Slouch
By Jim Earle
“Z thought you probably knew about it. I’ve heard that all
other instructors were letting their classes out a day early
to get ready for the game so A&M can be properly repre
sented. ”
Opinion
Congress "freezes'
on fuel allocation
In the pantheon of Washington bungling, the proposal to
give more federal emergency fuel aid to the warm southern
states than to cold Vermont and Maine ranks near the top
of the list.
It is downright foolish and our congressional delegation
should be raising a fuss about it. What do we get from our
delegation? A roar of silence.
Vermont and Maine, the two states which have the low
est per capita income in New England, and the two states
which need the emergency fuel aid the most, get
shortchanged. Yet southern states fare well under the Car
ter plan. Oh yes, so does New Hampshire, which just hap
pens to have the first presidential primary in the nation.
Well, some Vermonters are going to freeze to death this
winter, and the last thing Vermont needs is pussyfooting
from its Congressional delegation.
Sunday Rutland (Vt.) Herald and Times-Argus
Look to British budget
A mere half a trillion dollars is what the federal government will be
spending in fiscal 1980. And from there it is onword and upward. In
fiscal 1982, according to projections, the budget will pass the $600
billion level. A full-fledged trillion-dollar budget sometime in the mid-
’80s seems a live possibility.
In the meantime it would be well to look at the plans of Britain’s new
Conservative government. The plans are not to increase spending at
all: rather to hold the line insofar as possible.
Defense, police protection and social security will receive increases;
but elsewhere there will be cuts.
The idea is to beef up the private sector — to afford rewards and
incentives for creativity; to devour less of the vital capital that, in
government hands, benefits only selected portions of the population
but in private hands, creates jobs and spreads prosperity throughout
the whole economy.
The British are on the right track. So far, we re on the wrong one.
Which is one thing the 1980 elections ought assuredly to be about.
The Dallas Morning News
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The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
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Editor Liz Newlin
Managing Editor Andy Williams
Asst. Managing Editor Dillard Stone
News Editors Karen Cornelison
and Michelle Burrowes
Sports Editor Sean Petty
City Editor Roy Bragg
Campus Editor Keith Taylor ’
Focus Editors Beth Calhoun
Staff Writers Meril Edwards, Nancy
Andersen, Louie Arthur, Richard Oliver,
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Opinions expressed in The Battalion are
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Editorial policy is determined by the editor.
Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Monday
November 19, 1979
Analysis
Rise in expectations of young peom
is pushing France to modernization
By JACQUELINE GRAPIN
International Writers Service
PARIS — Foreign visitors are often sur
prised and sometimes disappointed to dis
cover that France no longer resembles
that quaint old country portrayed in their
childhood picture books. For it has been
dramatically modernized within the past
generation, and signs of its transformation
are visible everywhere.
France. More than 90 percent of French
households how have a refrigerator and 86
percent a television set. Numbers of
families have two cars and many are buy
ing vacation cottages.
This rush to acquire merchandise has
been made possible in part by the ac
ceptance of the credit system, which the
French had traditionally rejected on the
grounds that debt was the equivalent of
women written in southern France in
1946:
“The younger woman, once married, is
rapidly deformed by pregnancies and farm
work. Little by little, she dresses in black,
and only devotes a minimum amount of
time to her clothes. She goes to the hair
dresser less, and stops making up her face.
Skyscrapers now heighten the horizon
of Paris and other cities, where ancient
houses have either been torn down or ren
ovated into classy apartments. The traffic
jam, that symptom of contemporary civili
zation, blights urban areas despite the
high price of gasoline.
Rolling wheat fields, dotted only a few
years ago by horse-drawn ploughs, are
currently worked by sophisticated agricul
tural equipment. A common complaint of
fishermen is that streams are being pol
luted by the detergents coming from wash
ing machines in peasant homes that, until
recently, lacked indoor toilets.
The change is apparent as well in the
consumer revolution that has overtaken
It is also due, despite inflation, to a
spectacular hike in incomes. The lowest
hourly wage has tripled over the past 30
years, and it has doubled in the last two
decades.
Many French, including those old
enough to remember, have probably for
gotten that France at the end of World
War II might have been considered “un
derdeveloped ’ in several respects.
It was largely an agricultural nation,
whose farmers lived in much the same way
as they had centuries earlier. Professor
Jean Fourastie, who has been unearthing
documents on French rural life, recently
published a description of two peasant
“The woman of 50 has never gone to a
hairdresser. She rarely washes her hair,
teeling there is no need. She does her
laundry bent over a tub that is too small,
and which she must refill frequently. She
boils the linen on the hearth, in a caul
dron, just as she cooks the feed for the
animals.”
Not only have women of that sort disap
peared, but so has a large proportion of the
rural population. In 1946, they repre
sented one-third of France. Today, only 10
percent of the French are farmers.
One of the key changes that has taken
place here in this process has been a soar
ing rise in expectations, especially among
young people.
Years ago, it was considered normal for
a newly-married couple to move in with
their parents while they sei
apartment. Young couples now
own place immediately, andtl
row heavily to buy one.
Their ability to buy underlij
change that has occurred here,
more wives have jobs, so
couples can blend two salaries
respectable incomes.
The price of all this, it
is an intensified pace of woi
creased tension among the Fn
three-hour lunch, completewitli|
brandy, has become obsol
psychiatrist has ceased to be a
The standard of living here
reached that of the United Sta
nearly there. And that may hoi
ing consequences for the future.!
For when the energy crisisl
world more devastatingly,
may, the French and the Ai
decline into economic disrupfSL
nostalgically bemoaning tlie*
fluence that France, at least,â„¢
Duane All
enthusiast
ginning to attain.
Jacqueline Grapin writesom
issues for lx; Monde, the Parisi |bass.
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Sterba
t On.” But
Dick West
Job discrimination of short peop
le ads to ‘equal heights amendmt
the grou
Anothi
deserves
cartwhee
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The lo
was intre
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The latest unem
ployment statistics compiled by the Labor
Department provide no data on the
heights of the jobless.
If such figures were available, they pre
sumably would show that the majority of
the people out of work are short, both of
money and in stature.
According to a survey published in the
November Esquire, tall people have an
easier time getting hired and also tend to
be paid more than short people.
Furthermore, that situation prevails in
jobs where there is no apparent advantage
to being tall, such as having to reach things
on the top shelf.
According to one study cited by the
magazine, elevation in the job market is
worth about $500 an inch per year.
That heightism, along with sexism, ra
cism and ageism, exists as a form of em
ployment discrimination has long been
suspected. Until now, however, the gov
ernment has pretty much stayed out of it.
It remains to be seen whether the Es
quire article, which was adapted from a
forthcoming book, will spur demands for
federal remedial action.
Enactment of an Equal Heights
Amendment does not appear to be in the
cards at this time. Nor does a mandatory
quota system requiring that a certain per
centage of any given work force be com
posed of the stubby, the stumpy, the
dumpy and the squat.
I would say the approach most likely to
be adopted will consist of assistance pro
grams intended to help short people bet
ter their lot in life and compete more fa
vorably with their taller co-workers.
One program, for example, might
provide low interest, government guaran
teed loans to finance the purchase of
elevator shoes.
As Esquire points out, some of the short
people who have overcome the stigma and
made it big give an appearance
taller than they are.
Among the celebrities said to
than you might picture them ai:
Fonda, Paul Newman, Micl
Ion Brando, Katherine Hepburn,
Jackson, Mae West and JohnnyC*
And perhaps Miss Fonda, whoii
for taking up good causes, could If
suaded to spearhead a national
Short People crusade.
In any event, discrimination
persons built close to the ground*
stopped. The short peoples
movement is an idea whose
best
Deltt
Collegia:
Fouanm
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SALI
Letters
To foil thieves, stores should check
I.D. of used book sellers — student
Whet
stanch
24
Editor:
On Wednesday, Nov. 7, I read Mary
Ann McStravick’s letter to the editor. Her
books were stolen in Sbisa and she found
them a few days later at University
Bookstore. She bought them back for $39
— when she had paid $44 for them eight
weeks earlier.
Two years ago the same thing happened
to me. While eating in Sbisa, I left my
book on the table by the entrance. When I
came back it was gone and I ended up
buying it back the next morning at Univer
sity Bookstore. I asked the manager why
she didn’t take some identification from
the seller like the other Northgate
bookstores do, because that way if the
book is stolen it can be traced. She said it
gave her store a bad reputation to be so
strict.
When I read Mary Ann’s letter, it made
me sad to see that this still goes on at
A&M. What I can’t understand is why this
store took advantage of this poor girl by
selling her her own books back for a profit.
They knew they were her books because
her name was in one of them.
In Mary Ann’s letter she said, “Please,
let’s try and find some way of stopping this
ring of book thieves.” I am writing this
letter to do just that. If University
Bookstore would change its policy it would
make it harder on the thieves since they
would have to find some other place
farther away to sell their hot books.
I also want to warn all those Aggies who
leave their books lying around to be more
careful.
— Jim McCarthy, ’81
OCA to discuss bikes
Editor:
Once again concerning the bicycle is
sue. Next week a crucial bill is to be voted
on in Senate on the matter of restricting
bicycles from parts of Campus.
Who is this most likely to affect? The
off-campus student. And how will our
Off-campus Senators vote on this issue?
Who knows? How can they represent us
on this issue if they have no idea what our
opinion is?
If you’re mad as hell about bicycles —
pro or con — I encourage you to show up
at the next general meeting of Off-Campus
Aggies, Monday night, (tonight) alt
room 108 Harrington. We’re goingH
special time for the discussion oftte
Let’s settle this once and forall. Tte
issue that we should have a vote o',
time to show our Senators we
choice and do give a damn about tb
we re represented.
— Kenzy Hallmaii
Chairman University Relations
Thotz
By Doug Grab
Agricul