opinion Slouch By Jim Earle ‘Black was a poor choice to paint that radar antenna. Our town just plain simple folk by Art Buchwald STAGE MANAGER: The name of the town is Seven Corners. It’s a nice town, you know what I mean? Nobody remarkable ever comes out of it as far as we know. We’re must plain simple folk here and we can’t claim to be nothing more than just another town along Route 16. I better show you around a bit. That nice white house for sale on the corner belongs to the Jorgensons. It’s a real good buy if you don’t mind living over a land fill of dioxin. Oh, I forgot to tell you. About 10 years ago, a fellow came through and sprayed oil mixed with dioxin on the roads to settle the dust. The dioxin’s all over the place. That’s why you see so many “For Sale” signs on people’s lawns. Over there is the school, and right be hind it is where some chemical company dumped all its PCB in those big oil drums. The chemical company’s out of business, and the stuff is now seeping into the playground. Funny, you don’t ever see any kids playing there anymore. Well, as I said, it’s just about morning? Here’s the mayor. How’s it going Charley? MAYOR: Not too good. I been calling the EPA for two weeks trying to find out what they’re going to do about all our hazardous waste. They claim they still have no idea whether our soil samples are bad for human health or not. Even if they find the stuff is unsafe, they said they can’t do anything about cleaning the waste up until they do a study. They also said if their study shows we got a prob lem, their first concern is to find the che mical company and make a deal with them to pay for the cleanup. STAGE MANAGER: Well, have a nice day, Mayor. Here comes Doc Gibbs. You look kind of peaked, Doc. DOC: I never saw so many sick people in a town in my life. Them that isn’t sick is scared silly they’ll get sick. I haven’t slept in months. STAGE MANAGER: What’s going on at the hospital? DOC: Mrs. Henigan gave birth last night to a premature baby. That’s the 14th premature baby I’ve delivered this year. By the way, if you’re still using well water, be sure and boil it before you let any of your family drink it. STAGE MANAGER: Thanks for the tip, Doc. Fellow over there is Tad Jones. He’s a farmer and has 100 acres of graz ing land right next to the Cloverleaf Acid Pit. You look down in the dumps, Tad. What’s up? TAD: Five of my cows died last night. STAGE MANAGER. What hap pened? TAD: I don’t know. They just keeled over and died, like my dog did last week. I’m on my way to the newspaper to put my farm up for sale, if anyone’s stupid enough to buy it. STAGE MANAGER: Good luck Tad. Here comes the editor of the newspaper, Hiram Bonifal. Hiram knows everything going on in our town. What’s the big news today, Hiram? HIRAM: I just talked to the governor about our pollution problem. He says he’d like to help out, but he doesn’t have enough money to tidy up every town in the state. He said the feds have a Super fund just for cleaning up places like ours and we ought to talk to Washington. STAGE MANAGER: Well, you can’t say the governor doesn’t have a good sense of humor. You going to write another editorial about the sludge? HIRAM: I’m too busy talking to repor ters from out of town, who keep saying they’re going to put Seven Corners on the map. USPS 045 360 Member ot Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editor Diana Sultenfuss Managing Editor Gary Barker Associate Editor Denise Richter City Editor Hope E. Paasch Assistant City Editor Beverly Hamilton Sports Editor John Wagner Entertainment Editor Colette Hutchings Assistant Entertainment Editor. . . . 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Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Editor, The Battalion, 21b 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 fall and spring semesters, except for holiday and exami nation periods. Mail subscriptions are $ 16.75 per.semes ter, $33.25 per school year and $35 per full year. Adver tising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, 'EX 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusively to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it. Rights of reproduction of all other mailer herein reserved. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. Reader: Sex needs commi To Steve Patti: I would like to ask you where your concern lies with respect to the letter written by Dannette Heren. Are you con cerned that perhaps a source of birth control for minors which attempts to undermine parental authority is being restrained somewhat, or are you truly concerned for the well-being of young people in our country? I will expand on what seems to be your concern, deriving my claims from what you have revealed about yourself in your letter. It is true that Miss Heren contends that “countless minors are sexually active only because birth control devices are so easily and secretly available.” You then say: “I find this state(ment) highly ‘ignor ant’ for ‘one simple reason.’ Most teens in high school neglect to use any form of contraception at all because appealing to a parent would tend to put them in an ‘embarrassing’ situation.” To use one of your own terms, you have “missed the boat” yourself, a fact made evident by your statement. In the junior high and high school that I grew up in, I never did know anyone who’ needed to or wanted to appeal to a parent for a birth control device. The reason being that we knew it was wrong to be sexually active when we weren’t even married. Whenever we believed we might use a contraceptive device, we would find a source we could get it from without having someone tell us it was wrong. Your “obvious(ly) inept, naive atti tude,” is that the only source available for contraceptive devices is a parent in the case of a minor. You are not living up to your name, because there is no reason in “reason” for labeling her statement ignorant. And so I charge that you termed it so only because you consider the statement a threat to the lie that you are seeking to advance. Let me be more specific. You seem to believe that pre-marital sex is “a natural men seek to advance it and uset advantage, and not enough peoL against. For example, whydojl that there is so much lustinsoa[| by La advertising, etc. I say because Ban promoters think, the best waytK: 00 ^