendment and the murkier debates that led to it amount to one huge gray area. This is the kind of thing that keeps battalions of lawyers employed. It's what happens when legislation is compromised in nothingness, when words are used to obscure rather than clarify. It's the result of congressmen watering down a proposal so that all sides can claim to have gotten their way. How else would a highly controversial issue be "resolved" by a vote of 411 to 0? This isn't legislation; it's verbose irresponsibility. Yet only the president's men are called on to explain their actions. To quote Colonel North's good question, "Who will investigate Congress?"
Reflagging plunges U.S. into deep water
Embarrassed by the disclosure of arms sales to Iran, the Reagan administration has backed away from its policy of neutrality in the 7-year-old Persian Gulf war between Iran and Iraq. Strangely, the event the administration used to justify renewed hostility toward Iran was the attack on the USS Stark by an Iraqi plane that killed 37 crewmen. After the incident, the president declared without explanation, "Iran is the real culprit" in the affair. Shortly thereafter, the plan to reflag Kuwaiti tankers to counter this nebulous Iranian threat was hatched.
The move was a mistake - it sends us down a dark corridor fraught with danger, with no forseable end and no promise of benefit to defray the potentially tragic cost.
The U.S. also has huge stockpiles of oil, accumulated after the oil embargo of 1973, which are large enough to outlast even an extended interruption in supply. More important, it is unlikely that any interruption would occur. Not one tanker has yet been sunk in what has been dubbed "the tanker war."
the potential for American involvement is questionable. Compared to other countries, the United States has a relatively small stake in the flow of oil from the region; only 7 percent of our oil needs are supplied by traffic through the Gulf. By contrast, Western Europe receives more than 20 percent of its oil from the same source.
Terrorist activity in the Gulf has been an inconvenience for oil shipping, but has hardly influenced the overall traffic of oil.
Unfortunately, an active U.S. military presence in the Gulf is more likely to jeopardize regional stability than to enhance it. For years Iran has tried to promote a regional Muslim uprising, especially among Shites, against Western interference. But in the absence of a visible and viable American force in the Gulf, revolutionary fervor has been difficult to generate. Now, however, the substantial Shiite populations in the region are becoming increasingly agitated.
Given the circumstances, the possibility that
Saudi Shites are thought to be responsible for the explosion that destroyed an Aramco gas complex at Ras-al-Juaiam, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 15. A similar attack in Kuwait in May is known to have been the work of a pro-Iranian Kuwati Shilite. It is only through violent and officially anonymous confrontation with the United States in the region that Iran can revive its efforts to export its Muslim revolution. The U.S. must, therefore, seek to reduce its regional profile and to avoid crises.
Reagan himself may have a hidden agenda that includes confrontation with Iran cannot be dismissed out of hand. In the case of Libya, our government baldly lied to the world by falsifying charges against that country in order to justify a military strike. It is an inevitable consequence of being caught in a lie to arouse suspicion and disbelief, even when the truth is told; the president has compromised the credibility of his foreign policy.
Now, President Reagan should put the matter back in the hands of those his administration seems so loathe to deal with — the elected representatives of the people — by invoking the War Powers Act. This would require the President to gain Congressional approval for the operation within 60 days or begin withdrawing U.S. forces from the Gulf. Only in this way can American foreign policy regain any semblance of credibility.
Just as was the case in Lebanon, where 241 Marines died at the hands of terrorists, we are being drawn into a situation in which there are no winning scenarios but many losing ones. The next tragic will mean that the United States must either suffer a loss of face as well as loss of life, or escalate its military commitment and thereby reinforce the cycle of confrontation.
Ben Shult is a senior from Manhattan double-majoring in English and political science.
BLOOM COUNTY
47 FRAGILE ORGANS...
200 MILES OF DELICATE
BLOOD VESSELS...12 MILLION
COMPLEX CHEMICAL REACTIONS
TO CORRECTLY HAPPEN
EVERY SECOND...
EVEN IF I CAN
KEEP IT ALL FROM
BURSTING, BREAKING,
SPLITTING, SPURTING
DR CORRODRI...
by Berke Breathed
I'LL JUST... I'LL.