Opinion Race relations change for better When “Bull” Conner was turning police dogs on civil rights demonstrators and black children were being bombed to death in church, who could have thought that Birmingham, Ala., would ever elect a black major? Yet that’s what the city did recently. The new mayor will be Richard Arrington Jr., a sharecropper’s son who became dean of a college. That isn’t to say that Birmingham has put racial tension behind it. But the election shows that Birmingham has come a long way in race relations and opportunity for blacks since the early 1960s when it was targeted for civil rights demonstra tions by Martin Luther King Jr., because of its reputation as the most segregated big city in America. Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel Interest ceilings detrimental for all The nation’s small savers are losing billions of dollars in interest earnings each year because of a federal regulation dating from the 1930s. Banks and savings-and-loan associa tions, limited by law in the interest rates they can pay on passbook accounts, have also begun to suffer as money that they would normally attract from depositors seeks higher interest rates in other areas. That is not a healthy situation for depositors, lenders or borrowers. The obvious remedy is to allow lending institutions to begin promptly to pay more competitive interest on smaller deposits. The Senate has acted to phase out the present low ceiling rates on passbook accounts — banks may pay SVi percent interest a year and S&Ls SVz percent — but under a wholly unrealistic timetable with regulation of rates not ending entirely until 1990. Passbook-account interest rates ought to be deregulated — not in a decade’s time, but immediately. Los Angeles Times Weather s all wrong Indian summers are all right as weather goes, but heat waves, or more appropriately steam waves, in the middle of November are ridiculous. Just when we have packed away all of our cool cotton clothes and aired out all our mothball-smelling wool sweaters, the weather pulls a fast one on us Texans and sends a wave of warm, sticky, disgusting air to plague us. Just when we think we have paid the last of those high electricity bills, the air conditioning has to be turned back on. The holiday season should be filled with crisp, cool, dry weather, so you can build a fire and maintain the proper holiday atmosphere. There’s nothing more inappropriate in these energy-conscious days than having to turn the air-conditioning down to 55 degrees so we can take those Thanksgiving pictures in front of a roaring fireplace. the small society by Brickman PLATW MAfZK&T ALWAYS HAVING -$AY V«sft«ncton Star Syndicata. Inc 11 By SUSAN CLAYTON Take 30 seconds to think about what will probably happen to the majority of Christ mas gifts you’ll be spending money on and giving this year. Will their final resting place be in the oblivion of a closet shelf or in the back of a drawer or in a trashcan? Every year you hear about how Christ mas has lost its meaning. You see more people getting less excited about the event, maybe even treating it as an unavoidable pain, like finals. cited and bothered? By making a few ex changes you can help to weaken the com mercialism that’s largely responsible for the strangulation of Christmas (and at the same time do yourself some favors by not spending as much of that hard-to-come-by money, and by not having to fight crowds at shopping malls). But who says you can’t do anything about the slow loss of this beautiful holiday but be swept along, until you’re one of the unex- Time and creativity are precious: time because it’s so scarce (there never seems to be enough of it, right?) and creativity be cause it’s a spark of the human spirit. When either one or both are involved in a gift, the gift gains in value of a very different kind. Though bread or cookies that you’ve baked and given to someone may be gone by the next day, what you’ve done and actually given has more meaning then an electric knife or a tie that sits on a shelf for a few years until it finally goes to Goodwill. Sim ple Christmas cards you’ve made, and more important, in which you’ve written more than just your signature, carry so much more feeling than those expensive cards with the silly verses inside. And if you’re sincerely empty of time and creativity, you can buy gifts thoughtfully. You can pretend to be that person you’re giving a gift to for five minutes and come up with something they would really gain from. Books, for example: from cookbooks to how-to books to philosophy, they Or make it possible for them thing they wouldn't otherwise—gwl tickets to a concert or a movie they v(| wanting to see. By exchanging what’s involved i — thoughtfulness, time, and creativity instead of Money, by more of yourself and less of Money.' preserving what Christmas is really! And possibly you’re starting a events. Maybe two out of all the] give gifts to will like your style so mti next year they’ll leave the Easy route behind, helping to bringeveml more of the human in us intothe4 jlidnight I game w Fort Woi Greave lat Whis and hiskey I t&A Letters Traffic citations, bike lanes make bike safety at OU more sane is fuel 1 i people iserving i Texas A tation Ce saving t ie first licle’s gas it end al jce. This i Editor: I would like to make several comments in response to your recent news article on bicycles on our campus. Here at A&M I travel by car and by foot. Thus I encounter the problems of mixing with the bicycle as a motorist and as a pedestrian. However, at the University of Oklahoma I rode a bicycle regularly for over three years. I put over a thousand miles a year on the bicycle and rode up to four and one-half miles in one way trips. As a cyclist there I encountered all of the problems involved in trying to mix with auto and pedestrian traffic. Bicycle riding was much more widespread there than it is here. Yet, it was much more disciplined and, in my opinion, safer. The cause of this difference in safety and discipline at the two schools might come from two sources. First, instructions have been given to bicycle riders that they may mix freely with the auto traffic. Because of these instruc tions, we find bicyclists in the middle of left turn lanes, for example. This causes a prob lem because bicycles and autos accelerate at him when the light turns green. Motor ists obviously become irritated at the bicyc list in this situation. In my view, bicyclists must be confined to lanes where the traffic flow is more uniform. This brings up another situation; there were more bicycle lanes in Norman, Okla., than there are here. Another significant difference in the situations at U. of Oklahoma and Texas A&M is that the traffic officers at OU did, in fact, stop bicyclists and issue citations for running stop signs and riding on sidewalks, among other things. When one is on a bicyle, he hates to lose his momentum and stop at a stop sign. However, that is prefer able to either receiving a ticket or running into the side of a car that turns in front of you after it has stopped at the stop sign. Thus the solution appears to reduce itself to one which demands clearly defined, cor rect, and enforced rules. Without rules and enforcement, the battle of bicyclists vs. motorists and pedestrians will continue to draw casualties. I personnally feel that the situation here is completely out of hand and extremely dangerous. — Don E. Bray Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering Common courtesy Editor: As a bike rider I have observed the de bate over whether to ban bicycles with some interest. I agree there is a problem. I further agree the problem is largely due to the ill-considerate haste of some bike riders. I suggest, however, that banning bikes from campus is a response engendered more by anger and a bureaucratic mental ity than by rational thought. Bikes are clean, quiet, efficent and easily parked. They are cheap to purchase and to main tain; for many students they represent the (se more |ve front I ;, since tl , along only feasible means of transportaW An alternative approach, whicl)I“»i'[ K , ot j UT thought will show to be tenable, is suc j i students of A&M to advocate thecr and maintenance of bike trails, should be built not only on carap^j throughout College Station. Syste! bike trails have been successfully^ number of university towns. In the short run, we must ap] greater courtesy on the part ofbikeri That is, of course, unless we choosi adopt the suggestions of one oftny**:^' bike riders and relieve the congest*)'*#’ banning the Corps from campus t®:' daylight hours. I: -FP' 1 [ Graduates 1 *®' v - Thotz By Doug Gram Loan, thanks FOf^ LOOKING aftetr us.. AMD FOR the Sun, turkey BREAD, CRANBERRIES, PEAS POTATOES, AND ^specially. 6ood BREW AND I ■I H-ffr If 1 - - l^ouie-Lcvie n CSfclATfcOl-Xy mstamm