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Show K PACE THE THUNDERBIRD 4 MONDAY DECEMBER 8, 1986 MORAL CHARACTER HIGH Not long ago, it looked as if one of SUSC's finest qualities was in jeopardy. The "small-tow- n atmosphere" so highly touted in all of SUSC's promotional literature was being eaten away by crime. TheAmTel Long Distance company lost thousands of dollars as SUSC students tied up lines using illegal access codes. Students found themselves immobile when their bikes were snatched from residence hall bicycle stalls. And Juniper Hall was robbed of its identity when the sign bearing its name disappeared one night. Fearful students wondered if it was safe to walk Cedar City streets alone at night. Okay, maybe we're getting carried away. Maybe organized crime wasn't infiltrating campus and maybe we weren't on the verge of decadence. But it was still discouraging to stand by and see property stolen or misused, even in those cases. The fiasco undoubtedly left a negative of AmTel executives, while the theft in the minds impression of the Juniper Hall sign will forever defy a logical explanation. With that said, the lecture is over. We were hoping to go off on a tangent about the moial and ethical decline at our school; but our plans were stifled when the (uniper Hall sign was returned, students started paying for their illegal phone calls, and Security Chief Kent D. Hoyt said incidence of theft at SUSC was actually on the decline. Therefore, this space will be used to commend rather than condemn students for their conduct. It's not everywhere that students line up to pay for phone calls which might never be traced back to them. It's not common, either, for a sign to be returned after a month-lonabsence. Most unusual of all is hearing a campus security chief, after wracking his brain trying to think of any recent dirty doings, conclude that the campus he protects consists of nothing more than "a bunch of good students." College places financial burdens on all students. When cash is in short supply, our integrity can surely be tested. Even in potential crimes where a large and financially healthy corporation like AmTel would be our victim, the majority of us prefer to pay our own way. This doesn't mean there's no room for improvement. There are still some bike riders out there who won't share our rosy viewpoint as they walk around campus. Considering the amount of free access to campus buildings, crime is definitely low. It doesn't take many wrong moves to lose such freedom, though. Let's not blow it. The outlook for a crime free campus looks good. Let's keep college a place of higher education not high crime. i f long-distan- i ( g THE STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS OF SOUTHERN I TAH SI VOLUME 81, NUMBER Editor Deby Kramer Associate Editor Ann Hollinger Copy Editor Greg Prince Photo Editor Richard Engleman Sports Editor Greg Miles E COI LEC.E CEDAR Cm U IAH 11 Entertainment Editor Paige While Senior Staff Writer Kris Johnson Production Manager Gavin Me Neil Adertismg Representative Kellie Jensen Faculty Adviser Larrv Baker The Thunderbird rs pjbluhed each Monday ol the academic war be and lor the student body of Southern Utah State College and is not attmated m any manner ith the College's department of communication The views and opinions expressed in The Thunderbird are the opinions of the publication's individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the institution, tacultv staff or student body in general The unsigned editorial directly above is the opinion 01 The Thunderbird a a single entity Le'ters to the editor must be tvpcd anci include the name and phone number Only the name wiil be printed Names will not be withheld under any circumstances md the editor reserves editing privileges Letters must he submitted by noon Friday lor me lus.on m me lollow mg week s edition The Thunderbird editorial and advertising offices in SUC Library Cedar City, UF 84720 1801) 7758 984, 103 Mail at SUSC Box I Holocaust stands as warning specter 'Access' is a recurring column through which members of the campus community may address themselves to topics of concern andor interest. This week's column is byMITCH CONNELL , president of SUSC Ground Zero. "Let us hope that the light that shines in our future the light of hope and knowledge, and not the rays of a nuclear detonation." As such, Elie Wiesel left his Nobel audience after he had accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for 1 986. While the hope that sprang from the Iceland Summit breaks apart like an Icelandic glacier hitting the sea, a single plaintive voice continues to show us the horrors of past human holocausts so that we may avoid a final holocaust that confronts us in the future tense. It was announced last month that Elie Wiesel, author, lecturer, seer, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor had been the selection of the Nobel committee for its prize for the persuit of peace. Perhaps no other selection has been as apt or providential. We have all learned to live within the bomb and the knowledge of the horrors that man is capable of. In fact, many of us find shelter in the percieved sanity of man that deludes us into believing that no one would ever push the button. To this bit of human rationalization Wiesel smiles sadly and shakes his furrowed brow and shares with any who will listen the sad wisdom that was born out of an adolescence spent in the tutelage of inhumanity at places called Buchenwald and Auschwitz. His face bears the careworn look that is so common to the survivors of the Holocaust. Within his face are forever etched the visions that he beheld in the teiror of his youth. In his book, Night, Wiesel chronicles in 1 8 pages a most powerful first hand account of these visions. As he entered his first is 1 concentration camp, Dr. Mengele separated Wiesel from his mother and three sisters forever. A year later, Wiesel watched his father slowly die of dysentary. All the while, the truncheon blows, whips, and rifle butts explained to him in the most utter of termsthe unspeakable brutality that is born out of hatred. From those moments that he was hit with rifle butts, he said, that he began to h.,te them and that hatred is the only link between him and his former oppressors today. At the end of a year of starvation, abuse, and every type of emotional trauma, Wiesel looked into a mirror that was provided by his American liberators. "Thu image that returned my gaze is one that will never forget." Today, Wiesel is driven before a new group of oppressors and tirelessly warns of the new and coming holocaust. The oppressors now however are far more subtle, as they guise themselves in the cloak of national security and the coming holocaust shrounds itself in unbelievability that spawns apathy in those whose lives it brings into peril. Apathy and indifference are the enemies that he pursues all over the globe. He reminds his listeners of the cost of indifference in the 1 940s and the new dangers of apathy in the 1980s. But the road is difficult. There are so many other things for people to concern themselves with in the 1980s; working, planning, loving, and why the hell worry about a tomorrow that can't be controlled. But, as Wiesel points out, we are all guilty of the world that we are passing on. He watches social events, as they rear up and make their change, and, sometimes encouragingly, people even manage to get their voice as loud as a whisper but nothing really ever changes. Look with Wiesel off stage center into the I (continued on page 7) |