Newspapers / Wayne Community College Student … / Dec. 1, 1972, edition 1 / Page 3
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DECEMBER, 1972 The Wayne Communique Page 3 SowUtefr ^cceuAC Otit^totuUKf SenxAice Sigma Tau Sigma and Alpha Pi p;psilon never seem to stop their service to the commun ity and the campus. In the past year both organizations have carried out many projects which were rewarding to Goldsboro. Recently Sigma Tau Alpha Pi were awarded Certificates of Outstanding Service by the Optimists Club, three organizations elected from a very large number of area groups to be so honored. Both service organizations have worked very hard to re ceive this recognition. Prevette Attends Conference During the winter quar ter WCC actively was involv ed with the North Carolina Comprehensive Community College Student Government Association, Iiy attending a conference in Durham, N.C. John Prevette attended as Chairman of the Legislative Proposals Committee, which is in the process of handling all legal matters brought be fore the N.C. C.C.C.S.G.A. In a news conference held in Durham, Prevette stated, “A time has come when theCoiii- munity College SGA system should be unified for the bet terment of all comnumity col leges in N.C, We need to be able to help each other and ourselves, and the only way is through unifying student gov ernment in the community col leges. The new programs are go ing into effect and mticliofour work can t>e seen in the state wide student government.” A new constitution was written and is l>eing adopted by the community college sys tem. The constitution calls for vast reforms? in tlie local SGA which will give the students better government on their own campuses. The goal of the NCCCCSGA is to t)e of major service to all N.C, students. Uy unifying the students in to a common bond the student will have a strong voice in the future of education. JOHN PRKVETTE Solf D<>terinination In Tho Test Tube An awesome event is about to be consummated: human conception in a test tube. Indeed, Robert G. Edwards of Cambridge University’s Physiology Department has already done it. That is, he’s taken an egg from a woman’s sac by inserting a needle-like laparoscope through her na vel, united the egg with a sperm cell in a glass dish,then nurtured the resulting embryo through more than 100 divi sions. Now. however, in a hospital in Manchester, England, Ed wards is going to carry the conception process toc'omple- tion by reimplanting the em bryo, again with the lapara- scope, through the navel into the woman’s uterus. Nine months later, if all goes well, she will give birth to the world's first human baby con ceived IN VITRO. The mother will be one of fifty volunteers, all of them doctors, doctors’ wives, or nurses. These would-be - mo thers are sterile because of blockages in their oviducts, which make it impossible for the ovum (egg cell) to make contact with sperm. In spite of these mothers’ wishes, even longings, for the experience of giving birth, some first - rate scientists have publicly called for the stoppage of Edwards’ experi ments. Harvard’s James (Double Helix) Watson calls IN VITRO conception "an a- bominable act.” Max Perutz, and English Nobel laureate biochemist, says that the “whole nation should decide whether or not these exper iments should continue.” These scientists are worried that the child will be born with deformities — thalidomide -- and that this will create a re vulsion against all science. They’re more worried that the experiment, if successful, will bring the “Brave New World” of genetic engin eering upon us before we’re ready to cope with it. Aldous Huxley, in BRAVE NEW WORLD, predicted that we will use genetic engineer ing to create armies of iden tical humans wtio would live in a genetically determined hi erarchy. In such a world there is no such thing as indiv’dual freedom -- although there is efficiency, sufficiency, and even happiness. The complex ity of problems that genetic engineering will bring can be glimpsed in Perutz’s own statement; the whole nation should decide the behavior of an individual, in order to pre vent a Brave New World, a world in which the behavior of the individual is decided ahead of time. The crux of the issue is, who is to decide a person’s be havior':' We would like people to be self-determing, but at the same time we’d like them to co-operate with each other. The conflict between these two wishes is the basis of most of our problems. Because this conflict would be minimized if we were all biologically iden tical, many thinkers believe that the very existence of methods to bring about bio- logical identity is unlikely to lead quite quickly to their be ing used to this end. We ob ject to uniformity because we do not believe in the genuine ness of the self-determination of identical entities. But there are other things we could do with genetic en gineering. We could use it to create greater self-deter mination in a world where more meaningful cooperation is possible. It may be enlight ening to list some of the things that genetic engineering is likely to be able to accomp lish in the not-too-distant fu ture: A\nNOCENTISIS; prenatal sampling of the amnlotic fluid around the fetus has already begun. By this method some genetic defects can be detect ed and therapeutic abortion recommended. Many parents regard this as a gain in self- determination — for themsel ves, and in the long run for society, GENE THERAPY; modify ing genes, adding genes, sub tracting genes, either before birth or jrfter. A gene has al ready been successfully add ed to human cells in tissue culture, so It is clear that this affects not just future genera tions but the present one as well. And this forces us to ask questions such as; What genes do we want? To what extent should Individuals be allowed to choose fashions, fraterni ties, and rivalries in “gene apparel.” Of course this is quite futuristic -- but we may well live to see it because early gene therapy may halt aging and extend our life spans. CLONING: making a repli ca of an individual from one of its cells. This may seem far out, but it’s already been done with frogs. It’s the obvious (Continued page 8) "WELL, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM A SUBSTANDARD SCHOOL IN THE GHETTO?" A_lh RIGHTS RESERVED 1972 BY ALTERNATIVE FEATURES SERVICE Displaced Persons (Continued from page 1) A recent job fair in Sacramento, California, attracted al most 1200 veterans to compete for fewer than 400 jobs. And last year at a Chicago job fair, a near riot ensuec* when vet erans felt the jobs they were offered were bo^h too few and too demeaning. IN A LARGER CONTEXT, more than finding work, for the Vietnam veteran coming home to America means coming home to family, friends, and community, and it is here that the real problems for the Vietnam vet. lie. Bob is a tall, well-built ex-infantryman, from the 25th Di vision, who returned from Vietnam about 14 months ago. At first, he says, the most difficult part of his readjustment was getting used to the loud noises of urban life which reminded him of the sounds of war. Gradually Bob realized that a certain distance had develop ed in relationships with people he had once been close to. Even his parents, Bob feels, acted differently towards him after he returned from Nam. ‘T began to feel that people looked at me as if I were some kind of criminal,” he says, “like all I did in Nam was smoke dope and kill babies.” “Really the hardest part about coming home,” another re turnee said. “is trying to fit back in exactly where you left off.’’ When I came home I could not wait to see my old buddies from school. But when we finally got together, there was some thing that just wasn’t right in the way we acted with each other. Things weren’t the same. “I guess after Vietnam they never will be.” WHEREVER VIETNAM VETERANS are found, this same feel ing of somehow being out of kilter with the society to which they have come home almost invariably laces their conversation. And if there is one theme that is repeated over and over by the vets, it is a sense of betrayal they feel. It stems from the contrast between the sacrifices they have made in Vietnam and they face here at home. From the lines at the unemployment office to waiting rooms at inner city bus stations, from factory lunchrooms to university class rooms, Vietnam veterans, regardless of economic standing and political persuasion, all sound this same bitter note, A RtX’ENTLY DISCHARGED Navy veteran, whose gunboat forays in the Mekong Delta won him a purple Heart, said wist fully, “You go over there and put your life on the line and then you come back here and nobody cares about you. Know ing the war is stupid and useless is one thing, and most of us found that out when we got over there. But that’s no reason for everyone to ignore us when we come home.” To some, the unconcern they are met with upon their re turn lies at the core of the Vietnam veterans readjustment problems. ABOUT A YP:aR after his return from Vietnam in 1967, Jack McCloskey became interested in the anti-war movement and eventually joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which in four years has grown from a scattering of ex-GI peace ac tivists into a national organization which now has 60,000 mem bers. Since his return, .McCloskey has become increasingly in terested in the psychological ramifications of the Vietnam vet erans’ reintegration into American society. “I’ve found in talking with hundreds of veterans,” McCloskey says, “That almo.st all of them go through a very difficult per iod when they get back from Vietnam. Some feel guilt, many withdraw, and almost all of them feel cut off from the rest of society.” MC CLOSKF’Y’S BELIEF that the veteran’s sense of being ig nored lies behind these problems is shared by Dr. George Krieger, Chief of the Psychiatry Service at the sprawling Vet erans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Krieger contrasts the bands and parades that greeted the returning World War II veteran with the virtual cold shoul der that his Vietnam counterpart feels when he comes home. A DOCTOR IN the San Francisco Veterans Hospital, who wish ed to remain anonymous, put it this way; “Very few of tlie people here at tlie VA understand these kids. I don’t think that many of their parents understand them. They end up talking to them selves. Whenever this happens, you’ve really got the potential for trouble.” “Pi'lRHAPS VOU RECAIjL tlie story of the crew of the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan,” he said. “Well, one of the crewmen killed himself, and two others were committed to mental institutions because after they real ized the enormity of what they’d done, they could no longer cope with tlie demands of their society. “The way Vietnam veterans are being made to feel, the way they’re lieing sliunted off by the people they supposedly fought for, I really couldn't say what’s going to happen. But unless Somebody starts listening, it won’t be very pleasant.”
Wayne Community College Student Newspaper
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Dec. 1, 1972, edition 1
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