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Monday, December 6, 1976
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions on this page reflect the view of only the writer.
Irish peace possible
Here it is, almost 1977, and the fighting in Ireland continues.
It's as if we aren't concerned. Only the most bloody battles and most gruesome crimes interest us. The rest—the frequent misuse of weapons and raids—for the most part go unnoticed.
PERHAPS it isn't that we are uninterested; perhaps we just have no active response. Most people still think of tragedy, grief and needless death when they think of Ireland's centuries-old religious conflict. The sad part is that tragedy in Ireland has been around for so long that it has lost its impact.
But within the past few weeks, there has been a renewed interest in what has happened, and what will happen, in Ireland. The proper response to the fighting, a well defined and active response, has surfaced ironically. In ironically, this response wasn't generated by the truer, more emotional, temporary truxes or an unequaled encephalitis. It was generated by two women, neither partisans in the conflict, who have actively begun crusading for its end.
THEY HAVEN't done this with weapons.
They've used words.
The women are Betty Williams, 32, and Mairead Corrigan, 23, and they are founders of the Northern Ireland peace movement. They are Catholics, but they've pledged to help both Catholics and Protestants. They began their movement soon after William Collins, a Catholic priest who ranaway car whose guerrilla driver had been shot by British soldiers.
The two have visited the United States and appealed to Americans to stop sending money to the warring factions. They received worldwide recognition recently, for a successful peace rally they led in London's Trafalgar Square. Hundreds joined them in
their plan for an end to violence. Last week, they accepted the Norwegian People's Peace Prize for their campaign.
OTHERS HAVE sought to replace constant fear and death with harmonious understanding. But it appears these two women have the greatest chance yet of succeeding. They are appealing to the empathy, compassion and sympathy in people on both sides. Their words aren't given much weight because they speak, their audiences are touched. The horror of tragedy is remembered, and people want to do something about it.
Of course, their goals won't be reached overnight. Perhaps the women won't see a peaceful Ireland in their lifetimes. But their genuinely peaceful and nonpartisan tactics will work together to bring significant numbers from both sides to work toward mutual understanding.
FOR TOO long, the world has ignored what takes place daily in Ireland. It's time for commitment to step-by-step communication, negotiation and solution. As Williams and Corrigan are saying, it can be difficult if enough people show that they really care.
After the London rally, a participant speaking to newsmen praised the work Williams and Corrigan have undertaken. But, he said, they'll probably die doing it. Ireland needs more people with the fortitude and commitment these women have exhibited, and the worst crime yet would be to reward them with their deaths.
Yet, yet their following is already strong. Perhaps, even in death, these women would continue to appeal to people on both sides of the battlefield for violence that can someday reunite Ireland.
By Mary Ann Daugherty Contributing Writer
Letters
Arts treat gays badly
To the Editor:
Greg Hack's commentary "TV films, mishandle sex" (Kansan Dec. 1) is to be complimented for its sensitivity to the issue of homosexuality in television and film.
malicious portrayal of lesbian women as brutal rapists on ABC's movie "Horn In
Hack is correct in asserting that much of what is portrayed about gay people in the video arts is "shallow and even ridiculous," if not biassimilar. Take, for example, the book *Boyhood* by Boys in the Band*, which place gay men in crude stereotypical molds, or look at the
Certainly we are happy to see positive gay images emerging on the video wasteland. Uplifting, humorous gay films such as "The Ritz" please us greatly. When presented fully and positively, homosexuality can only enhance the character of television and film.
Todd Van Laningham, Director,
Gay Services of Kansas
The end is in the middle
It seems to be an unnatural thing to graduate in December.
Most people can't believe that you are leaving school at the end of a calendar year. It is something that traditional students aren't supposed to do—especially those of us enrolled in four-year programs.
I will say that I feel weird about graduating in December. After all, ever since I was five years old my life has been based on a calendar established by some kind of board, not on a calendar established by Pope Gregory XIII.
All the end of a calendar year meant that I had to change my car tag, remember in which year I was writing checks and try to remember the events
MY YEARS have begun in September and ended in May. New Year's Day wasn't anything to celebrate because she had another semester of school to finish.
Personally, those things didn't signify the end of anything. I was still a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. It was the day he made up not dates, that made a year for me.
Carl Young Contributing Writer
life based on education years, I am confused.
that year-end stories told me were important.
AND NOW that I am about to leave a
I look around and the things, even with the annoying ones, associated with the scene.
enroll in classes next semester, and that
you will be able to work at us at
home and our diploma will follow.
NO POMP, no circumstance. You just take the finals and that's the end of college.
There are no masses of graduates looking for jobs. No companies looking for employees. No awards dinners. No parties, or even graduation ceremonies.
You are almost an embarrassment to your family (You aren't going to send out graduation cards, are you?), and em­
emulation is the best way to make of you. (What happened, kid?)
You don't get junk mail from portrait photographers or phone calls from life insurance salesmen. You could have bought two senior class memberships. Your friends can believe you are going to basketball season before the end of basketball season.
IT STARTS to bother you. You are the only person you know who has to explain why you are graduating. Your roommate is a math teacher. You trailers and boxes are easy to find.
But, in spite of these obstacles, we
December grads have something you May grads will never have; the element
Life insurance salesmen find that your telephone has been disconnected. You can have a great combination New York professionals, after they get over the shock of seeing you, have openings that will be filled by May. Professors aren't being harassed by mobs of seniors who need more points to pass a required class.
And then there is something else. We December grads of 1978, we who are too slow, we who were either too slow or too fast, we have something you May grads don't have.
We're through!
Note: God and the Office of Admissions and Records willing, Carl Young will be graduated in December with a bachelor of science degree in journalism.
It's about time.
People responsible for health
can become oblivious to outside influences that could enhance their individuality and objectivity.
In the middle of our swine fw bewilderments comes this story from Dr. Theodore Cooper, our highest medical officer. In an
The 'click' is the clique
Guest Writer
By JEFF LATZ
A journalism student might take a few courses outside of his major, but if this student is, let us say, a 'hot-shot' reporter for the Kansan and doesn't interact with other than the journalism people, he could develop a very narrow view of things.
Clique, clique,----click!
Clique it baby.
Fraternities and sororites can sometimes get into this same clique trouble.
When cliques form, freedom is headed for trouble. When students establish cliques they
When prospective students go to college for the first time they sometimes seek a primary group to interact and identify with the University of Kansas; their are many to choose from.
STUDENT GOVERNMENT people can get into this same mold. They may get so busy with their group that they will forget what their real job is—representing the students.
SOME STUDENTS go to fraternities and sororites, some to clubs, some to groups within their majors.
The "click" is the clique.
One noticeable characteristic of clique members is that their skin tone is about as narrow as the view a horse that's wearing blinders.
If and when the clique is criticized by "outsiders," members can become collectively emotional and scream out much the same as the campus steam whistle, "fooooonuuul!" They then forget about facts, knowledge and support only their special and perhaps emotional interests.
BELONGING TO a clique might be a secure way to go through a university and life, but when you become a "paid-up" clique member you'd better throw your objectivity and individuality in the stool and give it a good gurgling flush.
Then, too, you'll at least have the unique "satisfaction" of being able to look around and see what is happening among numbers flushing the same things.
(Jeff Latz is a graduate student in journalism education. )
Ahhh, but then what a flush— or "click."
1976 NYT SPECIAL FEATURES
less about than perhaps it should.
exclusive interview in the Nov. 3 Medical Tiburine, D.R. Cooper, HEW's assistant secretary for health, tells the world that, while continuing to back the inoculation program, he himself uses "vitamin C therapy" and a dacetin to enhance human resistance to influenza and other viral infections."
Given Dr. Cooper's prestige and the fact that he is flying in the face of entrenched medical practice, you find yourself the full quote in context:
"I RECOGNIZE the importance of nutritional therapy in building human resistance to disease, including infectious disease and influenza. I believe that vitamin C therapy is the thesis that vitamin C therapy can be a most valuable adjunct to enhance human resistance to influenza and other viral infections is deserving of our attention. I reject it out of hand. I believe that vitamin C adequacy may be helpful in reducing or preventing infections even though I do not believe to be a doctor. I think I will find many people in practice employ vitamin supplementation. In the absence of specific data to the contrary, they do not wait for medicine required for official actions by federal agencies."
Dr. Cooper's remarks are astonishing given the blasting that Pauling's thesis has taken. Dr. Charles C. Edwards, the chief pharmacy officer for Drug Administration, told the media, "There is no scientific evidence and never have been any meaningful studies indicated to prevent or cure colds (much less flu)." The American Medical Association released a statement just last year saying that "Vitamin C care is common old." Even news reports has blasted Pauling and his screwball ideas. Nevertheless, we have Dr. Cooper saying that, while they think enough of them to keep his vitamin C dosages up.
"Immunization program against flus, measles, mumps and polio may actually be seeding humans with RNA to form proviruses," Dr. Robert Simpson of Rutgers University told an American Cancer Society seminar. The
HE DIDN'T say so,but one of the reasons that this archpriest
of orthodoxy is hedging his bet with a little ascorbic acid (the other name for vitamin C) on the basis of what Pauling's new book, "Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu" (W.H. Freeman and Co., Boston, 1983); ca. $400; ca. $910; $345, and please don't write here about it because I
Nicholas Von Hoffman (c) 1972 King Features Syndicate
have no facilities for answering).
In this new work, Pauling, who is considered one of the greatest men of science in this century, goes over some of the research that presumably disproves his thesis and shows that it does nothing of the kind. He is not alone among the most prolific scientists is how they can carefully and honestly and accurately conduct an experiment and, once they've gotten the data, the results, they misconstruse them. Pauling takes his opponents' guns and turns them on themselves, which, even if we don't agree with them, we'll never know you can't just accept "conclusions," no matter how high credentialed the person giving them.
PAULING PARTS company with Cooper on the question of the need for immunization against swine flu.
"It now seems quite unlikely that there will be a swine flu epidemic and there is now little pressure for recommendation mass vaccine, even though more and more of the data are turning against them, even though it is becoming clearer and more accurate, wrong, the medical establishment, the bureaucracy and all the attending groups and interests plot forward insisting that the entire adult population serves for which they have no need.
Vaccinations aren't without their dangers. A tiny percentage of people are allergic to them or suffer particularly severe reactions. Not only is the degree of protection they confer debatable, but there may be other dangers the public knows
proviruses "will then become latent cells throughout the body
lent cells throughout the body
... some of these latent pro-
teins are present in
in search of diseases, ' which
under proper conditions become
activated and cause a variety of
diseases . . .'
WHAT SHINES through the theorizing, the conjecture, the panic, the decision to go ahead with the vaccination program is that the government and its medical auxiliaries can put the entire population at risk for reasons that have less to do with
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health than with the sociology of medicine and our strange vulnerability to untested therapies. We need some kind of vaccination program got off the pad and what has kept it飞扬. This is one time we can't blame the drug companies. If anything happens, we're going for so mullibly slow on manufacturing the stuff. Maybe they did the right thing for the wrong reason—fear of being suicid if vaccinations backfired—and gave many time to reconsider.
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The incident should also serve to remind us that we must all be like Dr. Cooper, that is, we are responsible for our own bodies, we alone. We can't say, Oh, I just do whatever the doctor says. We have to inform ourselves, we have to have to be capable of contradicting the doctor when it appears to be in our own best self-interest. When Dr. Cooper he says he takes vitamin C "in fairly large doses," too, that's exactly what he's doing.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Editor
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