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Tuesday, November 1. 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Whale effort proved that enemies can work together
It's a modern-day saga of the sea, but this tale is no fish story: Three California gray whales get stuck in an icy trap, and the world responds with help.
The whales that were trapped off the Alaskan coast caught worldwide attention and sparked the compassion of an unlikely cast of rescuers: whale-hunting Eskimos and environmentalists, the U.S. and Soviet governments, wildlife experts and oil companies.
Estimates on how much money was spent on the three-week rescue attempt range from $600,000 to $800,000. Yet 169 gray whales each year are killed by Soviets to feed Eskimos, and about 1,000 die each year from natural causes.
Scientists said the loss of those three whales wouldn't affect the species significantly. But as one newspaper article put it, "Cold facts have no chance against heated emotion when human nature fights Mother Nature."
The point is not whether the whales should have been rescued. What should be recognized is that now the world knows how well groups that usually are enemies, particularly the Soviet Union and the United States, can work together.
But can they work that well together when it comes time to think about the preservation of our species? Can they respect each other enough to reach agreements that will help the millions of human lives dependent upon both governments' decisions?
Maybe a couple of trapped whales have opened our eyes to how easy it is to work together. Seeing that even the most adamant adversaries can work together can hearten people everywhere.
Julie Adam for the editorial board.
The Douglas County Commission race — and the candidates — has been particularly uninspiring this year. The main distinctions between the candidates are experience and priorities for economic development.
DOUGLAS COUNTY COMMISSION
Pvle, Stoneback
■ Second District: Tom Pyle of Eudora is running against Mike Amyx of Lawrence for the four-year term that will be vacated by David Hopper.
Pyle pledges to hold down the cost of county government, to look for ways to improve county roads and to work with business leaders to expand county-wide economic development projects. For 12 years, he has been a leader on the Eudora city council. His experience here will serve him well on the county commission.
Mike Amyx's agenda is short. Simply put, he says his top priorities will be accessibility to his constituents and listening to their needs. He thinks the county commissioners are paid too much and promises to take $4,000 of his salary and give it away in the form of scholarships. Amyx has served $5½ years on the Lawrence city commission — years that have been marked mostly by the commission's inability lead and resolve important issues. As a county commissioner, voters should expect the same.
Third District: I.J. Stoneback is running against Louie McElhaney for the four-year term that will be vacated by Warren Rhodes.
Stoneback, a Lawrence farmer, served on the county commission from 1973 to 1976. His main concern deals with saving taxpayers money. His agenda calls for eliminating the job of county administrator so residents don't have to pay someone to do what the county commission already does. Stoneback strongly supports a mall away from downtown to increase Lawrence's tax base. He supports the proposed south Lawrence trafficway and thinks the state should take some leadership in financing it. Stoneback has the necessary experience and new suggestions that will serve well to provoke change on the commission.
McEhlaney, chief of the Wakarusa Township Fire Department, never has held a public office. He has no formal campaign platform. His main concerns deal with keeping the mill levy from increasing, creating more jobs in the county and providing good communication with county staff and residents. However, he has not said how he would try to accomplish these things. His weak platform suggests weak leadership.
The two elected county commissioners will compose a majority on the commission, and their ideas and leadership are going to be important the next four years. Voters need commissioners whose experience and firm agendas will prove to be the best for Douglas County. Pyle and Stoneback are the best choices.
News staff
The editorial board
Todd Cohen...Editor
Michael Horak...Managing editor
Julie Adam...Associate editor
Stephen Wade...News editor
Michael Merschel...Editorial editor
Noel Gerdes...Campus editor
Craig Anderson...Sports editor
Scott Carpenter...Photo editor
Dave Earnes...Graphics editor
Jill Jess...Arts/Features editor
Tom Fenn...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Greg Knipp...Business manager
Drake Cole...Retail sales manager
Chris Cooper...Campus sales manager
Linda Prokop...National sales manager
Kurt Messeruth...Promotions manager
Sarah Higdon...Marketing manager
BradLenhart...Production manager
Michelle Garland...Assistant producer
Michael Lenhman...Classified manager
Hinse Hine...Sales and marketing adviser
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The town at the top of the world Life among Eskimos offers understanding of whale rescue
California gray whales and Eskimo hunters — columnists and commentators have painted the predator helping the prey as an icy irony and the expense as a fiscal folly. But the real irony and folly does not lie north of the Arctic Circle, out on an obscure ice pack, rather, back in the Lower 48 in the more civil environs of our own homes.
In Barrow, Alaska, indeed, in all Eskimo villages of the Aleut and Inupiaq people, these native Americans hold a personal communion with nature that few tenacill (non-natives) understand. To the animal rights groups and popular media, the bloody deaths of the gentle giants at the hands of the natives and their harpows is a photo opportunity only too-willingly accommodated by unassuming Eskimos. to沾染 societies biologist operation does not mathematically equal two whales. To the rest of us who prefer to hide our carnivorous natures in brightly packaged containers conveniently dispensed at pick-up windows, the irony and folly also seems evident.
Life in our nation's northern-most town is not exactly like life in Lawrence. In understanding life at the top of the world, there is an opportunity to learn and drama of the whale rescue and ourselves.
or a good time in Barrow, there is cable TV and Pepe's "North-of-the-Border" Mexican restaurant. Depending on the outcome of the annual prohibition referendums, a few ad hoc bars come and go. The people of Barrow, like those of Kotzebu, Gamble, Savooga and elsewhere along a coastline that is longer than the rest of the
Tom Wilhelm
Staff columnist
continental coast combined, go about their business quietly. To hear them talking in their intriguing, unwritten language is fascinating. In the ancient tongue of the Inupiaq, there are no fewer than 20 words for "snow." For "hunting" whales there are also many words, most of which mean "harvesting."
Eskimos themselves have two names. One is in their native tongue and is nature-inspired. The other is a legacy of Christian missionaries and Hollywood — there are lots of Bob Smiths and John Wayne's around. In this society, community values prevail.
And these values are held with a strong reverence of action. Physical punishment of children, for instance, is an alien concept in Native Alaskan society. It becomes everybody's business to get a spare part for a snow machine or a message about a spring rendezvous across vast distances of mountains and tundra. Village elders still are consulted, and town council meetings are observed in many jurisdictions for modified versions in the slurp burgers and eskimo pies fown in from the Kotzebu Dairy Queen.
They also value the wildlife in this special way.
For furs and ivory, you would do better at a
souvenir shop in Anchorage or Kansas City than directly at the source. For whale meat, caribou and seal oil, which are the staples of the Eskimo diet, there is neither an associated dollar value for the effort of harvesting, processing and distributing, nor a local grocery that stocks them. The price is paid in tradition, and the store is the Arctic Ocean.
Prior to a whale hunt, the politics of petitioning the state for a permit range from a cabin-to-cabin caucus to tundra gerrymandering. Vying for state allocations often has resulted in intense inter-village rivalry. Nevertheless, once the modern necessities have been dispensed, tradition takes over. Armed with handheld harpops and in skin-shelled boats, the hunters positions themselves from bow to stern according to age and experience and go after the whales.
The hunt can range from a few hours to several days. Upon their return, the entire village turns out to help with the hauling and butchering. An Eskimo "beach party" accompanies this activity. The feasting, singing and butchering last up to three days. When it's over, everyone returns with the winter's food, having paid for it with some personal participation and tribute to the hunt.
So the bowheads named Putu and Situ finally have been freed from their icy prison. Many people wonder at the irony of the rescue's size and the nature of the people involved. But knowing the Eskimo and their traditions, I'm not surprised.
- Tom Wilhelm is a Lawrence graduate student in Soviet-East European Studies.
Judging by the headlines a fun pastime
Legal career doesn't sound appealing, but sometimes the urge to judge is strong
At various times while growing up, I wanted to be a firefighter, cowboy, doctor, private eye, rock star, Playboy Magazine photographer and baseball commissioner. Right now I'm plugging away at being a newspaper columnist until a vacancy in Hugh Heffner's darkroom pop up. But at no time have I ever seriously considered a career in the legal profession — as either a lawyer or a judge. Making Solomon-like decisions out of our knowledge of Solomon-like decisions the guilt or innocence of another human being would be too much responsibility heaped upon my slender shoulders.
Having said that, I do have to admit that there are certain times when I would love to do the robes and hammer the gavel for a particular case. Some of those cases, as we like to say in the newspaper biz, are as fresh as today's headlines: ■ Robin Givens, with more nerve than an exposed tooth, has a new divorce lawyer. When Mrs. Mike Tyson originally hooked up with Marvin Mitchellson on the West Coast, famed New York attorney Raoul Felder told TV reporters that Givens didn't up the ante of a man who lived up to a living. Now RoboMittelson met Michelson at a 10th-round TKO and retained Felder as her mouthpiece, and Raoul has changed his tune. As the presiding judge in that divorce trial, I wonder whether I could order Mr. Tyson and Mr. Felder to come into chambers and settle this like men.
Staff columnist
Bill Kempin
- Recently, defense attorneys said that Oliver North cannot be prosecuted for lying to Congress about the tran-contra scam because the former presidential aide was never warned that making misleading statements about covert operations was a crime. This is known within the ranks of the judicial system as invoking the "Steve Martin defense". Several years ago, the comedian did a routine telling his audience that your best defense in front of a magistrate were the two words, "I forgot," as in. "I'm sorry, your honor, I forgot that not paying income taxes was a crime in this state." Once upon a time, Art Ditmar was a pitcher for the New York Yankees. He was a member of the Yankee team that lost the 1960 World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates on a ninth-inning home by Bill Mazeroski in the seventh and deciding game. New York's Ralph Terry gave up that gopher ball. But announcer Chuck Thompson, the original broadcast, incorrectly stated that Ditmar was on the mound for the Yanks. That momentary slip of the tongue was soon forgotten until three
years ago, when a beer company decided to use the famous call of that home run as part of a commercial and repeated the reference of Mazerowski hitting Ditmar's pitch. Ditmar decided to sue the beer company and the ad agency that made the commercial. He claimed that the spot held him up to undeserved ridicule, humiliation and contempt, and may have cost him appearance money for playing in baseball "old timers" games and charity golf tournaments. Yeah, Art, those events always go out of their way to make sure there are no pitchers involved who ever gave up a home run. ■ The godfather of soul, Saying it's too funky in here, the godfather recently got on the good foot and left for a month long European concert tour despite pending court dates in two states. The charges include driving under the influence, assault and battery with intent to kill, and carrying a deadly weapon to a public gathering, among others. How I would love to preside over that trial once police brought his hot pants back into this country. James, you're stoned to the bone, talking loud and saying nothing, but now it's a new day. This panda don't take no mess, there it is, so since you're super bad, here's the payback. Go into it get involved, ain't it funky now, brother rapp.
Bill Kempin is a Lawrence graduate student in in
BLOOM COUNTY
pv Berke Breathed