Illj
Pagre 2
THE BATTALION
College Station, Texas Wednesday, October 20, 1971
CADET SLOUCH
by Jim Earle
Listen up
‘Fowler jocks’
criticized for wisecracks B
“Not only is the posting of grades discriminating, it’s
down right embarrassing!”
An effective senate
Lately the Student Senate has been charged with being a “rubber
stamp” or an organization that exists more as a joke than as a
functioning body.
The Student Senate may very well be a “rubber stamp”
organization as has been charged, though we feel it isn’t. But if it is,
much of the blame rests with the students of this university as well as it
would rest with the members of the Student Senate.
It rests with the students because they don’t supply the input
that the Student Senate requires to be effective. The students don’t
come to the meetings to see what is being done. They don’t know who
their senators are. They don’t know what issues are up before the
Student Senate, much less care.
For any government to be effective, it must have the support of
the people. If the people aren’t concerned, it either becomes a big joke
or it becomes ineffectual for lack of abilitity to implement its ideas
among the people. The same that concerns all forms of government,
concerns the Student Senate^ ^
If you do care about what is or isn’t being done, then get out and
work for a better student government. Go to the meetings, speak with
your senators, show the Student Senate that you want effective
measures and answers. Show them that you know an effective
government is your responsibility.
Editor:
Last Thursday night at the
yell practice, something happened
which is typical of the attitude
of the Fowler jocks.
Now the Fowler jocks are sup
posed to be the elite of the cam
pus, because they represent our
university in athletic competition.
They do a pretty good job of it,
too. But I think that they should
either participate in the yell prac
tice or stay in their rooms. At
least if they are going to watch,
quit making wisecracks. In the
silence that precedes the singing
of “Spirit” some person up their
yelled out “Why don’t you sing
something.” That remark was un
called for and unneeded, especial
ly just before “Spirit.” In case
you’re wondering, I’m a non-reg,
too.
Steve Terry ’74
★ ★ ★
Editor:
I would like to comment on your
editorial “A&M and change.”
This romantic revolution or
mythological movement is won
derful for literature, but first-
class journalism usually is free
of non-fiction.
Change certainly is not new
at A&M. If it were otherwise,
graduates of ten years ago would
recognize more than half of our
“traditions” when they visit our
campus. What is new is that be
fore the past couple of years,
Bulletin Board
Tonight
Solid Waste Committee of
SCOPE meets in room 333 of the
library at 7:30.
Thursday
San Angelo-West Texas Home
town Club meets in room 3C of
the Memorial Student Center at
7:30.
Mid-Jefferson County Home
town Club meets at the Pizza
Inn at 6:30 for pictures for the
Aggieland.
Young Americans for Free
dom will meet in the old city
hall of College Station, 101
Church St., at 7:30 p.m.
Model Airplane Club will meet
in room 201 of the Physics build
ing at 8:30 to collect dues and
hear about free flight models.
Laredo Hometown Club will
meet in room 2B of the Me
morial Student Center at 7:30.
has
Steve Hayes
The
four laws of ecology
Barry Commoner is an inter
nationally recognized ecologist-
scientist who attempts to com
municate his concerns to the pub
lic, as well as the scientific sec
tor. In the Sept. 25, 1971 issue of
The New Yorker (available in the
TAMU library) Commoner pro
poses the four laws of ecology
for the benefit of public educa
tion.
I. Everything Is Connected to
Everything Else.
“The amount of stress an eco
system can absorb before it is
driven to collapse is also a result
of its various interconnections and
relative speeds of response. The
more complex the ecosystem, the
more successful it can resist a
stress . . . Environmental pollution
is often a sign that ecological
links have been cut, and that the
ecosystem has been artifically
simplified and made more vulner
able to stress.”
II. Everything Must Go some
place.
This is simply a revision of a
basic law of physics-matter is in
destructible. “In nature there is
no such thing as waste.” What
we call waste is simply not such
with nature. Everything we dis
pose of affects natural systems,
for better or worse. Commoner
uses mercury as an example of
this second law.
A dry cell battery is used and
thrown out. It is then taken by
the trash man and incinerated.
The heated mercury becomes va
por, and is taken by the wind.
Eventually it returns to the earth
in the form of precipitation. Say
it then enters a lake or river, and
sinks to the bottom. Bacterial
action converts it into methyl
mercury, which is soluble in wa
ter, and it then is taken up in
fish. Because the mercury is not
metabolizable, it is stored in the
organs and flesh of fish. Man
eats the fish, and it is now stored
in man, as a poison. Said simply:
“Nothing goes away; instead it is
transferred from place to place. .”
III. Nature Knows Best.
As might be expected, this law
meets considrable opposition from
those who have always felt that
man’s role on earth is to conquer
nature, rather than to co-exist.
“Stated baldly, this third law of
ecology holds that any major man
made change in a natural system
is likely to be detrimental to that
system . . . the structure of a
present living thing ... or eco
system is likely to be ‘best’ in
the sense that it has been screened
for disadvantageous components
(by time) that any new one is
likely to be worse that the present
ones. “I grant that present con
ditions and methods of industry
make such a process impractical,
yet caution should be used. How
ever, caution is impossible when
billions of pounds of organic sub
stances (man-made) are randomly
disseminated where it can reach
organisms not under our observa
tion . . . “This is precisely what
has been done with detergents,
pesticides, and herbicides.”
IV. There Is No Such Thing As
A Free Lunch.
This is a simple law of econom
ics. Anything extracted from the
Earth by human effort must be
replaced. Nuclear power tells us
“that every environmental incur
sion, whatever its benefits, has
its cost. Air pollution is not
merely a threat to the health. It
is a reminder that our most cele
brated achievements . . . are, in
the envh’onment, costly failures.”
And water pollution has been paid
for with Lake Erie, once a source
of great ecological wealth. To
paraphrase Commoner, pollution
of water is a signal that its
limited, natural self-purifying
cycle has broken down under
stress. Similarly, air pollution is
a signal that we have overloaded
the cleansing capacity of the
weather, and the deterioration of
the soil is a signal that another
system has been overdriven . . .
food is being extracted faster than
the soil is being rebuilt. The ex
pedient answer of adding inor
ganic fertilizer restores the crop
yield, but at the expense of in
creasing pollution.
“In sum, there is something
gravely wrong with the way man
uses the natural resources avail
able to him on earth.”
Cbe Battalion
change in student affairs
been only within the Corps.
You say that the idea of A&M
remaining solely a past-oriented
school and dedicated to the ideas
of ROTC does not make much
sense. It doesn’t because it never
has. A&M has been under con
sistent and constant change for
nearly a hundred years.
About ROTC, Aggie ideals have
probably followed more the ex
ample of “Twelfth Man,” “Cadet
Slouch,” and “Soldier, Statesman,
and Knightly Gentleman” than
those of ROTC manuals. A&M
should not lose the ideals in the
past that has made it great in
the past. It should only lose
things that leave a bitter taste
in our mouths, such as getting
drunk before midnight yell prac
tice, and unrespected and mis
trusted student newspaper editors.
Thucydides said, “He who is
unaware of his past is doomed
to repeat it.”
Last year, civilian students
finally came to the forefront of
student leadership; but, having
forgotten the awareness that
made them leaders, student lead
ership again is in the hands of
the Corps. In fact, things seem
now to be far more reactionary
than revolutionary. Frankly, I am
sick of being caught in the middle
of these disputes between re
actionary and radical. On one
hand we shouldn’t look at the
future with mistrust for fear of
losing the good of the past; and,
on the other hand, shouldn’t
dream of the future in some
mythological romantic ideal of
change. We must instead replace
fear with reason and myths with
reality.
J. William Fulbright wrote,
“What is wanted is not change
itself; what is wanted is the ca
pacity for change.” This capacity
is here and now. Let’s not betray
this heritage; let’s protect it.
Randy Durham ’71
I feel that you have missed the
point of my editorial and, when
you did understand it, misinter
preted it.
I agree that A&M has been
changing consistently throughout
the past, what I said in the edi
torial was that this change we
are currently involved in is going
to be one of the great changes
that this university has gone
through, perhaps the greatest it
will ever go through.
It is not a revolutionary change
in the sense of campus turmoil
on a massive scale or the kind
involving guns and confronta
tions, it is revolutionary in the
amount of change. The revolution
I refer to is the standard diction
ary usage “sudden, radical, or
complete change.” Your comment
about the “romantic revolution”
is ridiculous. Your version is good
for literature, but first class
journalism knows the meanings
of words.
You aren’t caught between re
actionary and radical, at least if
you understand the meaning of
the editorial. If anything, you are
caught between the present and
growth. Growth is the
Growth is what brings theck
Growth implies the loss of (
things mentioned in the edit,]
There is no betraying 0 f
heritage, there is the chaJ
it brought about by gro
Read Battalion Classified
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