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The Red and Blark
Wednesday, October II, l«M
Paget
THE RED AND BLACK
Eitablithed 1993 — Incorporated 1990
Harry Montevideo, General Manager
Melissa Jordan, Editor In Chief
Clarice Makemson, Managing Editor
in
to novnanCl im (tud O* a lift mih
An independent tludtfnt nrwgpaprr not affiliated with the University of Georgia
Opinion
On Reagan’s environmental legacy
Unconscionable
Our editorial staff takes this space to disclaim all association
with the eight-page tabloid inserted into Tuesday’s issues of The
Red and Black You may not have noticed (it was cleverly buried
at the bottom of the page), but "The Prouder-Stronger Times”
was a propaganda product brought to you by the Reagan-Bush '84
Committee. The vicious, antagonistic tone and blatant distortions
in these "stories” are unconscionable to our editorial staff. We
stress that this material was a paid advertisement that in no way
reflects the editorial policy of The Red and Black.
A grain of salt
At a Monday campaign stop in Pennsylvania, President Reagan
had a message for voters: "stop reading polls.’’ The president’s
advice appears to stem from a fear that recent political polls
placing him far ahead of Walter Mondale could increase voter
apathy. But whatever his own motivations, Mr. Reagan is correct.
Polls, surveys and any hypothetical gauge of opinion must be
examined critically.
Tuesday’s mock election is such a case. We support the efforts
of the University’s Demosthenian Literary Society to survey
student opinion in this important election year. The non-partisan
society’s long-time commitment to stimulating thought and en
couraging involvement among students deserves praise.
But because of possible unauthorized interference of some
campus organizations, the choice of voting sites and low voter
turnout, we must treat the election results as just what they are —
an unscientific, rough representation of how some University
students feel. That's all.
Astute observers will remember the campus mock election
conducted one week before the 1983 gubernatorial election by the
Demosthenian society. Republican Bob Bell took 71 percent of the
campus vote, while Joe Frank Harris trailed with 28 percent. And
we all know how that one came out.
Ronald Reagan's total disregard for the en
vironment should offend you very personally.
Because of his aggressive contempt for all things
ecological, you and your children will experience
higher rates of skin, lung and liver cancer, brain
tumors, birth defects, respiratory diseases, lead
poisoning and severe nervous disorders, to name only
a few
He has completely abdicated all responsibility for
protecting Americans from what is unquestionably
our greatest, most deadly and most immediate
threat More Americans die every day from toxic
waste and pollution than have been killed by the
Russians in all of history
On every environmental yardstick — from energy
conservation to toxic waste clean-up, from workers'
health to preservation of our wilderness lands — the
Reagan administration has threatened the public
interest, not served it He has put our future last, not
first This administration is unfit to preserve our
nation's environmental heritage, and it is unwilling to
try
There are toxic waste dumps contaminating
drinking water in all SO states Ronald Reagan gutted
the Environmental Protection Agency just as an EPA
internal study showed that not a single hazardous
waste site complied with standards Not a single one,
and even by standards that were outdated and
inadequate
Of the 5,000 worst sites in America, the EPA has
only studied 200, or 4 percent The Superfund,
established to clean up these sites, lists 1,800 sites of
which it designates 546 as high priority
While the Republicans are talking about risk
assessment and profit balances, I'm talking about
leukemia and bladder cancer Mr Reagan opposes
the renewal of the Superfund because it is a tax on the
chemical industry — he's obviously more worried
about their profits than our health
His shameless politicizing of the Superfund has
recklessely endangered the lives and health of
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people In
one particular case, that of the Stringfellow Acid Pits
in California, the duplicitous handling of the affair
earned Rita Lavelle (the administrator of the
Eric M. Zwerling
Superfund, and a former member of the board of
directors of Aerojet General — the major dumper at
the Stringfellow site) a perjury conviction She
contended that she knew nothing about Aerojet
General's involvement or about the political
manipulation of the cleanup to embarass Jerry
Brown's run for the U S. Senate
Well, she was lying: and now she is a convicted liar
Edwin Meese, by the way, once a nominee for At
torney General, was also on that board of directors
The unfortunate bottom line of this game-playing and
delaying action is that the runoff from this site has
entered an aquifer that supplies 500,000 people in
southern California Now they don't know if they
could stop the migration of these wastes even if the
cleanup started today So. what is Mr Reagan doing
about the situation’’ Studying it closely, which is the
governmental euphemism for "Later much "
When the federal government bought out the
residents of Times Beach, Mo., because of the dioxin
poisoning of their houses, Rita Lavelle was quoted as
saying that it set a terrible precedent, that the people
were crybabies and that the dioxin wasn't all that
bad Apparently Mr Reagan has the same attitude
about his fellow Californians
In stark comparison. Walter Mondale fully realizes
the true peril that toxic wastes pose to Americans He
has proposed a strict timetable that would clean all
546 priority dumps in five years He has pledged that
toxic waste cleanup would be "the first order of
business ” He has lobbied for the expansion of the
Superfund (which would cost the taxpayers nothing )
He has worked for amendments to eliminate dum
ping of highly toxic wastes, and he has pledged to
revitalize the EOA so that it can carry out its public
mandate
Let me ask you directly: Are these aims more!
important to you than preserving the stock dividends ;
of some chemical companies'’ Obviously Mr. Reagan ,
and his rich buddies opt for the latter. It’s the old!
"Let them drink Perrier" syndrome.
The Republican Platform states that it “will work j
to eliminate unnecessary regulatory procedures so ,
that nuclear plants can be brought on line quickly and i
efficiently." Mr Reagan wants us to plunge ahead :
and bring these reactors on line while we still have j
nowhere to dispose of the w astes
It s so typical of him to leave the problems for the :
future — let the next generation deal with it (just like i
the deficit) But the half-life of plutonium will ensure I
that it is many generations' problem The EPA i
recently scrapped standards for governing radiation j
levels around the nation's atomic weapon plants ;
uranium mines and university research reactors i
calling the risk "relatively trivial.” Tell that to a
grieving wife whose husband died at 46 of a brain
tumor, or a mother whose 12-year-old daughter has to
be taken to the hospital twice a week for leukemia
chemotherapy
The EPA's actions were criticized by the Energy
Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
and even EPA's own independent Scientific Advisory
Board as being based on poor risk analysis, yet it is
this type of irresponsible decision-making by non
scientist politicians that will affect our lives so
profoundly Benevolent deregulation is clearly
inappropriate in matters of this importance, because
companies rarely are altruistic enough to impose
emissions levels on themselves
All of this adds up to an incredibly insensitive at
titude to the environment and our health The
Russians aren't in your backyard, but toxic wastes
may well be. and if not there, then turn on the faucet
We may never face this critical a decision again,
and ! urge you to vote for Walter Mondale before it V
too late let's win an election about decency for thaB
and future generations
Eric M Zwerling is a graduate in Microbiology
Another view of America ’s economic recovery
TO THE EDITOR:
What's all this smug happiness I've
been smothered to death with by my
conservative brethren, that the
economy Is in twinkle-toe pink shape?
The leading indicators seem to point
to continued growth, and I might
add the current administration misses
nary an opportunity for taking the
applause for our bountiful economic
torso But let's take a breath away from
the enveloping rhetoric and try to
understand a characteristic of our
economy
The aggregate measure of national
economic output. GNP, is for the U S
equal to $3 trillion of goods and ser
vices This ranks our economy as the
world's largest In recent months our
GNP has, by most measures, been
growing at a favorable pace This has
been much ballyhooed by the White
House as vindication of its policies But
am I one of the few voters that
remembers a long horrible recession
two years ago’’
When market economies fall into
recession, for whatever reason,
demand becomes soft and people don't
use the goods and services they might
normally desire This creates a back
log of demand, often described as pent-
up. which is akin to water pressure
building in a kinked garden hose
As the hose is unkinked that pent-up
water will whoosh out at a faster rate
than what would normally occur
Analogy aside, I think this is a more
than plausible scenario for the ex
pansionary period we are now enjoying
When the world's largest economy
experiences its deepest recession
(because Mr Reagan’s Republicans
think a balanced budget means less
taxes and more military spending) in 50
years, one almost expects it to rebound
with the vigor it has shown
The present administration and
others have claimed, I believe, ex
cessive credit for these tax cuts as
being the prime mover in the recovery
1 submit however, that with the federal
government’s deft management of the
money supply and the aforementioned
pent up consumer demand, that we;
would now be enjoying this same-
buoyant economic expansion without
them and would not be faced with these
monstrous trade and federal budget
deficits
The Reagan administration with its
economic policies dug a hole for a large
majority of the American public in 1981.
1982 and 1983 We've doggedly made it
back in 1984 with the recovery and all.
but I'm not so sure, all good patriotism
aside, that I want them back again
running the projector for the next four
years
MARC CUNNINGHAM
Geography
Demos advocate human potential
TO THE EDITOR:
It is rare to find people in our culture
so righteous in their opinions as Ms
Mixon Her brutally launched attack on
Ms Ferraro as an American woman
and a Christian was hard coming
Ms Mixon may be surprised to
discover that most people in our largely
European culture share a common
Judao-Christtan religious heritage
Many, even, moat, have close identity
with Jesus Christ as a spiritually
exquisite being
Jesus preached about the individual
— the fulfillment of human potential 11
imagine he was a very creative car
penter i He showed his humanity many
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> la*artm about adverttamgmmild be made at the bmtaemMBce. idMi M2I7M
times before he died, one fine example
being the feeding of 5600 men. women
and children
George Bush got up on television the
other night and said, "Food stamp
spending is up. I'm sure you'll go ahead
and check " I did The school lunch.
Women, Infant and Children (WICi.
and Food Stamp programs have been
- practically eliminated by the Reagan
administration, (in case you didn't
know >
Funding to study hunger in America
has been gone for three years now Mr
Reagan's policy is lo turn a blind eye
and wish it away The result is that the
infant mortality rates for minorities
and poor are dramatically rising I
suppose that we can, with reptilian cold
blood allow Darwinian selection to lob
off these people as unfit to survive In
fact, we can take the money saved and
pay off a weapons industry's sleaze
can we then call ourselves, without
profanity, a Christian people’’ Jesito
would have been disappointed wit*
George Bush the other night
I m voting with Mondale/Ferraro
because I love my country As Jolgi
Kennedy once said, "Ask not what your
country can do for you, ask waht you
can do for your country ' ’
SEAN ALTEKKUSB
2nd year, vrterinarv school
A lesson for today’s sports fanatics
The headlines read. “Thousands of college football
fans confront police " Then on the following day,
another report "Cleanup begins after Detroit's
violent night."
"Darn!” I thought, as I looked at the headlines
"The revolution has started and nobody called me."
Well, actually. I was not missing anything spec
tacular. that would improve the well-being of the
human race The former headline was not a report
about college football fans who had passionately
stood up for their rights against police brutality, or
the like And neither was the incident in Detroit a
repeat of the race riots that had been ignited in that
city more than a decade ago What erupted in both
these places were incidents of petty annoyances of a
frivilous kind, caused by overindulgent sports fans,
or fanatics
After midnight, back on Oct. 13. a crowd of nearly
8,000 people - mainly college students — took to the
streets of Manhattan. Kan . to celebrate the victory
of Kansas State over the University of Kansas What
was at First a mass get-together of students drinking
and having a good time turned into an ugly con
frontation between thousands of intoxicated students
and the police.
In the near-riot atmosphere, the jubilant fans
showered the police with bottles and debris, and one
officer was stabbed Before it was all over. 25 people
were arrested
The following night the Detroit Tigers clinched the
World Series, their first senes crown in 16 yean The
fans jammed the streets and engaged in a wave of
violence and vandalism, leaving one man dead and 80
people injured There were reports of fans destroying
and stealing anything that was or was not nailed
down; for example, some of the seats at Tiger
Stadium were taken as mementos
Sincerae B. Smith
Maybe to the passive individual, what happened on
these two occasions has little significance After all.
whenever a crowd congregates there is always the
possibility that someone might go berserk and set off
a chain reaction But the occurrences in Manhattan,
Kan , and Detroit are more than just isolated in
cidents that happen every blue moon They have
become common happenings that are an indictment
against the lack of sportsmanship of many American
sports fans, and the complacency of many Americans
who root for useless causes
I often wonder about the parents of types like those
in Manhattan They are probably the ones who could
never envision their children doing anything off the
record They probably feel that their daughters and
sons are the true representatives of their way of life:
Their children could never be anything less than
decent, intelligent and ambitious They brag to
friends that some big corporation has promised to
grant their brilliant child a starting salary of $30,000
after he or she graduates Yet after the boasting, one
has to contemplate what our colleges and universities
are truly producing, when overzealous, overin
dulgent fans goon needless rampages.
I m beginning to think that America is breeding
generation of vandals and ingrates. Some may ft
that these young people should get off lightly becau
they are college students, that a college educati
has a magical charm that can give a person comm
sense and practicality Unfortunately, howevi
college is the place where these attitudes a
produced
I have seen old newsreels of athletes like Babe Ri
and Joe Lewis in their heyday, and I’ve noticed t*
they never displayed abusive behavior, even when
opponent was nearby. Athletes of today could i
some of those lessons so many put on a show
arrogance that what they project instead is mt
rudeness than prowess
Americans have become terribly complacent ab<
what is and is not a cause for rallying. Winning
championship is not a valid reason to destroy pub
Property. I don't condone violence, but I wonder if I
need to really protest something were to result, wot
those who tore through Detroit and Manhattan, Ka
thirdi noT" motivated 10 actlon ’ I’m beginning
The media reported very scantily these two evert
1 mentioned them to people at the University, a
they were totally ignorant of both happenings 1
puzzling thing about the matter is whether the met
^to h ?TL pUt more em Phasis on these two chao
?* ntaif "Station of the American athlete a
tan were not so much at stake around the world. Af
b * ult a portion of its name on I
lts people The reporting of a ft
might tarnish our image
olid Se"nre, S '" it ’ 1 “ ‘ in th * o/ A