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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1993)
STUDENT TRAVEL 1800777 0112 27/ THE WORLDS LARGEST STUDENTS YOUTH TRAVEL ORGANIZATION. STA TRAVEL Renne's Nails etc. Full set Acrylic Nails $15.00 Refills $15.00 764-5988 The Battalion CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING • Easy • Affordable • Effective Call Laura For More Information 845-0569 Follow The Road To Success Attend The Fall 1993 STUDENT ORGANIZATION OFFICER WORKSHOP Now Is The Time For You to Learn Everything You Need To Know About Running A Successful Organization Dexter "Erica" 'Texas at George Bush" Mon. - Sat.: 9:30 - 6:00 Page 10 The Battalion Wednesday, September 15,1993 If youTe too drunk to drive, don't try walking Hurrah for the College Station Police De partment, for they have saved the day: glean ing our streets in search of pedestrians who do not stride gracefully. Thanh God John Wayne never lived here for, if he had, he would have most certainly been incarcerated on innumer able occasions for his menacing swagger. That's right! The College Station Police Department has now made it an implicit rule that walking while intoxicated (WWI) — or even while being "buzzed" — is an offense punishable by incarceration. Why is this? Are real criminals not to be found? Or are defenseless pedestrians who amble slowly easier targets for exploitation than a driver defended by tons of steel? Whatever the case, the plans we now all have for spending weekend nights at the bar must be permanently altered in order to conform to this new "law." These new plans include either a) remain ing at home for a "closet classic" in which we drink alone since everyone else is at bars or dance clubs on Friday night or b) expunge the idea of ever getting drunk or even enjoy ing any of the feeling that a few alcoholic beverages might impart on us. Gone are the days when walking home from a bar was considered permissible: walk there, but don't plan on coming back. In my case, a person who was quietly walking back to his home — who had al ready covered the distance from Kyle Field to the corner of Boyett and Church streets without stumbling once, who was within 100 yards of his front door, who had walked the whole time a full yard from even the edge of the street while crossing the street only when necessary — is to be "saved from himself" by the heroes in blue. Forget the fact that I was able to hold my hands to my side while holding one leg in the air and counting backwards from 30 to 0 while only touching my foot to the ground once. Forget that I was able to hold my head back while closing my eyes without losing my balance. This is irrelevant. What is relevant is the easy revenue that the College Station Police Department hopes to accrue by fleecing unwitting pedestrians of their plentiful supply of liquid assets. Are we to abandon the good faith attempt to walk when we are too drunk to drive home? Are we to hire our own private chauffeur to shuttle us to and from a bar every time we wish to drink? This may sound extreme, but what options are left open to us if we are deprived of the option of walking when we are too drunk to drive? Jeff O'Brien Class of'94 Stanford: A genius or just plain senseless? Either columnist Frank Stanford is so bril liant that his musings are way over my head, or he simply makes no sense. In his Sept. 2 column, he claims that "aside from hurting or stealing from other people, there really is no right or wrong." He then concludes that "we must decide amongst ourselves what is right and wrong." Now, I'm no philosophy graduate major, but this argument seems pretty inconsistent to me. If there are no normative standards of right and wrong, how are we supposed to decide? Sure, controversies over morality will al ways be with us, but that does not mean that nobody can be right or wrong. If we abandon our quest for knowing what is good and just and accept every ethical theory as equal, then any idea of a good and just society is ren dered meaningless. Just because something is immoral does not mean it should be necessarily illegal, but in the absence of normative standards, we cannot make any judgments concerning what is good and just. By these relativistic standards, we cannot say that the United States is more just now than when discrimination based on race or gender was sanctioned by law. Surely this offends our common sensibili ties. Yet, Frank Stanford's argument leads us directly to this conclusion. James E. Paiolikozvski Class of'96 Multiculturalism gives us opportunity to grow One of the miracles of the human spirit is the fact that it has been endowed with a cer tain amount of control over the degree of its own mental and social betterment. Too, the tools used to achieve that enhancement are learned or inherently instilled in it: action, appreciation and education. However, one of the saddest testimonies to the waning of the human spirit can be seen when one deliberately chooses not to seek that which may enrich him or her. Those humans who choose to educate themselves, to appreciate things new and for eign, and to act or react positively toward others in their environment cannot also har bor anger in ignorance against the opportuni ty to elevate and expand themselves and the world around them. The newly resolved multicultural require ment passed this summer by the Liberal Arts Council presents an opportunity to grow and is no way a cultivator of bigotry — except, perhaps, to those who cringe solely in reac tion to the title of the course or to the color of a neighbor's skin. This human knows that those responsible for the introduction and development of the new requirements for the College of Liberal Arts are each personally dedicated to this university and its students; they would not impose a certain "political" point of view on a body of freethinking people when they themselves seek to learn, appreciate and act. And, if nothing else, this world of human spirits can be better understood through knowledge gained in these courses, rather than through the rallying of ignorance. Jeannine L. Walton Class of 95 Open minds will make A&M the best it can be Guess what? I'm graduating in Decem ber... Whoop! After two majors and six and a half years, but who's counting (other than Ma and Pa)? Anyway, I've seen a lot of opinions and arguments float through The Battalion in my time, and I'd like to share some of the knowl edge I've gleaned over the years. Basically, it boils down to this: every opinion, however narrow-minded and shal low it is, deserves to be heard. You don't have to agree with it, you don't have to like it, but do try to open yourself to new ideas. It's fine to disagree. Just remember, every well thought out opinion has at least a kernel of truth in its core. I know I'm waxing philosophical, but if you can try to see that truth, you might be able to see how the other person arrived at his/her opinion. Maybe it's because of their roots or something they experienced in their past. You might even be able to learn some thing about yourself in the process. This is a huge university with students and faculty from all over the world — each with their own experiences and beliefs. Our religions and pasts tend to mold and change us, for better or worse. All I'm trying to say is, don't close out new ideas simply because they aren't kosher with what you feel. If you question your be liefs, they might become stronger, or you might find that you have some reconsidering to do. However, I still refuse to eat octopus, or pretty much any mollusk. Go figure. One final thought: is it really desirable to be a world-class university? The world as I see it has some very serious flaws. The Earth is polluted, overcrowded, with rich countries suffering from obesity and poor countries suffering from starvation. People hurt, kill and take advantage of each other with no care for the consequences. I'd rather set my own path, as Robert Frost wrote. Let's just make Texas A&M the best damn school we can, and maybe someday more people will choose to emulate us, rather than some mythical "world class" university. Terry Carol Class of‘93 We don't know MM T-8HIBT8. $15 Show your pride, Aggie style, Dillard’s how good we have it at A&M I've always been amazed at how much some Aggies take for granted. They com plain about things like 8:00 classes and professors that give quizzes, never realizing how lucky we all are. No matter who you are, if you are at this university, you have it better than a very large percentage of others, in cluding all your friends back home who didn't make it to college or couldn't afford it. And that doesn't even include people in other countries where food, shelter, safety and freedom are things they can sometimes only dream about. This has always bothered me, but this past morning as I was getting tickets for the Missouri game, it finally went too far. While standing in line, I could hear conversations all around me — Aggies bad- mouthing our football team. Give me a break! One regular season loss in three years to a damn good team in their stadium when three starters were already hurt and two weren't allowed to play. Sure the score was bad, but with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, we still could have won. As shown by Thomas' big run in that quarter, the Ags were still playing with a whole lot of guts. Yea, I was disappointed. I was mad, and we won't get any respect for a while, but we are still all Aggies. In fifty years, I won't re member 44-14; I'll just re member that I'm proud to be a Fightin' Texas Aggie and that we had a damn good football team. Martin Carcasson Class of '94 Vol. 93 No. 1 Gee Forme: to esta The As AUSTIN • eldest son of and general Rangers bast day moved c 1994 guberna While stoj mal declaral pers with th< mission estal committee tl for tne Repi March. "I will run mitment to T Carl E. C A&M, spt LSU A&J The Te System Be pected to meeting a versity of Texas A& grams, A& Dr. C. rent vice c *c affairs will assu v ice char A&M l (TAMUS) of Engine Universit Texas En : Station or re gents' ci Systen H. Mobl Stu A new f tempting t< among Bn d ents is in' fiext spring Maps i grams) i s , ab out diffe educationa director of developme Gonzalt Planning « b e done. SHOP DILLARD’S MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY 10:00 - 9:00; SUNDAY 12:00 - 6:00; DILLARD’S AND ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS WELCOME