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4 « The Red and Black • Thursday. November 1, 1990
■ QUOTABLE
OPINIONS
The Red & Black
Kttabluhed 1893—Incorporated 1980
An independent etudent newt paper not affiliated with the Uni vert ity of Georgia
Robert Todd/Editor-in-Chief
Jennifer Rampey/Managing Editor
David Johnston/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
Vote yes
Shall the Constitution be amended so as to provide
that when a person becomes a defendent in a divorce
within six months after changing residency from one
Georgia county to another, the divorce may be tried in
the county in which the plaintiff resides?
Amendment eight on the Nov. 6 Georgia ballot
would provide an exception to the existing
constitutional provision concerning the location of a
divorce trial.
Currently the state Constitution requires that
divorce cases be tried in the county where the
defendant lives, unless he/she lives out of state.
Certain military personnel are allowed to bring divorce
action in any county adjacent to his/her military post.
This is a reasonable exception to make for the
convenience of the plaintiff.
Vote yes on amendment eight.
Vote yes
Shall the Constitution be amended so as to
authorize the General Assembly to provide by general
law for an emerging crops loan fund for the purpose of
providing financing assistance to farmers to encourage
economic development and consumer availability of
emerging crops?
Amendment nine on the ballot would authorize the
General Assembly to create a trust fund to pay the
interest on loans made to farmers to finance their
crops.
The General Assembly would provide money for the
fund, and money left in the fund at the end of the year
would be retained for use in the next fiscal year.
This measure would provide small farmers, who
have had such a hard time in recent years, with some
security against the interest on loans for crops which
may or may not succeed.
The economic health of farmers remains vital to
rural Georgia. This is a prudent and minimally
expensive way to provide our state’s farmers with some
economic stability.
Vote yes on amendment nine.
Sign from Souter
The newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court,
Justice David Souter, surprised many by showing some
sign of his stance on the abortion issue earlier this
week.
Souter vigorously questioned U.S. Solicitor General
Kenneth Starr’s defense of an absurd federal
regulation prohibiting medical personnel at family
planning clinics that receive federal aid from
mentioning the abortion option to pregnant women.
During arguments over the anti-choice regulation,
Souter questioned whether physicians limited by such
regulations could truly perform their duties.
Souter went on to say the regulation, which
prohibits abortion counseling even in life threatening
situations, “in effect may preclude professional
speech.”
Admittedly Tuesday’s hearing dealt more with free
speech and the First Amendment than abortion rights.
Though there was no mention of the 1973 Roe v. Wade
ruling which legalized abortion, this is a good sign for
pro-choice supporters. Souter’s stance on the abortion
issue may not be as conservative as many feared.
Certainly Souter is no William Brennan, but it
doesn’t appear as though he’s a William Rehnquist
either. That, in the long run may be the best thing to
happen to the Supreme Court in a long time.
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"One of the biggest mistakes hunters make Is saying the
reason they go out and hunt Is that they’re performing some
kind of population reduction service.”
— Jeff Jackson, a wildlife specialist, on hunting.
After fte most recent
in tile '
Tertian Gulf?
event, analysts now predict
an Kyi chance of war
Lj withXrafy” vW 0|
Education system lame and ineffectual
‘Teacher, teach me how to read and write,
you can teach me about biology, but you can’t
tell me what I’m living for, cause that’s still a
mystery..." and so the song goes. Such is the di-
lema that exists in our lame and ineffectual ed
ucation system. Instead of exhorting
philosophical self-discovery, the education
system indoctrinates and breeds the masses
into selfless goats to be integrated into the or
dained socioeconomic framework.
How the system operates is entirely biased to
favor the upper-middle class white conserva
tive. From the onset of first grade, the track is
laid down, choosing which children are “gifted"
and which are not by means of some kind of
obscure fingerpainting test. What really hap
pens is that the children who have been born
into affluent environs are given preference over
those less fortunate. Instead of giving these
poorer children extra attention, the system
throws them into lower level classes and en
courages them to fail in contrast to the lucky
“gifted" kids.
And so the process is set into motion. Since
the victims are children, they are in essence
brainwashed to play the roles that the educa
tion system mandates. If the child steps out of
line, he is labeled a problem child, i.e. a Bart
Simpson.
Meanwhile, the “gifted" children are wooed
by false achievement into the realm of the elite.
These kids are robbed of the frivolities of child
hood. While other children are outside digging
up earthworms and playing warball in the va
cant lot, the “gifted” are cramped indoors,
doomed to study the intricacies of Moby Dick
for their third grade examinations.
Evan
Steuer
Thus, the system breeds the children into
their respective places. On one side you’ve got
children cheated out of any kind of formal edu
cation and opportunity, and on the other side,
you’ve got children decoyed into a dismal world
of theory, lacking all important values of expe
riential knowledge.
This formula of conditioning is utterly re
volting, yet fascinating. The education system
keenly conditions the children to play by the
system’s rules. The “gifted” children are given
access to the correct methods of intellectual re
gurgitation and held in check by the crack-like
highs of getting that “A" or scoring big on ego
points at the debate. “Lesser” children are
taught to accept failure.
Little space is left in the system for those
who desire a spiritual self-knwledge and use
the things thev learn in school for that purpose,
rather than for some money-making or ego
building scheme.
What should be taught is a free-formed pur
suit of happiness and creativity, a philosophical
inquiry, and a quest of personal growth,
strength, and actualization into a balanced,
well-rounded life. An integration of experience
and theory should be emphasized instead of
meaningless grades. A system that allows a
child to make mistakes, and consequently, to
learn from them, is needed.
Sometimes, I find myself disillusioned with
the present system, thinking that in a hundred
years nothing will matter for anyone. But then
I’m struck with the ultimate motivation....
GOTTA EAT. Though the education system is
uniformly corrupted by a weave of propaganda
and censorship, it is something tnat can be
learned from (in the right way-it’s tricky, now).
Truly, it is society, amidst all its lies and
games, that can provide me with the things I
want: a wife, a family, leisure, an agreeable ca
reer direction, etc. My biological needs (like
food) are met via technology and I am supplied
with a vast array of people to laugh witn and
learn from.
So the next time you get stressed out over a
test, remember it’s all a lie of an arbitrary
system and that you are only a cog in that ma
chine, but remain thankful that you were at
least given the opportunity of college, rather
than those who needed special help in grammar
school and were suppressed by the education
system into repeated failures.
And also remain mindful that there is such a
thing as a good teacher and that, at the very
least, you can manipulate your courses and ex
tract some kind of beneficial knowledge for
yourself out of the curriculum.
Evan Steuer is a junior philosophy major.
Flag sends world powerful message
In 1996, Atlanta will host the Olympic
Games.
To most Georgians thi9 is the reason to be
proud of their state and of the way it has devel
oped over the past thirty years. Atlanta is a
booming city with an attractive national image.
It is the spearhead and the energizer of the
“New South."
One of the main points of the Olympic bid At
lanta made also came down to the new image of
the South: let the Games unfold in a place sym
bolizing the new racial harmony of the United
States, Atlanta. And look how far we’ve come.
But the new image of the South is upset by a
controversial symbol, the state flag.
The circumstances of the creation of the flag
tend to be ignored and yet, they are very re
vealing.
In 1956, the Georgia state flag was changed
to the one everybody knows today: the state
seal imposed on a navy blue field on the left and
the Confederate flag on the right. The old state
flag, which flew from 1879 to 1956, consisted of
the same lefthand section, with three hori
zontal stripes of red, white and red on the right.
The bill to have the flag changed was passed
into law by Governor Marvin Griffin on Feb
ruary 1st, 1956. The same day the State Senate
unanimously passed a resolution declaring
“null, void and of no effect” the school desegre
gation decisions ruled two years before by the
Supreme Court.
The message was clear enough, or at least it
Valerie
Berta
made for easy misconceptions. The change of
flag was intended to signal that Georgia was
going to stick to its segregationist traditions
dating from the times of the Confederacy, and it
was going to drive the point home loud and
clear by means of the most potent symbol: the
state flag. It was a blatant commitment to the
South as it used to be, namely racist and segre
gationist.
For the choice of the Confederate battle flag
was not innocent. The flag flew in battle during
the Civil War for those who opposed the aboli
tion of slavery and the idea that Black Ameri
cans were human beings, "under God and
under the law" — not to mention equal citizens,
that would come much later and in fact in many
ways we're still debating it. True most of the
Confederate soldiers were not even slave
owners, but the ideals they valiantly and duty-
fully fought for upheld the notion of slavery as a
acceptable institution.
The Confederate battle flag, then, symbolizes
racism more than anything else, and this espe
cially so for people in other states and abroad,
who may not be aware of the fine details of his
tory.
In foreign contries it is automatically asso
ciated with the Confederacy — with a nation
based on the denial of basic human rights to
people according to the color of their skin. To
anyone who sees it outside of this country (and
no doubt for many in this country too), the flag
represents slavery and racism. Flags are pow
erful symbols indeed.
Of course, the Oofederacy was not just about
racism. The South has a very distinctive his
toric and cultural heritage: for one thing, it can
boast a rich contribution to the arts, crafts, and
literature of this country. And to deny the past
is to shy away from the future.
But to oppose the present Georgia flag is not
to deny Georgia’s past. It is to reach out to a
new age, the present, and to the New South
that southerners are so proud of, and with
reason.
So to fly the Georgia flag for the whole world
to see at the 1996 Olympic Games will be as ab
surd as trying to run with a foot nailed to the
ground. It will send the wrong message and be
in open contradiction with the reality of today’s
South.
Valerie Berta was a teaching assistant in the de
partment of Romance languages.
Don’t forget Demosthenian
■ FORUM
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It ian’t aurpriaing that Heath
Garrett thinks that the new Uni
versity Roundtable (“New club
promisee diverse dicussion,” 10/
19/90) ia ‘close to being the ideal
campus organization.” Outside of
classes, students should discuss,
debate and elaborate on advanced
ideas concerning perennial and
current topics.
I also agree that a diverse group
exacting difficult and compelling
arguments would be a boom to the
University of Georgia. However,
there ia nothing new about it.
Demosthenian Society has done
this since 1803. Admittedly, it does
not have dinners, faculty members,
or “community leaders.” It does
offer every shade and style of de
bate, while teaching its membere
the valued skill of public speaking.
Its value is that it is open, but en
during: Demosthenian does not
contend, like the University
Roundtable doee, that engaging
diecueaion is incumbant on a 2.S or
greater GPA.
Scott Welle
senior, rellglon/hlstory
Goode off-base
In his signed opinion column
(10/23/90), David Goods made an
argument for Christian pacifism. It
seems to me that a good many
(though nothing near all) of hie as
sumptions and conclusions are er
roneous. A more in depth response
would generally, I think, be of in
terest only to other Christians, so
I’ll clam up about specific points.
What I would like to draw atten
tion to is the fact that Christianity
does allow for individuality and
self expression, as evidenced by the
radically opposing views of Goode
and his ilk and the Church uni
versal. I have heard claims that
the Church specializes in clone pro
duction; thanks, David, for proving
such rumors unsound.
Sean Roemer
senior, English