WELL? IS that
^ * SHOT?
YOUR 3£ST
Opinion
Hissing at concert is rude
At the P.D.Q. Bach concert Wednesday night, a visiting
performer was again treated to a show of bad manners —
Aggie Style.
As usual, some members of the crowd feel moved to hiss
their way through a performance.
A running gag in the show was the appearance of a droll,
cynical stage manager making occasional forays onstage. He
was the “bad guy” of the show, and many Aggies felt the
need to remind him of it as often as possible. Except for the
first time at the beginning of the show, his stage appearances
were meant to be silent. These scenes were written to be
performed silently, but the audience will never know.
Everytime the stage manager appeared onstage, a few mem
bers of the audience felt the urge to hiss. They did it the first
time he was onstage. And the second. And the third. And
the fourth. As a matter of fact, they hissed all during the
show.
Ths hissing isn’t bad at football or basketball games; no
one comes to listen to those things.
But, the idea of hissing at a performance defies good taste.
If the performers had intened for the scenes to be accom
panied by hissing, they would have made arrangement for it
themselves.
It is unfortunate that a few people with bad manners can
spoil the impact of a show for everyone else.
Despite the distractions, it was one of the better shows
seen at Texas A&M in recent memory. It’s too bad the
audience couldn’t enjoy it as intended.
the small society
by Brickman
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Associate Editor Keith Taylor
News Editor . Rusty Cawley
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Focus Editor Rhonda Watters
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Viewpoint
lo
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Friday
February 1, 1980
ERA taken all the way!
B
Apf
lock t
ar tc
yentio
ente
Ace
How about all-girl army?
;er o
tiling
By DICK WEST
United Press International
Everybody is talking these days about the
prospect of women being drafted for milit
ary service but I know one young man who
thinks he has a better idea.
He favors creating an all-girl Army.
“It’s the only fair thing to do” he told me
the other night when the subject of renew
ing Selective Service registration came up.
“We once had an all-male Army and we
have tried the all-volunteer Army and now
it’s time to give the all-girl Army a shot at
it.”
I said “The fact that you are a male who
has reached draft age wouldn’t have any
thing to do with your proposal would it?”
“Perish the thought!” the young man de
murred, obviously offended by such a sug
gestion. “I simply believe it is time to put
old wrongs to right. Throughout most of
our history men have gotten all the thrills
and glory of going to war. That imbalance
has lasted so long it can’t be offset now by
merely splitting military duties between
men and women. The only proper thing to
do is to let them have it all to themselves.”
I said, “I certainly admire your sense of
equity and your selflessness in being will
ing to sacrifice your own chance for a milit
ary career in order to give young females a
break. Nevertheless, I can’t shake off this
nagging suspicion that motivating forces
other than magnanimity are at work here.’’
A hurt look entered his eyes. “When you
are a bona fide supporter of equal rights you
go all the way” he said. “I only regret I have
hut one draft classification to lose for the
opposite sex.”
I told the young man that while women
probably could perform admirably as sup
port troops I wasn’t sure an all-girl Army
would provide the level of combat efficien
cy the Pentagon was seeking.
“Generally speaking, men are physically
stronger than women and therefore better
able to withstand the rigors of the battle
field,” I pointed out.
“Don’t be such a male chauvinist” he
admonished. “What about the Amazons? I
saw some of them in a movie once and they
were as fierce a bunch of warriors as you
would ever want to see. Pitted against
those babies most male soldiers wouldn’t
stand a chance.
“And what about the element^
prise? Imagine how the enemywyM
upon seeing an all-girl Armycharjis;l|^
the trenches. I’ll het the other siiMIi
raise the white flag almost witho™
shot.” 1
I said, “I can see you are seri®M *
relinquishing your rights toadraltcil
wouldn’t a lot of male college studttl Bids
come embittered and resentful ' n
being allowed to register?” luniT
“There might well be somepiuti lecial
that sort’’ the young man admi P 11 ^
“However anyone who feels tktsti [unci
about being dodged by thedraftpn rim]
will sneak off to Toronto andenlistpA Sf.
Canadian army.”
IFor (
Iking
|Dur
lenu
JSofi
I \vh<
keni:
Anniversary of return from exile
Khomeini an ill, powerful leader
By PETER COSTA
United Press International
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini walks
slowly in the small careful steps of a brittle
man of 79 years.
It is ironic that this frail cleric caused the
overthrow of the shah — Iran’s self-
proclaimed King of Kings — and brought to
a stalemate the world’s most powerful nuc
lear-armed nation.
To westerners, Khomeini is a caricature
of foreignness. He has a lean face with
piercing eyes that glare out from beneath a
thick, almost Neanderthal brow ridge. He
has a long gray beard and wears a black
turban, floor-length robe and slippers with
out heels.
His Iranian Shiite followers call him the
Imam or prophet on earth.
He returned to Iran one year ago Thurs
day after a 15-year exile and was greeted
with adulation by millions. The despised
shah had left and Khomeini — their savior
— had finally come home.
Periodically, Khomeini has been forced
by poor health to retreat from the public.
On Jan. 22, Tehran radio said he had can
celed all meetings for the next 15 days and
entered the intensive care unit of a Tehran
hospital for treatment of a heart condition.
But even from his hospital bed,
Khomeini urged his followers to vote in
their first presidential election last Friday
in which Economic Minister Abol Hassan
Bani-Sadr emerged as the winner.
For months preceding his arrival,
Khomeini railed against the shah and
fomented discontent that ultimately
erupted into total revolution.
Evidence of his power and total domina
tion of the minds and spirits of his country
men erupted worldwide most strikingly on
Nov. 4 when a group of students seized the
U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
At 10:30 a.m. on that cold fall day, 450
militants clambered over the walls of the
embassy compound and pulled down a
U. S. flag while chanting anti-American slo
gans and carrying posters of Khomeini.
Marines inside the embassy fired volleys
of tear gas, but after three hours could not
withstand the onslaught. The swarming
Iranians broke into the embassy, captured
63 Americans and held them hostage.
In days that followed hundreds of
thousands of Iranians demonstrated before
the embassy gates chanting: “Margh Bar
Carter: Margh Bar Shah! Death to Carter,
death to the shah.’ The shah had been in
New York since Oct. 22 for medical treat
ment with the blessing of President Carter.
Some of the 13 hostages who were re
leased later would say that the chanting of
those phrases hour after hour, day after day
was almost as psychologically painful as
being tied up and forced to face a blank wall
for hours at a time.
Three days before the embassy takeover,
Khomeini made an emotional radio appeal
to students that they commemorate the
anniversary of a violent street demonstra
tion a year before and “expand with all their
might their attacks against the United
States and Israel so they may force the
United States to return the deposed and
cruel shah. ”
In a statement broadcast by Iranian state
radio, the militants let the world know their
demands: the hostages would bet
— if and only if— the shah were t
to Iran to face Islamic justice.
The shah had entered New York Htfl
al for gallbladder surgery and chenw
apy treatments for cancer. Hospitalc|
could not say how long the sh
remain under their care.
Khomeini repeatedly labeled thelj
U.S. confrontation as “Islam ag
infidels” and continually referredtoC
as a “devil” and the United States!
“satanic power.”
How does this square with trail^
Moslem belief? Scholars differed,
Some said the Moslem religk
demns the taking of hostages. Everj
the days of the crusades and Ricliai
Lion-Hearted, others said, diplomat
voys were considered sacrosanct.
Scholars in Islamic states said Khol
was indeed following the Koran byfijj
against a “colonial imperialist
Most official government statements!!
Islamic nations, however, condemns*
hostage taking.
Thotz