Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, August 4, 1983
4
How un-American
can anyone get?
by Art Buchwald
I have a confession to make, and the
sooner it gets out in the open, the better
I’ll feel about it. I don’t drive a car.
Americans are broad-minded people.
They’ll accept the fact that a person can
be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife bea
ter, and even a newspaperman, but if a
man doesn’t drive, there is something
wrong with him.
Through the years I’ve found it very
embarrassing to admit it to anyone, and
my best friends tend to view me with sus
picion and contempt.
But where I really run into trouble is
when I go into a store and try to make a
purchase with a check.
It happened again last week when I
went to a discount house at a large shop
ping center in Maryland. I wanted to buy
a portable typewriter, and the salesman
was very helpful about showing me the
different models.
I decided on one, and then I said,
“May I write out a personal check?”
“Naturally,” he said kindly. “Do you
have any identification?”
“Of course,” I said. I produced an
American Express credit card, a Diner’s
Club credit card, a Carte Blanche credit
card, a Bell Telephone credit card, and
my pass to the White House.
The man inspected them all and then
said, “Where’s your driver’s license?”
“I don’t have one,” I replied.
“Did you lose it?”
“No, I didn’t lose it. I don’t drive a car.”
He pushed a button under the cash
register, and suddenly a floor manager
came rushing over.
The salesman had now become surly.
“This guy’s trying to cash a check, and he
doesn’t have a driver’s license. Should I
call the store detective?”
“Wait a minute. I’ll talk to him,” the
manager said. “Did you lose your driver’s
license for some traffic offense?”
“No, I’ve never driven. I don’t like to
drive.”
“Nobody likes to drive,” the floor man
ager shouted. “That’s no excuse. Why are
you trying to cash a check if you don’t
have a driver’s license?”
“I thought all the other identification
was good enough. I had to be cleared by
the Secret Service to get this White House
pass,” I said hopefully.
The floor manager looked scornfully
at the pass and all my credit cards. “Any
one can get cleared by the Secret Service.
Hey, wait a minute. How did you get out
here to the shopping center if you don’t
drive?”
“I took a taxi,” I said.
“Well, that takes the cake,” he said.
By this time a crowd had gathered.
“What happened?”
“Guy doesn’t have a driver’s license.”
“Says he doesn’t even drive. Never has
driven.”
“Lynch him.”
“Tar and feather him.”
“How un-American can you get?”
The crowd was getting ugly, so I de
cided to forget the typewriter.
By this time the president of the store
had arrived on the scene. Fortunately, he
recognized my name and okayed the
check. He was very embarrassed by the
treatment I had received and said,
“Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I forgot to tell you,” I said. “I don’t
drink either.”
This was too much, even for him, and
he pushed me toward the door.
“Get out of here,” he said, “and don’t
come back!”
Cancer-fighting bug spray
one of summer’s U-turns
by Dick West
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Weather apart,
this truly has been a strange summer.
The U.S. Postal Service shows a sur
plus, gasoline becomes plentiful, the So
cial Security system is reported in good
financial condition and the Agriculture
Department discovers an insect spray
that cures cancer.
Talk about your U-turns! This may
take the cake — made with an articifical
sweetner that enables the baker to claim:
a slice a day keeps the doctor away.
The insect spray switch was turned up
by two researchers experimenting with a
chemical called diflubenzuron.
“Diflubenzuron is widely used to con
trol such agricultural insects as the boll
weevil,” says a department news release.
But when some of the stuff was tried
on mice, it stopped the growth of certain
skin cancer cells.
Anyone who has been even partly
awake during the last couple of decades
can immediately grasp the potential sig
nificance of this development.
In case after case, insecticides have
been found to cause cancer in laboratory
mice. Now, at last, the shoe has been
dropped on the other foot.
If an insect spray that harms mice is
assumed to be dangerous to- human
beings, it would seem to follow that an
insect spray that benefits mice is a boon to
the human race.
Difulbenzuron, be it noted, is not a
poison, as many of the banned products
were. Rather, this chemical is described
as a “growth regulator” that prevents cer
tain insects from developing complete
body coverings.
Apparently, it has much the same in-
hibitive impact on a type of skin cancer in
mice.
Should further research show the che
mical works as well on human skin, this
could be the opening of new opportuni
ties in the environmental and ecological
arenas.
Some of the possibilities are illustrated
in the following futuristic news items:
WASHINGTON — The Veterans
Administration moved today to collect
millions of dollars in medical fees from
former servicemen who were exposed to
a chemical used for insect control.
A VA spokesman said the chemical
diflubenzuron was sprayed on crops in
fields near where the GIs were participat
ing in training maneuvers.
It has since been shown to inhibit dis
ease growth in human beings. Thus the
veterans may have accidentally received
free immunizations, the spokesman
pointed out.
WASHINGTON — The Environ
mental Protection Agency announced to
day it will provide funds to build an en
tire new city on a plot of Missouri farm
land that was heavily sprayed with dif
lubenzuron.
The EPA said tests showed the soil
contained enough of the chemical to pre
vent the growth of cancer cells in at least
10,000 people, the projected population
of the town.
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member ot
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
Editor HopeE. Paasch
City Editor Kelley Smith
Sports Editor John Wagner
News Editors Daran Bishop, Brian Boyer,
Beverly Hamilton, Tammy Jones
Staff Writers Robert McGlohon, Karen
Schrimsher, Angel Stokes,
Joe Tindel
Copyeditors Kathleen Hart, Beverly
Hamilton
Cartoonist Scott McCullar
Photographers
Brenda Davidson, Eric Evan Lee,
Barry Papke
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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 (409) 845-
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The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting news
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77843.
Businesses slowly learning
sexist ads turn small profit
by Maxwell Glen
and Cody Shearer
WASHINGTON — American Ex
press Co. has always had a knack for
advertising. Through an appealing series
of ads, the financial giant some years ago
implied that its cardholders could walk
into any watering hole this side of Calcut
ta and see waiters snap to attention.
Later, of course, it conceived the
much-parodied “Do You Know Me?”
series.
This summer, AmEx is back with a
new theme: “The American Express
Card — Part of a lot of interesting lives.”
Designed to lure more women to the
card-carrying set, the new campaign fea
tures, in various scenarios, women taking
their children and husbands out to eat.
In one of the better spots, a man just
treated to dinner asks his wife, “First it
was back to school, then a job, and now
it’s an American Express card . . . what
next?”
Replies the woman: “You’re cute when
you’re worried.”
American Express’s new pitch might
seem to reflect a new sensitivity on Madi
son Avenue: With more women working,
advertisers can’t afford to alienate the
female market.
AmEx’s new series represents an un
usual break from an otherwise unfortun
ately archaic tradition in most advertise
ments.
For example, in the latest pitch for
Neet, a cream depilatory, actor John Sta-
mos of television’s “General Hospital”
runs his hand over the calves of three
women, announcing after each caress
whether the limb has been smoothed
with Neet or simply shaven.
The overt sexism of the ad is enough to
make you toss your TV (and bottle of
Neet, if you keep it around) out the
window.
For Keith Reinhard, chairman of the
Chicago-based advertising firm of
Needham, Harper and Steers, the Neet
spot typifies commercials broadcast dur
ing daylight hours (when the audience
consists largely of female game-show and
soap-opera buffs).
As Reinhard found in a recent survey
of network advertisements, compiled on
a single afternoon, ads remain remark
ably behind the times.
“We haven’t come very far in the way
table, either to decry drableltj
table, either to decry I
applaud their spouses’
sserts.
Advertisers seem wedded to nn
image that women fret only about
the whitest wash, the richest coffee
and the best way to prepare an
gratin potatoes.
we portray women in advertising,”
Reinhard said last month in a speech to
the Women’s Advertising Club of Chica
go. “. . . it is primarily, perhaps uniquely,
in the world of television advertising
where women have made no appreciable
progress (in the last 20 years).”
Despite gains by women in the work
place, Reinhard said, advertisers seem
wedded to an image that women fret only
about the whitest wash, the richest coffee
and the best way to prepare an gratin
potatoes.
That males increasingly shoulder
kitchen chores clearly hasn’t dawned on
Madison Avenue: In most instances, ad
writers leave men perched at the dinner
Reinforcing outdated sex
enough. But advertisementsw
rather than respect the consul
ligence will, in the long run,
enemies than friends.
Indeed, one need only recall
around the collar” series of yesii
know the inane jingles andsloi
obscure a brand name and
for sales.
Ultimately, backward notions
ern lifestyles only keep Amerii
cious of advertisers and their
“As the number of insi
offended viewers goes up each
effectiveness of all advei
down,” Reinhard said.
Some companies are wi
modern times. Proctor & Gai
giant Cincinnati-based maker
clucts from toothpaste to oran|
recently discarded its age-old 11;
flick Head and Shoulders ads ft
with couples arm in arm.
change P&G essentially confesse
woman’s world doesn’t revolve
dandruff.
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Despit
sprink
DeBeers, the diamond broke f c 0 k e
launched a sharp campaign wl | manae
turns the tables on tradition:“Di*
From a woman to a man.” And!
Forbers, the capitalist’s capital h
more than once in recent wee
gated companies for “demean
ages of women in advertising.
Yet it remains for the bul
panics to “know, honor and
their customers. Unless theyfot
they may find their products
from “a lot of interesting lives, (be teachi
Tgxas put
ihi
United
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Lead poisoning: still a problem
Hudson
that chan
guidelines,
"because
mice and '
By Children’s Express
United Press International
(Editor’s Note: Children’s Express, a
privately funded news service, is real
world journalism reported entirely by
children 13 years of age or under whose
tape-recorded interviews, discussions,
reports and commentary are edited by
teenagers and adults.)
NEW YORK — Younger kids will do
strange things. They put all kinds of
things in their mouths.
Stupid as it sounds, they eat dirt when
they play in yards. Some kids will eat
paint. When you’re younger, you don’t
know what’s good for you. The dirt con
tains levels of lead. In older buildings, the
old types of paint contain high levels of
lead.
A lot of kids between the ages of 1 and
6 have lead poisoning. Ninety-seven per
cent of them don’t know it.
In fact, it’s very common. Most people
don’t realize the minor symptoms, be
cause they’re not very noticeable. Every
body gets headaches or gets irritable. Ev
erybody doesn’t pay attention sometimes
in school.
When you look at someone who has
the measles, you can look at him and say,
“He’s got the measles.” When you look at
that kid you can’t say he’s got lead
poisoning.
“Lots of people think that because kids
aren’t dying like they were in the early
‘70s that lead poisoning isn’t a problem
anymore,” Kirk Johnson told us. He’s a
member of the Center for Science in the
Public Interest.
“We’ve been trying to let people know
that lead is still a hazard. It doesn’t really
cross people’s minds to associate a learn
ing problem with lead,” Johnson said.
“We’re seeing lots of subtle mental prob
lems coming from lead.”
“It really is a pervasive problem,”
Johnson continued. “The lead inches all
around our environment. In some com
munities, the water supply comes
through pipes that are made of lead. We
drink it in the drinking water.”
You can get lead poisoning from inhal
ing the air coming from cars which con
tain gasoline with high levels of lead.
Cities have lots of lead in all the factories.
Johnson said that the Environmental
Protection Agency has reduced levels of
lead in gasoline. But some people wanted
to start putting more lead into the gaso
line because it’s much cheaper when you
have lead in it.
“We’re very frightened by it,” Johnson
told us. “The thought of putting more
lead into the air just didn’t make sense.
We banded together with lots of scientists
and child health advocates and gener
ated enough pressure to cause the EPA to
back down.”
We asked Johnson if lead poisoning
can be detected in a routine physical ex
amination by a family doctor.
“If a child has a blood test, then there’s
a chance it could be detected,” he said.
“Often if a child has low-level poisoning,
the child might also have anemia. But
generally a doctor has to really be on his
toes to find lead poisoning at a low level
in a child.”
If detected, lead poisoning can be tre
ated through medicines that dissolve the
lead in the bloodstream.
There are lead screening programs
that have been established. They go into
neighborhoods with high risks of lead
poisoning — neighborhoods where
buildings are very old and the paint’s all
peeling and the children are coming in
contact with high lead items.
adoption
. Get
Although treatment has m tion profe
prevention is still a problem. Thf said const
show that lead poisoning is a bUibn by te
ease than all of the othr minoroifkl and N
measles and mumps put togette j^
“All a person has to know is wl*
comes from,” Johnson said.
major catastrophe — little boys*
dying in the early ’70s —before*
realized that.”
Berry s World
“I’m thinking of invoking ex
privilege to deny my parents 1
to this sensitive document.”
§
9