-opinion
Battalion/Page 2
August 31,1982
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“There he is! He’s the one that wrote the program that
gave us our fall schedules.”
Can Reagan save us
from hazardous fall?
by David E. Anderson
United Press International
WASHINGTON — National policy de
bates are conducted with symbols and
metaphors — verbal shorthand that is the
politician’s equivalent of the demonstrator’s
placard.
Sometimes such metaphors stand for or
summarize an entire administration, as in
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Other times
they summarize a complex set of programs
and proposals with an overarching goal, such
as Richard Nixon’s Project Independence,
which sought to describe his administration’s
energy policy.
But as William E. Davis, director of the
National League of Cities’ Office of Policy
Analysis and Development, points out, not
only do these metaphors describe, they also
“greatly influence the nature and direction of
our thinking about public policy issues.”
Davis made his comment in introducing a
recent study by his colleague at the League of
Cities, William R. Barnes, of one of the
Reagan administration’s most popular
metaphors — the “social safety net.”
The safety net metaphor was first used by
the administration in its “Program for Econo
mic Recovery” of Feb. 18, 1981, which noted a
number of economic security programs for
the poor already existed, and asserted:
“The President believes that the essential
social safety net must be maintained.”
“Indeed,” the plan added, “the President’s
budget reform plan is animated by and must
be understood in terms of its motivation to
preserve and maintain those social safety net
programs that represent the accrued perma
nent consensus of the American people over
the past five decades.”
Almost everyone now agrees the safety net
is in shreds and the adminstration has backed
away from its commitment to preserving — in
its mixed metaphor — the “core” programs of
the net.
This, however, is of less concern to Barnes
than that the metaphor essentially misdirects
the policy debate over the poor and the prog
rams aimed at alleviating their needs.
“The ‘social safety net’ is misnamed and
thus misleading,” Barnes argues. “For the
most part, the problems that poor people face
today are at least as ‘economic’ as they are
‘social.’” ' J ' '
And it defines the problem incorrectly,
according to Barnes.
“The image conjured involves a person fall
ing, say, from a tightrope or from a burning
building,” he said. “It implies that people fall
out of the economic system.”
“The reality is that large numbers of people
are structured out of the primary economic
system — to use the metaphor, they never got
‘up’ or ‘in’ enough to fall ‘down’ or ‘out’ at all,”
he said. “Our economy is constructed such
that many people being an^l remain at or
below the level of the ‘net’: can one fall up
into a safety net?”
Barnes said that because the metaphor in
correctly defines the problem — by failing to
understand the realities of poverty and the
position of the poor relative to the economy —
“it is hardly surprising that it does not help us
very much in figuring out solutions.”
“A ‘net’ is intended to ‘catch’ people who
‘fall’; this is indeed a worthy endeavor,”
Barnes said, “but such a net does not address
the needs of those who are alredy ‘down,’ who
remain ‘down’ for a long time or who need
help to move ‘up.’ The very metaphor itself
tells the poor that the problems are not the
stuff of this policy debate.”
Barnes has a couple of metaphors himself
to suggest for the debate: “floors” and “lad
ders.”
Those metaphors suggest that the goals of
anti-poverty programs are to ensure that all
households have at least a minimal standard
of living, that is “to establish a ‘floor’ below
which no American household will fall,” and
to create ‘ladders,’ programs by which people
can climb up to and above the ‘floor’ and out
of dependency.
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member of
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Southwest Journalism Conference
Editor Diana Sultenfuss
Managing Editor Phyllis Henderson
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City Editor Bernie Fette
Assistant City Editor Gary Barker
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Entertainment Editor Nancy Floeck
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Hutchings
News Editors Cathy Capps, Daniel Puckett,
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Staff Writers Jennifer Carr, Susan
Dittman, Beverly Hamilton,
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Wagner, Rebeca Zimmermann
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Graphic Artist Pam Starasinic
Photographers . .. David Fisher, Octavio Garcia,
Jane Hollingsworth, Janet Joyce,
Peter Rocha, John Ryan, Colon
Valentine
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Bureaucracy:‘I’m so confusedi
Governments can discuss cutting all
the red tape associated with running a
burgeoning bureaucracy, but unless a
person comes face to face with it, they
may not be aware of it.
I’ve never had much problem with the
bureaucracy at Texas A&M University
because I’ve never had to deal with it in
my three years here. But, I’m making up
for it my senior year, and I’ve lost the
battle each time.
I realize attempting to get a loan at the
beginning of school is a trying experi
ence, so I decided to play it smart and
take out a senior-ring loan during the
summer. After putting in my application,
I returned on the appointed day to get
my loan.
I was told three times to come back at
other times because the loan office
wanted to fill tuition and book loans first.
When told to come in the first day of
school, I patiently waited in line 30 mi
nutes, dreaming of the ring I wanted to
order. However, I was informed my loan
application had been lost and that: “any
ways, the office had decided to wait until
next week before handling ring loans, so
it didn’t really matter.”
I can’t place the blame on just harritj
offices that might not have the timei ^
think of ways of communicating tosii
dents and faculty.
I’ll drop the issue of the lost loan appli
cation to concentrate on what’s bothering
me — the lack of communication on this
campus.
At the loan office — why didn’t they
inform ring loan students in the begin
ning to wait until next week? It would
have saved them the problem of having
to look up our applications each time and
then orally tell us we couldn’t have it yet.
And we wouldn’t have to tie up already
long lines that other loan-seeking stu
dents were trying to get through. A sign
on the door would have sufficed nicely to
say they weren’t giving out any ring
loans.
Even during relaxed times in thesm ela
mer, the lack of communication wasd
vious among the various departmea Sf
and colleges themselves.
Paperwork — inevitable when deal
with institutions — can beaggravalingi
those having to fill it out, but something
wrong with the way the institutionsai
communicating when the paperwoi
confuses those who hand it out, audit
one can decide on what form is them
reel one.
U1
etier
It only makes the people caught in I 3 st
middle angry and confused andcaneie iajor
lead them to avoid going to theinsi :ms
tion for the help the institution ’ " 1
performing.
I know there are officials and offo
that do communicate, and I’veappreo
ated their help over the years—howe™
when someone goes to another areaof
bureaucracy that doesn’t communicait
its problems may be the only things on ^
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I MISTER
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P5Sr ( MENACH£M,„ITHINK GENERAL SHARON NEEDS A RBI
Move over — that’s my seat
by David Fisher
and John Ryan
Battalion Staff
Ah, the first day of class has come and gone
once more. One of these days, we’ll finally get
all our classes in one building. It’d be nice if we
could talk them into counting it as our P.E.
classes because we sure get in shape with all
that class-hopping.
But that’s not what we’re here to ramble
about today. Have you ever paid attention to
people and their habits in choosing a seat?
Choosing a seat for the semester can be an
interesting proposition. This ritual takes
place at the start of the semester and involves
a variety of people and methods. It’s easier to
put them in categories, so here goes.
Front row people: There are usually two
types of people in this category — the ones
who want to butter up the teacher in an effort
to help their grade and the ones whojust can’t
see too well. What can we say about the ones
who can’t see well? But for those who try to
help their grade by counting the freckles on
the teacher’s face, hopefully he has some exo
tic disease and sprays the front row when he
talks. One can usually count on these people
to keep the class from progressing very well,
because they ask the teacher some question of
little importance or no relevance every five
minutes to further remind the teacher of their
presence and name.
Backrowers: No, that’s not some new swim
ming stroke. These are the ones who would
just rather not be there, so they find a quiet
place to in which to hibernate for the semes
ter. They can be identified by the proverbial
answer of: “Could you repeat that please”
when called on to answer a question. They can
usually be counted on not to get in the way of
the normal flow of the class because you rarely
know that they are present, unless they snore
loudly.
Date—hunters: You can easily spot these
people by the fact that it takes them fifteen
minutes and three seat changes to get next to
the most attractive member of the opposite
sex in the class. These people usually resem
ble a bird dog on point to the intended game.
They frequently stand in the back of the clas
sroom picking out their intended quarry
when 80 percent of the seats in the classroom
are open. The worst of this species, though, is
the one who walks in front of the class so
everyone will look at them, and then heads for
their victim. Their conversations to the per
son sitting next to them usually work into the
boyfriend/girlfriend status within their first
two sentences, to determine the usefulness of
sitting next to that person any longer.
Those who cooperate to pass: These are
the ones who holler at some old aquaintance
all the way across the room so they can have a
seat saved for them in a close proximity to that
person. Then, they trot around the room to
beat off anybody who might try to steal the
coveted seat near their friend. Some of these
people form little study groups to help them
pass. The only problem is that sometimes the
teacher catches on, and they have tosufTerlj
embarrassment of watching the teacherf
their exam to shreds in front of (he class,!
Plain old students: These are the ones
just try to blend into the fabric of theclassM
hope they don’t get seen or called on.
can usually be counted on to study hardi]
try to make good grades. We can’t te
more about them because we haven’t I
them.
Well, those are the seat seekers. Now)
know what to watch out for when
found your seat and someone sits next to)'
and looks at you like they wanttohangjl
head on their trophy wall. So have a j
semester and good seat seeking.
Berry s World
“It seems Poland isn’t the ONLY place where
dissent and anger continues."