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Friday, May 4, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Kent State memorial
Meaning behind the tribute is more important than the timing of its construction, dedication
On a sunny Monday during early May in 1970, four unarmed students were killed at Kent State University.
The students were shot by nervous National Guardsmen who fired at a crowd of protesters hurling rocks and yelling obscenities.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the event. Kent State is dedicating a memorial, which is engraved with the words, "Inquire. Learn. Reflect."
The memorial is designed with four standing granite slabs of increasing size, signifying that the impact of May 4, 1970, has spread far beyond Kent State.
Some feel that because the event occurred so long ago, this gesture is meaningless and empty.
Doris Krause of Monroeville, Pa., whose daughter, Allison, died during the protest, said she would not attend the dedication.
"Anything so begrudgingly given is rather meaningless when you have to hit somebody continually over the head to do it," she said
The dedication has received mixed response from the Kent, Ohio, community as well. Some want the memorial to be larger and more impressive, but the university has said its three-year fund-raising effort did not garner enough funds to construct anything larger.
Commonly over the next decade, Other parents feel differently.
“It’s not as big a memorial as some people would like, but it suits us just fine.” she said.
Florence Schroeder of Lorain, Ohio, whose child also died, plans to speak at the dedication.
Perhaps those protesting the size or cost of the structure should read the memorial's inscription and realize that the value of this incident cannot be measured by the amount of granite it contains.
Regardless of the memorial's size, the fact that it actually exists exemplifies that a lesson has been learned from this tragedy.
One can only hope that the meaning of this dedication will not be drowned by the noise of more protests.
Camille Krehbiel for the editorial board
A secret weapon
Stealth bomber could be useful in current wars
We need B-2 bombers, a lot of them. After all, we are in the midst of four wars.
Wars were declared by President Bush on hunger, drugs, poverty and most recently, couch potatoes. We need a strong defense if we are going to be involved in a war on couch potatoes.
The Cold War is over; our new enemies lurk among us. They are the poor, hungry, druggluged, out-of-shape evil-doers of the world. And we need a multimillion dollar bomber to eradicate them.
We should drop to our knees every night and thank God for giving us a president far-sighted enough to see that communists are no longer a problem; poor, fat, hungry, drug-peddling people are.
In thorough careful negotiations and skillful diplomacy, Bush avoided a possibly lethal war on broccoli. But what if something had gone wrong, a tragic twist of fate — then what? One can only imagine.
The reason we need the B-2 is preparedness
The best weapon is one we never use, especially 112 of them.
This country, only a few dollars in debt, needs to look past the declining educational system, rising crime and the increase in racial tensions to focus on the real problem: finding a weapon to help in the wars on the poor, the fat, the drug-plagued and the hungry.
The B-2 is the answer.
Instead of storming into the inner-city and arresting all the drug dealers, we could sneak up on them in a Stealth bomber and just bomb them out of our cities. We would kill two birds with one stone — no more poor, no more drug dealers. And the couch potatoes would be just too lazy to move.
It seems the B-2 is the answer to three out of four of our wars. And the other, the War on Hunger, doesn't exist. Hunger in America is a mvt, just ask Ronald Reagan.
War is on the horizon and we have billions of dollars to spare. So the next time Congress gets a chance, it should vote to finance the B-2 bomber.
Stephen Kline for the editorial board
THANK YOU PROF. HARRY SHAFFER
Cooperation is key to peace
As tensions between East and West dissipate, the conflicts between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East escalate. Instead of joining in the peace fervor that has spread across Europe, Middle East leaders are becoming more polarized and adamant about the issues that divide them. Shimon Peres is Israel for a cause that he fears to push the tensions, as well as the future of Israel, into a crisis situation.
Israeli President Herzog handed the reigns of the Prime Ministership to liko Liquid Party Leader Yilzhak Shamir after Labor's Peres failed to break a 60-60 stalemate in the Israeli Parliament and form a coalition government in the West Bank. The government lost a no-confidence vote earlier in the month as a result of stagnation on the Palestinian question.
Peres and his Labor Party represent Israel's best chance for peace. Peres is willing to discuss the peace
The two-year old Infifida, or Uprising, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip represents the Palestinians' quest for their own state. They have taken to the streets and clashed with Israeli police and soldiers in a conflict that has claimed the lives of many on both sides. To date, the Likud Party's hard-line stance of no negotiations has prevailed, and the conflict has continued.
Dan Grossman Staff columnist
plans of both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek and U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that propose limited autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Conversely, Shamir has refused to discuss these plans on the basis that they call for direct negotiations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In doing so, Shamir has rejected the potential for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
The PLO is the de facto organization behind the Infida. Its leader, Yasser Arafat, has been labeled a terrorist by many. The tactics that the PLO has utilized in its quest for Palestinian self determination have cast doubt on the integration of Palestinians like it or not. Arafat represents the Palestinian people, and to exclude him would be to ignore the will of the Palestinians.
In other words, a refusal to negotiate with Arafat and the PLO is a refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians. Shamir has refused to negotiate with Hamas after Israel's Likud hard-liners consider Arafat to be a terrorist, a criminal and an
enemy of Israel and deny the fact that he represents the Palestinians. Thus, with Shamir back in power, the prospects for peace are diminishing.
The conservatives in Israel think that to give in to the demands of the Palestinians would be to open the floodgates to increasingly hostile Arab neighbors, jeopardizing the future of the Jewish homeland. However, this belief is absurd. In fact, if the Israelies continue to press the Intifada they will risk both further aggregation of the Arab world as well as isolation from vital allies, including the United States.
If Peres' prophecy of a Shamir-limited government comes true, the future of Israel and the people of the Middle East will be bleak. Leaders of the Arab world are becoming more powerful than Saddam Hussein has threatened to "scorch half of Israel," with Iraq's chemical weapons arsenal.
If Shamir succeeds in forming a coalition government we can only pray that it will pursue a peaceful solution to the Infidifa. If not, Israel will continue to isolate itself from the world community and cause even the United States to reconsider its heretofore unwaiverable support. The survival of Israel as a Jewish state is at risk if the problems in the occupied territories continue. As a Jew, I pray that they do not.
> uan Grossman is a Denver senior maloring in political science.
LETTERS to the EDITOR Leave Dean alone
What is your problem? You said in your article "Amn Dean confronts notoriety" that she said she doesn't want her name to be in the "forefront", yet after she begged you yesterday not to print another article, you put her name right back on the front page. I know about her wishes because I was sitting next to her at the time.
Ann didn't want to go on campus yesterday. Is that what you planned by putting her name in the
Kansan for the 71st time? I am one of Ann's roommates and yes, I have been more than just a roommate to her for the past month. In fact, I've been more than that for more than a year now, not because some jerk took his ignorance out on her, but because she is one of the most wonderful people I know and is one of my very best friends. Her story has been told. Thanks to the Kansan, everyone at the University knows it. Unfortunately, the Kansan, the people who don't know her think that she is trying to make this a big deal by getting her name in the paper. They don't know how wrong they are.
From now on, please respect her privacy and her wishes and leave her alone
Chicago sophomore
News staff
News staff
Richard Brack...Editor
Daniel Nieml...Managing editor
Christopher Ralston...News editor
Lisa Moes...Planning editor
John P. Milburn...Editorial editor
Liz Hueben...Associate editorial editor
Candy Niemann...Campus editor
Gary S. Petton...Associate campus editor
David Schmidt...Assistant campus editor
Stacy Smith...Assistant campus editor
Mike Conadine...Sports editor
Paula Parrish...Associate sports editor
E. Joseph Zurga...Photo editor
Deniel Startling...Associate photo editor
Stephen Kline...Graphics editor
Kris Bergquist...Artist/Features editor
Christine Winner...Projects editor
Travis Butler...Science editor
Sharon Chapman...Copy chief
Kljerstin Gabrelson...Copy chief
Kathy Sheldon...Copy chief
Kate Hannigan...Layout editor
Wendy Perrett...Layout editor
David Waltz...Layout editor
Donna Eades...Wire editor
Holly Lawton...Wire editor
Bryan Reber...Wire editor
Mary Neubauer...Production editor
Tom Eilen...General manager, news adviser
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After four farewells, a final goodbye
I was thinking yesterday than... would be prepared if I ever was an employee of a newspaper that was folding. I guess I was thinking of that because of the recent failure of the St. Louis Sun, a tabloid that took on the Post-Dispatch and that I was sure I would have been disappointed to think the fact that my paper, the Kansas, is also folding today may have had something to do with it.
But I would be able to handle the death of another newspaper because I have suffered through the deaths of five Kansans. In the past, the blow has been softened by the fact that I would be coming back to work for the Kansan and the fact that it never does really die.
What a sad thing it is to work for a newspaper, or any business, to be a proud of it, to make sacrifices so that it can be as good as it can be and then to have it pulled out from under you because of something trivial as falling profits. Or failing readership. Or the end of the semester. The end of your job. Or my car were repossessed just as I finished waxing it. Or If I were handed divorce papers while working overtime to buy my mate a gift.
It always continues during the next school term. Each semester's Kanan is a new one. Each is run by a new staff from reporters on it.
a new skin from a report on s up it
But after five farewell-to-the-Kan-
Richard Brack
Editor
parties and four returns to the Kansan, the paper is finally dying for me, never to be resurrected. After a break, I will never again be a part of it.
During my time here I have learned more from the Kansan, its processes and its people than I could have in any 10 semesters of classes. I have been dubbed a "racist," a "white elitist," a "a black supremacist" or "a feminist." League. I have been accused of anti-gay hat and of being "soft" on homosexuality. I have been accused of being anti-Palestinian. My news judgment has been questioned. My humanity has been questioned. I have lost sleep, grade points, friends and bank account balance.
Whv did I do it'
One friend speculated that I hung in there for two years because, I couldn't get enough of the excitement that the daily news business holds. I liked the high that I got from knowing what was going on before anyone else knew about it. I liked meeting the movers and the shakers. I liked
I have been dubbed a 'racist,' a 'white elitist,' a 'black supremacist' and a 'dupe of the Antidefamation league.' I have been accused of anti-gay bias and of being 'soft' on homosexuality. I have been accused of being anti-Palestinian. My news judgment has been questioned. My humanity has been questioned.
having my name in print. Ultimately, I liked the power.
I relished the opportunity to share what I had learned from the Kansan and my school with those who were not interested in it. My professors expected of me.
but how I don't do the Kate sand. after, today, I will again be a little fish in a huge pond. I will start fighting my wav to the next "top."
My only hope is that I will have friends, colleagues and mentors of the same caliber to help me on the way to my new goals.
from my school's faculty, I will never forget Les Polk, the soft-spoken curmudgeon who taught me and
countless others to love the language and the business. Nor will I forget Tom Eblen, the crusty editor with an eye for good reporting, writing and, most importantly, good people; or Susanne Shaw, a woman with more connections than AT&T and the clout of Bill Gates, whose Paul Jess, who carried on the great editing tradition of John Bremner and who likely will be as legendary.
From my colleagues, I will never forget Dan Niemi, my managing editor, (before that he my was my news editor and assistant campus editor), who daily claimed his job was killing him but who would rather die than quit; Lisa Moss, planning editor, who worked 16 hours five days a week and spent half her nights counseling staffers on the telephone; and Gary Patton, who jugged wife, child, campus desk and graduate student newspapers, editor the Kansan has ever seen. And I will never forget the rest of the reporters and editors who toll for hours each day for little or no pay to keep the Kansan one of the best student newspapers in the country. You will know their names in semesters and years to come.
CAMP UHNEELY
To the rest of the University thanks for the opportunity. I will miss you all, but will always remembe her you
Richard Brack is a Great Bend senior majoring in journalism.
BY SCOTT PATTY