*
\
opinion
Battalion/Page 2
April 19, 1982
Washington serves
as political excuse
by Arnold Sawislak
United Press International
WASHINGTON — There was a mini
flap in these parts recently when Sen.
Ted Stevens, the second-ranking Repub
lican leader, vented his spleen on the na
tional capital. “I detest it,” said the Alas
kan in one of his milder comments.
Stevens’ observations upset a number
of locals, but those who know the city’s
history shrugged it off as yet another
politician trying to divert attention from
some shortcoming of his own by beating
on Washington.
Washington has been a whipping
town for more than a century. It prob
ably began when the first bureaucrats ar
rived in 1801 to set up shop in the new
national capital, but in any case the idea
of blaming Washington certainly had
taken hold by 1814 when the British
burned the town.
Local militiamen were accused of
cowardice then because they ran away
from the Redcoats at Bladensburg out
side Washington. That did not quite ex
plain how the British got to the suburbs
6f the national capital practically uncon
tested, which was because the profession
al military geniuses in charge fortified
the Potomac River approaches to
Washington and forgot about the over
land route, which the British used. (The
Japanese did the same thing to the Brit
ish at Singapore in World War II.)
< In any case, Washington continued in
bad odor (literally) past the middle of the
19th century, getting no money for such
civic adornments as a sewer system until
the 1870s. The city’s historians note that
this was the period when many members
Of Congress from Northern states were
down on it because it had a lot of South
ern sympathizers among its residents.
The coin flipped in this century when
Southern legislators wallowed in horror
stories about the effects of racial integra
tion in Washington. Seldom mentioned
was the fact that these same people re
sisted nearly every effort to improve the
situation. More recently, Washington lis
tened to Richard Nixon calling the city
“the crime capital,” to which reputation
he contributed with Watergate.
Which brings us to the senator from
Alaska, who put the knock on Washing
ton’s air quality, street cleaning and
crime. The Washington Post then noted
that Stevens has lived in and around the
capital for 21 of the last 31 years and
suggested no one was holding him cap
tive.
Stevens got the last word, accusing the
paper of taking a “cheap shot at a senator
from far away who really does not like to
be away from home in a city like this.”
Touching. But it did not address the
original issue, which was a tax deduction
of $75 for each day of session for every
member of Congress. This tax break pro
vided members of Congress with deduc
tions of $ 19,000 in the tax return due last
week.
Some people thought that might be a
bit much for people who are paid more
than $60,000 a year plus good benefits
and perquisites, but they didn’t have a
chance to say so until after it became law.
It may be a cheap shot to point it out,
but Congress slipped the deduction into
an unrelated bill during the pre-
Christmas adjournment rush and pop
ped it through to passage with practically
no debate. It was during an effort to re
peal that bit of legislative legerdemain
that Stevens found it relevant to attack
Washington.
Slouch
Earle
By Jim
‘It’s not an armadillo hat, it’s an armadillo.”
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
1 Editor Angelique Copeland
' City Editor Denise Richter
l Assistant City Editor Diana Sultenfuss
’’ Sports Editor Frank L. Christlieb
•i 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
'r Cartoonist Scott McCullar
/ Graphic Artist Richard DeLeon Jr.
J Photographers Sumanesh Agrawal,
David Fisher, Eileen Manton,
Eric Mitchell, Peter Rocha,
John Ryan, Colin Valentine
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<w
by Cyndy I
Battalion Si
r. and Mrs.
nbaum Jr., of
ere named Parent
tan awards progra
udder Auditor!
1m, Class of ’47,
lonal vice presi
iation of Forn
he Weinbaun
ildren, two whc
Texas A&1V
i one — Johnn)
or and com
iadron 12.
he Weinbaum
ue and will be f
a football gam
one
by Greg T
Battalion Rej
Two faculty met
udents from the
ducational Cui
ruction will s
summer with
oco Inc. of He
onoco is givin
t$22,320 to he
to England a
Jack Campbell
iculum and in
> is the first t
Reagan fumbling federal cost
artment has 1
ad program.
tudents will stu
al systems of t
by David S. Broder
WASHINGTON — The cynics are
being proved right about one thing, at
least. The federalism initiative which
President Reagan made the centerpiece
of his State of the Union address seems to
be going nowhere.
Negotiations between the White
House and the governors over a prop
osed swap, in which the states would take
over food stamps and welfare while the
federal government took all of Medicaid,
have reached an impasse. Work on the
other half of the Reagan proposal —
plans for a turnback of dozens of federal
programs and the tax sources to support
them — is far behind schedule. Congres
sional action in 1982, which always
looked chancy, now is unlikely.
ity lends a bittersweet quality to two re
ports that crossed the desk last week.
One, published by the National Gov
ernors Association, cites examples of
programs that are under way in many
states to spur technological innovation
and productivity growth. That effort has
been encouraged by conferences held
the last two years, under NGA auspices,
by a task force headed by two of the
brightest of the retiring governors,
Michigan’s William G. Miiliken (R) an
California’s Edmund C. (Jerry) Brown
Jr- (D).
to provide a
to solve pro
.S. school system
dents will coi
As the magazine published by the Na
tional Conference of State Legislatures
notes, the states may do well to hold the
authority they now have. There are a
number of major bills pending in Con
gress — some with administration sup
port— which would extend federal legis
lative and regulatory authority and
preempt state initiatives in these fields.
From Georgia’s Advanced Technolo
gy Entrepreneur Center to Arizona’s
Center for Engineering Excellence,
Brown’s survey found at least 88 separate
initiatives under way with state leader
ship. Many involve public-private part
nerships.
All of this may seem of no great matter
in a time of severe recession and threats
to peace. But it strikes me as regrettable
that this President, like all his predeces
sors back to and including Richard, is
losing the opportunity he might have had
to sort out the jumble of responsibilities
that have accumulated in Washington
and transfer some of them to states and
localities.
The recognition of that lost opportun-
This is the kind of creativity the
Reagan initiative was designed to capture
and to spur in a wide variety of domestic
program areas.
The second survey, published in Stale
Government quarterly, confirmed my
subjective view that there is more and
more qualified leadership to tap at the
state level. The survey of the background
and training of state agency heads was
reported by professors F. Ted Hebert of
the University of Oklahoma and Deil S.
Wright of the University of North Caroli-
na-Chapel Hill. It clearly demonstrates
the growing professionalism of state gov
ernment:
— The agency heads in 1978 were sub
stantially younger, better educated and
more professionally
their predecessors in a series of
surveys going back to 1964.
To take a few of the 1964
comparisons, the proportion of
heads with less than a college
dropped from 34 to 11 percent!
with graduate degrees rose fromlj
cent to 58 percent. *
— I he tradition of career serJL ..
growing at the state level. AboutluM l 1 T" 1
agency neads began work in statego i- 11 L4 1
ment before they were 30,andmottB
half reached the top of their ageiioB
fore they were 50, most often byol ^ e 1
line promotion within their owna; Texas A&
or from another agency in the saint Club annual w;
The numbers of women and mil: make a splash in tl
among them, while still smalNatatorium at 8 p
growing. through Saturday
This does not guarantee theirelfflp he show will
cy or sensitivity, of course. AsHeber®^.’ tnos an< ‘ 8
; ii, with instrumental
Wright say no absolute ansvle ® . each rou
given to the question of vvn^tbf t i rec | u g w j|j p er p (
states (are) ready to assume greal;|j?i veo f t h e jq n
sponsibility...But it is certain thatstAquatiains’ Club
the arguments of an earlier day sufife fourth nation
ing transfer of functions to the lionized Swim I
government — arguments that University 1
the representativeness and profesilr Jhe te am plac
character of federal administrate®^^ 11 tust
may eventually be undercut by ti| I ^ adonal co
undei way m the* states. twimmers are ju
My own, less cautiousjudgmentii™
the public is ahead of the politic!
this question. Voters understand!
cially at tax time) the costs of overte
the federal bureaucracy. Somei
issue will be grasped, not fumble
President, to his political benefit.
Letters: Symphony review lacking
I*
N
Tin
Pi
M
Editor:
The “review” of the Fort Worth Sym
phony Orchestra’s performance which
appeared in Wednesday’s Battalion was
more a synopsis of the program notes
and the audience’s reaction than a critical
analysis of the performance. Whether
the FWSO received a standing ovation
from some concertgoers and “lengthy
applause” from still more is a trivial
point. The OPAS-event audiences will
clap for almost anything (as Miss Zim
merman noted), never mind that it’s not
the end of the ith movement, where i less
than N = number of movements in a par
ticular piece of music.
Can the Aggie OPAS audiences be
persuaded to hold their eager applause
until after the end of a musical work? If
they get lost in a multimovement piece
(assuming that they have read the prog
ram), they can always wait until the con
ductor turns around to receive their ap
plause, or until the pianist stands to com
mence their enthusiastic clapping.
Perhaps OPAS could include a “guide to
decorum” in their season ticket mailing,
since a sizable proportion of the audience
lacks either the sophistication or the sen
sitivity to realize that they perform a
great disservice, both to the artist(s) and
to the rest of the listeners with their clap-
happy behavior.
As for the performance on stage, I was
disappointed. Maestro Giordano failed
to maintain control of the orchestra;
focus, tempo, texture, impact and subtle
ty all suffered. Some members of the
brass section were particularly remiss,
coming in late and off-pitch in the
Brahms.
The FWSO did perform the task of
bringing serious music to this technical
institute; for that, I applaud them.
Rodney J. Simmons
Doctoral Candidate
Chicks stolen
Editor:
This letter may not seem very impor
tant to most people but I am deeply dis
turbed by the thievery that goes on at
Texas A&M. I realize that leaving a bike
or backpack alone for any length is a
temptation for some people but what I
had stolen is not of the same kind of
value.
I am an Animal Science student taking
Animal Nutrition 304 which entails a
three-week experiment with chick
ter the experiment is over each ft
must arrange for the removal oi
chicks. I thought honesty was a i I
teristic of all Aggies but apparentlfi $
wrong. I had made arrangements^ : f
chicks to he well takencareof And®
more, they were my responsibility
These chicks are invaluable ton*
cause I fed and cared lor them loti!
weeks, including weekends. 11#
attached to them and I havebeendtt
what I was told was my option
whomever stole my chicks, theyatf
distinguishable — each chick has a#
of lines on his right foot. Ifyouwotil
kind enough to return themlwonl
very grateful. My phone number id
3402 after 5 p.m. No questions" 1
asked.
FI
BE
Free 1
6 P.p
Renee Hi
College SU
the small society
by Brickmoi
H#?- fc>Y! ALL TH£
©1981 King Features Svndicete, Inc. World rigtits reserved.
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