Slouch
vby Jim Earle
“I’m sure getting tired of people asking me if I’m still wear
ing my Halloween mask!”
Dayan not done
The surprise resignation of Moshe Dayan as Israel’s
foreign minister leaves a major void in the 28-month-old
coalition government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin
(and) could also spark a crisis in the Middle East peace
negotiations.
The rift between the 64-year-old Dayan and Begin which
precipitated the resignation centers around the issue of
“autonomy,’ or self-rule, for the residents of the West
Bank and Gaza. Israel agreed to self-rule in principle as the
price for Egypt signing the historic peace treaty earlier this
year.
Nevertheless, it has become increasingly evident that
Begin defines autonony as administrative control over local
affairs, and nothing more.
Dayan is to be commended for his tireless efforts on
behalf of the Israeli people. His recent resignation by no
means will mark the end of his distinguished career in
public service.
Bridgeport (Conn.) Post
New concept for GSA
In a move which could save taxpayers up to $226 million this year.
Admiral Roland Freeman III, recently appointed director of the Gen
eral Service Administration (GSA), has forbidden any purchase of new
office furniture by or for any federal government agency until a com
plete inventory of its furniture on hand has been completed and filed.
GSA manages, or mismanages, some say, most of the buying of
supplies and the construction and maintenance of buildings for the
government. Efforts to uncover the extent of illegal practices have
become mired in a morass of bureaucratic obstructionism.
Admiral Freeman has brought a new concept to GSA, common
sense. It is good management to require people to use what they have
before they buy more. This approach clearly never occurred to the
career bureaucrats.
Texarkana Gazette
the small society
CbPM'T H^ITAT&T^ CALL
by Briclcman
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Washington Star Syndicate. Inc.
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The Battalion
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The Battalion Friday
Texas A&M University y November 2, 1979
wl
Analysis
Bangladesh leader brings stability,
a condition mistrusted by its peopk
SOCIE1
You i
and J
By SUZANNE F. GREEN
United Press International
DACCA, Bangladesh — President
Ziaur Rahman has declared war on the
cataclysmic problems that led Henry Kis
singer to dub Bangladesh an “international
basket case.”
Zia, as he is known in South Asia, has
warned his cabinet of a “revolution to bet
ter the lot of the common man” in
Bangladesh.
This month Zia called on his Bangladesh
National Party to enact legislation that
would change Bangladesh’s “colonial sys
tem of administration ... radically ... to a
people-oriented” one. Earlier he told his
cabinet to “be prepared to make sac
rifices.”
Although Zia did not detail his plans for
change, his impressive track record in
tackling Bangladesh problems indicates he
means business.
Widely regarded as a man of quiet in
tegrity, the 44-year-old president has
taken first steps — self-help reform pro
grams — to break Bangladesh’s begging
bowl.
Although a record $1.3 billion in foreign
aid is expected to pour into South Asia’s
poorest nation in 1979, government
projects in food for work, education, col
lective farms, family planning and wo
men’s rights have begun to erode what one
foreign economist called the “psychology
of dependence.”
Zia accomplished this year what most
thought impossible: he kept the nation’s
90 million people from famine in a drought
year.
Exactly five years ago, nearly 50,000
Bangladeshis died in a drought not nearly
as severe. Political observers now marvel
that the same combination of political ne
glect, poverty, bad water and land man
agement and general lack of foresight did
not produce a similar disaster in 1979.
“Quite frankly we are mighty im
pressed,” said one Western diplomat.
Zia did much of the overseas shopping
himself for 2.2 million tons of food grain
(200.000 tons from the United States) im
ported to meet the food production
shortfall.
Defying skeptics among international
donors who thought he would never be
able to get the food into the stomachs of
the nation’s poor, Zia worked 20 hours a
day to double the capacity of Bangladesh’s
two ports to move 16,000 tons of food per
day.
To unclog the distribution system, he
cut out a battery of corrupt middlemen to
effectively stave off starvation in a record
shortfall year.
Corruption, which thrives in the world’s
largest regular recipient of foreign aid,
compounds the chronic food shortage and
is a major rival for Zia’s attention.
He started his drive at the top by declar
ing his own modest assets and asking his
government ministers to follow suit. Most
political observers say it was an offer none
could refuse.
This year the usual devastating floods
did not follow the drought. Instead there
was record 18 percent inflation, astronom
ical unemployment, a brain drain to the
Middle East, power cuts that crippled in
dustry, and a stubbornly growing popula
tion.
The drought caused food prices to soar
and left 30 to 40 percent of the nation’s
population — more than half of it rural but
landless — without work.
Those who are young and trained left for
the Middle East and salaries they can live
on. The foreign remittances they generate
are a boon, hut the brain dnjCAPS A
suited in breakdowns and cl#' the N
pair of strategic equipment sucIm- 9 a. it
P lan . ts - . .. FALL I
The population, still steeped p, j n t
lief that bigger families means
perity, is booming, addingSOOi
mouths every three months.
Inheritance laws have divi
into small plots that make i
forms impossible, andcropsh
tinue even when the rainisj
And the bottom has fallen \|SC B/
market for jute, the nation’shg, Schul
crop, so women bum it tot; Cath)
-Entu
Many observers believe« 003, 1
politician, will survive the SINGIN
these problems generate I
lution to success.
He has effectively decimatedlj
tion, leaving it politically imp
But Bangladesh was weat.^ F?
lence, and governments havtl|v .
gone unexpectedly.
“Stability is new to us,’’I
Bangladeshi political scientiJ
come to trust it, we fear we
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Susan B. Anthony dollar deflates i
Susan B. Anthony was a great woman,
and is deserving of all the honors that the
country can bestow on her. But the mint
did the pioneer feminist an injustice by
placing her image on the new $1 coin.
It looks like a quarter. It feels like a
quarter. It has the heft of a quarter. And
we live in mortal fear of giving one away as
a quarter.
Acceptance of the mostly-copper coin
has been so poor that mint director Stella
B. Hackel went to a convention of bankers
in New Orleans to beg them to put more of
them into circulation. Only 100 of the
9,000 delegates came to hear her speak —
a fair measure of the bankers’ enthusiasm
for her proposal.
Hackel concedes that there is even
more public resistance to the Anthony
coins than there is to the infamous $2 bill,
and she said the mint is thinking of color
ing them brass or gold to make them more
appealing.
No, it’s the size that’s wrong. Even in
inflationary times the dollaroui
keep up pretensions, but the w
thony coin deflates itself.
We think that the mint shout
of the 300,000 coins that are no«|
lation and melt them downs
metal, using $2 bills to fuel the]
Los Angeles Times ,
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Letters
456 north area dorm diners agree:
Sbisa meals leave much to be desired
V
Editor:
After many empty bottles of Pepto-
Bismol, we, the second floor residents of
Crocker Hall and the north area dorms
feel that the quality of food served at Sbisa
Dining Hall leaves much to be desired.
Specifically, Tuesday, October 30, the
main course of the evening meal was
labeled “grilled steak.” Whether these
stringy uncooked pieces of decomposing
mess were steak, or not, is still in doubt.
This waste was not fit to eat!
Upon completion of the meal, one could
not help but be reminded of the gruesome
details revealed by Upton Sinclair about
the meatpacking industry in “The Jungle.”
Several of our residents collected about
one hundred uncooked steaks (?) and were
shunned away by an uncaring Sbisa man
ager after they were brought to his atten
tion.
Tonight’s meal was but the headline of a
long list of vile items served at Sbisa.
These include spoiled lettuce (unmistake-
able by the brown tinge in the leaves), un
cooked crust on many of the fried foods,
desserts that are generally swimming in
water, and hamburger patties that have
reach “critical mass” (i.e. completely
char-broiled).
We realize that quality of food is much
more expensive than our $500 board plans
allow, but it seems that what we have
could be prepared better. It is high time
that something be done to improve the de
sirability, and, if nothing else, revive the
mere ambition to eat at Sbisa.
To serve large numbers of people hot,
home-cooked meals is next to impossible,
but let’s not drive otherwise healthy stu
dents to the “Quack Shack” with upset
stomachs and uncontrollable diarrhea.
— Ron Cormier, ’82
Editor’s note: Copies of this letter were
displayed in 10 north area dorms for
about 12 hours, and 456 signatures on 15
pages were collected.
Right to know profits
Editor:
After reading Professor Bowers’ letter in
Wednesday’s Battalion, several of my
classmates and I had a good laugh at his
apparently naive approach to return on in
vestment (ROI). However, the disparity
between his conclusions and those of Dr.
Kiem are endemic to the use of ROI as a
measure of performance.
ROI is rather ambiguous and can be ap
proached from several conceptual
frameworks. It is of absolute importance
that the analyst be consistent in approach
when crossing industrial boundaries. Dr.
Kiem is not known for making statements
without verifying logical consistencies.
True to form, his approach to the ROI of
the two industries is logical and consistent.
Professor Bowers, on the other hand,
could be quite correct in his analysis; how
ever, it is difficult to know for certain since
he chose only to refute Dr. Kiem’s state
ment and did not attempt to show oil com
pany ROI under his method. Had Profes
sor Bowers done so, it is highly likely that
the two academicians would have come to
similar conclusions.
On the subject of biased reporting, I
must point out that it is possible to
editorialize without making explicit state
ments. Implicit statements such as story
choice, placement, and tonal presentation
(commonly known as the Cronkite effect)
are all valid forms of reporting bias.
In conclusion, the public has a need and
a right to know about profits of public cor
porations. However, the “red herring”
crawls both ways.
— Michael W. Lambert, ’77
Correction
In the stoiy on Texas
Spill Technology Program!
day’s Battalion, the word “P
land” was garbled so thati
|“Rhonde Island.” The Batt
grets the error.
W r
Readers’ Fori
Guest viewpoints, in additiofj
Letters to the Editor, are weld
All pieces submitted to Red
forum should be:
• Typed triple space
• Limited to 60 charactersi|
line
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THOTZ
by Doug Grab
Regu
single
double