Group Goes to the Wall Over...

The Young Americans for Freedom chapter at San Diego State University has turned its ideological ire on dormitory murals of Mao, Castro, Krushchev and Brezhnev.

YAFers want the walls at Zura Hall either painted over or revamped to show the four communist leaders “as the despots and butchers they were.”

A petition is being passed among Zura Hall residents, and the issue has reached the ears of the administrators in charge of student housing. At last count, 36 of 65 students living on the third floor with the Mao mural had signed the petition.

“The murals are a total distortion of history,” said YAF activist Ian Stewart Pacey, 20, a sophomore majoring in political science. “Mao executed 800,000 people, but he’s put on a pedestal on the mural. If they won’t paint over the wall, maybe they should put a stack of dead bodies behind Mao to represent his handiwork.”

The mural flap is the second recent controversy involving a YAF effort to unmask what its members see as a leftward tilt at SDSU.

A month ago, YAF members distributed flyers critical of a political science professor. That earned the group a rebuke from the administration for violating campus rules about distributing handbills in a classroom.

Along with the four communist leaders and two unidentified Soviet generals, the murals, painted in the mid-1970s, also depict Churchill, John Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a display known as the Forum.

“If it upsets the vast majority of students, I think we’d be willing to paint them over, or at least provide a forum to air out people’s feelings,” said Jeffrey Urdahl, associate director of housing and residential life at SDSU.

Janice Hayes, a Zura resident and president of the Residence Hall Assn., said YAF is distorting the intent of the murals.

“To just leave the American heroes up and take down the others would be losing the whole point of a forum of ideas,” said Hayes, 20, a senior majoring in public administration. “To leave off one extreme is like brainwashing--saying there is only one way to think.”

Not so, says the YAF, which promises to press on.

“We’ve only just begun,” said YAF member Ken Balderama, 19, a sophomore majoring in philosophy.

He Just Said ‘No’

Joshua Nash is only 9 years old, but he knew what to do when a tall man with a spot on his face offered him drugs at a park near Adams Elementary School in Normal Heights.

“I told him no, and then I ran away,” said Joshua. Not only that, he called the 911 emergency number, which allowed police to make a quick arrest of a local high school student.

“Drugs can make you crazy and make you do bad in school,” Joshua said. “I had a friend in Illinois who was 5. He did drugs and he died. I remember that.”

The teen-age pusher allegedly offered the fourth-grader a free introductory deal.

“He said I could have this thing, this brown cigarette thing, and if I wanted any more he’d be around the school,” Joshua said. “Before he came up to me, I saw him with a lot of kids, and some were taking things from him. He wore a jean jacket and looked cool.”

On Thursday, Joshua was honored with an award from Police Chief Bob Burgreen at a special assembly at Birney Elementary. He also received tickets to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Padres game of his choice.