Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Friday
April 3, 1981
By
Slouch By Jim Earle
AGGIE
RODEO
“I’ve decided to drop from the rodeo team
It ? s time to fish or cut budget
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — If former Rep.
Michael Kirwan, D-Ohio, were alive today,
he probably would be turning over in his
grave.
Kirwan talked a lot like the above sent
ence reads. His syntax frequently convo
luted into Casey Stengel-like metaphor
mixtures.
But being chairman of a House approp
riations subcommittee, he had no trouble
making himself understood. One point that
came across loud and clear was his affinity
for fish.
Fish swimming around in glass tanks
effect people in diverse ways. Basically, you
either dig them or you don’t.
The Reagan Administration apparently
doesn’t.
It was revealed last week that the presi
dent’s budget-cutters had drained off
$250,000 needed to keep the National
Aquarium open in the coming fiscal year.
In consequence, it now appears that the
108-year-old aquatic life exhibit will be
closed by the end of September.
This is the sort of economizing up with
which Mike Kirwan would not have put.
Not for nothing was he known as the fish’s
best friend in Congress. It was his quixotic
dream to adorn the capital with a new $20
million National Fisheries Center that he
envisioned as the Taj Mahal of oceanar-
Had it ever gotten off the drawingboard,
this many-splendored, three-story complex
would have made the existing 60-tank facil
ity seem like a guppy bowl by comparison.
Its, ah, high-water mark was reached in
1962. Congress authorized $10 million for
fish edifice work that year. But President
Kennedy’s desk — he signed the legislation
within 10 days of its passage — was as far as
the project got.
After a period of backing and filling, hem
ming and hawing and second thoughts ab
out actually appropriating the money, the
aquarium finally fell victim to President
Nixon’s Vietnam War moratorium on con
struction in the capital.
Kirwan having died in the interim, the
seas Ai
condi
5 mont
I Ron Sa
fldent ai
•s from I
plans were never revived. But whiled nth are
were sloshing around in Congress, theyi rm in t
gendered some of the 20th Century’ss rticipati
giest debate. ^ r ; J 0 '
nt for si
This was before Sen. William Proxir,: cent m
D-Wis., began handing out “Gold gas anc
Fleece Awards” for what he regards asm iristian
able specimens of federal extravagance ringhas
Proxmire merely dubbed Kirwan s pista! ,re c0 ” !
rial proposal the “fish folly of 1962.” ^ a '
The redoubtable Rep. H.R. Gross, Sid," Koli
Iowa, suggested that “members of the fit ng we’s
tribe might be offered an opportunit) nething
share the swimming pool in the new!) i vea h°
million House office building.” ”,.
6 With sti
Some lawgivers ridiculed Kirwan spei crease, 5
a “gold-plated fish hotel” and theen cessary
vigilant Sen. Frank Lausche, D-d ming s;
noted that it had “no relationship toi e Schur
national defense.” f centra
But Kirwan resisted all efforts to pull
plug. S 1 ™
ationsfr
The family that fishes together sti ealarm
together,” he philosophized in his ini® 6(lied ’ h
able manner.
Honeymoon balloon
popped by gunfire
By DAVID S. BRODER was the first to kid his own supposed short-
WASHINGTON — The Honeymoon comings — his age, his hearing, his
has ended and a new legend has been born. eyesight, even his grasp of issues — in a way
. The gunfire ; t]h.at shattered th.e.sffiffiesiof ; .uA\tiflgpci:^y ,any, sympa^^^p^g.,^- ^ ;
rainy Washington Monday aftefnddh pity.
When he displayed that same wit and
broke, not just four bodies, but the mood of
euphoria that has buoyed the capital since
the inauguration of a new president and
the return of the hostages from Iran.
But it also created a new hero in Ronald
Reagan, the chipper gipper who took a .22-
caliber slug in his chest but walked into the
emergency room on his own power and
joked with anxious doctors on his way into
surgery.
But the politicians no sodner learned
that the president was out of danger than
they started sorting out the political impli
cations of the day’s drama.
That is a process that will take some time,
but one fact is so obvious it cannot be mis
sed even in a capital that sometimes under
stands everything but the most important
thing. What happened to Reagan on Mon
day is the stuff of which legends are made.
From primitive days, heroic tales have
been fashioned from incidents in which
brave men escape danger. That tradition
has been carried intact into the presidency
— from Andy Jackson, the hero of New
Orleans, to Teddy Roosevelt, the hero of
San Juan Hill, and Jack Kennedy on PT-
109.
In these and other cases, the survival of
the hero in conditions of imminent danger
is taken as a sign of divine favor — a token
that he has been saved for a reason. So
much more so when the threat strikes at the
president in office, from a seemingly de
ranged assasin, and he survives what the
entire television-watching world sees could
easily have been a calamity.
Ten weeks earlier, Reagan struck an un
usual theme in his inaugural address, when
he turned from a recital of the nation’s prob
lems to say, “We have every right to dream
heroic dreams. Those who say we’re in a
time when there are no heroes, they just
don’t know where to look. ”
In his first weeks in office, Reagan de
monstrated repeatedly a kind of personal
ease and charm which not only delighted
his audiences but disarmed his critics. He
grace in the hours after his own life was
threatened, he elevated those appealing
human qualities to the level of legend. As
long as people remember the hospitalized
president joshing his doctors and nurses —
and they will remember — no critic will be
able to protray Reagan as a cruel or callous
or heartless man.
Criticism of his policies will be — prob
ably forever — separated from criticism of
the man. Reagan now enjoys an aura of good
will and a presumption of good motive
which no president since war hero Dwight
D. Eisenhower has had as a shield in the
polictical arena.
Tragically, that arena is now a far
bloodier place than it was in the innocent
Eisenhower era. The fragility of our gov
ernmental structure to the assassin’s bullet
has been demonstrated again.
Last Saturday night, at the Gridiron din
ner, where Washington correspondents en
tertain the politicians with satirical songs
and skits, Reagan and his press secretary
Jim Brady laughed uproariously when a Tip
O’Neill character, dressed incongruously as
a bulky bride, sang, “Honeymoon, it could
last until June.”
It lated less than 48 hours more. Then
Reagan was on his way to the hospital and
Brady was lying on the sidewalk in his own
blood, a bullet in his brain. The sense that
was so strong in January, when the hostages
came home and the new administration
took ofice, that perhaps the frustations and
agonies of the ’60s and ’70s had been put
behind us — that dream was over.
“Then one noon, ” the Tip O’Neill charac
ter sang, “I will pop the balloon. And I’ll
reveal that Tip O’Neill calls the Capitol
tune. ” But in reality, the balloon was pop
ped by the all-too-well-remembered sound
of gunfire, and one man came within inches
of erasing the voters’ mandate.
This society, which stubbornly resists
even the most modest effort to discipline its
own appetite for handguns, had once again
paid the price for its folly.
It’s your turn
Don't renovate; fix what's wrong
Editor:
As a resident of Hotard Hall, I know you
might think this is just another letter com
plaining about the rent increase for next
year. But it has generally been accepted as
an eventuality that all the talking, letter
writing and sign making in the world cannot
change.
I would like to bring up a different aspect
that most everyone (including the regents)
has seemed to overlook. Right now on my
floor, five out of 10 sinks are leaking or
broken and have been for at least three
months. It seems the only way our often-
sent work orders could do any good would
be to wad them up and stuff them up the
faucet to stop the drip-drip of the pseudo-
Chinese water tortures. One shower head
continued to spray scalding hot water to the
tune of a gallon every two minutes. Over
the months, despite the many work orders
sent in, thousands and thousands of gallons
continued to go down the drain. Not until
one of our own residents turned the water
off was the flow stopped, and still there has
been no one sent to make repairs.
The point I am trying to make is that if
the Physical Plant personnel can’t find time
to do a simple job like change washers, how
can they be expected to handle the comple
xities of an air-conditioning system. With
the addition of the two new modular dorma-
tories and the pay raise for state employees
(read: less hiring of State employees). I’m
afraid Hotard will be lost in the shuffle.
With regret, we’ve accepted the 120% ren
hike for “improvements” that nobod)
wants. But, when the much hassled overai
conditioning breaks down in May (the on!;
month when we could use it) and we have#
wait ’til December for repairs, that
beyond tolerance.
Thank you for your consideration!
Christopher H. Meakin f
PS I feel an interview with someone froi
the Maintenance Department to see ho'
they are going to handle the new probleit
would be of interest to your readers.
Christopher H. Meakin !
Tom George
Warped
By Scott McCullar
THIS REPORT JUST IN;
A GANG OF PEPPERS', AFTER
EACH HAVING HAD SEVERAL
PR. PEPPERS TO PRINK,
EXPLODED IN THE STREETS
todav, soon after
THEY HAD BEGUN FRANTIC
_ DANCING AS A GROUP.
WHY SURE I CAN TELL THE
DIFFERENCE, YOU DAWN
FOOL? COKE COWES IN
THE RED BOTTLE AND
PEPSI COWES IN THE
BLUE BOTTLE. IDIOT?
OW! OUCH? ALL THAT
BOXING AND PLAYING
BASKET FALL NNJTH A
STOMACH FULL OF SODA
POP, J300HH ... I THINK
'W FEELIN / 7-Up.
THIS COKE AND A SWILE
STUFF IS A LOT OF
BULL? IT LEAKS OUT
THROUGH YOUR TEETH?
The Battalion
ISPS
MEMBER
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Congress
Editor Dillard Stone
Managing Editor Angelique Copeland
Asst. Managing Editor Todd Woodard
City Editor Debbie Nelson
Asst. City Editor Marcy Boyce
Photo Editor Greg Gammon
Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy
Focus Editor Cathy Saathoff
Asst. Focus Editor Susan Hopkins
News Editors Venita McCellon,
Scot K. Meyer
Staff Writers Carolyn Barnes,
Jane G. Brust, Terry Duran, Bernie Fette,
Cindy Gee, Phyllis Henderson,
Kathleen McElroy, Belinda McCoy,
Kathy O’Connell, Richard Oliver,
Denise Richter, Rick Stolle
Cartoonist Scott McCullar
Photographers Chuck Chapman
Brian Tate
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