Western Front - 1989 December 1

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Volume 81, Number 55 Friday, December 1, 1989
Evans speaks on a
lack of leadership
By DEVEN BELLINGAR
the Western Front
"Candidates today are more concerned
with what people think and who is popular
than hard issues and leadership," said for­mer
Gov. Dan Evans, who spoke Monday
evening in the Performing Arts Center.
In a speech titled, "Whatever Happened
to the Bully Pulpit?" Evans spoke on how to
recreate an era in which leaders lead, even
when the appropriate direction appears
unpopular.
"Leaders have become followers. They
believe 'To get along, go along.' They rely
too much on the poll," Evans said.
He outlined two of "Evans' political
theories": the theory of the political main­stream
and the "surfer's theory" of politics.
"Everyone wants to be in the main­stream,
but streams tend to wander. It is not
the streams which make a difference, but the
water on the edge, which forges new paths
and change," Evans said.
'Within the next five
years, the threat of
nuclear war will be re­placed
with the threat of
environmental disaster.'
— Dan Evans
In the "surfer's theory" of politics, "You
wait for the magic wave to come along, but if
you jump early, you crash. If you wait too
long, the wave will leave you behind," he
said.
He said Teddy Roosevelt knew the joys
of debate and reform, but he was not the first
to refer to the "bully pulpit." Thomas Jeffer­son
and Abraham Lincoln used the presi­dency
for reform and change.
"Why are there no leaders of the bully
pulpit today? Because technology and com­munication
is different," Evans said.
Communication today is visual, as well
as oral, he said. Viewers on the evening
news tune out the less important informa­tion,
so the broadcasts have little time for the
unusual or controversial.
"Major events are compressed down to
a few minutes of information before mov­ing
on to something else. The producers
assume what the audience, wants," Evans
said.
He said today's commercial ads get
shorter and are almost devoid of meaning­ful
thought.
"It seems to be network A versus net­work
B today. We must break up the net­work
dominance with cable TV, satellite
and VCRs. Today's problems demand
ideas and answers," Evans said.
He said the problems of today range
from the federal deficit to pollution and
global warming.
"Congress and the President are not
using the money from taxes on what it
should be spent on, like reducing the deficit.
When Bush goes 'read my lips,' that is not
much of a bully pulpit," Evans said.
The world now is a waste of human ac­tivity,
he said. Twenty-five percent of the
world's pollution comes from the United
States with only 5 percent of the population.
"Another major problem is corruption
and greed in government. Insider trading
and payoffs lead to poor workmanship and
poor products," Evans said.
He also listed some challenges which
the United States encounters. Some may
become problems in the future, he said.
"If we are to continue our position in the
world, we must reform the education sys­tem,"
Evans said.
High school students should get away
from the educational "smorgas-board" they
now have and toward more important sub­jects,
Evans said.
See EVANS on page 5
Firefighter Pete Sallee runs up thestairs behind Carver Gym carryinga65-pound hose
while wearing a 40-pound vest. Several firefighters ran this endurance drill conducted
bytheBellingham fire department throughout theearly part of this week. Thedriil was
part of a study reevaluating the physical entrance requirements firefighter applicants
must meet. (Photo by TIM BOYLES)
AS hears recycling plan Guatemalan tells
By DOUGLAS BUELL
campus government editor
Associated Students, under a
new proposal, would use re­cycled
paper products instead of
virgin paper products in AS op­erations.
Greg Anderton, AS vice
president for External Affairs,
said student government should
set an example for administrators
and students by leading the effort
to phase out virgin paper, which,
if possible, also would include
unbleached • paper.
The problem is creating a
market for recycled paper, which
now is considered a specialty
item, he said.
"We need to create a demand
for recycled paper and I believe
we should be on the leading edge
of this," Anderton said during
Tuesday's AS board meeting.
The paper can be passed
through the recycling process
eight times over and be sold in a
pulplike form.
He said the AS was respon­sible
for initiating the school's
recycling program, which even­tually
grew to become a cam-puswide
service for collecting
paper, bottles and cans. He added
the recycled paper-only proposal
would fit in well with current on-campus
environmental efforts
such as the ban on Styrofoam.
"The ethical reason is the
product is out there; it's avail­able,"
he said. "The economic
reason is, 'Why don't we?'"
But, he said, "As long as we
are using virgin paper products,
our recycling program is some­what
of a moot point."
Beth Fries, an assistant coor­dinator
with AS Environmental
Center, agreed the program
doesn't come full circle unless
full use of recycled paper is used.
'It's really the only thing that
makes sense in that we have such
a good recycling program here,"
Fries said.
Anderton said the switch ini­tially
would be more costly. Re­cycled
paper is less expensive to
produce than virgin paper be­cause
fewer costs are associated
with processing it. He said an
economic irony exists in that
demand for recycled paper prod­ucts
now is limited.
For this reason, the market
has been slow to respond and
recycled paper is a specialty
product rather than an alternative
to virgin paper, he said.
Anderton said by mandating
the use of recycled paper the AS
will contribute to the demand for
it, thus providing an incentive for
more companies to enter the
market.
Eventually the costs would be
reduced, and as more suppliers
entered the market, there would
be more competition and thus
lower prices, he said.
"We should because there's a
glut of recycling paper on the
market and now we have to pay to
get rid of it. So there's no eco­nomical
incentives," he said.
Fries hopes to meet soon with
students from the University of
Washington and The Evergreen
State College to bolster support
for recycled paper use on cam-
See RECYCLE on page 5
of national horrors
By CHRIS HUDYMA
the Western Front
"The search for peace is (the
Guatemalan people's) national
goal, but the government is not
interested in peace, and the an­swer
they give us is death, torture
and assassination," said Julio
Lopez Maldonado, a Guatema­lan
student leader.
Maldonado spoke out about
the struggle between Guate­mala's
repressive government
and rebel uprising during a talk
at 7 p.m., Nov. 21 in the Viking
Union main lounge. Darcy Utter-back
of the Peace Resource Cen­ter
translated for him.
Maldonado has been a par­ticipant
in student activism
throughout the decade and is cur­rently
a student representative in
the Commission for Life and
Peace at the University of San
Carlos in Guatemala.
He left Guatemala this fall
when government death squads
began renewing their efforts to
seize and assassinate student
leaders. The Association of Uni­versity
Students, of which Maldo­nado
is a member, represents the
60,000 students that attend the
University of San Carlos.
The association plays a sig-i
nificant role in the Guatemalan
social change movement. There­fore,
people affiliated with the
organization are often targets of
the Guatemalan government's
security forces and death squads,
he said.
Since August of this year,
more than 12 members of the
student -organization have been
seized and/or killed, he ex­plained.
Guatemalan govern­ment
officials said the kidnap­pings
and assassinations are due
to power struggles within the stu­dent
organization. Maldonado
disagrees.
He said just on Aug. 23, 10
See SPEECH on page 5