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Si =J SSSSSF ■! m al mm ■■■■■■ ■ Tuesday, Oct. 28,1986
m\ M lL >1 I I ■ Vol. 87, No. 75 14 pages University Park, Pa. 16802
mmmm — ■ I II AM H H ■ ■ Published by students of The Pennsylvania State University
COLLEGIAN 100 YEARS J ©1986 Collegian Inc.
April 1887-April 1987
Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions
and Slapstick and now on a lecture tour of college campuses, brings his wry,
somewhat paradoxical vision of life, death and absurdity to the University in
an address at .Eisenhower Auditorium last night. In the 90-minute talk,
Vonnegut brings
By DAMON CHAPPIE
Collegian Staff Writer
Kurt Vonnegut unleashed Kurt Vonnegut’s wry
criticism on a host of current issues while re
minding last night’s audience in Eisenhower
Auditorium that “something quite meaningful is
going on on this planet.”
The 64-year-old author of Slaughterhouse-Five
and Galapagos knocked the conservative New
Right, television, the Star Wars missile defense
system, textbook censorship, Rambo and Ronald
Reagan. He demonstrated transcendental medi
tation for a few seconds and diagrammed liter
ary plot lines
And in the midst of that, he jumped with
delight to the middle of the stage, announcing
that the Red Sox were leading the Mets 2-0 at the
top of the second inning. “I lived in New England
for 20 years; what more can I say,” he said to
cheers and boos from the 1,200 in the audience.
The 90-minute lecture touched on many of the
themes Vonnegut has identified himself within
his novels and teachings.
He spoke of the “completely meaningless,
vengeful” firebombing of Dresden in World War
II which caused him to write Slaughterhouse-
Five. “There is only one person on the whole
planet who benefited from destruction of Dres-
Election-year mudslinging reaches new lows
By MEGAN O’MATZ
Collegian -Staff Writer
A picture of a bust of U.S. Sen.
Arlen Specter appears on the tele
vision screen. The senator looks as
dignified as a Greek god, but the aim
of the ad is not to honor him.
news analysis
It’s to crucify him.
The legislator, a voice says, voted
for the Gramm-Rudman law to cut
the federal budget. He said yea to the
“wasteful” MX missle, and nay to
economic sanctions against South
Africa.
Just then the bust deteriorates into
a thousand pieces.
“Senator Arlen Specter,” the voice
says. “He’s just not what he is
cracked up to be.”
The sponsor of this unsavory ad is
U.S. Rep. Bob Edgar, Specter’s oppo
nent in this year’s senate race. But
Edgar is not the only contender to
engage in dirty politics.
His commercial is typical of the
negative advertising created by con
gressional and gubernatorial candi
dates throughout the 1986 election
campaigns.
“Mudslinging is a time-honored
tradition in American politics,” says
den. You’re looking at him. I got $3 for every
person killed,” he said to a hushed crowd. “No
body has ever come forward to say that the
bombing of Dresden improved anyone else’s
life.”
But current issues also were on the writer’s
mind. “We have an actor for a president. Here is
the first divorced president in the history of the
United States, the protector of the family. You
ask how. It’s because he’s an actor playing the
protector of the family.”
On the Reykjavik summit: Reagan “comes
back. It’s a fiasco. Everyone knows its a fiasco
and he declares it a success. Because he’s an
actor playing a person who’s had a success,”
Vonnegut said.
He said that Reagan, who “has never had a
learned reference in any speech he has ever
given is saying ‘I have faith’ ” in Star Wars. “But
the technical people are saying this thing is
preposterous. It will not work.”
Vonnegut said that book censorship is “hap
pening in a few isolated communities where they
haven’t had much experience with literature.”
Vonnegut’s books have been banned and burned
in some communities.
“I also know that these same communities
where they are burning books, when I was a boy
Charles Redenius, expert in Ameri
can national politics.
And this year is no different.
No national issues have emerged
for politicians to focus on, which is
not unusual during a non-presidential
election year, says James Curtis,
expert in public policy analysis. So
most candidates have resorted to
mudslinging.
“If you’re a politician there are
certain issues you don’t want to run
on,” said Curtis, University assistant
professor of political science. “You
don’t want to talk about the budget
deficit because the only solution is to
raise taxes or cut programs, which is
not popular. You don’t want to talk
about abortion because you’re bound
to alienate people.”
Lt. Gov. William Scranton and
Democratic candidate Rob Casey, in
skirting the issues, have sponsored a
series of absenteeism commercials in
their race for Pennsylvania’s gover
nor.
Scranton, a Republican, accused
Casey of failing to show his face at the
Delaware Port Authority Commis
sion when the Democratic nominee
was state auditor general.
Casey fired back by charging that
the Republican lieutenant governor
skipped out on the Pardons Board
meetings.
Specter even got on the truant
bandwagon, claiming that Edgar
Vonnegut touched on topics ranging from Reagan and Rambo, and advised
the audience, not to fall Into the trap of expecting life to follow fiction’s
pattern of peaks and troughs. “Only stories should have that rise and fall,”
he said. “Not lives.” Please see related story, Page 14.
humor to PSU
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VOTE
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missed 40 percent of the House roll of untruths and vilifications. He’s
calls this year. been very insulting in his attacks,
The senator’s press secretary, Phil especially with the Greek bust.”
Goldberg, said: “Representative Ed- Specter, however, has “taken the
gar has been running a campaign full high road” and is running on his
they were burning human beings,” he said. “It
seems to me we’re getting somewhere.
"Only now are we waking and saying, ‘Hey,
let’s make the United States what it has always
claimed to be, what it is supposed to be.’ ”
Vonnegut credited this generation with better
attitudes toward race than his generation dis
played
He said that when he was young, he dreamed of
what life would be for his grandchildren and tried
to make the world a better place.
“We are more just now, but we have a long way
to go. The young people here must learn to do
what is apparently a lost American art: We’ve
got to start dreaming of a better world for our
grandchildren again. Practically nobody seems
to be looking out for grandchildren anymore,” he
said.
And the writer gave advice that he guaranteed
will improve life. “What people can’t stand about
their lives there is no rise and fall. Only stories
should have that rise and fall, not lives.
“But we have processed so many stories: man
in hole, man gets out of hole; boy meets girl. We
think that the same thing happens in life. And so
there are all these people who are discontented
because they think their lives are stories. But
life’s not supposed to be a story. Only stories are
stories.”
Lawyer
deal for
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press Writer
MANAGUA, Nicaragua Griffin
Bell, the former U.S. attorney gener-
al who is representing Eugene Hasen
fus, yesterday gave the Sandinista
government a list of 19 Nicaraguans
held in U.S. prisons and said he would
be willing to initiate an exchange.
But the former attorney general
said he did not know anything about
the 19 prisoners and had no reason to
think the Sandinistas wanted any of
them freed, so there was “hardly a
chance” of an exchange.
He gave no indication he had dis
cussed a prisoner exchange with Rea
gan administration officials.
Bell said he had asked Norman
Carlson, the director of the Bureau of
Prisons and a former law partner, for
a list of Nicaraguans in U.S. federal
prisons.
Pat Sledge, an aide to Carlson, said
in Washington that the list was fur
nished at Bell’s request but that “he
(Carlson) did not suggest a swap.”
Bell, attorney general during the
McKee
closing
By VALERIE BAILEY
Collegian Staff Writer
Plans to close McKee Hall during
the 1987 Intersession and Summer
Session will be reconsidered this
week, said Donald Arndt, director of
Housing Services. The possible clos
ing of the graduate residence hall,
across the street from Rec Hall, will
be discussed at tonight’s Graduate
Student Association’s general assem
bly meeting in 101 Kern at 7:15.
A notice sent to McKee Hall resi
dents by the University’s Office of
Housing and Food Services said resi
dence hall would be closed during the
upcoming Summer Session.
The notice also said graduate hous
ing would be available in Nittany
Apartments and Irvin Hall.
The University decided to close
McKee this summer for maintenance
work, like painting corridors and
window sills, said Joseph Phiri (grad
uate-mining engineering), head of the
programming and services division
of GSA.
McKee residents were not consul
ted prior to the decision, said Lynn
Dußois, manager of graduate hous
ing. However, other alternatives to
closing the residence hall were dis
cussed last night with McKee resi-
record, Goldberg said. Edgar has
been running a “dishonest and dis
torted” campaign, he said, which has
not worked well for the representa
tive.
“Polling data has us 20 points
ahead,” Goldberg said.
But Ted Piccone, Edgar spokes
man, said negative ads work.
“We cut Arlen Specter’s lead in half
in the first two weeks,” he said.
Conventional wisdom among politi
cal consultants is that the electorate
is interested in candidates’ personal
qualities, said James Eisenstein,
American politics expert.
“There seems to be a belief that
these ads have some effect,” the
University political science professor
said. “So the candidates run them
because their political consultants
have convinced them they work, or
that failure to respond when you’re
the subject of an attack will bring
harm to your campaign.”
Negative campaigning has been a
part of American politics almost
from the start, said Redenius, profes
sor of political science at the Behrend
campus.
Early campaign cartoons portray
President Abraham Lincoln as a go
rilla.
“Mudslinging today is not nearly as
trenchant nor as personal nor as
vindictive as earlier in our republic,”
he said.
Please see MUDSLINGING, Page 14.
suggests
Hasenfus
Carter administration, is helping pre
pare the defense for Hasenfus, who is
charged with terrorism, violating
public security and criminal associa
tion.
Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis.,
was in a C-123 cargo plane .that was
shot down Oct. 5 in southern Nicara
gua. The plane was ferrying military
supplies to the U.S.-backed Contra
rebels, who are fighting the leftist
Sandinista government.
Hasenfus has said he believed he
had been working on a covert CIA
operation and has complained in in
terviews with U.S. journalists that he
felt abandoned by his government.
Bell said at a news conference that
he gave the prisoner list to Saul
Arana, a Foreign Ministry official in
charge of U.S. affairs. Bell said that if
Nicaragua expressed interest in an
exchange, he would be ‘‘the messen
ger to the United States to see if our
government would agree to an ex
change ... I would hope they would.”
He also said he was told his request
to see Nicaraguan President Daniel
Ortega would be relayed “to the
highest level.”
Hall summer
reconsidered
dents and housing officials Arndt and
Dußois.
Arndt said “it is highly optimistic
something can be worked out for
continuing students.”
Some students are in the process of
writing their theses, which completes
a master’s or doctoral degree. Writ
ing a thesis and packing belongings to
move downtown, only to move back a
month later, is a lot of work, he said.
Phiri said housing personnel sent
out a survey Friday to the McKee
residents, asking them whether they
plan to continue living in the resi
dence hall during the summer.
Dußois said it is possible McKee
will stay open for students who plan
to live in McKee during both Spring
Semmester and during the summer.
At tonight’s GSA meeting, Phiri
said, the Housing committee will ask
GSA to support McKee residents, as
they ask the University for alterna
tive housing plans for McKee resi
dents that will “take into
consideration the students’ inconve
niences and needs,” Phiri said.
The Graduate Student and Faculty
Affairs Committee’s decision to rec
ommend reinstating fall commence
ment in 1988 will also be discussed at
tonight’s GSA meeting, said Luke
Taiclet (graduate-higher education),
Graduate Council representative.