The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 72, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, September 21, 1984 Page: 4 of 24
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THRESHING IT OUT
continued from page 3
Harcombe berates
Morgan, apartheid
To the editor:
Please accept this letter as my
personal statement condemning
the apartheid policies of the South
African government. 1 would also
like to condemn Tom Morgan for
inaccurate and misleading
statements regarding my
conversations and activities.
As Morgan pointed out in his
article in the 9/7/84 Thresher, I
attended a lecture by Donald
Woods last spring regarding
conditions in South Africa. In that
lecture, Woods said that the South
African government often films
the arrival of visiting groups for
propaganda purposes. Woods did
not say in his lecture, nor did he say
to me personally, that, to quote
Morgan, "if the Rice group makes
this trip under the auspices of the
Rice Alumni Association, they
would be met at the airport by a
television crew..." In an article last
spring, Morgan wrote, "you may
say. Dr. Harcombe, that some of
your best friends are black..." I did
not, and would not, ma'ce such a
statement, as it clearly implies a
sort of closet racism. I particularly
resent such a statement from a
person whom I had never met.
Morgan has never, at any time,
approached me about my views of
South African problems. Finally,
Morgan said that it was I who
organized the trip. It was not. I was
invited to participate by the
Alumni Association, and I
accepted. One would hope that a
man of Morgan's calibre could
write forceful articles without
stooping to innuendo and
misleading statements for
journalistic effect.
There are legitimate reasons for
making such a trip, and there are
also good reasons to oppose it. For
myself, I recognize the possibility
that the South African
government will attempt to use this
trip for propaganda purposes, and
1 must say that the prospect
disturbs me. On the other hand,
preparation for the trip has greatly
increased my knowledge of South
African racial problems that
otherwise would have been all too
' easy to continue to ignore. It is my
hope that the potential for good
arising from increased awareness
and understanding of a major
human rights issue by an
individual will compensate in part
for any possible bad that may
result from any attempts to use the
Alumni trip for" propaganda in
support of apartheid.
Should my participation in the
trip help my fellow travelers or the
Rice community to become more
aware of the situation or to
understand it more clearly, or to
participate constructively in its
resolution, I would be more than
grateful.
P.A. Harcombe
Associate Professor of Biology
Sullivan censures
uncouth misclass
To the editor:
As a Rice student, I look
forward to reading the Thresher
every Friday. Truly, I enjoy most
of the publication. The articles are
current and pertinent; the
editorials are opinionated; the
paper is liberal and quite generous
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in its broad-minded approach to
views and information. Amid all of
the good journalism there is,
however, one major flaw which
severely diminishes the paper's
quality. The flaw shames the
quality of the paper's journalism,
entertainment, and humor. I speak
of the deplorable misclass section.
While writing this letter, let me
first explain what I am not saying.
I am not saying the misclass editor
is a nasty, evil, uncouth man.
Secondly, I am not saying that the
misclass is a bad idea; in fact, I
believe quite the contrary. The
student body needs a creative,
witty journalistic outlet for its
amusement. In the past, the
misclass has often shined with
gems of wisdom and word play.
Such good qualities are far
outdone by the misclass' serious
flaws. The section is being abused
by nearly exclusive publication of
grotesque innuendo, blatant filth,
and sexual commentary. From this
come at least four negative results.
To begin with, readers are only
disgusted and insulted by the
sexual, animalistic comments.
Secondly, there is a dearth of
genuine creativity, for readers feel
that only a perverse misclass
submission will be printed.
Thirdly, the misclass is promoting
outright moral degeneracy, which
leads directly to my fourth point:
pure embarassment and even
shame. I apologize to visitors who
read the misclass, for it is shocking
and humiliating that Rice would
publish such garbage. These are
the problems of the misclass.
That one small section of Rice's
otherwise fine newspaper misleads
readers to think we are nothing but
See Threshing, page 6
SURVIVING THE HEDGES/by Duaine Pryor
continued from page 2
estimate that it would save the
government about 20 billion
dollars per year. This money could
be used for marty things but the
first to come to mind is that it
could be used to pay off the huge
national debt which has been
caused, in part, by the arms race.
Large military expenditures
weaken the economy in a number
of more subtle ways also. For
example, the U.S. Labor
Department determined that one
billion dollars spent on military
production produced 20,000 fewer
jobs than the same amount would
produce in other areas of the
economy. The military build-up
also drains the civilian economy of
many talented researchers and
engineers who could be helping to
build our economy.
Given all of these advantages to
a freeze, why would anyone
oppose it? The opponents advance
two major arguments. First, they
claim, the forces of the U.S. and
the West in general are, at this
time, inferior to those of the
Eastern Bloc, specifically the
USSR. Second, they claim that a
freeze would not be veritable and
that we cannot trust the Russians.
The second argument of freeze
opponents is clearly contradicted
by the statement of the former CIA
director and by the former
Secretary of Defense, Harold
Brown, who stated "Our national
technical means enable us to
monitor all key aspects of Soviet
strategic programs, including the
development, testing, production,
deployment, training and
operation of Soviet strategic
capabilities." We need not trust the
Soviets, we need only trust our
present technology and former
CIA director or former Secretary
of Defense.
The claim that U.S. strength is
inferior is shown to be false by
several facts. One is found in the
defense department report
mentioned earlier which asserts
that the two superpowers are
"roughly equal in strategic power".
Another reason to reject the
hypothesis that the U.S. is weaker
than Russia is given by Defense
secretary Weinberger, who, when
asked whether he, if given the
chance, would trade our nuclear
arsenal for that of the Soviet
Union, answered, "I would not for
a moment exchange anything
because we have an immense edge
in technology." General John
Vessey, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, repiied to the same
question, "Not on your life".
Whether ot not you believe the
defense department report, the
secretary or the general, there is
another point to be raised about
this argument; this objection to a
freeze is almost meaningless.
Suppose for a moment that all
these people and agencies were for
some perverse reason lying and
that the Soviets had a slight edge in
nuclear capability. Suppose that
the Soviets could destroy the U.S.
thirteen times and that we could
level the Soviet Union a mere ten
times. The first time is still the only
one that counts even if we were
mad enough to engage in a nuclear
confligration.
A mutual nuclear freeze is an
excellent and achievable first step
toward ending the threat of our
extinction. As Albert Einstein
stated, "We cannot simultaneously
plan for war and peace." A freeze
would let us stop planning nuclear
war and begin planning for peace.
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The Rice Thresher, September 21, 1984, page 4
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Havlak, Paul. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 72, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, September 21, 1984, newspaper, September 21, 1984; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245568/m1/4/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.