Show 20 A Standard-Examine- Thursday September r 1 1S33 KSSk o n Standard-Examine- r J Editorials h Gun sale measure worthy of passage Retired Supreme Court Justice Lewis F Powell Jr made a cogent point when addressing the American Bar Association convention and the subject was handguns Powell said members of Congress ought to keep in mind a statistic when considering legislation to require a seven-da- y waiting period for handgun purchases: During the Vietnam War period more Americans were killed in the United States by firearms than were killed in action on the lighting front He further told the Bar Association that he could find no support in the Constitution for the private ownership of handguns The former jurist said “it is not easy to understand why the Second Amendment or the notion of liberty should be viewed as creating a right to own and carry a weapon that contributes so directly to the shocking number of murders in the United States” Congress does not propose to disallow Americans to own handguns The proposed bill is a modest and reasonable effort to prevent their sale to criminals or mentally unstable persons It would simply require a week’s waiting period before completing a gun sale so that police could run a background check on the prospective purchaser Predictably the National Rifle Association and other lobbyists for the gun industry would have the public believe that it is an attempt to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to carry firearms The International Association of Chiefs of Police wisely take a different perspective It has sharply condemned the NRA for opposing the legislation He said the NRA pretends to be the “police officer’s best friend” Noting that handguns were involved in 50 of 72 murders of law en forcement officers reported in 1987 Casey added: “With friends like those who needs enemies?” There is nothing wrong with the waiting period ' ment It would give police ample time to find out exactly who wants to become the owner of a lethal weapon that could become an instrument of death It is puzzling to hear the NRA rail against the proposed legislation It "claims to support law enforcement but opposes any reasonable effort to put handguns in ownership Handguns were used to commit almost 60 percent of the 20000 murders that occurred in this country last year As Powell points out there is no constitutional right to kill with the weapon of your choice We are glad to find a conservative former Supreme court justice willing to speak up for the responsible regula- tion of handguns Congress would do well to be persuaded ' by Lewis Powell not swoon to the siren song of the NRA law-abidi- ng Losing your hair? There’s new hope It may be the greatest discovery yet to stroke the vanity of balding men — something akin to finding the fountain of youth Thousands of men frustrated from the loss of their hair are expected to line up to buy a new drug that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration the other day It could appropriately be tagged “hair in a tube” Studies show that the Upjohn Company’s prescription hair loss promises the drug minoxidil for first relief from centuries of fiddling with worthless creams secret potions and snake oils only to be frustrated by their failures to stimulate hair growth After a year of trials and with minoxidil tried on 1833 men age 18 to 49 the FDA said there is promising evidence that Upjohn has come up with a formula that shows distinct signs that the drug does promote the growth of hair in men whose hair is thinning Why some men are terrified of going bald is one of life’s minor mysteries If they believe — and wrongly so — that it makes them less than masculine less lovable they are wrong Or they may feel — without justification — that loss of hair is a sign of a weakling They only need to look at some of the more fearless bald men Dwight Eisenhower Winston Churchill Benjamin Franklin for example There’s one local sage who has been bald for a number years who does not have an image problem He more than likely will not be queueing up to buy the drug — which is expected to cost $50 for a month’s supply and must be used continually or the loss of hair resumes When asked whether he would prefer a full head of gray hair instead he replied instantaneously and with grace: I had that choice so-call- ed male-patte- rn “Since former astronauts are advertising nasal spray how would you feel about promoting minoxidil hair restorer?” College admission process haphazard Every year about this time high school seniors begin the long process of preparing to apply to college while their parents begin the process of trying to come up with the money to pay for it By the time it is all over the high school counselors the testing services the college admissions representatives and perhaps some of the many sources of financial aid will get involved In all this complicated business the weakest link is often the college admissions office that actually decides who gets in and whose application is rejected Because of the vulnerable age of most college applicants many take the rejection personally as some kind of failure on their part They shouldn’t The admissions process is too chaotic to have any such meaning Experiments have been done where the same set of credentials — grades test scores etc — have been submitted to the same college under two different names with one applicant being accepted and the other rejected There is no way an admissions committee can keep in mind all the people who apply and measure each against all the others Even a small college can have thousands of applicants and a large university tens of thousands Virtually no college or university simply ranks its applicants and accepts the top X percent There is usually a whole spectrum of things they consider from test scores and grades to hobbies and interests to race and geographic location If you are an athlete or a relative of an alumnus that can also make a big difference Almost no two colleges weigh these things the same and different members of the same admissions committee weigh them differently One admissions committee member at Cornell used to carefully remove all letters of recommendation from the student folder Thomas Sowell place them face down on the table and nore them completely while he made his cision Other committee members try to read the tea leaves by seeing great significance in a word here and a phrase there or even in the number of misspelled words in the letter of recommendation No decision that comes out of this kind ol process should be taken by a student as some kind of crucial pronouncement on his or her real worth Yet because of their youth and inexperience many students carry around the idea that they are a “Stanford reject” or “an Ivy League reject” even when they end up at perfectly fine colleges in many cases better for them than the places they had their hearts set on Part of the problem of college admissions committees is that they have a few weeks to go through a staggering amount of material before reaching their decisions It is not uncommon for a committee member to work from morning till night six or seven days a week trying to cope with it all That is only part of the problem however The real problem is the kind of people who serve on admissions committees A young man who wants to go to Harvard or MIT to become a mathematician or chemist is unlikely to have his credentials examined by a top mathematics or chemistry professor on the admissions committee The decisions as to whether he should be admitted or not will probably be made primarily administrators not by a group of very knowledgeable about mathematics or chemistry — and not very distinguished in any intellectual field Many admissions committee members — even at the top institutions — are as inexpe- low-lev- Only duress gives WASHINGTON — One circumstance and one only ought to give any American pause about pledging allegiance to the flag That condition is duress When ordered to say the pledge — whether by the neighborhood bully the state legislature or some posturing politician — the true patriot has only one recourse — rebellion Depending on the situation and the individual's temperament this rebellion could take one of several forms Silence is always in order So is singing either of the National Anthem for those who wish to clear up any ambiguity about their motives or of say “When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin’ Along” for those with a more impish turn of mind And though there ought to be a general policy against encouraging violence candor requires that under certain conditions the appropriate response might well be a carefully considered poke in the snoot Just think of what John Wayne would have done had somebody told him what to say or think Which regardless of what George Bush and Michael Dukakis are muttering is what is at issue here It is not the Constitution as Dukakis claims or “values" as Bush insists in this silliest of all political debates It is that a real American does not let anyone tell him or her uhat to think say or love not even to think and say love of country Especially does a real American not let the government — at any level — dictate what should be thought said or loved Governments can tell us what to do — stop at the stop sign pay taxes — and what not do to — rob a bank pollute the water But these are actions not sentiments or thoughts There are strictures which people some- - ig- de- el rienced in the world as they are unintellectual They tend to be young some in their 20s and more inclined toward fashionable social theopop psychology and ries than toward any serious intellectual pline Why do so many colleges put such people in charge of anything as serious as admission decisions? Partly it is from a lack of easy alternatives The senior professors don’t want to spend their time on admissions committees and junior faculty members can’t afford to while h envitrying to survive in a ronment Far more faculty members are prepared to grumble about the kind of students being admitted than are willing to spend long boring days and nights trying to make the selection process better If colleges and universities take students seriously — and that is an open question on many campuses — then they ought to be willing to pay more attention to the admissions process One way to make serving on admissions committees attractive or at least endurable for faculty members might be to excuse them from all other duties during the semester when they serve on an admissions committee After spending about half a semester on the committee they would then have the other half free to catch up on their research and preparation for teaching There is also no reason why admissions committees have to operate ungodly hours Appoint more people so that there can be more shifts These solutions would undoubtedly cost money but even articulate academics who talk glowingly of “concern” “commitment” and “leadership” must know that there comes a time to put your money where you mouth is Scripps Howard News Service well-meani- publish-or-peris- pause to allegiance Because when someone pledges allegiance to this flag and to the republic for which it stands the allegiance is not simply to the times refer to as laws requiring people to land mass which lies between the Atlantic love their neighbors but not to covet their and Pacific Oceans between roughly 25 and houses or wives But no government passed 50 degrees north latitude (OK and Alaska these laws nor does any civilized government and Hawaii) or to the institution which govseek to enforce them Enforcement if it ex- erns that land mass ists comes elsewhere This republic is an idea open to anyone The simple fact is that it is impossible to who embraces it but no one can truly embe a patriotic American and to allow government to meddle with your heart soul or in- brace it who- believes that opinions can be tellect Anyone who so allows is not a spread by coercion Because nothing is more essential to the American idea than the conpatriotic American but a Mexican Commuviction that all opinions must be allowed nist This has nothing to do with either the land even the opinion which rejects the American south of the border or the teachings of Karl idea No one can be a real American patriot Marx but is a literary reference providing a who would restrict the rights of those who are not patriots distasteful though their opinions handy shorthand to describe those who would tell others what to think It’s source is may be a minor but occasionally wise novel called So what is important here is not as Bush “Wake Up Stupid” by Mark Harris whose says the “right” of Massachusetts schoolchilhero at one point notes: “An American is a dren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance They man that does what hasn’t been tried before have that right and most of them exercise it every school day Nor is it all that important Play it safe play it safe that’s your philosophy contempt for the human mind that’s as Dukakis claims that the law requiring their teachers to begin each day with the your philosophy and it’s Mexican Communism pure and simple” pledge is unconstitutional though it is and Only those with contempt for the human ought to be The important thing is that if you are realmind and a fear of doing anything different would try to regiment opinion Encouraging ly an American patriot the kind who happily teachers to inspire their pupils to start the pledges allegiance to the flag whenever approday by pledging allegiance to the flag is fine priate there is only one proper response to Ordering them to do so on pain of criminal the person or government who tells you that ou must say the pledge penally is downright It is not simply that patriotism cannot be That response as American as sandlot enforced by law though that is true enough baseball ice cream sodas corn on the cob It is that the very notion of American patrio- and our other great inventions is: “Oh yeah? tism enforced by law is an internal Try and make me!” Chicago Tribune Jon Margolis - A i Lm±m t f 4 iV Vfcj 1 Ak n fcid rfcxLulLj |