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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 1978)
Viewpoint The Battalion Texas A&M University Monday August 28, 1978 Parting words from The Boss It hasn’t been easy. A career in the newspaper field never is or so they say. Even my short-lived career on The Battalion did its best to complicate what promised to be a carefree summer my last summer before I encounter what everyone tells me is “the real world.” The real world. Professors are always preaching about how the real world is different than Texas A&M. People are always telling me that working on The Battal ion is not the same as working on a “real” news paper. It seemed real. The responsibility felt real. And the problems were real — nothing earth- shattering — but real just the same. First there were the computers. Whoever said that computers are progress ought to have his mouth washed out with soap. They always work perfectly until you’re really counting on them. Like the night before an 82-page paper. It’s like they have a mind of their own, seeking revenge for all the obscenities yelled at them by frustrated reporters who can’t seem to think of anything to write. They planned their revenge well. My ach ing fingers and worn typewriter ribbon are proof of that. Then, there was the problem of finding news. Were do you look when the days are 100 degrees plus and the only people out are too wilted by the heat to make a coherent comment? I have to admit there were no crowds in Aggieland this summer. Then there was the problem of staying sober. With no real cultural entertainment in town this summer, my staff and I had to resort to other forms of entertainment — namely happy hour. I must admit I learned some valuable tips on how to pitch horseshoes and where to find the best shrimp gumbo in town, but you know it sure is hard to edit stories when the characters are jump ing around in front of you. Keeping employees was another problem. It seems that nobody wants to work for the chal lenge and experience these days. They’re in terested in the cash. I must say I can sympathize with that as I too support myself from a job other than The Battalion. But it sure makes it difficult when you’re the boss and you like to have some body to boss around. Finally, there was the problem of letters to the editor. There were none — well, very few. Maybe nobody was reading The Battalion. I hope that wasn’t the case. I don’t mean to make it sound as if it was all bad. It wasn’t. But nobody said it was going to be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is. QjU No greater love There is no greater love than to give your life for a friend. Richard Lopez did. A Bryan Fireman. It’s not a very good photograph. A standard tour-of-duty military dress uniform portrait of a lean, restrained youthful man — either unsure before Vietnam, or slightly hardened after it. That’s all we saw of 30-year-old Richard Lopez — that and another photo graphs, of men carrying his bag-covered body away from the smoldering ashes of a Bryan apartment fire. The first Bryan fireman killed in the line of duty, the Bryan Eagle said. Co-workers were quoted describing him as a joyable man, a good friend to everyone.” At his funeral a priest said he died a “very noble, very heroic death.” And that is all. That doesn’t tell us if he loved to spend time with his young son and daughter, if he fished and played tennis or liked to read, if he liked to tell jokes or preferred to hear them. But it is enough to tell us he was dedicated to a job that nobody wants to think about — until their house is burning — and then he’s always five minutes too late to suit them. It’s enough to tell us he would place himself in danger to save other human beings from that same fiery, choking, smoldering danger. It’s enough to tell us we’ve lost a very good man. L.R.L. A classic political battle By DAVID S. BRODER WASHINGTON — The split between President Carter and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., on the issue of na tional health insurance is the stuff of great politics. It is a tonic to the spirits of those who are sated with the spectacle of second- raters stumbling blindly into snares they did not know were there. It is to the Midge Costanza-Peter Bourne-General Services Administration firing flaps what Berlioz’ Requiem is to Boola-Boola. There was nothing cheap-shot, awkward or stumbling about Carter’s and Ken nedy’s decision to oppose each other on the health insurance issue. With full awareness of the probable future conse quences for the presidency itself, they made themselves the protagonists in a needed national debate on an issue of fun damental importance to the country. And each of them is pursuing his course with skill. You can’t ask for much more from your politics than that. The immediate issue between the two men is a relatively narrow point. Kennedy believes the health legislation Carter premised during the campaign •— and which Kennedy has been promoting for ten years — should be introduced as a single bill, with a set phase-in schedule. Carter believes there should be a series of measures, the timing of which would be conditioned on the successful implementa tion of earlier phases, the condition of the national economy and the limits of the budget. Since the odds are heavy against any significant legislative action in this area in the next two years, it would have seemed easy for the two men to hide their dis agreement behind a facade of words. But behind the immediate question is a basic difference of perceptions about where the center of American politics is going. Carter believes that with inflation the overriding concern of the middle class. Democrats must submit their social legis lation to the disciplines of tight budgets if they are to survive. Kennedy is just as convinced that com prehensive health insurance is a middle class issue, because it offers the only real hope of restraining the surge in medical- hospital costs that is tugging inflation up ward. Each of them is fully aware of the crucial importance of that middle-class vote — the inner-ring suburban family where the father works on an assembly line and the mother as a secretary to produce enough income to enjoy a few amenities and stave off the constant threat of inflation. Carter’s political base is in the South. But without those suburbanites, he cannot hold the presidency. Kennedy’s base is in the Northern cities. But without those same middle-class voters, he will never be President. Once the break was plain, both men knew what to do. Kennedy took his case to the public on two of the three commercial networks and on public television, and probably won the first round of the public relations battle. At the same time, a pair of beautifully engineered national magazine stories por trayed his wife, Joan, as a woman who, with his support, was winning a personal struggle against alcoholism and would emerge, not embittered, but supportive of her husband’s political aspirations. Kennedy is in the happy position of being able, for the next 12 months at least, to do everything he would need to do if he were running for president while promot ing national health insurance across the country. He will travel widely himself, raise funds and turn out crowds for Demo cratic candidates, and all the while de mure at suggestions he is campaigning against Carter. Not only on health insurance but on urban aid, energy and other issues, he has a built-in coalition of support from or ganized labor, church groups, the elderly, the minorities and the consumer groups. The Left of the Democratic party is his, and no one knows better than he how to mobilize its latent power in nominating convention politics. Last week, in the midst of all the health insurance debate, he took time out to ap pear at a fund-raiser for a Democratic con gressional candidate from South Dakota and to meet with a California Democratic contender. Anyone who has forgotten that those are the last two presidential primaries Robert Kennedy won before his death has a shorter political memory than Ted Kennedy. Kennedy thinks Carter missed an op portunity when the President declined to endorse the Kennedy strategy on health insurance. Had the President signed up and then put public responsibility on the senator and his allies to mobilize enough public opinion to move Congress on the issue, Kennedy might have been in a jam. But Carter, on his side, equally believes Kennedy gave him an unintended boost by allowing him to present a large, costly liberal program in an atmosphere where the President could seem moderate and cautious by comparison to Kennedy. Thus far. Carter has handled Kennedy with great skill and tact. He has avoided direct debate, but administration spokes men have been busy poking holes in the Kennedy approach to health insurance. On the editorial pages at least, the Carter view has won greater approval. Privately, Carter shows no tremors about meeting Kennedy head-on in the 1980 primaries, if the senator chooses to carry his challenge that far. He has been reminding associates that his original battle plan for 1976, drawn up before Chappaquiddick memories and family troubles caused Kennedy to with draw, was based on the assumption that Kennedy and George Wallace would be his real rivals. Having shown in many ways in recent weeks that he has discovered the political uses of incumbency, Carter certainly does not shrink from the possible challenge of a senator he thought he could beat when he was just the lame-duck governor of Geor gia. A great political story — with a class act on both sides — is in the making. (c) 1978, The Washington Post Co. ity By DICK WEST United Press International WASHINGTON — The word is “com- sometimes mistaken on Capitol Hill as a synonym for “comedy. If one consults the dictionary, one finds that comity has a variety of meanings. None, however, quite fits the comity be tween legislative bodies. “Mutual consideration between two equals,” comes close. So does “association for common and mutually-pleasing pur poses,” especially if the purpose is the construction of new office buildings. Til close my eyes (paf if you close yours’ The Lighter Side ANP WHEN WE5ENP THE. mfORAUTHISPOWNTO THOSE WIP.5ERF5, WE TELL THE PUWMIKTHAJ THIS \*? ANOTHER FORTRESS topefendmnumthew AGAINST WSTEFULGOYERH- MENT AND FISCAL IRRESPCN- But to capture all the nuances of con gressional comity one must concoct one’s own definition. I would define it thusly: “I’ll close my eyes if you close yours. ” Comity, or eye-closing, between the House and Senate comes into play most often in the enactment of legislative ap propriations bills. By custom, each chamber decides how much it will spend on itself during a given fiscal year. The other chamber then routinely approves that figure with no questions asked. House members, for example, exercised stretching comity too far. The breaking point apparently has been reached over Senate plans to spend around )122 million on what will be called the Hart Office Building. Even in the blueprint stage, the Hart building was being ridiculed as quintes sential! architectural folly. Last March, Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., gave it his “Golden Fleece” award as an example of wasteful govern ment spending. Then, shortly before departing on their Labor Day recess, House members voted 245-133 to delete funds for what one con gressman described as “the new Taj Mahal.” a high degree of comity in the 1950s when the Senate was spending around $25 mil lion on the Dirksen Office Building. That building was ridiculed far and wide as an architectural folly. Yet House mem bers faithfully rubber-stamped the ap propriation. And a good thing they did. For in the 1960s, the comity shoe was on the other foot. That was the period when the House was spending around $125 million on the Rayburn Office Building, a monolithic structure ridiculed as an even bigger ar chitectural folly than the Dirksen build ing. Many seantors undoubtedly joined the snickering in private. In public, neverthe less, they went along with the funding. There is, however, such a thing as Does this mean King Comity is dead? Don’t throw any dirt on the coffin just yet. Even now. House leaders are reported eyeing potential sites for their next office building. Should that project come to fruition — and the betting is it will — a certain amount of comity on the part of the Senate would be required. It therefore is expected that in the near future the House will again consider ap proval of Hart building funds, and on that transmutational day will bite the comity bullet. Top of the News Campus Applications now available State Telephone employee wins contest Depression on Texas coast Worker pleads innocent Nation Grandmother stabs assailant A man who threw a bottle at a pregnant woman was stabbed to death by the woman’s 63-year-old grandmother, police said Saturday. Richard Johnson, 22, of Shreveport, La., died at Louisiana State University Medical Center several hours after he was stabbed. Police said Johnson threw a liquor bottle at a pregnant woman during an argument, then began arguing With Eunice Bryant when she com plained. He slapped her and she pulled a butcher knife and stabbed him in the chest, police said. Pressmen still on strike New York City dwellers faced a third Sunday without their hefty New York Times or Daily news, but the prospect of new talks in the 19-day-old newspaper strike remained distant. Since Aug. 9, the Times, News and New York Post, which does not public publish a Sunday edition, have been shut down by a strike by the 1,600- member pressmen’s union. The pressmen walked off the job to pro test new work rules aimed at reducing manpower in the papers’ pressrooms. Mitchell s request denied A federal judge in Montgomery, Ala., has denied John Mitchell’s request for an immediate release from prison, but ordered the gov ernment to show cause why the former attorney general should not be released. After an informal meeting Friday with lawyers involved in the case, U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson Jr. gave the U S. Parole Commission and Attorney General Griffin Bell 10 days to show why Mitchell should not be freed. Former CIA man indicted A former CIA employee, accused of selling a top-secret manual for a spy satellite to a Soviet agent, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Hammond, Ind. William P. Kampiles, 23, a former low-level “watch officer,” was indicted Friday on six counts, including two charges that carry maximum penalties of life imprisonment, the gov ernment has said turning the manual over to the Soviets has done “irreparable harm” to the United States. World Brezhnev discusses U.S. relations President Leonid Brezhnev says relations with the United States can develop only if the United States stops interferring in internal Soviet affairs. The official Tass news agency said Brezhnev discussed U.S.-Soviet relations Friday in a meeting with Armand Hammer/ chairman of Occidental Petroleum. Hammer was in the Soviet Union to open a joint Soviet-Occidental business project. Weather Mostly cloudy today and Tuesday with thundershowers for this evening. High today in the mid-90s and low in the mid- 70s. Low tomorrow in the low 90s. Northeast wind at 5 and 10 mph. Probability of rain 30% Tuesday and thundershowers Wednesday and Thursday, clearing towards the weekend. Applications for the 1979 Texas A&M Diamond Darlings are now available in Room 203 in G. Rollie White Coliseum. The Diamond Darlings are a group of 16 Texas A&M women who work on pro motional activities for the Southwest Conference Championship baseball team. In addition, Diamond Darlings represent Texas A&M at all baseball games where they work as bat-girls. The first meeting for all interested candidates will be Sept. 14 in the Lettermens Lounge in G. Rollie White Coliseum. A 26-year-old telephone employee Saturday won the 1st Annual Texas Championship Accordian Contest in El Campo. Patrick W. Veit, of Point Comfort, took the championship, squeezing away the “Clarinet Polka” and the “Circling Pidgeons Laendler.’ The contest was the first of its kind in Texas and drew 50 accordionists from across the state to the southeast Texas town of 13,500 for the one-day event. A tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday kicked up high seas and strong winds, strengthening slowly as it moved northwest toward the lower Texas coast. The weather bureau said 8- to 12-foot seas were likely in the Gulf with sustained winds of 35 mph in the depression. Sunday morning the weather system was located about 250 miles east of Brownsville. It was moving west-northwest at about 12 mph on a path that, if it remained constant, would take the weather in along the lower Texas coast. A refinery worker pleaded innocent to capital murder chargesaris ing from the abduction-shooting last month of five members of a Winnie farm family. Ovide Joseph Dugas, 32, of Port Arthur, entered the plea before State District Judge Larry Gist in the shooting deaths of Bishop Phillips, 64; his wife Ester, 66; their son Elmer, 31, his wife, Martha 34, and their son Jason, 4. Gist scheduled a Sept. 25 pre-trial hearing and set a January trial date for Dugas, who remained jailed in lieu of $500,000 bond. The Battalion 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-profit, self-supporting enterprise oper ated by students as a university and community newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. 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 Buildihg, College Station, Texas 77843. Represented nationally by National Educational Adver tising Services, Inc., New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 216, H#® McDonald Building, College Station, Texas 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusively^ use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein re ^\ Second-Class postage paid at College Station, TX u MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Debby Sports Editor David Bog?* News Editor Lee Roy U-schpe*' City Editor Mirk"™ Campus Editor riavia li Photo Editor Copyeditor Sarah Reporter Sco^ _ . „ Doug Crat^ ( 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 Student Publications Board: Bolt C. | Joe Arredondo, Dr. Gary Halter, Dr Chadei V “'I Dr. Clinton A. Phillips, Rebel Rice. Director [ Publications: Donald C. Johnson.