The Rice Thresher, Vol. 90, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, February 28, 2003 Page: 3 of 24
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Guest column
# President's move a slap in face to students
f)
Behind the hedges, or behind
solid concrete walls? Most students
have probably never considered it
important where the president lives.
Now maybe they should.
Last week the university
officially announced that
at the end of Gillis' term,
the new president will
move into an off campus
residence.
Physically, the move is
only across the street The
new house is on the cor-
ner of Sunset Boulevard
and Main, directly across
from Brown College. Psy-
chologically, the move
has the potential to be
much further. By moving off cam-
pus, the president will no longer live
in the midst of the students and the
faculty. He or she will, in fact, live
behind the walls of a gated commu-
nity.
While the end of serenading the
president during Pumpkin Caroling
and of stopping by the president's
house during Club 13 runs may seem
trivial, there are larger issues at
stake. Is the university made up of
the endowment, the buildings and
the reputation as the "Ivy of the
South," or is it made up of students
and faculty?
We insist that the college mas-
ters and resident associates live
within the colleges not to make them
baby-sit drunken freshmen, but be-
Stuart
Sinclair
cause we feel that access and prox-
imity are important to creating un-
derstanding between the students
and the faculty. This connection
takes the Rice education
beyond classroom aca-
demics to true mentoring.
By being immersed in stu-
dent life, the masters are
also able to represent the
issues that really matter
to the students and to the
faculty at large.
With development du-
ties keeping the president
busy and traveling much
of the time, it is more im-
portant than ever that the
president too be con-
stantly immersed in university cul-
ture. When he looks out his win-
dows, he should see students going
to classes, playing Frisbee on the
greens, heading to lectures or just
hanging out, bleeding off stress.
He should both work and live in
the midst of a university that repre-
sents learning and research and not
behind the walls of some gated com-
munity. I hope that we will not stand
by idly while the new head of the
administration isolates himself or
herself from the people he or she is
supposed to represent. \
What first convinced me that Rice
was the right place for me was the
attention that it paid to its students.
Together with the faculty, we are
the university. The "buck stops here"
level of college government and the
support for undergraduate ideas and
initiatives make me proud to be a
student here.
Over the last couple of years,
however, the shutdown of KTRU,
the refusal to consider input from
faculty or students on the parking
gates, the confusing, if not deceitful,
restructuring of meal plans and other
such incidents have raised questions
as to whether the administration still
I would like to leave the
president with one final
question: Why are you
leaving us — don't you
like us anymore?
listens to us.
While the new president's house
will undoubtedly be more conve-
nient for entertaining potential do-
nors, I am afraid further separation
may cost us something far more
valuable.
So I would like to leave the ad-
ministration and the president with
one final question: Why are you leav-
ing us—don't you like us anymore?
Stuart Sinclair is a Brown College
senior.
Read it, don't weep
• Prime-time TV provides political education
Nathan
Black
When it comes to politics, most
people just don't understand it. Poli-
ticians who base their choices on
opinion polls are spineless and
wishy-washy; politicians
who "go with their gut"
are vagabonds ignoring
their constituencies. A
potential war that has
countless justifications
and drawbacks is as-
sumed to be for just one
reason or just another.
Naturally, this popular ig-
norance-turned-distrust
has for years made me
ambivalent about going
into politics myself.
But in the past few
years, new hope for the legitimacy
of politics has emerged through the
unlikely avenue of pop culture —
the same pop culture that has so
often discouraged me from planning
to run for office and make a differ-
ence. No, I don't mean such intellec-
tual gems as "Joe Millionaire." I'm
talking about a genre of television
programming very close to reality
TV and not nearly as trashy: politi-
cal behind-the-scenes shows.
The seasoned political expert will
probably find plenty of inaccuracies
in NBC's "The West Wing" and
"Mister Sterling" and in other net-
works' attempts at knockoffs, but
their positive effect is nonetheless
profound. They are taking Ameri-
cans into the lives and minds of top
decision-makers and showing how
difficult those decisions really are.
It's an innovation that could change
the way American politics have been
perceived since the 1960s.
I happened to catch a "Mister
Sterling" episode a couple of weeks
ago in which Sterling, a senator,
was trying to decide how to vote on
the Senate confirmation of one of
his friends. This friend had pub-
lished something construed as rac-
ist and was opposed by 75 percent of
Sterling's state, so the senator had
to choose between his gut feeling—
that his friend was the victim of a
partisan witch-hunt—and the views
of his constituency.
The show's examination of
Sterling's agonizing decision-mak-
ing process, however dramatized
because of the need to attract a
prime-time audience, must have
forced any American viewer to think,
"That was a much more complicated
issue than I thought." And this show
was not an exception; I have seen
the same complexity portrayed sev-
eral times on the hugely
popular "The West Wing."
For today's politicians,
these shows have come
too late to significantly
change the political cli-
mate. Adults who lived
through Watergate and
Vietnam are probably un-
likely to rethink their
widely held cynicism
about America's leaders
just because of a few
prime-time spectacles. But
for my generation, whose
views are still in flux and who have
grown up on TV, there may be a
pleasantly different story.
New hope for the
legitimacy of politics
has emerged through
the unlikely avenue of
pop culture.
Political controversies 30 years
from now may not involve quite so
many knee-jerk reactions or smear
campaigns. People may demand to
know the fuller picture of what was
considered and what was at stake
when decisions were being made.
Of course, I don't think The West
Wing" could have helped Bill Clinton
or Richard Nixon when they clearly
breached basic moral standards, but
a show explaining the complexities
of Medicare could certainly help the
apathetic ones in our generation who
will eventually have to save it.
Am I overestimating the power
of TV? I think not. TV coverage of
political "misdeeds" from the 1960s
and later had much to do with why
politicians are mistrusted now. With
the current popularity of behind-the-
scenes political shows, spin-offs may
persist for decades, so the impact
may only have just begun.
Political ignorance and cynicism
in the United States have instilled in
America's youth a fear of and refusal
to participate in a political system
that may chew them up and spit
them out. I'm as guilty of this reac-
tion as any other student at a place
like Rice. But in these popular shows,
I see a way out of the destructive
cycle that has nearly rendered pub-
lic service in the United States a
laughingstock. I see politics no
longer as a kiss of death but as a
risky opportunity (like anything else
I might do with my life).
My generation's leaders will not
be as idealized as were such past
political figures like Franklin
Roosevelt. Our ethical mistakes will
not be overlooked, as were those of
John F. Kennedy. The Information
Age has taken care of that. But now
it appears the Information Age also
has the potential to restore dignity
to offices that I thought were be-
yond restoration. Praise the lord,
and pass the pop culture.
Nathan Black is a Lovett College fresh-
man and assistant opinion editor.
Irony is overrated
More humanitarian angle
needed for war's justification
Thefollowing is the third of three
columns authored by different
students on potential U.S. mili-
tary involvement with Iraq.
As complex as the
current situation in Iraq
is, one thing has be-
come clear in recent
weeks: This is not just
an issue of U.S. national
security—it represents
a crisis of conscience
for the entire world.
On the one hand,
leaving Saddam
Hussein in power
would be unconscio-
nable, and the sooner
he is removed, the better. Yet
there is a legitimate fear that a
U.S.-led war against Iraq might
damage the United States' rela-
tionships with other countries and
exacerbate the suffering of Iraqi
citizens. In short, we find our-
selves in a situation where nei-
ther inaction nor the most likely
action seems acceptable.
However, it might yet be pos-
sible to remove Saddam from
power in a way that is both peace-
ful and a sign that we are doing it
for the right reasons — namely,
by indicting Saddam for human
rights violations.
One reason President Bush's
administration is losing credibil-
ity across the world is that it has
treated Saddam's human rights
record as a secondary rationaliza-
tion for Bush's obsession with
Iraq. By taking Saddam to task
primarily over disarmament and
trotting out the human rights is-
sue as a supplementary argument.
Bush is sending the message that
the U.S. is more concerned with
the mere possibility of a covert
Iraqi weapons program than with
documented, verifiable crimes
against Iraqi civilians.
Bush has made it clear that his
real goal is regime change, so
why has he pursued that goal in a
way that invites other leaders to
accuse him of using U.N. arms
resolutions as a pretext for war
and, possibly, a grab for Iraqi oil?
Why has Bush — or any other
nation's leader, for that matter —
not more vigorously pursued the
Human Rights Watch's call for
the establishment of an Interna-
tional Criminal Tribunal to pros-
ecute Saddam?
According to a New York Times
article by Nicholas Kristof (Try
Suing Saddam," March 26,2002),
there has in fact been some talk
among Bush officials about in-
dicting Saddam for
crimes against hu-
manity, but only "af-
ter Saddam is in cus-
tody." Presumably
the administration
prefers this approach
because it ensures re-
gime change even be-
fore Saddam is tried.
However, as Kristof
points out,
"[Yugoslav dictator]
Slobodan Milosevic
was indicted when he
was still in power, [which ] was
one factor that helped result in
his ouster in 2000." The same
strategy could be employed here.
Admittedly, indicting Saddam
does have a couple of disadvan-
tages. For one thing, it would take
time for this strategy to suffi-
ciently delegitimize Saddam be-
fore he could be removed from
Iraq, and most of the world is
understandably eager to see him
go as soon as possible. Addition-
ally, pushing for Saddam's indict-
ment would ultimately require the
U.S. to own up to its complicity in
the crimes he has committed dur-
ing the last 20 years.
In addition to supplying him
with sophisticated weaponry dur-
ing the Iran-Iraq War, the U.S.
government ignored his geno-
cidal Anfal Campaign against the
Kurds in the late 1980s. We there-
fore cannot expect to save face if
we put Saddam on trial. Neither
can the other countries that have
turned a blind eye to Saddam's
atrocities over the years.
Yet we cannot allow these con-
siderations to dissuade us from
exploring the option of indict-
ment. We have a moral obligation
to stop Saddam and other dicta-
tors like him, but we have an
equally important obligation to
do it peacefully if at all possible.
Prosecuting Saddam may not get
the job done as quickly as a war
would, but the fact remains that it
represents a peaceful way to at-
tempt to resolve the Iraq crisis.
As long as we have such an op-
tion, we have to give it a fair chance
before resorting to force.
Raj Wahi (Wiess '99) is a gradu-
ate student in chemistry.
the Rice Thresher
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Rustin, Rachel. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 90, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, February 28, 2003, newspaper, February 28, 2003; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443200/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.