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Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
June 13, 1977
Monday
Council practices
The College Station City Council has approved an ordinance which
makes it illegal for any person or firm to sell, distribute or display porno
graphic materials to minors. But what the council wants and what it gets
may be two far different things.
From the outset, let there be no doubt that parents have a right to
expect protection for their children from the gutter smut that some mer
chants do not hesitate to display openly. And children, young children,
have a right to be spared the psychological confusion such porno material
can cause.
But the council seems to have gotten more than bargained for or
needed.
Under the ordinance a person could be fined up to $200 per day for
selling, distributing, or displaying pornographic materials to a minor, or
for having such materials for those purposes. That would include display
of porno materials on display racks in stores open to the general public.
Pornographic materials defined in the ordinance include those showing
sexual conduct or organs or a woman’s breasts. These materials also in
clude those offensive to the adult community in respect to minors or
without literary, scientific or other value to minors.
The council seems to have lost track of its original intent.
The pornography issue, when first brought up before the council, con
cerned only the display of such materials. The city fathers were then
speaking in terms of greater restrictions on the display of porno material,
possibly requiring brown paper wrappers over the covers of such
porno overkill
magazines. Such a requirement would be fairly simple to enforce, easy to
understand and quite effective.
But the present ordinance goes to great length to cover all possible
situations where porno magazines and minors may meet. That length may
well be its undoing.
The ordinance says someone may not display the “harmful materials’’ to
minors. But it does not specify how someone such as a convenience store
manager, may keep such materials. Behind the counter? Under the
counter? If “adult magazines” are on the counter but something hides
their racy covers, are the magazines “on display?”
It will also be difficult for such store owners to determine what is
“patently offensive” to adults thinking of their children. And who among
them will define what is “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific
value for minors?”
Such definitions will come only in court, as City Attorney Neeley Lewis
has already conceded. A court of law is the place for final judgement on
violations of law, not for rewording confusing laws that should have been
made clear and precise before becoming law.
And how is the ordinance going to be enforced? With city police in
specting the magazine racks in local stores and making their own deci
sions on what is and isn’t legal material, and on what is and isn’t legally
displayed? Or will the police issue a monthly bulletin on which magazines
and books are legal for display? That prospect is mind-boggling and more
than a little quite frightening.
All for want of a brown paper wrapper.
Downtown from here
!• Another local newspaper has just completed a series of articles and
; editorials on the problems, importance and hopes of the downtown Bryan
business district. Now seems a good time for us to include some thoughts
of our own.
There has been a downtown Bryan since the late 1800s. It is an area of
hallowed business traditions, long-established stores and continuity. It
was the hub of Bryan mercantilism for so long that it still seems caught in
that earlier time.
But the growth patterns in Bryan and College Station have changed.
Since the beginning of its meteoric growth in recent years, Texas A&M
' University has been the number one boost to local growth and business.
; Where once Bryan and College Station grew separately, they have now
; grown together. Certainly the University is not the only force affecting
business and development in these communities. But it is the dominant
; force, the force to be reckoned with.
; And much of downtown Bryan’s trouble has come from a determined
independence that many store managers and shop owners still fiercely
' defend. They still think of College Station as “out at the college” rather
than down the street. Theirs’ is still the separate, the old Bryan. It will
stay that way — separate and old — as long as their thinking does.
• Of course downtown has a healthy number of young, aggressive busi-
• nessmen who see the trends of today and the future. Much of downtown
‘ Bryan’s hope rest with them and their ability to set the course for
• downtown’s future. : . ..
Bryan-College Station has become joined. Add Texas A&M to that
combination and keep it there and all three will prosper.
Philosophy, operations uncoordinated
\ Weakness appearing
Slouch by Jim Earle
TS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS POOL THAT
MAKES YOU NERVOUS?”
in Carter’s armor
By DAVID S. BRODER
\ WASHINGTON — From three senior
administrative appointees, from a White
House consultant, from a key-state Carter
Campaign chairman, from a long-time stu
dent of Carter’s leadership and from an
experienced foreign observer, this re
porter has heard expressions of concern in
(he past couple weeks about a “gap” in
Jimmy Carter’s armor.
- Some see it as a personal shortcoming,
some as a failure in organization, some as a
political blind spot. But essentially what
(ill of them are discussing is Carter’s inabil
ity to make a consistent connection be
tween the philosophy and the day-to-day
operations of his administration — a fail
ure, that is, of policy coordination.
’ The symptoms of the failure are many.
There is the rush-order welfare reform
ylan, stymied by a countermanding insis-
-tence that it must not cost any additional
Jederal dollars. There is the promise of a
tax-reform-and-simplification plan,
preempted by an energy proposal that
turns out to be the most complex tax mea
sure in many years.
", There is an insistence on human rights,
hot apparent in opening diplomatic chan-
pels with such police states as Cuba and
Vietnam. There is a liberal trade policy,
but a profusion of “voluntary” marketing
agreements that look like creeping mer
cantilism.
These are parts of a problem which sup
porters of the new President think can
cause serious problems later, even though
Carter is now basking in popularity.
In a certain sense, this is simply a car
ryover of the vexatious 1976 problem of
Carter’s alleged “fuzziness.” He was not
“fuzzy,” in the conventional sense; his
language was at least as precise as the av
erage candidates, maybe more so.
But he was a fast man with a phrase, and
he subtly shifted his message from audi
ence to audience, leaving those who were
trying to add the pieces into a consistent
whole frustrated and somewhat suspici
ous.
In the end, that suspicion cost Carter
votes, which is why his well-wishers worry
at the repetition of the same symptoms in
the administration.
The most poignant expression of con
cern came from a well-positioned out
sider, who said that he thought the Presi
dent would be shocked if he asked his
closest White House aides to describe the
principal objectives of the administration.
“He’d find,” this man said, “that even at
that level, he has failed to communicate
what he really wants to do.”
This sympathetic adviser blamed the
breakdown on the “institutional isolation”
of the modern presidency, the lack of real
links for the outsider-turned-insider.
“Things are being forced on him so
much faster than he expected,” this man
said of Carter, “because there’s no one
else on whom he can really rely. No one
has time to think about the long-range di
rection and the overall pattern. They’re all
too busy coping with the crisis of the mo
ment.”
This, too, is not a new problem with the
White House, but it hits Carter with a
special force.
Unlike most successful politician-
executives, he has never developed a per
sonal assistant who is, in effect, his alter
ego. Hamilton Jordan is a smart political
strategist who is just now beginning to dip
his toes into the murky ponds of foreign
and domestic policy.
Jody Powell is a canny, quick-study
spokesman, who might serve Carter well
as an inside policy coordinator were he not
already fully employed as his interpreter
to the outside world.
Bert Lance, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Stuart Eizenstat and others all have a slice
of Carter’s world. But none of them so far
seems capable of helping build the bridge
that’s needed between the two aspects of
Jimmy Carter his intimates have come to
know.
At one level. Carter is a promulgator of
ideas — seeking competent, compassion
ate, predictable government in a stable,
orderly and peaceful world. At another
level, he is an engineer, practicing
“hands-on” management of every problem
that catches his eye, convinced always that
enough effort will yield a “solution.
What’s missing is the sense of strategy
— of choosing those problems that are im
portant for the idealized goals and ignor
ing the rest; and of tackling the specific
problems in a way that illumines the prin
ciple, rather than contradicting them.
Maybe it’s something Carter hasn’t fig
ured out; maybe it’s something lacking in
his staff. But, if these recent conversations
are a guide, the missing sense of strategy
and policy coordination is what his friends
are really worried about these days.
(c) 1977, The Washington Post Company
Letters
Piano in need
Editor:
This is not a complaint. . . merely an
opinion.
Recently, I had occasion to be at the
MSC with a few minutes to wait for an
acquaintance. I wandered into the lounge
area where I found a new grand piano not
in use. To pass the time, I decided to play
it. To my dismay, I found that the instru
ment was badly out of tune, so I went to
the front desk to inquire why the piano
was in such a state of neglect. I was in
formed by the lady at the desk that no
effort was made to maintain the instru
ment in a tuneful condition because
“everyone who came by, whether capable
or not, stopped to play on it, and this often
disturbed the students in the area who
were trying to study!”
Now, it is my humble opinion that good
money is invested in expensive instru
ments, so that they may be used for
the purpose for which they were pur
chased. . . i.e. to be played. Further, I
am of the opinion that a lounge is estab
lished not for students to have a place in
which to study but for people to relax in,
to visit with friends in and. . . just
perhaps. . . listen to someone play a good
piano or to play it oneself.
Aside from this, continued neglect of
the proper maintenance of an instrument
will eventually result in irremediable
deterioration to its quality. And my con
tention is that money spent on an instru
ment whose use is discouraged would
better be spent on some other less ex
pensive, more decorative piece of furni
ture.
Top of the News
Campus
Record enrollment for summer
A record 9,996 students have enrolled for the first summer session
at Texas A&M University, Registrar Robert Lacey announced re
cently. The total includes students enrolled at Moody College of
Marine Sciences and Maritime Resources in Galveston. This sum
mer’s registration represents a 4.1 per cent increase over last sum
mer’s enrollment.
State
Briscoe begins re-election bid
Gov. Dolph Briscoe began his bid for re-election by criticizing
President Carter’s energy policy and promising to make Texas the
nation’s economic leader. Briscoe announced he would seek a third
term Saturday. A victory next year would add four years to the six he
has already served. “The biggest withholder of energy in the United
States today is the federal government,” Briscoe said. “We have the
right and the duty to say to other states that it’s time you do your part
and to tell the U.S. government it’s time to do your part.”
Nation
No conspiracy, says Foreman
Defense lawyer Percy Foreman, who once represented James Earl
Ray, rejects suggestions Friday’s escape by the assassin of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. was part of a conspiracy to help Ray or to kill him.
Foreman said Ray’s escape was probably engineered by one of the
other fugitives “If anyone arranged to go over the wall while a guard
was ‘doing something else’ it was one of the others,” Foreman said
Saturday. “It was not James Earl Ray or anyone connected with Ray
outside the prison.”
Faulty wiring caused fire
Hustler claims discrimination
Zsa Zsa recovers missing parts
World
Cuba suffers small sugar crop
Cuba’s disastrous sugar crop may lock the islands into tighter trade
with the Soviet Union and force it off the world market, a University
of Miami expert on Cuba and Soviet affairs said Friday. The harvest
of less than 5 million tons narrows the prospect for U.S. trade with
the country, Dr. Leon Goure said. “Cuba hasn’t the money to buy
from the United States and is in no position to export any significant
amount of sugar,” he said.
Farmers pour their hearts out
Angry dairy farmers headed motorist off at the pass yesterday in
Cuneo, Italy — with milk. About 1,000 farmers blocked traffic to and
from France as they hosed the pass south of Cuneo with thousands of
gallons of milk to protest lack of attention to cow breeding problems.
When fist fights between the farmers and motorists erupted, the
protesters changed tactics. They passed out 5,000 glasses of free milk.
Build an A-bomb at home
What does it take to build an atomic bomb? A Ph.D? A brilliant
mind? No, says a London newspaper. All you need is a high school
education. The Guardian published a scientific report which said an
atomic bomb could be created with commercial reactor fuel with only
a little training and equipment. The paper also asked a group of
scientists for their opinions on a manual on building an atomic bomb
written by a group of high school science students. “The experts'
overall opinion is that the students have successfully made their
point,” the paper said. The paper urged tighter security measures to
allir
prevent reactor fuel from falling into the wrong hands.
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The unexplained absence of updated building plans for the Beverly
Hills Supper Club is hampering the investigation of the tragic blaze
that killed 161 persons, Kentucky officials have charged. Authorities
said Friday they believe the fire was started by defective electrical,
wiring inside a ceiling and an adjacent wall of the club’s Zebra Room.
The nightclub had been remodeled several times in the last seven
years. Investigators have been unable to turn up many of the recon
struction plans.
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Hustler magazine claims the Army is discriminating against the
publication by refusing to allow it to be sold in post exchanges. The
magazine filed a $500,000 suit in a federal district court. An attorney
for the magazine said, “They’re restricting the dissemination of
printed materials. The soldiers have as much right as anybody else to
buy Hustler. ” No date for a trial has been set.
Zsa Zsa Gabor’s ex-husband. Jack Ryan, was orderd by a judge
Friday to return the parts he stripped from her Rolls Royce. Ryan,
inventor of the Barbie doll, dismantled the car shortly before their
divorce because he said they had agreed to divide the proceeds of the
restored car. He took five wheels, five tires, the front bumper and
five wheel covers, about $7,500 worth of parts.
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Texas Press Association
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News Editor Marie
Campus Editor Glenna ^
Sports Editor Paul
Copy Editors Sandy ^
Edith Chenault, Rusty Cawley
Reporters Tounionava W*
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Cooper.
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