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Tuesday, November 29, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The Palestine Liberation Organization recently took an encouraging step toward peace in the Middle East, even though peace wasn't its only motive.
PLO's recognition of Israel isn't perfect, but it's a start
peace wasn't its only motive. On Nov. 15 the PLO accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 which implicitly recognizes Israel's right to exist. This is important because the PLO's refusal to recognize Israel has been a barrier to negotiations for a Palestinian homeland for decades. The resolution, which originally would have helped to provide both Israel and Palestine with a state, was rejected by Palestinians in 1948.
However, the PLO released another statement on Nov. 15, that cheaped the sincerity of the acceptance of the resolution. It declared Palestinian independence and claimed the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a Palestinian state.
The Israeli and U.S. governments stated that the PLO was too tame about Israeli recognition and that the PLO has not rejected and separated itself fully from terrorism. In fact, the U.S. government denied PLO leader Yassir Arafat a visa request because of his organization's links to terrorism against U.S. citizens.
The United States and Israel have rejected the recognition of Israel and the declaration of independence because they saw the moves as attempts to put Israel on the defensive and to gain international support without actually conceding anything to Israel. They say the PLO recognized Israel only to soften opposition to the declaration of independence, not as a true move toward peace.
But despite its motives, the PLO recognition of Israel is a move that shouldn't be ignored. Violence and bloodshed have continued too long. The Palestinian uprisings during the past year have shown that the homeland problem must be dealt with soon. The PLO at least has begun to move toward negotiations.
Julie McMahon for the editorial board
Pakistan and the bomb
Signing a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons in the United States and Soviet Union was a step in the right direction for the leaders of those two countries.
But recently published reports saying Pakistan now has the capability to produce nuclear weapons takes the whole world a step back.
step back.
The arms race that the United States and the Soviet Union started years ago set the example, and other countries have followed. Three other countries — China, France and Great Britain — admit they can make nuclear weapons. Several others, including Israel and South Africa, are suspected of having that capability. Now that Pakistan apparently has joined the ranks there is even more cause for concern.
India, which also is believed to be able to build nuclear weapons, and Pakistan have fought three wars in the 41 years since they were created by the separation of colonial India from Britain. The unpeaceful history of the two countries creates apprehension about what would happen should they become involved in another war.
become involved in an attack. The United States has a special interest in the situation because of the aid it sends to the region. U.S. officials are pushing Pakistan not to develop nuclear weapons.
But it is hypocritical for the United States to tell Pakistan to not have nuclear weapons when the United States has a surplus. This is like a parent telling a child to "do as I say, not as I do."
The United States cannot tell Pakistan to do what the United States would not do itself. The treaty signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev is a good start, but both countries have to do more.
to do more. If the United States truly expects Pakistan to eliminate their weapons, it should set an example by actions. And other countries should follow that example.
A dramatic decrease in nuclear weapons by the countries that set the example in the first place may cause other countries to do the same. And any decrease in nuclear weapons increases the chances of survival for the whole world.
Julie Adam for the editorial board
The editorial board consists of Michael Merschel, Mark Tilford, Todd Cohen, Michael Horak, Julie Adam, Julie McMahon, Christine Martin, Tony Balandran and Muktha Jost.
News staff
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WISHFUL THINKING IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
A spreading crisis for the whole nation
Peanut butter and jelly a dangerous combination - when they share the same jar
I'm worried about my children.
For well known people:
Before those who know me start fainting in clusters, let me qualify that statement. I don't have any vet.
have any yet.
And I don't plan to for a while, though procreation is on my list of things to do. I remember writing it on the schedule just last year. It's somewhere after my next political science exam, graduation and — call me old-fashioned — marriage, but before buying the retirement condo in Tampa.
ships.
But now I may forget about the whole thing.
But now I may forget about the whole thing. I've never worried much about the gloom-and-doom predictions put out by some members of our society. Cries that future generations will be living on top of garbage dumps using welfare money to service the national debt and cleaning up after a nuclear holocaust while watching the oceans rise from melting icecaps in their spare time don't move me. I'll worry about those problems enough during my own lifetime.
during my own experience.
Besides, who cares if our kids have rotten lives?
It's better to have lived and lost than never to have lived at all right?
lived at an upper right.
I believed that until a few weekends ago. Then I came face-to-face with my children's oppressor, and it stared me down.
It was not a corporation. It was not a disaster, an epidemic or a government gone amok.
Derek Schmidt
pleasure of a governmental person.
It was peanut butter and jelly; mixed
Nestled innocently between the Smucker's and the Peter Pan, its purple label hardly betrayed the fiend lurking so near. It glared at me from a
Staff columnist
supermarket shelf right here in Lawrence
resembling Aqua-Fresh in a jar, it had alternating swirls of peanut butter and grape jelly. Nauseating.
I shuddered. If the thing could have spoken, it would have mocked me.
"Quiver, you oaf," it would have shrieked. "I am the future and you cannot stop me.
"And never again will children struggle to find just the right balance between the peanut butter and the jelly because I control all proportion. I think for them, and they'll never know it. I am Big Brother in a spread."
"No more will Mr. Rogers teach children how to create sandwiches. Neither will Sesame Street. Now I have that power."
Eighteen ounces of pure evil.
Eighty-seven inches.
As I pondered the jar's message, I looked around the supermarket. The process had begun already. Pre-baked pies, ready-to-heat breaded fish, individually wrapped Twinkies and ready-to-spread frosting surrounded me.
I wondered how many of us could bake a chocolate cake from scratch. I mean really from
scratch — wheat, eggs straight from the chicken,
cocoa beans, milk warm from the udder, butter
churned from that milk, unprocessed water and
some sugar cane for sweetening?
I couldn't
Of course, processing and distributing such commodities is what society is all about. Wisely we have learned to simplify most of life's processes.
But mixing our peanut butter and jelly is going too far.
If we don't take a stand, a pre-fab disaster will overtake us. Expect pre-assembled Lego kits or already-completed jigsaw puzzles. Christmas will lose its flavor as toys arrive without assistance; require replacement to fall behind politically as young Rockwells start out on pre-colored paint-by-number sets.
Even the kitchen is no longer sacred. Soon we'll see pre-mustard bread, pre-ketuped french fries and pre-brewed coffee in gallon jugs. Pre-milked cereal can't be far behind.
There is no right more fundamental than the right to build one's own peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Except the right to mess up trying.
Only child doesn't decrease no less.
Our children deserve it too.
I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me individual ingredients or give me something else to eat.
Derek Schmidt is an Independence junior majoring in journalism.
This letter is in response to Tony Balandran's Nov. 18 editorial concerning Student Senate funding for the KU Space Program. He states that "an attempt as noteworthy as space experimentation is surely as important as (the International Association of Students in Economics and Commerce, (AIESEC))."
Editorial careless
is Balandran aware that AIESEC is the world's largest, totally student-run organization? Is he aware that we are open to students in all fields of study, not just economics and business? Does he know that we work closely with business and community leaders when marketing our reciprocal international internship exchange program, and that 6,000 students are exchanged annually through this program? Finally, does he know that AIESEC was founded after World War II in hopes of averting another world war and that our goal is international
by grouping AIESEC with the University Dance Club and the KU Sailing Club, Balandran gives readers the impression that we are merely a social group, when in fact he lacks any understanding of AIESEC.
cooperation and understanding? Believe it or not, most people would consider AIESEC just as noteworthy as space exploration, if not more so.
noteworthy as space exploits. Although the arguments in favor of the KU Space Program are well taken, the thoughtless grasping of organizations to group together was abusive, flagrant and insulting. In the future I hope the editorial board is more careful when writing editorials that concern student organizations such as AIESEC.
Tim Damewood Marketing director AIESEC-Kansas
Denial of funds correct
Tony Balandran assumed an informed position when he wrote his editorial Nov. 18. Unfortunately, his commentary reflected his true ignorance of the situation regarding the $10.393 request by the KU Space Club. As a member of the finance committee who voted against this request, I would like to offer the analysis that substantiates that decision.
I would first like to concur that the three-point analysis offered by Paul Leader, Finance Committee co-chairman, does have some flaws. The Senate's insatiable appetite to appropriate a high percentage of the unallocated account early in the semester should be faulted. Lack of funds is not the fault of the KU Space Club.
rules is not the objection that the group
Furthermore, the objection that the group
does not represent a broad base of students
represents a minor "check" that should be used
to ensure that the broadest range of KU students benefit from the activity fee. Although I do agree that this should be a consideration, I do not believe it can be offered as a substantive reason to reject such a request.
My agreement with the editorial ends at this point. Before it appropriates money to any group, the finance committee, by its very nature, must ensure the fiscal prudence of the group. The space club, beyond the shadow of a doubt, showed that it possessed little, if any, fiscal management ability.
In attempting to deceive the committee, the group passed out a petition requesting support and proceeded to identify it as a membership petition. Another example of their puerile behavior.
When group members were questioned as to why several major capital expenditures, totaling in excess of $5,000, were not requested during the budget hearings in the spring, their collective response was "I guess we weren't aware that they were necessary."
If this project was truly regarded with the importance that the editorial board would have us believe, a much more thorough study of the necessary costs would have been conducted. The finance committee should not be faulted because the Space Club overextended itself.
Not only was the committee right in rejecting this request, but it also exercised a responsibility it has to the students at the University of Kansas.
Jamie E. Elmore Lenexa junior
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed