Wednesday, august 31, 1977
daily nebraskan
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page 4
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It's a question of politics.
Should the ASUN Senate take control of stu
dent fees allocations or should the Fees Alloca
tion Board continue to dole out the dough?
Those who support ASUN control of student
fees argue that only elected representatives -should
control feej. They say that the fees board cannot
be held accountable for its actions because they
are appointed, not elected.
Supporters also note that passing fees control
to the Senate will increase its power and prestige-give
it new meaning when interest in student
government seems to be waning.
They claim that the fees board .is not represen
tative of students. It includes faculty and staff
representatives.
: Opponents argue that the senate can be capri
cious. The board was formed in more radical
times of the early 70s when the administration
wanted to remove fees control from the sometimes-shocking
government.
And only 10 per cent of students even bother
to turn out to vote now. Opponents question;
how representative is a body elected by so few?
Power plays by well-organized groups worry
opponents. Small, organized groups can turn out
just enough votes to gain power-and abuse it.
Opponents of ASUN control also point to the
independence of the fees board as an advantage-it
is not subject to political pressure,
The control argument only slightly deals with
quality past allocations. The NU Board of
Regents is displeased with past allocations to the
Gay Action Group and for child care, among
others. But ASUN president Greg Johnson, who
supports ASUN fees control, notes that the
senate may not make different allocations.
Johnson said he will bring up the question of
fees control at tonight's senate meeting.
We agree that fees control is political. Students
need to take an interest in where their $66.50
goes-and determine how it is spent.
1
letter
"Suspended in the air, arms and legs folded and your
mind in the deep concentration of transcendental medi
tation (TM)-that's the main practice of TM believers
throughout the world."
After reading the above statement in the Aug. 24 issue
of the Daily Nebrakan, we felt university students de
served a more enlightening picture of TM.
TM does not involve concentration, mind control,
self-hypnosis or even a belief in the technique itself. One
doesn't have to eat berries and nuts, wear orange robes or
be Big Mac abstainers to meditate. We've been meditating,
on the average, for three years and the only benefit we've
got from crossing our legs is hearing our knees crack.
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Practicing the TM technique involves spending 20
minutes morning and evening srf comfortably with
eyes closed. A specific vehicle called a mantra (a selected
sound with no meaning) allows the mind and body to
effortlessly achieve a state of deep rest while the mind
remains awake. Hence, the description "restful alert
ness.'' Over 300 published studies, including work done by
Harvard, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology have validated the effectiveness of TM.
Some of the measureable results have been better
grades; 'increased attention span, faster reaction time,
improved recall, greater tolerance and richer interpersonal
relationships. Subjectively, meditators experience greater
alertness, clearer thinking and a growing sense of happ
iness. -
Over one and a half million people; representing as
many lifestyles, have expressed their enjoyment of this
simple technique to their friends who, more often than
not, would also start TM (which is, incidentally, how we
got started).
Levitation is an attainable experience by interested
meditators, but it is neither required nor necessary.
Perhaps those interested in understanding the pro
gram more fully could take 40 minutes to attend a free
introductory lecture. It may be a pleasant surprise.
Dave Dinsmore
r ' . Diane Carroll
Panama treaty presentation bungled by Carter
The Panama Canal Treaty agreement, as being pre
sented to the American people, is a riddle. That, and not
the treaty, is why 78 per cent of the American people
surveyed are against it and why Congress may not pass it.
I can recall no sensitive foreign policy issue so bungled
in presentation and so mired in hypocrisy and deceit as
george anne geyer
the Qomt file
- 1
this. This becomes even more repellent coming from an
administration of such lofty pretensions.
Consider the real questions:
Are we actually "gaining' security by giving up the
canal, as the administration insists? Of course we aren't.
Earlier, the line was that the canal was not important.
Today virtually all the congressional testimony maximics
the canal's political and military importance.
There is also a real question as to whether a fear-ridden
abstraction, such as self-destructing "colonialism" under
duress, gives an impression of strength. . .or of weakness.
'Indefensible
-Was it a right tactic to stress continually the primary
idea that the canal is "indefensible" and that guerrillas
could easily attack it as the major reasons for clearing
out?
It was the worst possible tactic, from anybody's
psychological primer. This would look craven to a Jivaro
in the Ixuadorcan jungles-it rightly looks craven to
hit minded, nonjingoistic Americans, not to speak of the
rest of the world.
-Is the government of strongman Omar Torrijos
rcc.-w,rii.ft jsHrj rj turn over the canal to? The nc'otij-
tors constantly have refused publicly even to consider this
key question.
Yet the fact remains that Torrijos is at best eccentric
and at worst unbalanced (I have seen him when he was
out of control of his senses), lie has run Panama into
bankruptcy, and his family is deep in the Latin heroin
trade. There is no process for succession and he has anti
American leftists in high positions around him.
GuardiaNacional
Is the Cuardia Nacional, that surly little army that
keeps him - in power, symbolic when it continues, even
at this highly sensitive time, to harass and even rough up
Americans, not to speak of what it does to Panamanians?
The administration simply could not care less what
happens to the Zonians in this regard. One of the top
people in the negotiations recently told me cheerfully,
when asked about Guardia attacks on Americans, "Oh,
these things happen even here in Washington."
Cven the otherwise fine assistant secretary for Latin
America, Terence Todman, told me when we discussed
human rights, "Of course, we're not going to challenge
human rights in Panama because we want the treaty."
-Is there anyconststency in the moralistic harpings of the
top negotiators over giving up the canal in a "new era?"
Ambassador Sol Linowitz appears consistent in his beliefs,
but what about Ambassador Lllsworth Bunker?
Communist inspired
This is the man, arrogantly sure of the opposite now,
who said in 1964 that the riots in Panama then were only
communist-inspired and not representative! I watched
him work assiduously for a year in the Dominican
Republic in 1965 to put down a democratic revolt in
fsvor of the brutal old Trujilloites. I watched him abjectly
support the inane and oppressive Nguyen Van Thieu
in Vietnam until the very end -all in the name of anti
communism. Today, he will not even consider the idea of a Cuban
threat.
-Yet, is there really no Cuban threat in Panama today?
There is no proof of Cuban military advisers, but there
is an extraordinarily large Cuban embassy in Panama,
and there are Cuban advisers everywhere.
Only recently, the Panamanian Foreign Minister went
to abnormal lengths to praise Cuban Premier Fidel Castro
to the super-sensitive visiting congressional subcommittee
dealing with the canal.
Soviet mission
In addition, a Soviet commercial mission recently
visited Panama for the first time and got permission toset
up shop in the Colonial Free Zone (rumors of talk of a
Soviet base were never confirmed).
Torrijos' recent dealings with Libya's mercurial
dictator Muammar Khaddafy,.who supports the worst of
the world's terrorists, have been equally odd, and
followed by ugly, government-inspired anti-Semitism in
Panama.
-Hut, of the mysteries, perhaps the greatest is the
consummately odd resuscitation of the idea of building
another, sea-level canal.
Under heavy questioning by stunned congressmen,
Ambassador Linowitz finally said, "Under the new treaty,
the Panamanians will want to deal with us."
For it
Having said all of this, I want to add only one more
thing: I am for a canal treaty.
It is a new era and, were our position being presented
from our very real position of strength, with a tough sense
of reality about what and whom we are dealing with,
without this cringing and without this hypocritical and
manipulative stance toward the intelligence of the
American people, probably the nation would buy it, too.
If they do not, it will be nobody's fault but the admin
istration's, which is beginning to deserve every new
foreign policy defeat it gets.
Copyright 1977, Lot Angeles Times Syndctt.
