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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 27, 1979)
Viewpoint The Battalion Tuesday Texas A&M University , March 27, 1979 Readers Forums —— ; ■ Women or men first By SANDRA ENGLERT This article was not written to question the right of the Waggies to be in the Corps of Cadets — this issue has already been decided. The question has come to whether or not women can use their hard-earned equality to totally disrupt and alienate a predominantly male organization, thus reducing their equality and trying to express some type of superiority — which is nonexistent. In the light of recent events, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the Waggies’ desire to become equal and their desire to become superior. Femininity is not a weapon, nor should it be used as such. Many Waggies have gained an arrogance through their experiences in the Corps and are now demand ing rights without responsibilities. These rights include wearing of senior boots as a junior, despite the fact that the responsibilities that accompany wearing boots have not yet been met. Juniors (in the Corps) do not wear senior boots — regardless of their sex. Another example of unlairness can be seen in the dress requirements of members of the Corps. Waggies have the right to wear non-military clothes to on-campus formal events, although their male counterparts are denied this right. These examples may seem petty to people unacquainted with the Corps tradi tion, but little irritants such as these are the basis for the building of extreme prejudices. The Waggies are eager for acceptance, an acceptance that is growing just as Texas A&M is growing. Growing pains cause grievances in many areas, and aggra vation of this pain can only stunt growth. Women and students not living on the quad cannot possibly see the Waggies problems in the same light as the actual inhabitants of the Corps area. Having lived on the quad for two years, I have observed that the gradual acceptance of the Waggies is slowly turning to total alienation with the firm aid of Ms. Melanie Zentgraf. Men recognize that women are moving into their proper niche in society, and competition for jobs and positions will be composed of both males and females. The struggle for honored positions within the Corps is especially intense, and women cannot expect men to decrease the intensity with which they pursue their goals just because their competition includes females. The Corps is a conservative institution with high honor and reputation. It is unwise to destroy this institution through impatience to gain selfisn ends. NOTE: This letter does not address the issue of whether women should be admitted into traditionally men’s organizations within the Corps. That issue should be decided without interference of those who have not thoroughly studied the problem and possible solutions. The question at hand deals with whether Ms. Zentgraf is honestly concerned with advancement of women. As this issue develops, it seems to be increasingly apparent that Ms. Zentgraf is perhaps seeking a personal notoriety to achieve her own ends, regardless of the consequences. Sandra Englert is a sophomore microbiology major. Sticker ‘caste* here By G.S. ELISSALDE It is time to rebel against the tyranny of the Stickers! Three castes of stickers have been unequally created and without much common sense. Those of the Yellow Caretaker Sticker Caste park in clearly delineated lots, close to offices where they “work.” This is an obvious violation of good physical and mental health standards. Physicians tell us there is a direct relationship between physical ill health and aging that moderate exercise by the older person is necessary to maintain a semblance of physical fitness. It would seem reasonable to establish Yellow Sticker Parking lots at the perimeter of the campus thereby forcing the old folks to walk. The situation with respect to Rainbow Parking Sticker Caste (e.g. students) is the opposite. The young people are clearly in excellent physical health as anyone can plainly see by their after-school activities — that is, soccer, baseball and basketball games and their beautiful physiques. Indeed, they should be allowed to park in the innermost recesses of the campus in order to be optimally close to their classrooms. They don’t need the physical exercise and they do need the extra time to sleep in order to recover from the “night before.” The Brown Sticker Caste, the backbone of this University and the eight to lifers, are the most inequitably taxed and parked group of all. The Brown Sticker Caste, composed of staff (technicians, etc.) and poorer, lower-on-the-totem-pole faculty members, are, by and large, the most mobile group. Every day they go to stores, the library, Memorial Student Center or other office building where they buy supplies, beg, borrow or appropriate equipment and confer with colleagues. If they aspire to Yellow Sticker Status, they take classes, teach classes and do SCIENCE. All of which means they must park their cars at various sites during various times of the day. Pity the Baleful Brown Party Sticker who must come onto the campus from the provinces (e.g. from across the tracks). There is no place to park at random parking places on campus, thereby forcing them to sneak into a Yellow Caste Parking slot. The Brown Parking Sticker ought to be allowed to park anywhere at any time because, for the most part, they won’t be in the slot for long since they have so many jobs to do. G.S. Elissalde is a staff member at Texas A&M. The same old question By ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International WASHINGTON — Americans are pleased about the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and their part, through Jimmy Car ter, in getting it accomplished. To the na tional pysche, playing a major role in a peace settlement is the morale-bolstering equivalent of winning a war. But as has been said repeatedly in re cent weeks. Carter’s foreign policy accom plishments aren’t going to get him re elected next year. He surely knows that, and it is of some significance that on his return from the Middle East, he turned immediately to the domestic problems that do cast a shadow over his second term prospects. There are plenty of those problems, but none are more central to his political fu ture than inflation and energy. If prices continue to rise at near double-digit rates and if oil products be comes both scarce and prohibitively ex pensive this spring and summer. Carter will be vulnerable both to challenge from within his own party and to a strong Re publican candidate in the fall of 1980. In these areas. Carter needs two things to put himself in the traditional strong po sition of an incumbent seeking re-election. First, he must be able to point to some kind of progress in stemming inflation. Abstruse economic indicators will not do; he must have something to show ordinary people that prices have gone down or held steady. Second, he needs enough oil without huge price increases to get the country through the next year without serious dis ruption of the life styles Americans con sider normal. Carter recognized these needs earher and tried to do something about them. The vital question is whether the pro grams he put in place in the first two years of his term will pay off in the third and fourth years. He expended an immense amount of political capital in getting Congress to pass an energy program in 1977-78. Whether the tattered package that emerged from that battle can solve any part of the na tion’s energy problems remains unproved. It is possible that the program, even if practical, cannot deliver any political divi dend in time to help Carter’s political for tunes this year. If that is the case, it could hurt him very badly. In the anti-inflation battle, he took the risk of. igniting a full scaled liberal revolt by holding down his 1980 budget for social programs and sticking to a voluntary pro gram of wage and price restraints. If there is no sign of slackening price increases or if wage settlements bust the C ommentary guidelines wide open in the next few months, both Carter’s anti-inflation pro gram and second term prospects are in jeopardy. There were suggestions that Carter would have improved his leadership image even had the peace treaty effort failed, al though obviously there was more to gain from success. Good intentions and courage in pursuing them are to some extent their own reward in foreign relations, according to this theory. But no one thinks Carter can get off the inflation and energy hooks simply by giving them it his best shot. It is the voter’s pocketbook and the voter’s car that are at stake in these areas, and the operative question is, once again, ‘What have you done for me lately? Writing, the editor The Battalion welcomes letters to the editor on any subject. However, to be acceptable for publication these letters must meet certain criteria. They should: yf Not exceed 300 words or 1800 characters in length. V Be neatly typed whenever possible. Hand-written letters are acceptable. Include the author’s name, ad-, dress and telephone number for verification. Letters to the editor are printed as a service to our readers. Publication of a letter is never guaranteed. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters to remove grammatical er rors and to avoid litigation. Address letters to the editor to: Letters to the Editor The Battalion Room 216 Reed McDonald Building College Station, Texas 77843 Letters to the Editor Students beware: Senate tuition bills costly Editor: The Texas Legislature has introduced several major bills which directly affect college students. For example, faculty tenure, students on governing boards, and fee increases to name a few. One impor tant area of concern at this time is fee in creases. Specifically, Sen. Andujar (R-Fort Worth) has sponsored a bill to increase tui tion fees for undergraduates from $4 to $6 per semester hour and the minimum of $50 raised to $80 per semester. There are several reasons we should op pose Senate Bill 920. First, 73% of the stu dents at Texas A&M live off-campus and are compelled to deal with the rising costs at the grocery store and the increasing rates of rent and utilities. Therefore, an additional $60 per school year could possi bly affect a student’s opportunity to attend Texas A&M. Second, insufficient attention has been given to the additional fees students pay and their increases. Instead, a collective view of fee increases must be considered before suggesting raising tuition. Third, and most important, our right of representation is being endangered in this case. Sen. Bill Moore has stated that he will support a raise in tuition but has has not given enough consideration to the stu dents who would be affected by this in crease. To emphasize Sen. Moore’s view on tui tion one need only look at SB 396. This bill, sponsored by Sen. Moore (D-Bryan) and Sen. Blake (D-Nacogdoches), would raise graduate student tuition fees from $4 to $12 per semester hour, a $300 increase. This action, plus his statement of support for an undergraduate tuition increase, leaves us without a voice in the Senate unless we strongly state our opposition of SB 920. I urge you to write either your home district senator or Sen. Moore concerning SB 290. These letters are our major source of input for tuition raises so I encourage you to take an active part in addressing this issue. —Cheryl Swanzy, 82 To catch a thief Editor: If I wanted to steal a car; I would do it at the post office near Sbisa. Almost everytime I go by there, there is at least I guess most people think they will only be in there a second a car theft could never happen to them. But beware, statistics say it will. I know you may think it’s a little bit of a bother, but we must each do our part to fight the war on crime — before we be- Legislative affairs director for student one car with the keys left in it, and many come victims, government, external affairs committee with the motor still running. —Hans K. Hansen, ’82 Thotz By Doug Graham WV-y 4 odor'?/ can't you be a V normal WUv X should »Vt pay^os mucVj rent ftcvf Ur Top of the News CAMPUS Silver Taps to he held tonight Silver Taps ceremonies for Wendy Kathryn Waterman and John Robert McCord are set for tonight at 10:30. The students were killed in an auto accident early Friday morning on the East Bypass. Waterman was a freshman biomedical science major from Richardson and McCord a senior biochemistry major from San Antonio. STATE Slayer s appeal cost help asked Leo Burnett of Beaumont has paid $20,000 and deeded 92 acres of land to attorneys who unsuccessfully defended his wife against a capi tal murder charge, and he claims he has no money to pay the cost of the condemned killer’s automatic appeal. Burnett has asked District Judge Larry Gist to declare Linda May Burnett indigent so the state of Texas will pay for the appeal of her conviction and death sentence for taking part in a boyfriend’s slaying plot against five former in-laws, Mrs. Burnett was convicted two weeks ago and then last week sen tenced to death for the Fourth of July weekend slaying of a 2-year-old boy last year. NATION New York bomb injures four A bomb in a flight bag about to be loaded aboard a TWA jet at Kennedy airport in New York exploded Sunday night, slightly injur ing four baggage handlers. Hours later, bomb blasts rocked two New Jersey buildings in neighborhoods populated by Cuban refugees. A caller to United Press International early Monday claimed all three bombings were the work of the anti-Castro terrorist group Omega?. He said the bombs were to protest tourist flights from the United States to Cuba. Teamsters to vote on strike soon Teamsters Union President Frank Fitzsimmons has called for 300,000 truck drivers and warehousemen in locals around the country to vote during the weekend on a possible strike. “I would be greatly surprised if it (the strike option) were disapproved,” union spokes man Bernard Henderson said. “Members usually give their bargain ers authority to call a strike fairly easily.” The union’s three-year contract with the trucking industry expires at midnight Saturday. A strike could cripple the nation’s transportation industry. NEA says strike not weakening Baton Rouge school board officials Monday hailed the return to class of 131 striking teachers and more than 4,000 students as the first break in an 11-day walkout that had cut parish-wide attendance to 20 percent of normal. Strike coordinators from the National Association of Educators rejected the school board claims as false. NEA spokes woman Lou Jackson said strike picket captains reported 2,375 teachers “on the line” Monday morning, for an increase of 36 over Friday. “Our official stance is that the school board officials are fab ricating the truth,” Jackson said. Governor says Passman ‘used 9 Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards told a federal court jury in Monroe Monday he “used” former Rep. Otto Passman, D-La., to promote the marketing of surplus United States rice in South Korea. Edwards, a congressman for seven years until he became governor in 1972, in troduced Passman to South Korean rice dealer Tongsun Park in 1970 so that Passman might continue his efforts to sell additional U.S. rice to the Far East. Passman, 78, was defeated in 1976 after 30 years in Congress, most as an ardent foe of excessive foreign aid. He was accused of conspiring to accept $213,000 from Park in exchange for using his clout in arranging additional sales of U.S. rice to Korea. WORLD Arafat vows to avenge treaty Yasser Arafat vowed in Beirut Monday to avenge the Israeli- Egyptian peace treaty and said he would “chop off’ Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s hands. Arafat, in his speech to a class of new Palestinian guerrilla recruits, said peace in the Middle East cannot be bought with American dollars. “President Carter, Sadat and Begin should know that time is on our side, we will revenge," Arafat told the cheering crowd. “I want Carter, Begin and Sadat to know that no one can burn our fingers. Begin should know that I will chop off his hands,” Arafat said. Iraq asks 24% oil price increase In Geneva Monday Iraq asked for an immediate 24 percent in crease in the price of oil because of the cutbacks in Iranian production but Saudi Arabia sought to keep the increases at the 3.8 percent schedule set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Only about 55 percent of the oil from OPEC nations is being sold at the agreed prices and, in some cases, a barrel of oil costs as much as $19.50 rather than the “official” OPEC price of $13.34. WEATHER Partly cloudy skies and warmer temperatures with a high in the low 80’s and a low of 56. Winds will be S.S.E. at 10-15 m.p.h. The Battalion LETTERS POLICY | Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and are subject to being cut to that length or less if longer. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does not guarantee to publish any letter. Each letter must be signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone number for verification. Address correspondence to Letters to the Editor, The * Battalion, Room 216, Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77843. Represented nationally by National Educational Adver tising Services, Inc., New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday from September through May except during exam and holiday periods and the summer, when it is published on Tuesday through Thursday. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester; $33.25. per school year; $35.00 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 216, Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusively to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it. Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. Second-Class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congreu Editor Kifflf Managing Editor Assistant Managing Editor .Andy"^ Sports Editor David ^ City Editor Scott Pe 1 ® Campus Editor Ste' ( News Editors Debbie P^ Beth Calhoun Staff Writers Karen Rogen, Patterson, Sean Petty, ^ Blake, Dillard Stone Bragg, Lyle Lovett, Taylor Cartoonist Dougw* 1 Photo Editor Lee Roy LescM , Photographer Lynn 8* ; Focus section editor Gar)’* [• . Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the . University administration or the Board of Regents. The Battalion is a non- prA- supporting enterprise operated l>!l il!l ; as a university and community netirf Editorial policy is determined by the