opinion
Battalion/Page 2
April 1, 1982
Slouch
By Jim Earle
WKJ
Snood nadV
AddVH
The Lighter Side: Get
your daily bug supply
By Dick West
WASHINGTON — So far I have nev
er seen tomato juice advertised as con
taining 100 percent of the recommended
minimum daily adult requirement of
drosophilia fly eggs.
Nor have I ever shopped at supermar
kets that charged more for broccoli extra
rich in aphids, thrips and mites.
Could it be the food industry has been
in the slow lane with respect to promot
ing the nutritional benefits of buggy
groceries?
That certainly is one message that may
be read into an article on insect consump
tion in the April Omni magazine.
“Many insects are delicious and are
higher in protein, calories and fat than
equivalent amounts of beef,” says the au
thor, Edgar Raffensperger, a Cornell en
tomology professor.
So how come we never find such items
gs “beetle bread” being extolled by food
editors, restaurant critics and all those
gourmet cooks whose recipes are forever
turning up in leading epicurean publica
tions?
“Our aversion to certain foods is dic
tated by customs and habits,” Raffens
perger explains. And that about says it
all.
The plain fact is that no national
advertiser has ever launched a campaign
to break down the anti-bug bias in our
diet.
The demand is there just waiting to be
tapped, I’m convinced. All that is needed
is for someone to do for tomato fruit-
worms what Frank Perdue has done for
chicken parts. A spiel on this order:
“Try my genuine vitaminloaded fruit-
worms the next time you shop for toma-
tos. They have the same highprotein con
tent as their cousin antropods, shrimp
and lobster. Plus they are flavorful and
charismatic.”
It was, as I recall, also a Cornell scien
tist who performed some insect edibility
tests for the Food and Drug Administra
tion a few years back.
The burden of that study was that pes
ticides required to debug fruits and
vegetables were more harmful than eat
ing the bugs would be.
Raffensperger appears to take an even
more sanguine view. He reports among
other things that the protein and calorie
content of flour and other processed
foods could be doubled with insect addi
tives, and without changing either taste
or appearance.
You will, I’m sure, be pleased to know
that most of us already are getting a size
able quantity of bug fragments in our
daily repasts. Federal allowances permit
residues in many foodstuffs. Cocoa, for
example, may contain up to 75 insect
pieces per two-ounce serving.
If public relations consultants ever do
latch onto the positive side of buggy vic
tuals, they will strike the mother lode of
hyperbole. Since virtually every plant
known to man has its own special pests,
the insect kingdom offers an almost infi
nite variety of potential taste thrills.
Right now, I could go for a side order
of sauteed green peach aphids like
mother used to make. But hold the spi
nach leaf miners.
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' ©1981 King Feature* Syndicate. Inc. World rights reserved.
‘Gay’ letter to editor is forgery
Ser<
In Wednesday’s paper, a letter
appeared that was signed with the name
Wayne Curtis of Bucknell Street. The
fact that Curtis did not write the letter is
bad enough. The content of the letter
compounds the seriousness of the event.
The letter ran in the Letters to the
Editor section with the headline “Under
standing Needed.” It described an inci
dent in a class where a student had sup
posedly told a friend that he was a mem
ber of the GSSO and the friend then
stood up in class and made a scene. The
letter asked for understanding on the
part of “straight” students.
The real Wayne Curtis of Bucknell
Street knew nothing about the letter until
he saw it printed with his name under it.
All letters to the editor must be signed
with name, address and phone number.
The letter met these qualifications and an
attempt was made to verify the author,
but the mistake was not caught beforeii|
appeared in print.
C
The purpose of the editorial page is ^
provide an open forum for studentsanj
community residents to express
views on current issues. When this pti-
vilege is abused, everyone’s rightssuffe,
and in this case, one individual in partial
lar has suffered the consequences.
The Battalion regrets the error.
Search for the Holy Grail of politics
By David S. Broder
WASHINGTON — For generations,
politicians, pundits and poll-takers have
been seeking their version of the Holy
Grail — a surefire, guaranteed way to
predict presidential elections well ahead
of time. It may have been found by a most
unlikely duo: an American historian and
a Soviet geophysicist.
When Allan J. Lichtman of American
University and Volodia Keilis-Borok of
Moscow’s Academy of Sciences met as
visitors at Cal Tech last spring, they joked
about the overlap in their seemingly dis
similar fields. Lichtman, a politician his
torian with a fondness for mathematical
analysis, was trying to explain electoral
upheavals and presidential landslides.
Keilis-Borok was trying to refine earth
quake analysis and prediction through a
technique called “pattern recognition.”
The joking quickly turned to a serious
effort to define the historical conditions
that lead to change of party control of the
White House. By mathematical exercises
far beyond my comprehension, the odd
couple eliminated some plausible factors.
When they had finished their computer
runs, they were left with 13 key tests.
The first six questions that determine
the winner of any presidential election
are:
Did the party in power receive at least
51 percent (rounded to the nearest per
centage) of the popular vote in the pre
vious election?
Is the sitting President running for re-
election?
Did he initiate major changes in na
tional policy?
Did the party in power achieve a major
success in foreign or military policy?
Is its candidate charismatic or a nation
al hero?
Was the yearly mean per-capita rate of
growth in real Gross National Product
during the incumbent administration
equal to or greater than 1 percent and
equal to or greater than that of the pre
vious eight years?
The more of those questions that are
answered “no,” the better the chances the
White House will change hands.
The other seven questions are the re
verse. The more “yes” answers, the better
the odds of a presidential upheaval:
Was there a serious contest for the
nomination of the incumbent party?
Was there major third-party or inde
pendent campaign activity during the
election year?
Was there an election-year recession
or depression?
Was there major social unrest in the
nation during the incumbent administra
tion?
Was it tainted by scandal?
Did it suffer a major setback in foreign
or military policy?
Is the challenging party candidatt
charismatic or a war hero?
Lichtman and Keilis-Borok applied
their criteria to every election in the Iasi
120 years and published their findings™
what can safely be called a little-noted
article in the November, 1981, “Proceed
ings of the National Academy of Sri
ences.”
It might have remained their secret
weapon for winning barroom election
bets in Moscow and Washington. But
Lichtman has gone public with a popula
rized version in the next issue of
“Washingtonian Magazine.” So you
might as well be in on the game, too.
T he secret is that when there are more
than five “discrepant keys” or wrong
answers from the viewpoint of the part)
in power, it loses the White House. When
there are less than five, it wins. When
there are exactly five — as there werein
1880 and 1912 — the result is unpredict
able, depending on the break in the elec
toral vote.
Now that they have gone public, their
theory will be examined skeptically b)
other scholars and tested by all the poli
tical junkies as a predictive tool for 1984.
It may not match Rubik’s Cube in popu
larity, but it’s better fun than counting
delegates. And it can’t be less reliable
than the polls.
by Bh
Ba—
Seven Te>-
will be listeez
dates for of -
Station City-
College Sta*
School Distr
| don when vc
Saturday.
Among
seeking ele
Gary Hal
Robert C. Re
Dozier; and
Charles P. G
man Brown.
Other <
Councilman
CSISD boa
Jones, Lynn
Morris.
Below is a
dates for con
ing biograp
and their opi
in the electic
Letters: Campaign isn’t working
Editor:
This is an open letter to Mr. John Olin
Teague:
You profess to take the side of the
poor, the working people (advertise
ment, Battalion 3-30-82, page 6) and
seem to want to leave the “rich” and the
“fat-cats” out in the cold where they’ve
been for the last 30 years. Yet you adver
tise and solicit donations in a student
newspaper? We, the opulent felines men
tioned, can’t even afford that while going
co school.
I think you know very little about your
proposed constitutency. That is why my
/ote remains with Mr. Gramm for as long
ts he cares to run.
drawing our participation in all the activi
ties in this International Week. We have
dence will not be repeated.
Steve Stockman ’82
Two-China policy unfair
Editor:
We are extremely regretful in with-
reiterated our position in the organiza
tion meetings that there is only one Chi
na, that is, People’s Republic of China as
represented by the government in Beij
ing (Peking). Taiwan is only part of Chi
na. The Nationalist regime in Taiwan is
not recognized as the legitimate govern
ment of China by the United Nations nor
by the U.S. government. Inspite of our
memorandum, the administration of the
International Student Association and
the University openly distributed the Na
tionalist flag to a group of students from
Taiwan and allowed them to participate
as a country. This act strongly violates the
Constitution of the United Nations and
the U.S.-China diplomatic agreement.
Under our strong protest, the adminis
tration has to retract the distributed flag,
but still allows the display of the National
ist flag under so-called “cultural items.”
Such two-China policy, whether a pro
duct of contemplation or negligence,
cannot be tolerated by us. It will seriously
hinder any future interaction between
U.S. and China. We hope that such inci-
Wang, Zai-Zhong
President of the China Club
Thanks for the help
Editor:
I would like to thank the ladies in the
Student Finance Center and the Univer
sity Scheduling Office for their nume-
rious invaluable contributions to our club
in the past year. They have always been
extremely cooperative and willing to go
out of their way to help. These people are
an asset to all student organizations.
Lynn Slater
Toyota Owners Association
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
Texas A&M University administrators or faculty mem
bers, or of the Board of Regents.
The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper
for students in reporting, editing and photography das-
ses within the Department of Communications.
Questions or comments concerning any editorial
matter should be directed to the editor.
Editor Angelique Copeland
City Editor. Denise Richter
Assistant City Editor ......... Diana Sultenfuss
Sports Editor Frank L.Christlieb
Focus Editor Cathy Saathoff
Assistant Focus Editor Nancy Floeck
News Editors Gary Barker,
Phyllis Henderson, Mary Jo Rummel,
Nancy Weatherley
Staff Writers Jennifer Carr,
Cyndy Davis, Gaye Denley,
Sandra Gary, Colette Hutchings,
Johna Jo Maurer, Hope E. Paasch
Daniel Puckett, Bill Robinson,
Denise Sechelski, John Wagner,
Laura Williams, Rebeca Zimmermann
Cartoonist Scott McCullar
Graphic Artist Richard DeLeon Jr.
Photographers Sumanesh Agrawal,
David Fisher, Eileen Manton,
Eric Mitchell, Peter Rocha,
John Ryan, Colin Valentine
Editorial Policy
The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting news
paper operated as a community service to Texas A&M
University and Bryan-College Station. Opinions ex
pressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or the
; author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of '
Letters Policy
Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words in
length, and are subject to being cut if they are longer.
The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letten for
style and length, but will make every effort to maintain
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Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, and
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Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Editor,
The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M Uni
versity, College Station, TX 77843, or phone (713) 845-
2611.
The Battalion is published daily during Texas A&M’s
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Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald
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Second class postage paid at College Station, IX
77843.
College St
Place 2:
Dr. Robe:
15-year resic
tion and has
cil for the pa
professor ir
department
versity.
He is the
1981-86 Cap
Program at
and has don
search at
NASA.
Runnels s;
make provi;
fire and pol
emergency s
Also, the c
mic base net
and city ef
creased to
neighborhoc
Increased
Two Tex
students ref
College Stal
ment Tuesd
Accordin
21-year-old
by two men
of Texas A\
Southwest P
said the met
was walkin
friend’s ho
Tuesday.
Repor
During i
darkness F<
males were s
vehicle in a
the USD A
Texas A
Campus.
This was
vehicle bur;
weekend.
Most oft!
burglaries v
ment, casseti
and CB radi
If you ha'
A.G.P.,
speed tea
colleges i
course fe:
or betlei
grades! Ai
reading!
DATE: Af
TIME: 71
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