L
О
S
•
A
n
g
e 1
l e
s
LOYOLAN
VOL. 7 1 • NO. 7 LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY October 6, 1 993
Bernita Walker-Moss Speaks About Respect
Claims Lack of Respect for Self, Others
is Root of Current Societal Problems
By Damon Garcia
Assistant News Editor
She did not want to use a micro
phone. Bernita Walker-Moss
wanted to talk with and not at the
crowd that gathered at St. Robert’s
Auditorium on September 29th.
The event sponsored by the
ASLMU and St. Robert’s is one in a
series of Town Hall Meetings de¬
signed to allow the audience to
interact witha speaker who deals
with the issues concerning us to¬
day.
The entire seating arrangement
had been altered in St. Roberts to
permit her to address a circular
forum which would allow her to in¬
teract with great facility to her lis¬
teners.
“The reason that ASLMU wanted
to co-sponsor this Town Hall with
Bernita Walker-Moss in conjunc¬
tion with St. Robert’s Auditorium is
that it is a better way to promote
higher education and student
awareness and to create dialogue
on issues of respect and men and
women. St. Robert’s Auditorium,
through their Town Hall Series, is
helping with ASLMU to contribute
to bring about that awareness,” re¬
marked ASLMU President Frances
Young.
Walker-Moss is a renowned
speaker who works in South Cen¬
tral L. A. battling domestic violence.
In the course of her discussions,
she is very candid about revealing
personal and intimate details re¬
garding her own experiences with
domestic violence.
Walker-Moss began the Town
Hall by coaxing a definition of do¬
mestic violence from the crowd.
She noted that one of the primary
sources of domestic violence arises
from a lack of respect. “It has to do
with respect for yourself and re¬
spect for each other.”
“One thing that I have found out,
and those who are experts in the
field can tell you, is that it is the
basis for all the problems we are
having in oursociety today,” Walker-
Moss noted.
In detailing her explanation of
domestic violence, she recounted
her own tale of a former husband
who had stolen three televisions
and three VCRs in the course of a
year to finance his dependency af¬
ter he used a crow bar to rip off the
protective security bars she had
placed over the entrances to her
home.
“He could never understand how
I could keep coming back and com¬
ing back. I am a survivor,” she
declared.
According to Walker-Moss, do¬
mestic violence can encompass
verbal abuse, mental abuse, self
abuse (such as overeating to es¬
cape a horrible situation), sexual
abuse (which can occur especially
in married couples), drug and alco¬
hol abuse (even if it is someone
else using, you are still being
abused by these substances), and
any other demeaning device which
does not allow for a mutual rela¬
tionship to occur.
The event was attended largely
by the Greek system’s new pledges
as part of a pledge education and
information night.
Lisa Piumetti, Associate Director
of Student Life was primarily re¬
sponsible for the attendance of new
pledges attending the T own Hall as
part of their education and informa¬
tion night.
Every semester, Piumetti spon-
Middle East Peace
Plan Discussed at LMU
Bernita Walker- Moss spoke to an audience in St. Robert's Auditorium
about respect and domestic violence. The discussion was one in
which members of the audience were expected to participate actively.
sors a similar event for the Greek
system. “I think what makes her
effective is that she’s real. She’s
not a public speaker. "
She continued, "She is some¬
one who lives by her values. She’s
not politically correct. When she
talks about self-respect, she talks
directly to men and directly to
women. She’ll talk about how you
dress, how you carry yourself and
that yes, it does matter. That makes
a lot of people uncomfortable.
"Do not expect people to have
respect for you if you do not re¬
spect yourself,” Piumetti said.
By Kent Janicarik
Staff Writer
Peace in the Middle East?
Four Loyola Marymount Uni¬
versity faculty members participated
in a Middle East forum entitled Pros¬
pects for Peace, sponsored by
ASLMU in St. Robert’s Auditorium
on T uesday September 28. Partici¬
pants included Dr. Joseph Jabbra,
Academic Vice President; Dr. Omar
Es-Said, Mechanical Engineering;
Dr. Arthur Gross-Schaeffer, Busi¬
ness Law; and Dr. Dirk Verheyen,
Political Science, who acted as the
moderator of the discussion.
The main purpose of the forum
was to compare the Palestinian and
Israeli viewpoints on the recent vola¬
tile changes in the Middle East.
Verheyen opened the forum by
exclaiming, “The Verheyen world is
excited about the present, hopeful
for the future, but with sorrow for the
bloodshed and tears in that region
of the world.”
Jabbra continued, by stating the
significance of the Israel-PLO ac¬
cord; “There is no doubt in my mind
that the accord between Israel and
the PLO was a major breakthrough,
equal to, if not surpassing, the im¬
portance of the Camp David Ac¬
cords.”
Jabbra also mentioned the risks
to peace and stability in the Middle
East region. The question of Jerusa¬
lem, the threat of assassinations
and the role of Syria were all men¬
tioned as possible “powder-kegs”
that could inflame the peace pro¬
cess.
Es-Said began by illustrating the
significance and importance of sta¬
bility: ‘The issue is, how can we
both live with one another? If peace
happens, then stability will follow.”
Gross-Schaeffer was the final
panelist to speak. He spoke of the
threat that change poses to those
who may attempt to derail the peace
process. “A lot of people can only
look back. If they keep looking back,
they will never look forward. I am
fearful that there will be a lot of
deaths. There will be attempts to
destroy the peace process, but we
need to move forward.”
After each panelist had ad¬
dressed their side of the issue, the
floor was opened to questions from
the audience.
The audience addressed issues
ranging from the relative strengths
of the PLO and Hamas to the pros¬
pects for bloodshed and the current
role of the Israeli Likud party.
However Jabbra concluded with
a plead for peace in the region for
the sake of the children: “It has
been one hundred years. Enough
bloodshed, enough tears."
He conlcuded, "These children
must enjoy life and must make sure
that they are given peace. If this
accord is to be successful, they
need the help of the other Arab
countries.”
Clinton Speaks in Culver City
Addresses
Drug Costs,
By Lynn Segas
News Editor
President Clinton ended a two-
day trip to Los Angeles yester-
. day with promises to continue his
current crusade on health care.
He talked about a letter he re¬
ceived from a man named Jim
Heffernan who volunteers at a hos¬
pice in Florida . The letter he re¬
ceived read, “I can recall one pa¬
tient who was in tears and shaking
because the hospital in her home¬
town had placed the balance of her
medical charges in the hands of a
collection agency and wrote that
she might be sent to jail for failure to
pay her hospital bill. This kind of
senseless action on an elderly, ter¬
minal widow is unforgivable.”
Clinton responded by saying:
“Stories like this need to be told
over and over again in the halls of
the nation’s Capital, until, finally,
we get action. Our plan will improve
what is great about our health care
system: the quality of our doctors
Health Care,
Medicare
and nurses, the depth of our re¬
search and our technological ad¬
vance: those things will not be in¬
terrupted. This plan has a lot of
aspects which actually strengthen
the quality of the American Health
Care system, strengthen the stream
of funds going to medical research
to deal with the whole range of
problems that now confront us —
everything from Al DS to Alzheimer’s
to various kinds of cancer.”
The audience questioned the
health care plan regarding Medi¬
care. Clinton responded: ‘The only
thing we’re increasing [budget ex¬
penditures on], except for the cost
of living in retirement programs, is
Medicare and Medicaid. Everything
else is declining or frozen.”
Next, the concern was brought
up that many older Americans could
not afford prescription drugs.
The President responded, “We
have sought and received assur¬
ances [for cost containment] from
’many of the drug companies that
develop many of the newly devel¬
oped drugs. It costs a fortune to
develop a new drug and bring it to
market. And we all know that they
have to be priced at very high levels
early on.”
According to Clinton, because
there are price controls on drugs in
other countries, American suppli¬
ers must sell drugs for less than the
price in the United States. But be¬
cause they can sell in greater quan¬
tities in foreign countries, they can
make more of a profit.
Clinton expressed his rage. “It’s
just not right. But a number of the
drug companies, to be fair to them,
have come forward and said, ‘while
you’re implementing this program,
we’ll keep our cost increases to
inflation,”’ Clinton emphasized.
In closing, Clinton commented:
“Number one, I am not interested in
having this become a partisan, po¬
litical issue. I am grateful to the
Republican Senator from Vermont,
Jim Jeffors, for announcing that he
intends to be a cosponsor of our
initiative. That’s the kind of thing we
need more of — working together.
“Number two, we’ve got to keep
working on making this [program]
better, [as] other countries [have],
but you have to keep working every
year. But that’s why we’ve built this
in a phased-in fashion, so that the
more we learn, the more we can
make adjustments and the more we
can make improvements.”
