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ANSAN
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STAYSKAL'S PERSPECTIVE
Wayne Stayskal/Knight Ridder/Tribune
PAGE 7A
▼ FILOSOFO GALLEGO
Autonomy does not always imply self-enlightenment
DEVIN SIKES
dsikes@kansan.com
As a young boy, Dennis had always dreamed of being an astronaut. His inspiration first came when he heard David Bowie's "Life on Mars," although he never admitted to his friends that he only knew the words to the chorus of the song. The song evoked images of little
silver saucers, green men and ant farms devoid of gravity.
Like any other Saturday, Dennis, now 30, lay on the couch with a heroin needle sticking out of one arm and the TV remote in the hand of the other, wondering how it all went wrong.
Growing up in Jersey, Dennis's childhood was full of pleasant memories. Because he called the Garden State home, albums and posters of the Boss — Bruce Springsteen — were scattered about his bedroom floor.
At age 10, Dennis searched the stores on Newark to find those amazing jeans Bruce had worn on the cover of the "Born in the USA" album, but he could never find a pair that grasped the essence that was Springsteen's ass. At age 15, every day Dennis would practice the Bon Jovi riffs that lined the pages of the latest Guitar World.
Yet those carefree days of leotards and hairspray seemed to disappear throughout time somewhere, between 15 and 20. Dennis recalled that his life took a different turn.
During high school, Dennis' best friend Eugene always wore his favorite Motley Crue shirt and matching sweatpants every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to class.
Dennis tried to remember what it was that jolted his train off the track, as it were. He recalled those who had been the most important to him during his life: his family and friends.
Dennis's parents, Hamilton and Carol, were as odd a couple as you could find. It was rumored that Hamilton was lost for five years in the early 70s while a roadie for Black Sabbath, whereas Carol had won tickets to the local Black Sabbath show under the impression that it was some sort of church where everyone wore all-black outfits to Sunday service.
Yet Dennis recognized his parents had always offered their unconditional love and support
and they were not the culprits of his undoing.
The two had been good friends and, in fact, Dennis
The two had even tried to start a band, but the local radio station said that Eugene sounded too much like Steve Perry, and that type of rock "wasn't exactly in' anymore."
Lying face down on the vomit-stained carpet, Dennis thought perhaps it was love that, like the drugs currently in his system, made him nauseous and had derailed his life. Some of his failed relationships had been intense and emotional, while others were baucheries and were what he considered to be his sexual revolution.
knew Eugene was not to blame because the two shared an indescribable passion for the band journey.
Summoning to mind all the relationships that had come and gone, Dennis laughed as memories of moments, high and low, had become cherished treasures stowed in his mind. Then, in that exact instant, an epiphany struck Dennis: he had always been in control of his own destiny.
He realized it was not fate or predestination guiding his every move; rather, it was he who was responsible for his own actions: good and bad, beautiful and ugly, significant and unimportant. Crawling to the corner of the room on all fours, Dennis proceeded to snort last week's paycheck up his nose, and he gracefully passed out with his face against the wall.
Sitting up and staring at the boogers that formed a mini Mt. Everest on the coffee table, Dennis realized it was he, not some God or mystical figure, that had been acting in the shell known as his own body.
♦ Sikes is a Wichita senior in philosophy and Spanish.
Churchill essay not based on merit but radicalism
A RIGHT TURN
University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill and his controversial essay, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," has met harsh criticism in the past few months for proclaiming that America was ultimately responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11.
VINCE MYERS
vmyers@kansan.com
His supporters have screamed that no one is willing to take Churchill's angry rant seriously. So, in the spirit of fairness, I will try my best to do so.
First, though, let me say that my reluctance to
First, though, let me say that I take Churchill's essay seriously stems from my confusion of what, exactly, I should be taking seriously.
Should I be taking his comparison of World Trade Center victims to Nazis seriously? Certainly even his staunchest defenders must concede that such an argument is more hotheaded name-calling than real argumentation.
Or maybe I should take seriously his insistence that the United States responded to the Sept. 11 attacks by hanging its "abundant supply of major war criminals," including George H.W. Bush, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and Madeleine
Albright? or his belief that the true personification of evil is "that malignant toad known as Madeline Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Iabba the Hutt"?
While Churchill gives the benefit of every doubt to Hussein, he readily labels the Sept. 11 victims as "little Eichmanns." What the essay lacks in logic makes up for in radicalism.
The problem is that Churchill's "scholarly" indictment of American foreign policy lacks any sort of scholarly protocol. He squandered the opportunity to make a well-spoken argument that U.S. policy was unfair toward Iraq and instead resorted to name calling and Nazi comparisons. His essay may as well have been co-authored by a sixth grader.
Cutting through all the hateful rambling, the major point of Churchill's essay is that America's sanctions against Iraq — imposed in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait — forced the Sept. 11 hijackers to attack the United States.
As for the merit of the sanctions, different people will give different opinions. Studies by the
First of all, the sanctions were not unilateral, as Churchill seems to believe, but were supported by the United Nations as well.
Secondly, the hijackers had no connections to Iraq. Most were Saudi nationals. The terrorist group that orchestrated the attacks, Al Qaeda, had no working relationship with Iraq or Saddam Hussein, as many war dissenters have pointed out. It is doubtful that the Sept. 11 attacks had anything to do with the sanctions against Iraq.
In a 1998 New York Times article, Philip Shenon noted that Hussein spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new palaces rather than improving living conditions for his people.
United Nations and various other groups conclude that the sanctions, which were necessary to keep Iraq from rebuilding its military after the Persian Gulf War, hurt Iraqi civilians. But the apathy of Saddam Hussein toward that suffering has also been documented.
he realized that its sanctions were harming the Iraqi people as early as 1991, and, according to Shenon, offered an oil-for-food program to Iraq that same year. Iraq rejected the plan originally because it wanted the sanctions completely removed or nothing at all. In 1995, Hussein finally accepted. Why? It might have had something to do with the $10 billion he illegally garnered through the program in its seven-year lifespan.
In the late 1990s, the United States started to work toward a "smart sanctions" program for Iraq, in which more food and medicine would be given to Iraq, and
controls on weapon-related materials would be tightened. Britain, Germany and France supported the plan, but Iraq, backed by Russia on the U.N. Security Council, refused. As former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told CNN in July 2001. "Any resolution that doesn't clearly mention the unconditional lifting of sanctions will not be met favorably."
Hussein sacrificed the well-being of his people to guilt the United Nations into lifting the sanctions on Iraq. Had the United Nations budged, it would have sent the message that the best way to fight sanctions was to starve civilians.
Churchill's claim that the murder of thousands of innocent people on Sept. 11 was justified by the United Nation's sanctions is vile and unwarranted.
While Churchill gives the benefit of every doubt to Hussein, he readily labels the Sept. 11 victims "little Eichmanns," in reference to one of the lead Nazis in World War II. What the essay lacks in logic it makes up for in radicalism.
Churchill's supporters should decide if hateful rhetoric and radical anti-Americanism is something they really want to stand behind.
Myers is an Olathe freshman in political science.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
'Kansan' misses point in article about block funding for student organizations
Last Friday, the Kansan ran an article entitled "Hard up for Money," which painted a picture in which many multicultural student organizations were being denied block funding, a mechanism in which "organizations receive an unfettered amount of money" according to the article. Block funding goes through the same rigorous process as any other financial consideration made by Student Senate. The difference is the burden upon student groups, which is easily twice as much; they are required to have a paid treasurer and outline a two-year budget. The table in the article that meant to illustrate the "difference" between 1999 block and 2005 line-item funding failed to point out that Asian-
American Student Union is receiving more money via line-item than they did in block.
Many at this University fail to notice the internal burden of projecting every expenditure groups intend to make over the course of the next two years which for small but growing groups like the First Nations Student Association means being trapped within their previous projections, and not realizing more current success. In closing, instead of addressing the reality of funding and its guidelines, the article that was run only instigates hard feelings between multicultural organizations and Student Senate.
Nolan T. Jones
Student Senate Communications Director
Pittsburg sophomore
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Call 864-0500
So I just found a leftover roach on Wescoe Beach. Do I smoke it?
Not only do Texas drivers suck, their liquor stores close at 9. What a sissy state.
The leader of the free world is not important enough to interrupt "The O.C."
+
I just wanted to say that the Farmer's Ball finals were totally rigged, and Chemical Ali should have won.
So my gynecologist called and left a message that I need to call him tomorrow to talk about my lab results. I was wondering if I should be nervous.
Who's gonna be next year's Farmer's Ball winner? Hilary Duff?
Who's gonna be next year's
2 Hilary Duff?
This is Major Tom to ground control, I'm floating through the air. And I think my spaceship knows which way to go. Tell my wife I love her very much. She knows.
I guess I know why roommate doesn't like morning sex.
It's because her breath smells like sewage.
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