OCR Text |
Show THE ZEPHYR OCTOBER 1995 PAGE 8 and remain afraid to publicly condemn them long as we continue to trade with China Not to for their treatment of men and women, we haw no business pointing fingers. before house we start clean up our own bloody put too fine a point on it, we need to Subject to Change Cherie Gilmore By telling others how it's done. For example, let's skip over all the horrible things men do to each other and get back to how women are treated here in America. Let s narrow it down even further Logan. It and bring it home to Utah, to that happy bastion of conservative bliss seems that Larry Jacobsen, the principal of Adam Elementary School, was fined ten $110.00 for domestic violence against his estranged wife. A typo? and of bed out her her throwing dollars. For forcing his way into her room, dragging Class B misdemeanor. For those unfamiliar a as classified is This the wall. against with our legal system, what this means is that it would have been a worse crime for him to write a bad check than beat up his wife. The judge, feeling bad for even fining him that much, said, "I have never received as many letters of support from people I case." C C'mon judge, she praising the character of the defendant as have in this provoked him. Gave away his T.V. and without it how can he watch General Conference?") But spousal abuse aside, how many of those letters came from parents of the innocent children who are in this lunatic's care all day? When Mr. Jacobsen catches a ten year old running down the hall while chewing gum and slams him up d against the wall, will the child even bother to tell anyone? Who would listen? indefensible. is ten dollars. That Meanwhile, back in Nebraska, coach Tom Osborne, without calling an international conference, quietly and effectively makes his own statement about respect and human rights. When his star running back, Lawrence Phillips, is arrested for assaulting his the coach kicks him off the team. Phillips is a Heisman trophy candidate, whose presence on the team would undoubtedly bring in more dollars for Nebraska. And fame for Tom Osborne. Because Phillips could go on to greatness as a pro, maybe even for one of those New York teams. He may yet, despite being kicked off his college team. And when he is established as Buffalo's star running back, he probably won't ever acknowledge Tom Osborne as a former coach. But he might think twice before he hits his wife. And there are worse things for a coach to be remembered for. As for the conference goers, party on, I guess. Convince yourselves that your politicking and diplomacizing are having some impact somewhere. It really is so much easier to shout across the ocean than confront the people next door. There's so much less chance of offending anyone or getting dirty. When you talk about human the human" part. Take it out of the hands of individuals rights, try to and form more committees and write more press releases. Because of course politics and committees have their place. Sometimes they even accomplish something. Although as I get older the memory goes and specific examples escape me. Maybe it's that Western independent thing, but tend to remember better the things that individuals do, things that are done with quietness and dignity. Without the fanfare but with better results. For instance, in Philadelphia, within spitting distance of all those committees, there lives a man named Pete Farley. He is a 69 year old retiree who has decided to devote his spare time to helping the homeless. So for the last four years, he has been baking cakes for the residents of the Bethesda homeless shelter. On their birthdays, they are presented with their own birthday cakes. It's such a little thing. But one of the cake recipients. Hector Hernando, sees its importance. People shun you when on the street, step over you, make you you're want to die. Then along comes Pete to celebrate the fact that you're still alive." And isn't that the most basic human right? One-hundr- ed One-hundre- think we all know' how it feels to hear for months about a new movie, a movie that will conquer new frontiers in movie history, a movie so spectacular that our lives will never be the same. If we're talking about the same movie, here is what happens. You pay an exorbitant ticket price, you sit, you watch two hours of a detailed account of the lives of a really boring bunch of people. You find yourself looking around to see if anyone is still awake. Those not engaged in cellular phone conversations seem truly enthralled. You wonder what you missed. It's an eery feeling, isn't it? It gets sincerely weird though when it creeps into real life. You find yourself looking at an actual event, watching it to its conclusion, where the only response you feel is, "And...?" Yes, we're talking here about the Fourth World Conference on Women. Now that all the fanfare has subsided and the whole thing been deemed a huge success, I find myself asking exactly what was accomplished. Did all the Beijing rhetoric have anything to do with real solutions to problems experienced on a daily basis by real women? Or men or children for that matter? Maybe. Maybe it was another sad case of going for popcorn at a critical juncture in the whole drama. In any case, I missed I it. What I did see was Hillary Clinton caught in one of those sticky little political dilemmas. Does she go to China and sort of ignore the big human rights picture, or does she stay home and risk offending China, thus jeopardizing Pepsi's chances at marketing Cheetos there? She chose the former. Yes, she threw in a few phrases about certain countries' indefensible treatment of women. Sadly, she forgot to actually name any specific country, What a perfect opportunity to stand up as a strong, intelligent woman and say, "People of China, it is indefensible what your government is doing to you. It is indefensible that you are imprisoned for thinking. It is indefensible that the world looks on and does nothing." What she chose was, I guess, the political route. State the obvious, but with appropriately spaced pauses and upraised fist so that it looks like you have made a strong, original statement. "It is indefensible that many women who wished to participate in this conference haw been prohibited from fully taking part. It is a violation of human rights when individual woman are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small." No offense Mrs. Clinton, but to reach that conclusion you went to law school?? I could be wrong, but I would venture that most of the thinking world is generally opposed to setting people on fire. It is a terrible thing. It is terrible that people in America do the same thing to one another for being of different racial descent. It is not a gender issue. It is a question of respect for each other as human beings. As 1 BBSS 'serving Thyme since 1994 BREAKFAST LUNCH 7 DAYS A WEEK DINNER THURSDAY thru SUNDAY 101 N. Main St. 259-390- 0 |