4A
Wednesday, November 20, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Liquor ads on television won't give anyone a buzz
The Distilled Spirits Council recently decided to drop its self-imposed ban on radio and television advertisements. The ban, which had been in place since 1948, was dropped because distillers said they were at a competitive disadvantage.
This reversal has sparked protests from groups ranging from the Federal Communications Commission to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. However, liquor advertisements on television are no more dangerous than any other television advertising.
Although children should not be pressured into drinking, liquor advertisements on television won't apply any more pressure than beer and wine advertisements. In addition, even though liquor has a higher alcoholic content per ounce, it contains no more alcohol per serving than other intoxicating beverages.
Television advertising targets a wide range of people. However, the majority of liquor ads will be purchased on cable, the Internet or other narrower broadcast channels. With this in mind, the liquor industry should be able to direct its messages to adults.
In addition, the people who already buy liquor will not be affected by this new policy. People who don't drink liquor will be unlikely to begin drinking simply because they see an advertisement on television. Although the stated reason for lifting the ban is to increase sales, these benefits probably will be minimal and will occur only within the targeted age group.
For all of these reasons, the decision to advertise liquor on television will have few, if any, adverse effects. Times have changed since the ban began. Today's beer advertisements are not different from those proposed for liquor.
GERRY DOYLE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Field trip to fitness centers helps investigate job options
The members of the Association for Worksite Health Promotion are going on a field trip tomorrow, and all KU students are invited to attend.
The association is a health organization created by students who take classes in Health, Physical Education and Recreation. This field trip will allow students of any major to view two health centers: Sprint's Corporate Fitness Center and Saint Luke's Center for Health Enhancement. Students will have a chance to view these health facilities from a corporation's perspective and from a general hospital's perspective.
Clubs such as the association give students opportunities to get hands-on experience while opening their eyes to what the work setting is really like. Interested students also could walk away with a job. Glenn Preston, director of the Sprint fitness center, is looking for part-time help and encourages students to leave résumés.
Worksite health education is a growing profession that strives to educate employees about healthier lifestyles in a hospital, business or school setting, said Wendy Kite, Winnetka, Ill., senior.
This field trip provides a good opportunity to explore health-related career options. If students are interested in worksite health promotion, association members will meet at 11:45 a.m. tomorrow in front of Watkins and car pool to the centers. Information will be posted on the association's bulletin board in Robinson Center, or interested students may call Shannon Cleverley, the event's coordinator, at 841-3861.
DOUG WEINSTEIN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L. McLAIN
SARA ROSE
Public relations directors
Editors
Campus .. SUSANNA LÓBÁ
... Jason Bratt
... Amy McVey
Editorial .. John Collier
Features .. Nicole Kennedy
Features .. Adam Ward
Spotlight .. Petri Putellina
Associate sports .. Caryn Foster
Online editor .. David L. Teeka
Photo .. Rich Devildin
Graphics .. Hoosh Mussur
Andy Rothschild
Special sections .. Amy McVey
Wire .. Debbie Staine
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr    .Mark Ozmek
Regional mgr    .Dennis Haupt
Assistent Retail mgr    .Dena Centeno
National mgr    .Nate Nye
Administrator mgr    .Heather Neale
Production mgr    .Dan Kopee
Lisa Quibbaman
Marketing director   Eric Johnson
Creative director   Denise Wilson
Sholly Wachter
Mass Impact mgr    Dena Piscotte
Internet mgr    Steve Sanger
It is sometimes hard for me to imagine that it's been more than four years since I went to the Persian Gulf. Much has happened in the interim: I left active service, returned to school and recently gotten married.
Jeff MacNellv/ CHICAGO TRIBUNE
U.S. should find the truth about Gulf War ailments
Except for a brief trip to Israel in 1983, my 91-day stint in Bahrain was my first exposure to a culture, religion and people unlike anything I had experienced before.
The guns long had been silenced by the time I arrived in April 1992. Unlike those who had been there in late 1990 and early 1991, our job was not to expel Iraq but to dampen its ability to pose a threat to the region and the oil fields of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
It was both a curiosity about an area of the world unfamiliar to me and the chance to be part of something historic that drove me to volunteer for duty in Bahrain. My dad, a career Army officer, spent two tours in Vietnam; he even swam at China Beach, long before television had heard of it. A young Navy officer named Roger Staubach worked across the street from him in Da Nang.
I have been bothered by the way the military has handled the issue of American servicemen and women who may have been exposed to chemical agents after the end of the Persian Gulf War.
The military has been an integral and inseparable part of my life and of my family's life. A distant relative of mine was on the receiving end of Pickett's charge and died on the third day of fighting at Gettysburg in July 1863. I lived in Army houses while growing up, went to school in large, green Army buses and moved around the world courtesy of Uncle Sam. When I cut myself shaving, I'm surprised I didn't bleed oil drab.
ONLINE
EDITOR
war complaining of a range of disparate ailments: memory loss, fatigue, diarrhea, skin rashes, headaches, muscle pain and insomnia. Medical experts have tried to explain the causes of the Gulf War Syndrome and have floated ideas such as the stress caused from mobilization, inhalation of smoke from burning Kuwaiti oil wells, or an adverse reaction to inoculations given to insulate them from insect-born diseases and chemical agents.
Some veterans returned from the
In the end, physicians were left scratching their heads. Although the conditions were real to the vets, physicians were unable to isolate a cause.
In the background lurked a story that American troops had been exposed to chemical agents used by Iraq. Two Czech army chemical units reportedly detected low levels of a nerve agent on Jan. 19, 1991; that same day, a French team detected traces of nerve and blister agents. American teams called upon to verify the two detections could not confirm the presence of any chemical agents.
New evidence surfaced early this summer that implied that U.S. troops had been exposed to sarin, a deadly nerve agent, and mustard gas when U.S. Army engineers destroyed an Iraqi depot at Khamisiyah in March 1991.
The Defense Department continues to state that no evidence indicates that U.S. troops were killed or injured by Iraqi chemical agents or that Iraq used any chemical agents
during the war. Yet, on Oct. 20, the department announced that it was trying to notify 20,867 Gulf War veterans who may have been exposed to chemical agents destroyed at Khamisiyah.
The United States sent more than 700,000 troops to fight in the war. More than 9,000 veterans have filed disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs for illnesses they believe are related to their service. The Defense Department must continue its investigation into the possible links between the destruction of the ammunition dump and possible exposure to chemical agents. If a link indeed does exist, medical care for those affected should be swift and complete.
The other point that has swirled around this issue has been the idea of a government cover-up. This possibility also must be pursued. I typically don't believe in conspiracy claims: I think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, Neil Armstrong did walk on the moon and Area 51doesn't exist. The recent allegations that the CIA sponsored the smuggling of crack into the United States should serve as a sobering example. Those who play fast and loose with the facts should do so cautiously or else they run the risk of repeating Pierre Salinger's faux pas and might end up joining him for a lunch of warmed crow.
My dad used to say military life was unlike any other profession. The military places demands and requirements on its members not found elsewhere. In return, the military owes its veterans a full explanation of what happened at Khamisiyah.
David L. Teska is a Lawrence graduate student in Journalism.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Letter on vegetarian activism inaccurate
Regarding the letter on Nov. 14 about vegetarian activism, I do agree that eating meat is not a sadistic act and that writing out one's beliefs on the sidewalk is indeed a waste of time. However, if one is going to bring biology into the discussion of whether killing a human is worse than killing an animal, one must be consistent. The letter argues,
The first problem with this statement is that humans are animals. Just because we have acquired the ability to speak and walk on two legs does not make death any more painful for us than that of a cow or a sheep. I myself am a vegetarian, not because I deny that my teeth are made to eat meat, but because I feel it is wrong to focus an entire species existence around pleasing that of another.
"You must recognize a distinction between the death of an animal and that of a human."
It is ridiculous to assume that our lives are more important than that of a cow just because we have chosen to categorize things and wait in line to go to the bathroom, and they simply accept life for what it is.
Jacob Sackin Kansas City, Mo., junior
Clinton leads during an era of boredom
WASHINGTON — Bo-o-o-o-oring.
That's what ABC's David Brinkley called President Clinton.
At the end of a long night of election returns, Brinkley groused to anchor Peter Jennings that Americans could expect four more years of nonsense from Clinton, who "has not a creative bone in his body."
"Therefore," Brinkley proclaimed, "he is a bore and always will be a bore."
What's more, he called Clinton's acceptance speech "one of the
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
worst things I've ever heard."
That's why I enjoy watching Brinkley. He reminds me of Alice Roosevelt Longworth's line, "If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me."
It is hard to say whether the veternewscaster did not realize he
was on the air or, at that hour, simply didn't care. After 50 years in broadcasting, this was his last election night. He was retiring, at age 76, from the Sunday morning news program he has hosted for 15 years, although he still will do commentary. That should be fun.
A few days later in an interview with Clinton, to which Clinton already had agreed, Brinkley apologized. Clinton, smiling warmly, dismissed the issues with his best awshucks manner. "I've said a lot of things myself late at night when I was tired," Clinton said. So we hear.
Nevertheless, I don't think we should let the question Brinkley raised in his rare moment of on-air candor pass without further discussion: Is Clinton a bore?
The answer is yes. Clinton, at his successful best, is boring and proud of it. He tried, early in his presidency, to be exciting and only got himself in trouble. After two years of bold initiatives, ranging from gays in the military to his attempted revamping of the nation's healthcare system, the voters showed their ingratitude by kicking his party out of Congress.
Then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his freshman "revolutionaries" tried to be exciting with ideas ranging from cuts in Medicare to privatizing Sesame Street.
Their reward: plummeting approval ratings. Especially for Gingrich, who Democratic ads tied to Bob Dole like some two-headed Dr. Seuss monster, as the "Dole-Gingrich."
Clinton shifted gears. With Machiavellian Republican Dick Morris as his chief adviser, he modeled his campaign on Ronald Reagan's winning 1984 "morning in America" reelection campaign. He borrowed popular themes from Republicans — school uniforms, death penalty, more cops, welfare reform — until Dole had little left to campaign on. All of this was delivered under the grand theme of "building a bridge to the 21st century," which sounded lovely, even if no one was quite sure what it meant.
The lesson: American voters ask for excitement, but love boring. Exciting times are exhausting. Boring times are a relief.
Historians may well look back on this period as the Boring Age. In times such as these, Americans seek what is called "the sensible center" by Colin Powell, who would be viewed as quite boring himself, were he not black, which in America makes him anything but boring.
So, maybe Brinkley really didn't need to apologize. To the new Clinton, boring is beautiful. He loves boring times. He just hopes they stay that way.
Clarence Page is a columnist for The Chicago Tribune.
THE AVENGING VARMINT
By Lili Barrientos
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