The Towerlight, April 18, 1985

tl19850418-000 "Nwareness week breaks down barriers Have you ever noticed a blind person wandering around cam-pus, but hesitated offering help�in case he wasn't really lost? Or have you hesitated to help a student in a wheelchair Open a door�because you assum-ed he'd rather do it on his own? Handicapped Awareness Week, which began this Monday, is eared toward eliminating at-titudinal barriers between the handicapped and non-handi-capped. ""It's important to get to know he person behind the handicap,"" said Margaret Warrington, direc-tor of the University's Special Needs Office. ""Exposure of the general public to the handicapped will help break down the barriers,"" she said. Musical entertainment and guest speakers were featured Monday. Frank Gust, a blind stu-dent at the University spoke about his experiences here. ""Towson is in better shape than most places when it comes to accepting the handicapped,"" he said. There has been a steady flow of handicapped people to the University, so students aren't shocked when they see a wheelchair anymore, he said. Gust said social barriers exist because handicapped students don't usually participate in extra curricular activities, largely due to mobility and transportation problems. ""To ultimately change things (attitude barriers), we have to get the handicapped involved in ex-tra curricular activities ... so they can see us in action,"" Gust said. Various student groups par-ticipated in the 7th annual wheelchair race. The race began at the University Union fountain, went through some of the main buildings on campus and ended in the Glen, with a trophy for the Winning team. Handicapped Awareness Week Will come to a close Friday with a Signing demonstration accom- Panied by music in the Universi-ty Union by students Robert Cave, and Phyllis Ballenger. Awards will also be presented to faculty, staff, and students who have been particulary helpful to the handicapped on campus. �Joanne Brady Greg Bennett rolls toward the finish line in the seventh annual wheelchair race. International affairs symposium to be held today Defense Policy in the 1980s: Survival and Security in the Nuclear age will be the topic of the Sixteenth annual Earle T. Hawkins Symposium on Interna-tional Affairs. The Symposium will be held to-day 9:15 a.m to 3:45 p.m. in the University Union Chesapeake Rooms. Admission is free and the Public is invited. Speakers will include Stephen Dagget of the Center for Defense Information, Bruce Weinrod of the Heritage Foundation, and Jo Husbands of the Committee on National Security. BSU elections next week The Black Student Union elec-tions for president, vice- President, treasurer, and secretary will be held Wednes-day, April 24 and Thursday, April 25 from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in the BSU office. Voters must bring a validated Towson State I.D. campus notes 411?���? Committee to open discussion on alcohol An open forum discussing the situation of alcohol on Towson State campus, sponsw ed by the Alcohol Concerns Comilittee will be held Wednesday, April 24 from 2 to 4 pm. in the Sus-quehanna I Room. Questions such as a dry cam-pus, underage drinkers and alcohol abuse, and others will be addressed. For more information,contact Jim Spivak 321-2512. The committee is made up of students, faculty and staff seek-ing other views on the campus alcohol policy. Inside I ,11TE I \ :2 ,_Lni 7 � Spaced out Joseph LaMastra pre-views the upcoming theatre production of Ray 13radbury 's Kaleidoscope P. 9 Tigers on top Tennis team wins Tiger Classic ........... p. 4 Breaking the ice U.S.-Soviet rela t ions: to talk or not to talk p.13. Forensics national tournament drew over 400 people The National Forensics Association held its national tour-nament here last wekend. One hundred and eleven colleges were represented by over 440 students at the annual tournament, which traditionally marks the end of the debating season. Tournament, director Suzanne ',arsons said the association came to the University four years ago and ""we were really pleased we could come back."" Larsons is also the coach of the Hunboldt State University foren-sics team in northern California. Schools qualify to enter the tournament by either placing within the top six positions in three tournaments during the year or by placing in the top ten percent in their regional district. Students competed for in-dividual awards in ten events in-cluding prepared speeches, im-promptu and extemporaneous speeches, and oral interpretations of literature, Larsons said. The Towson State Forensics Union ended its season last week at the tournament in Reno, Nevada. The team remained first, in the northeast and ranked 17 in the nation in Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debate. Campus Notes are continued on page 2 The Published weekly by the students of Towson State University Vol. 78 No, 24 By Mitchell Jaspan William Buckley, Jr. AM � Towson, Md. 21204 April 18, 1985 On the military budget: ""We should spend as much money, plus 10 percent for safety, as absolutely per-suades the Soviet Union that they can-not (attack the U.S.)"" William Buckley ""I don't see the logic in moving ahead with a $60 billion MX missile when we have 10,000 nuclear weapons in our arsenal."" George McGovern -.RNtiviENT ASSOCIATION ;TATE UNIVE George McGovern Buckley and McGovern trade barbs over defense policy By Robert Taylor A conservative columnist and a liberal former presidential can-didate dueled over the merits of freezing the defense budget and procurement of nuclear arms in a marathon wind session here just be-fore break. The duel�or rather, debate-be-tween William F. Buckley, colum-nist and host of PBS's ""Firing Line,"" and George McGovern, former South Dakota senator and runner-up to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential campaign, drew approximately 700 people to the Chesapeake Rooms of the Universi-ty Union for the April 3 events. Another 100 watched on closed-circuit television in the Susquehan-na Room, unable to get a seat at this, the final and most successful event in this year's Student Government Association Speaker Series. They watched as for over three hours the two traded barbs, quotes, rhetorical questions, and statistics as they debated whether ""the United States should support a defense budget freeze and a mutual and vertifiable freeze in nuclear ar-maments."" McGovern fired the first salvo, admonishing the audience to ""Keep 0; mind that he's vciy good on fic-tion and I'm very good on facts,"" then he tied the health of the coun-try to defense spending. ""We (lib-erals) do not want to weaken the de-fense of the U.S."" but, quoting Pres-ident Eisenhower, he added, ""If the military spends too much, it weakens the country."" Defense spending' is ""not a pointless expense,"" Buckley said. ""We [the U.S.I should spend as much money, plus 10 percent for safety, as absolutely persuades the Soviet Union that they cannot [at-tack the U.S.I."" He closed his 12-minute opening statement by protesting an increas-ed defense budget and criticizing the Strategic Defense initiative, commonly called ""Star Wars"" de-fense system. ""I don't see the logic in moving ahead with a $60 billion MX missile when we have 10,000 nuclear wea-pons in our arsenal,"" McGovern said. In the first negative. Buckley re-turned the attack on McGovern, by pointing out that the percentage )f the Gross National Product (GNP) the Reagan administration spent on defense was only 6.7%, half the percentage spent by the t<ennedy administration and 60% less than Eisenhower spent. That 6.7%, Buckely argued, is spent on ""the liberties of this country."" ""There are sources of national power ... other than defense spend-ing,"" McGovern replied. ""Japan and Germany have been accom-plishing by economic growth what they failed to do forty years ago,"" [militarily] he said. ""This country is weakening itself by exaggerated military spending."" Buckle jr attacked the policy of holding formal talks with the U.S.S.R. ""Dialectic with the Rus-sians breeds Frankensteins,"" he said.He pointed to the Potsdam, Hel-sinki and Vienna talks as ineffec-tive. Following the round of debate, the opponents took questions from moderator Dr. Richard Vatz, mass communicatins associate professor. Vatz asked McGovern what arms control agreements have accom-plished in the past. ""It achieves modest, but nonethe-less worthwhile gains,"" McGovern said. ""They [arms control agreements] give some degree of security. They have contributed to the prevention of war."" He cited the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as a prime example of the value of arms accords. Buckley disagreed, saying ""we can't count on them [arms agreements]"" He called SALT I ""one of the most disasterous events"" in arms control. In the audience question and answer period, the debators were asked if the Soviets were truly ag-gressive. ""I don't think the Soviets are anxious to engage in war,"" Mc- Govern said. Buckley concurred to a limited extent. ""Obviously they don't want to start a nuclear war,"" he said. ""They (the Soviets) don't covet Detroit as nuclear rubble."" However, the U.S.S.R. would ""blackmail"" the U.S. if they had a clear superiority in arms. Another audience member asked if the U.S. was as bad as the Soviet Union in complying with treaties and international law. ""All of the evil is not on one side,- McGovern agreed. However, Buckley bluntly called the idea ""preposterous."" In their eight minute closing statements, the two restated their earlier positions. The idea of a de-fense buildup, Buckley said, was to ""persuade the Soviets that they shouldn't do it [attack the U.S.I."" He advocated giving research infor-mation on the Strategic Defense Ini-tiative to the Soviet Union to dem-onstrate that the U.S. does not have first-strike plan. ""There are no winners in a nu-clear war,"" McGovern said. He call-ed for a complete freeze, even of de-fensive weapons, saying ""no one can conceive of a sure defensive shield.- The audience in the Chesapeake rooms consisted largely of older adults from the community, with very few students. Hart proposes mandatory youth corps Students and other youths could be a step closer to being re-quired to devote two years of their lives to military or civilian national service. The sporadic debate over a na-tional youth service flared anew with Senator Gary Hart's ID-Col.] recent proposal to establish a system requiring all youths to perform some kind of service for the nation. Hart's proposal would give $3 million to a commission to design a workable youth service system. Although advocates disagree about the best kind of program, and although Congress rejected a smiliar plan last year, most na-tional youth service proponents welcomed Hart's initiative. ""There is a great deal of debate that needs to occur before any consensus is reached, and Hart has stirred up some discus-sion,"" said Michael Sherriden of Washington University, co-author of a book outlining one version of a national youth service. ""If Hart continues to be view-ed as the likely Democratic [1988 presidential] nominee, this idea will go with him,"" Sherriden said. But Hart's initiative won't be enough to get the idea through Congress, said Meryl Maneker, co-author of a 1984 report on na-tional youth service prepared for the Youth Policy Institute. ""All the 119841 Democratic presidential candidates at one time or another proposed some kind of youth service,"" Maneker said. ""It's very Kennedy-esque."" Maneker said youth service is less politically appealing now than last year because of the focus on reducing the federal budget deficit. And as long as the Reagan ad-ministration ignores it, Hart's proposal will go nowhere, she predicts. ""Hart is not that great a political god that what he pro-poses will get acclaim just because he proposes it,"" she said. That pleases Young Americans for Freedom Vice Chairman Jay Young, who says national youth service, whether voluntary or mandatory, is unnecessary. ""The volunteer spirit in this country is strong,"" Young says. ""There is no need for the govern-ment to get involved in volunteer programs."" Polls, however, do suggest a majority of Americans favors some kind of national youth ser-vice. A 1981 Gallup Poll found 71 percent of the public favors a compulsory program for men, while 54 pe, cent endorsed a corn-pulsory program for women. An earlier Gallop Poll discovered a large majority of high school and college students also favor a voluntary youth ser-vice program. In unveiling his proposed legislation February 27, Hart said he prefers a mandatory youth service program. Hart's bill calls for the pro-gram to involve 12 to 24 months of service, with penalties for non-compliance if a mandatory plan is used. ""A genuine sense of communi-ty and citienship should include specific challenges and obliga-tions, beginning with service to the nation,"" Hart grid in a February 4 speech. ""A new system of national ser-vice� including both military and non-military opportunities�will ask young Americans to return some of the advantages and in-vestments they have received from our society."" Hart himself escaped military service by winning education deferments while studying at Bethany Nazarene College, Yale Divinity School and Yale Law School. By the time he finished all three in 1964, at age 27, he was beyond draft age. Sherriden said he opposes a mandatory youth service pro-gram, believing it would be divisive and too difficult to en-force. He advocates a voluntary pro-gram offering education tuition credits and paying participants minimum wage salaries. About one million people be-tween 18 and 24 would par-ticipate each year, he estimates at a cost of $8 billion to $10 billion. ""The value of the services rendered will more than compen-sate for the cost of the program,"" Sherriden said. Maneker believes any new youth srvice programs will be confined to local and state governments. New York City has a youth service program, as do New Jersey and California. In past years the full House has defeated youth service bills after they've cleared the Senate and a House committee. �College Press Service "