Tuesday, April 25, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Opinion
Professors should inform classes about bomb threats
There are now fewer than two weeks left in the semester, and it's crunch time for students striving to finish all of their assignments.
Many students will do about anything to give themselves more time. Some, however, are willing to go further than others and resort to extreme methods such as making bomb threats that affect buildings on campus.
threats that affect you. If you are not among this group, though, and you are serious about your studies, there is a chance you might be in a building on campus after a bomb threat has been made.
Within the last two weeks, two bomb threats forced most classes in Wescoe Hall to be moved outside or canceled.
But not everyone in the building was aware of the threats. After a threat was made April 20, at least one class was held in the building. The instructor of the French class was told of the threat by a police officer, but the instructor chose not to tell the students and conducted class as if nothing had happened. The students found out about the threat after class.
Department heads and instructors — not always students — are notified of bomb threats by KU police. That is understandable; announcing a bomb threat to everyone in the building might result in hysteria. Buildings on campus must be completely evacuated only if hard evidence of an explosive is found or if the police believe a threat is particularly serious.
But, unbelievably, the teachers are not required to tell the students about the situation. If an instructor thinks that getting through the next chapter is more important than what could be a prank bomb threat, he or she can choose to hold class.
Despite the fact that most of the calls are pranks, KU police take each one seriously. And instructors should, too. They should be required to notify their students of the threats, and the students then should be allowed to decide for themselves what to do.
Jeff Euston for the editorial board
Unequal dress code policy is unfair to male students
Last week a male student in Baton Rouge, La., showed up for school in bright red culottes. Five of his friends joined his cause by wearing skirts the next day. All of them were sent home for violating the school dress code.
Many people may remember the days in high school and junior high when certain items of clothing were prohibited, such as hats, shorts, tank tops or T-shirts with obscene messages.
And many people may remember that the dress code wasn't always fair to both male and female students.
The principal in Baton Rouge said that cultettes, which are similar to shorts, were acceptable in the school, but only for females. The male students had a valid protest: That type of dress code discriminates against them. They didn't want to wear cultettes or skirts; they wanted equal treatment for all students.
cooling in this case.
Everyone learns by example, especially young adults. School administrators are setting a bad example when they don't practice what they preach. Students who are treated unfairly regarding dress codes in Baton Rouge and at other schools are right to protest.
students If female students are allowed to wear skirts and culottes, male students should be allowed to wear similar men's clothing, in this case shorts.
Administrators at each school should be able to determine appropriate student attire, meaning that which is not disrupting in class. But those rules should be equal.
School administrators have a lot to learn from students who will go to such lengths to prove that point.
Julie Adam for the editorial board
The editorials in this column are the opinion of the editorial board. The editorial board consists of Julie Adam, Karen Boring, Jeff Euston, James Fearquar, Cindy Harger, Jennifer Hinkle, Grace Hobson, Jill Jess, Mark McCormick and Mankiller Tilford.
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North's trial was $14-million bore
A simple court-martial would have saved U.S taxpayers time and money
It was going to be the biggest story of the year. Now only the most raid Reagan-phobes can fail to recognize that, as drama, the Trial of Oliver North is a flop. It doesn't bring federal court up to bad-Beating. Despite the millions invested in this production, its importance never did measure up to the length of its run and the number of reviews it attracted.
Those who are still interested can pimpin the exact day the last bit of suspense went out of the show. It was Friday, March 31. That's when Judge Gerhard A. Gessel, who could never be confused with a fan of Ronald Reagan's, declined to summon the former President to the stand. The judge was not about to make this trial an inquest into a presidency. With that decision, he put to rest the last, wild hope of those who wanted to turn a minor affair into a revolution.
"While there is understandable public interest in what a President may have known or may have done, the focus of North's trial does not involve any necessity for such a generalized inquiry." Gessl ruled. "The trial record presently contains no proof that defendant Roe was ever received anywhere by a President in the illegal conduct alleged, either directly or indirectly, orally or in writing."
either directly or indirectly, he was the evil wizard who had various illegalities attributed to Oliver North and bumbling has never been very convincing. Mr. Reagan lacks the requisite (a) evil, and (b) wizardry. Maybe that explains why Hollywood never cast these characters to others, usually grounds for criticism, has turned out to be a powerful defense in this instance.
But the trial — and the show — must go on. It no longer has the same attraction now that the
Paul
Greenberg
Syndicated columnist
defender is only who he seems to be. As if the producers understand that the show needs a bigger name, there has been an effort to pull George Bush into the act. If one President can't be implicated, perhaps another one can be. Good try, but that hasn't worked, either. The Trial of Oliver North seems stuck with the character in the title role, whose star quality is fading fast without a supporting cast of presidential quality. A Richard Drevuss he isn't.
yoss has stressed. The entire lossless production already has cost the taxpayers more than $14 million. Legal fees for the defense are estimated in the million-dollar range, which helps explain why Col. North has had to take the show on the road during weekends, lecturing for whatever his slightly worn cloak can fetch. Ticket sales reportedly are slowing down. What, after all, is the great charge against him? Not high treason, but low lies, specifically to Congress.
Maybe there is $14 million worth of suspiciousness out there that needs dissipating. Eternal vigilance is still the high price of liberty. But as the show fades out, it occurs that there ought to be a simpler, more economical way of handling these overrated productions. Particularly because North never has denied told less than the truth. Sometimes he tries to make it sound like a heroic act. Sometimes he invokes a kind of Nuremberg defense — that he was just
following orders. But "Betehl sind Bedehl," or "Orders are orders," does not sound natural on American lips.
vorn already has said he's not proud of some of the things he did 'I was raised to know the difference between right and wrong. I knew it wasn't right not to tell the truth on those kinds of things') It's not just a tangled web, but a dull, predictable, common one we weave when first we practice to deceive. The Trial of Oliver North lacks the elevation to qualify as a tragedy and the requisite humor to qualify as a farce. Like the colonel himself, it has become a bore.
Whatever the court concludes, Oliver North is well on his way to joining those half-forgotten figures who never got over having been history's bit players. Will he show up decades from now, still giving speeches to the usual mix of true believers and merely curious in dusty auditoriums, his name a bonus question on high school history exams? His is dearest already well charted by the Edwin Walkers, Abbie Hoffmans and James Meridiths — incidental characters briefly miscast as heroes. They are not villains, but victims — mainly of their own delusions.
Did it really require a $14-million show and a prolonged crisis of national confidence to bring Oliver North and the country to this anti-climatic point? How much simpler an action could have been enacted if a gentleman had been commurtilled on charges of actions unbecoming of an officer and of a gentleman. But that would have been unspeakable simple, direct and economical. That will not do in a society that must try to make every predictable, pedestrian flaw a high crime. (And it's not one of us.) *s* is syndicated columnist who
■ Paul Greenberg is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Pine Blow (Ark) Gazette.
New terminology can't mask old ideas
Today's rhetoric is a modern interpretation of yesterday's cliches
Sure footprints leading to the discovery of the "Kinder, Gentler Nation," "The Five Tigers of the Pacific Rim," "The New Soviet Man" and "The Me Generation" can be seen in the evolution of a man's saint's's life. We will say that the times they are-a-changin', the face of this change is an individual interpretation of the new lexicon. I see some new terms, but not a lot of new ideas.
Internationally, the Soviets, our old enemies, are now our "social opponents." This could be because capitalism used to be capitalism and communism used to be communism, but today they are marketed by both American and Soviet officials as the more generic concept of "democracy" to political consumers, and the general public. In this way, communism is attributed to the new perception that liberal implies radical and radical is a costume idea for a 1960s party.
While all of this supports the notion of a more equitable, regionalized world in the next century, it is important to note what was referred to as hegemony is now "reasonable sufficiency." And that stems from the fact that the term "offense" has long been replaced with "active defense." In
Tom
Wilhelm
Staff columnist
And while some will say that the times they are-a-changin', the face of this change is an individual interpretation of the new lexicon.
any case, it is reported that we no longer champion the unattainable concept of "peace" in our mission to promote "peace" among
In the Third World, "emerging nations" are accused of transforming, loans into "deficits," though they were always the same thing. If these countries redistribute the "loans" and amortize them over time by financing." If they actually make some money, they become "newly industrialized countries."
On the homefront, ghetto life is explainable "urban pathology." Middle class life is "upwardly mobile." A "caz" used to be a powerful Russian despot. Today in America, he is the head of a weakly supported bureaucracy and the designated fall guy for the administration. What used to be drug abuse or experimentation is now "recreational use," the primary requirement, standing trial for accountability of a disaster or blaming emerging nations for the international drug problem. "VD" is an "STD" and the holy institution of marriage as a "situation."
In the world of business, a stockbroker is an "investment consultant." If he survived the Crash of 1987, he is a "securities industry professional." A crime is "insider activity," and although it is desirable to be responsible in business, by all means avoid being "accountant."
The study of all that used to be political science. It is now "policy science," which gives a certain active flavor of change. I'm not too sure about that.
- Tom Wilhelm is a Lawrence graduate student in Soviet-East Europe Studies.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed