Mirror - Vol. 13, No. 10 - December 01, 1988

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volumel3, No. 10 Our Second Decade Thursday, December 1, 1988 The Image of Fairfield
Horrow Declares Violence in Sports Excessive
Greg Curley
Staff Writer
World reknown sports at-torney,
Richard Horrow, declared
violence in professional sports "ex-cessive",
and he demanded greater
restrictions against it from league
officials during a lecture on Tues-day,
November 15. The presenta-tion,
entitled "Violence in Sports,"
featured film highlights ofsome of
the most brutal incidents in sports
history.
Mr. Horrow insisted that the
violence that takes place in many
arenas is far more serious and in-tense
than most criminal actions
on the streets. He feels that this is
very disturbing, saying, "The mere
act of putting on a uniform should
not exclude an athlete from crimi-nal
behavior."
According to Horrow, too
often athletes overstep the bounda-ries
of their sport and engage in
criminal behavior, only to be ex-cused
for actions that took place
"in the heat of competition." He
cited numeraous examples of this
"excessiveness," including when
four Boston Bruins climbed the
glass at Madison Square Garden in
1979 to hammar spectators with
shoes. Horrow cited another
hockey incident, this one in 1975,
that was brought to court. It ended
in a hungjury, thejudge saying af-terwards
'"This is the worst thing
we've ever seen, but we can't
convict a hockey incident as a street
crime.'"
Mr. Horrow has broughttwo
bills for cleaner competition to the
House of Representitives. He
called the first "an attention grab-ber,"
saying its main purpose was
to shed light on the issue.
The second bill was more
serious. Horrow said it sent the
message out that "if the establish-ments
don't clean up, the states
and feds will." He hopes a third
bill is not necessary and he calls
recent measures like the third man
in rule in hockey, the prohibited
chopblock in football, and the bean
ball rule in baseball, "a step in the
right direction."
Horrow still insisted that
professional sports have a long way
to go in cleaning up. He defended
his urging government interven-tion
in athletics, saying,"sometimes
letting the leagues guard the teams
is like letting the wolves guar*d the
sheep." He cited the NHL's injury
compensation bill of $16 million
in 1985 as proof that not enough is
being done to curb violence.
Violence in sports has other
drastic effects, according to Hor-row.
He said he is "concerned
more with the kids who play and
the fans that watch." He feels "it's
easier for spectators to break their
rules as spectators when they see
players breaking their rules as
players."
Mr. Horrow ended his lec-ture
warning of the snowball ef-fect.
"Excessive violence will
continue to increase unless some-thing
drastic is done." Richard Horrow Photo: Rich Nunziante
MacMichael Discusses Nature of Latin American Revolution
Tom Rhatigan
Staff Writer
On November 14, David
MacMichael gave a lecture on the
"Meaning of Revolution in Latin
America"; it was part of a series of
lectures on revolutions sponsored
by the History Department, Poli-tics
Department and the History
Club.
' MacMichael was intro-duced
by Professor Walter Petry,
who gave a brief history ofrevolu-tions
and their impact.
MacMichael then began his lec-ture
with some general thoughts
..on revolutions: how they conjure
up the hopes of the lowly, and how
the lower class rises to the top and
the upper class sinks to the bottom.
"The demand for equity,
which is involved in revolution,
could summarize the whole poli-tics
in history by seeing all socie-ties
composed of controlling sec-tors
that have to answer 'What
gives you the right to tell me what
to do?'," MacMichael claimed.
"That is the revolutionary ques-tion."
He said ruling classes fail to
respond because they are too pre-occupied
making a living to ques-tion
political structures. Revolu-tions
are the result when any ruling
class fails to respond to that ques-tion
satisfactorily.
That question, "What gives
you the right to tell me what to
do?", was answered by Karl Marx,
who said, '"Economic might makes
for political rights.'" He gave rise
to the eventual rule of the working
class and they would be the ulti-mate
source of wealth in the indus-trial
age.
MacMichael then gave a
history of the revolutions in Latin
America. These 19th Century revo-lutions
were made up ofloyal elites
breaking away from larger colo-nial
authorities. These type of
revolutions provided a model for
post World War II way of revolu-tion.
These economic elites would
then be part ofa global market and,
thus, leave out the poor farmers.
The elites had no desire for social
change.
On speaking of the Latin
America situation, MacMichael
said, "The struggle of the rich to
monopolize political power tends
always to be far more determined
and unrelenting than that of the
poor to grasp it from them. Ifthere
was one thing that characterized
the political structure in Latin
America today, it would be the
unrelenting verocity of barbarian-ism
of controlling groups in de-fense
oftheir position." For the 3rd
World Countries the situation
remains revolutionary."
Speaking on the role of the
Catholic Church, MacMichael said
that most discussions of political
conditions up to the mid-20th
Century emphasized a powerful
conservative role of the Catholic
Church. It began to change, how-ever,
when an "option for the poor"
was created. This is called Libera-tion
Theology.
Liberation Theology is an
interpretation of Christian Faith
out of the suffering, struggle, and
hope of the poor. This has domi-nated
Latin America the past few
decades. There is now a rising
consciousness of demanding eco-nomicjustice.
MacMichael called
the revolution in Latin America
"inevitable" and said that "there
will be enormous violence and
bloodshed."
Professor Applewhite Depicts Struggles of Women
in the French Revolution
Gary Thomann
Staff Writer
On Thursday, November
17, Professor Harriet Applewhite
ofSouthern Connecticut State Uni-versity
delivered a lecture in Ban-now
on "Women and Militant
Citizenship in Revolutionary
Paris." The lecture covered the in-volvement
of women in the vari-ous
struggles for freedom in late
1780's and '90's France.
Professor Applewhite
opened the talk by stating that
revolutions involve guns and
struggles for political control, but
that they also fight over language
and symbols. She said that women
of the time are often depicted as
bloodthirsty, cheering executions
with the guillotine, or victims,
widowed by war. "I'm really talk-ing
about thewomen ofthe people,"
she said, "the femmes-sans-cu-lottes."
The use ofwomen in the old
regime, according to Applewhite,
was largely ceremonial. They were
involved in coronations and feast
days. If they were not present, the
monarchy was not considered le-gitimate.
Applewhite then quoted
writers such as Rousseau who
defined the "civic will," which
means that people must put aside
their personal concerns and think
of others. She said the attitude of
the era was that women could be
virtuous citizens privately (i.e.,
raising children for the revolution
and being good wives), but not
publicly.
Professor Applewhite
briefly explained the events of 1789
through 1791, saying that women
were programmed for various roles,
but that later some women de-manded
the right to bear arms. A
few went so far as to say thatwomen
should have guns and drill with the
National Guard. Applewhite called
this a bold statement of women's
ability to put aside private con-cerns.
She used other examples to
point out how people were getting
the notion that everbody should
defend one's country. Applewhite
concluded with the ironic observa-tion
that, in France, women did not
get to vote until 1945.
Professor Applewhite re-ceived
her PhD from Stanford and
now teaches Political Science. She
has been published in the collection
Becoming Honest. Her most re-cent
work, at Oxford, also involved
women and the French Revolu-tion.
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