page 4
December 1, 1988
The Pendulii
Editorials
The Pendulum
Serving the Elon College community
KATHY MEADOWS TOM COZART
Editor Managing Editor
Offices, 102 Williamson Ave., Elon College, NC 27244
Telephone (919) 584-2331
The Pendulum welcomes your opinion, limited to about 250 words if possible. All
letters must be signed, and a phone number given for verification. The deadline for
submissions is 5:00 p.m. Monday. The Pendulum, founded in 1974, is published by
Elon College students each Thursday during regular school terms.
Sports Editor
NORMAN PERDUK
Faculty Advisor
JERRY ADAMS
Entertainment Editor
CHERYL KERN
Senior Writer
JOHN HOYLE
Staff Writers: Mark Alfieri, Margaret Allen, Janet Bradshaw, Marlena Dare,
Janet Dolan, Niki Novak, Sharon Paul, Candace Rotolo, Elizabeth Rowe,
Mindy Schneeberger, Sharon West
Sports Writers: John Floyd, Murray Glenn, David Hibbard, Mark Nocera
Artist: Mark 2^1kowski
Chief Photographer: Denese DeJerf
Photographers: Pat Hobin, Nicol Husemeier, Michael Johnson, Mike Vorn-
dran, Sam Walker „ o i •
Production: Max Miller, Elaine Phillips, Micky Powell, Bob Worrell,Sylvia
Williams
Advertising Coordinator: Lara Lee Marshall
Advertising Staff: Karen Hargett, Nancy Schelin
letters
to the
Bdito
CIA: an American protector or terrorist organizatic
Finding a cure
Epidemic strikes campus
When the holiday season hits, many people find themselves hit with
colds or the flu. A few antibiotics will take care of that, and everything’s
back to normal. But doctors have yet to come up with a cure for the
epidemic that’s infected much of Elon. It’s that dreaded sickness called
procrastination.
Once you fall victim to it, it’s hard to shake off. Students and professors
both seem to have been struck. Papers assigned a month or two ago have
somehow been tossed aside, conveniently forgotten about (of course, it s
not so convenient anymore!).
Then, with exams quickly approaching in just one short week, all the
reading that “can just be done tomorrow” suddenly has piled up.
Sometimes tomorrow just never comes, or at least not quickly enough,
huh?
But students aren’t the only ones who wait until the last minute to do
things. It seems like professors sometimes put off due dates for assignments
(especially long ones) until the last week or so of classes. But we can’t
really blame them, can we? They probably don’t want to grade these pro
jects any more than their students want to exert the effort to do them.
Of course, there is a compromise to this. Since everything is due at the
same time, everyone realizes that-nothing will get half the attention it
actually requires.
Then on a slightly different note, there are those projects that forget
to be assigned until right before exams. Naturally, they’re due within a
few days’ time. Why should one class be left out of the fiin of a last minute
frenzy? What’s 400 more pages of reading or a simple extra project tack
ed on to everything else? Only five or so more hours that someone forgot
to add to a mere 24 hour day.
So, what’s the cure to this infectious disease? Since the wonderful world
of medicine probably won’t invent a wonder drug for procrastination any
time in the near future, maybe we need to adopt a new philosophy and
forget about the fabled person who so intelligently said, “Don’t do anything
today that you can put off until tomorrow, because if tomorrow never
comes, you don’t have to do it.”
-Kathy Meadows
Editor
To the editor:
No, there probably won’t be any
protest surrounding the CIA
recruitment call at Elon, as your re
cent article suggested. Should we
attribute this to loyal patriotism or
ignorance?
Does our student body know the
CIA from TCBY? Frankly, as a
college student I wasn’t that well in
formed about the Central In
telligence Agency either; I’m sure
I assumed that any organization
representing America would be do
ing good things. Now I count
among America’s true patriots
those who work to monitor and
limit the actions of the CIA.
Why?
When blacks in Rhodesia, now
Zimbabwe, were struggling for in
dependence, the CIA paid
mercenaries to fight for the white
minority regime.
The CIA has been involved in at
tempts to kill leaders of foreign
governments like Fidel Castro and
President Salvador Allende in
Chile.
The CIA led the overthrow of the
Iran Premier Mohammed Moss
adegh in 1953 which led to the in
stallation of the Shah of Iran who
kept power through American
military aid and whose repressive
regime impoverished Iranians for
three decades. (Remember how
surprised Americans were when
the Shah was overthrown and the
hostages were taken to find that we
were very unp^oular in Iran?)
The CIA did'' not deny writing
and circulating a manual of instruc
tions on how to ‘neutralize’
Nicaraguan leaders which was un
covered in 1983.
Between 1967-1973, the CIA was
heavily engaged in spying on
American citizens whose crimes
were protesting the Vietnam War
and supporting the Civil Rights
Movement. Such internal spying is
clearly forbidden by its charter.
The CIA does not deny that they
were responsible for the illegal
mining of the Nicaraguan harbors.
This resulted in the U.S.’s shameftil
boycotting of the World Court
when the illegal mining was
brought before that body for
justice.
Is the CIA protecting America or
is it our own terrorist organization
that does no more to bring about
justice and security than any other
terrorist group?
The usual excuse for an act of
this kind is that we had to do it
because in this evil world, the ends
justify the means, and so on ....
But look at these actions? Were any
of them in any way in America’s
best interest? even in the short
term?
Rather these secret actions and
the covert foreign policy carried out
by the CIA put a real dent in our
democracy. Do we have govern
ment by the people if the CIA acts
secretly in these illegal ways?
To feel the full horror of what
was done by the CIA, mayb^
have to step into the other
tries’ shoes and look at thes^
tions from their perspective. ^
would we do if another coU'^
bumped off George Bush bec^^
they thought another candi*'
would be less of a threat to ^
country? What would our rea^^^
be if Nicaragua mined NeW
harbor?
If we care about our countC'
can’t just let inertia or blind ^
dience be confused
patriotism. It is patriotism
in American values, that
people on other campuses to|
test CIA recruitment. I hop^^
students will think hard about ^
the CIA is involved in befof^
get involved with it.
Anne Cassel>^
Director, Academic Develops
Gihnore thankfiil for election supp^
To the editor:
The election is over. The people
have spoken. I congratulate
Howard Coble on his re-election.
I ran for Congress because I
deeply believe that a greatness of
a Society is best measured by the
concern of one generation for the
next.
As a father of 3 and a grandfather
of 3,1 was and am still deeply con
cerned about our huge National
debt, our trade inbalance, the need
to improve our Public Schoo^^^
urgent need to protect our
ment, the increasing cost of
care, the Textile problefli’
Japanese and other foreigne^^
ing up America, and many''
other problems.
I v/ould like to take this
tunity to publicly thank thos^j
supported our candidacy.
you will continue to be invol'i
working for a better Amen j
Tom
Classified advertisement out of pl3^
doesn’t promote “dignity, respec'
To the editor:
In reference to the classified
advertisements in your November
17,1988 edition: what is an adver
tisement for topless dancers doing
in Elon’s school newspaper?
One of the values that we are try
ing to teach here is a respect for the
dignity of all people, male and
female. It is hard to reconci^^
an advertisement with this i
Mathematics Dep3
Jeffrey]
A
(Editor’s note: After discus^
situation, the editors decid^^
topless dancers have first
ment rights too, and that is ^
to be protected.