MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1985
LANCE
PAGE 3
Editorials
Senate and Student Life
Overstep Their Bounds
You are a sophomore.
Therefore, you cannot be presi
dent nor student defense
counsel of the study body. The
Student Senate is also in the
process of restricting other
positions to only juniors and
seniors as they revise the
Saltire.
For the sake of a smoothly
operated student government,
the Saltire indeed needs re
vised. But restricting certain
positions to only two classes in-
Wbits the student government.
The most recently placed
restrictions should never have
been passed, and the restric
tions on the office of president,
part of the Saltire for years,
should also be lifted.
The basis for this is fairly
simple. Regardless of the
reasons that the Senate and
dent Life Committee members
may have for wanting these
restrictions they should realize
that setting restrictions on who
may be elected should net be
within the realm of their power.
Setting election procedure
(which is, and should be, within
the realm of their power)
should be an attempt only to
devise the best possible system
to reflect accurately student
preferences. By placing
restrictions, Senate and Stu
dent Life Committee members
have gone beyond that power to
the manipulation of election
results by excluding certain
members of toe community.
For instance, students, not
the Senate or the Student Life
Committee, should determine
whether or not a candidate for
office is mature enough to ad
ministrate an office in the stu
dent government. It is indeed
possible that in the near future
a sophomore will come along
who displays the
characteristics of a good ad
ministrator, yet she or he will
not be able to hold a particular
office because the Saltire states
that she or he is “not mature
enough.”
And indeed this was reason
ing offered by the Senate when
it passed its latest restriction
concerning the Student Defense
counsel. The minutes of the
debate read, “perhaps the level
of maturity may stand in the
way of a rising sophomore deal
ing with the responsibility.” I
agree that perhaps that may be
the case. But what happens
when it is not?
Let the voters decide.
Trash Clean-Up Day,
scheduled for Tuesday, has
been the cause of an interesting
debate on campus. Interesting,
because the debate has not
been over whether the dump
should be cleaned, but instead
over who should clean it. There
is general consensus that in the
interest of ecology and for our
own enjoyment the dump must
go.
The most popular argument
against the student effort is
that since students did not
create the mess, students
should not clean it up.
Maintenance personnel should.
Indeed, maintenance crews are
largely responsible for the
mess.
JO.
Trash Dump
Must Still
Be Cleaned
The fact remains, however,
that maintenance crews will
not clean up that mess. Also re
maining is the fact that the
mess should be cleaned up.
Therefore, since a coordinated
and massive show of student
power can easily and effective
ly achieve the goal of a clean
environment, we should do it.
No hesitation. Just do it - and
show maintenance that we’re
serious about keeping our en
vironment clean, and that in
cludes prohibiting any further
dumping.
Therein lies the ultimate goal
of this campaign: the elimina
tion of all present and potential
trash in our college environ
ment.
Killing Fields
A Special War Film
“The Killing Fields” dramatically
depicts the horrors of the Pol Pot regime in
the Cambodia of the 1970’s. The film
revolves around the real-life efforts of
Sidney Schanberg, a foreign correspondent
for the New York Times, who exposes some
of the “secret” United States bombing of
the country during the Vietnam War.
Schanberg enlists the aid of a Cambodian
interpreter called Dith Pran. Through the
sharing of the same brutal experiences dur
ing the Kymer Rouge takeover the two men
develop a close relationship. In one par
ticularly tense scene Pran risks his own life
to save that of Schanberg eind his fellow
journalists.
Review ^
However, Schanberg, as a foreigner, is
able to leave Cambodia while Pran must re
main to suffer the awful consequences of a
regime which commits x unspeakable
atrocities in the name of a comfnunism. It is
this stage in the film which holds the mnQt
poignancy. Pran is forced to work in a slave
labor camp where conditions are so dire
that malnutrition is the norm and death by
starvation is commonplace. In one scene
Pran almost loses his life when he is
discovered sucking blood from the neck of a
cow in a desperate bid to stave starvation.
BY ALEXIS COFFEY
“The Killing Fields” is first and foremost
a film about the horror of war and the
unbelievable suffering which Cambodia
underwent during the years of the Kymer
Rouge-Having said that this is not just
another blood and guts portrayal of war as
depicted from a left-wing perspective.
Rather, it is an insightful film which, not
before time, highlights the tragedy of Cam
bodia, a small nation which fell foul of
global politics.
The most chilling aspect is to see the ef
fect of Kymer Rouge indoctrination on the
Cambodian children. Loyalty to the party
runs so deep that children are compelled to
spy on their parents and in many cases,
betray them to the authorities.