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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1984)
Opinion Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, February 24, 1984 v Bubble boy's life a medical miracle David, the boy in the plastic bubble, is dead. Medical science has been blasted for its inhumanity. Blasted for its respira tors and artificial hearts that keep peo ple alive when their bodies are ready to give up and die and their minds are gone. But the criticism doesn’t apply to David. He was very much alive. His life in the germ-free bubble was a miracle — a triumph of modern sci ence over life-threatening disease. We wept with joy when we read how David emerged from his sheltered plastic bubble and was wrapped in his mother’s arms for the first time, and we weep with sorrow now that he is gone. But medical technology allowed him to live 12 years, and that’s more than he could have asked for before some anonymous scientist developed the germ-free plastic bubble. The Battalion Editorial Board sa lutes those researchers who allow peo ple with medical problems like David’s to live. And to David we bid farewell. — The Battalion Editorial Board Protecting teachers from student violence How can teachers in the classroom be protected from violent students? In Houston, as in the rest of the country, violence against teachers oc curs quite often. And it doesn’t happen only at inner-city schools. On Tuesday, a Houston Indepen dent School District teacher was at tacked by a student, who police said was apparently upset that he had failed the teacher’s class last semester. The student, armed with a gun, confronted the history teacher in the hall of South west Houston High School. Does the Houston Independent School District need to place security guards at each school and to screen students for guns and knives with metal detectors? Do all high schools need these pre cautions? And what could motivate a student to attack his teacher? Maybe the pressure is too great. So ciety now expects all students, even those who in the past would have been allowed to drop out and pursue a trade, to stick it out and graduate from high school. It is a sad comment on our society when people must fear for their safety in the halls of learning. — The Battalion Editorial Board Phone rates still rising after Ma Bell's death Phone bills are going up again. Be sure to look closely at your phone bill this month. A small card stating that General Telephone is going to the state Public Utilities Commission to re quest a rate hike will be enclosed. It may give you an idea of how much they are requesting overall, but it cer tainly won’t give you the answer to the question that’s most likely to concern you: “How much is it going to cost me?” The Battalion Editorial Board doesn’t know the answer, but don’t say we didn’t warn you. Your phone bills will be going up again soon. We thought the break-up of monop olies was supposed to benefit consum ers. So why, after Ma Bell was shattered into small pieces, are phone bills still rising? —The Battalion Editorial Board Military language not straight talk By DICK WEST Although “euphemism” may be a four- letter word to some students of the lan guage, if you think of it as military ter minology, it’s OK. Like bombs, guns, missiles and other accouterments of war, the nomencla ture itself is ever-changing. What many of us assumed was an in vasion of Grenada turned out to be a “rescue mission.” The armed Marines who landed in Lebanon were part of a “peace-keeping” force, and their with drawal is not a bug-out but a “redeploy ment.” My own military career dates back to the days when U.S. rescue missions were being conducted in such places as North Africa, Sicily, Anzio and Southern France — all of which led up to the big cross-channel rescue mission on Omaha Beach and elsewhere in the European Theater. Meanwhile, according to what I read, similar rescue operations were being conducted on Guadacanal, Iwo Jima, Bougainville and elsewhere in the Pa cific Theater. Even back then, you had to admire the handiwork of the military termino- logists. Nobody who could label those areas as “theaters” could be accused of being uneuphonious. The first major change in their vocab ulary took place in Korea in fighting that President Truman, then the com mander in chief, called a “police action.” Gonsidering that the hostilities in Korea included some of the bloodiest combat in history, it is understandable that the cops would eventually become peace keepers. That development, however, was a long way in the future. Still to come was Vietnam, where members of the police units that fought in Korea were trans formed into “military advisers.” At the peak period of American counseling, the United States had more than 540,000 advisers in Vietnam. That was enough to provide consultative service to all of Southeast Asia, give or take the Malayan Peninsula. It was per haps in Vietnam that military glosso logy, or the glossing over of unpleasant events, reached its first full flowering. Who can ever forget the “escalation” that took place in that unhappy land, il luminated by the oft-sighted “light at the end of the tunnel.” Against such a background, it was fairly simply to take up advising in force. But after the armistice was signed in 1973, nobody thought of referring to the withdrawal of the advisers as a rede ployment. Thus, a neat bit of strategy was lost. At the rate euphemisms are escalat ing, we may indeed have to rewrite “The Marine Hymn,” as humorist Bob Orben suggests, to include the line: “From the halls of Montezuma, to the ships off Tripoli.” Slouch by Jim Earle ‘‘Want a suggestion how you can improve your study habits?” e>tmPHflz»eaiiUCf/wua?- ■ ■■IIIIIIIIU YOU HM> TO ASK TO SIT IN THE SMOKING SECTION »i Role of media examined By Helen Thomas Columnist for United Press International In recent history, the role of the news media and its relentless probing has be come a volatile issue. Because of their instant identity, tele vision anchormen and many correspon dents have become celebrities. The me dia also have been selected by some presidents for an all-out attack or for wooing, depending on the goals. The most prominent relationships between presidents and the press were manifested by Lyndon Johnson, where it was a case of love and hate, and by Richard Nixon, whose contempt for the press is well documented. A fascinating book, erudite and at the same time down to earth, explains the role of the media in a modern society, and its raison d’etre. “Straight Stuff,” which has just hit the stands, was written by veteran White House correspondent James Deakin, whose insights and irrev erence are based on covering presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter. He deals with the premise that re porters seek the truth. “There is much evidence that the American people deeply thirst for truth,” he wrote. “They want their poli ticians, newspapers, television networks and Howard Cosell to tell it like it is. The truth is desired, but each person defines the truth. “The journalists present a portrait of a world that is confused, untidy and dangerous. The journalist defines his profession as the pursuit of facts and ex planations. If there is a pre-eminent reason for the endless controversy over Letters Capital punishment is not barbarism Editor: In your Feb. 23 issue you assert once again your disgust over capital punish ment. In the same issue we read about es caped convicts slaying an innocent man and about Henry Lucas, who was let out of prison after serving a term for mur dering his mother, standing trial for yet another one of the hundreds of killings he committed after his release. The Bible commands governments to execute murderers. But you clearly be lieve that we should be smarter and more pious them such “barbarism.” I am glad that the majority of Americans disagree with you. Danny England Student seeks publicity Editor: I am writing in response to Stephen Weiss’ letter of Feb. 21, in which he at tacks Dr. Walter Bradley for seeking free publicity for a book which he co-au thored. Bradley mentioned his book to estab lish his authority on the subject matter, not to gain publicity. The crux of Weiss’ letter w'as con tained in the third sentence. The rest was a facade to camouflage his true in tention: to attack Bradley because he media bias, it is this unhappy insistence. “Because facts are uncomfortable things. They embarrass officials and in stitutions and organizations. They nag at ordinary people. They disturb the status quo. They challenge accepted practices. They affront complacency.” He does not skirt the fallibility of the press and the limitations journalists work under: the pressures of time and space, often having to go with bare facts, and no explanations because the expla nations are not available-from the peo ple who are paid to give them. A White House reporter inevitably must touch on the growth of the impe rial presidency in modern times. The regality and lack of accountability of presidents, except when they write their memoirs on their own terms, is de picted. “Straight Stuff’ also deals with the question of leaks and says “national se curity is what a president says it is.” Deakin lists the so-called national se curity revelations doled out by presi dents over the years for their own pur poses. The Eisenhower administration, he says, leaked the Yalta papers to The New York Times, seeking to show that FDR’s negotiations with Josef Stalin led to all the superpower problems since 1945. John F. Kennedy “leaked parts of a highly classified presidential memoran dum” to Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post, who was then a reporter for News week. Lyndon Johnson explained his for merly classified Vietnam peace effort, an operation called “Marigold,” in memoirs. And aides of past presidents havedisl closed so-called classified information ii books they wrote after leaving the WhitJ House. Deakin stresses the point that in; the so-called national security leaks thal have occurred over the years, and therl have been many, the Republic did no| fall. Reporters know there are “very fevl real secrets” but the government has aij “obsession with secrecy,” he says. “All this actually cloaks very little thal is vital to the safety of the America! people and the nation,” Deakin says. He ranks press secretaries, and Jama Hagerty, Eisenhower’s press secretar comes out on top. Hagerty was in Eisenl hower’s inner circle and trusted by thj president. But other press secretaries, he say see their jobs as public relations expert for the president. Deakin also deals with the relentle: attempts to manage the news by all rej cent administrations. He notes that o| the desk of President Reagan’s spoke; man, Larry Speakes, is a sign: “Yoi don’t tell us how to stage the news; we don’t tell you how to cover it.” As for the irreverence of the pre: Deakin writes that after the attempt ol Reagan’s life in March 1981, Speakes iif formed the press that the White Housj had received 7,500 telegrams durinj the first 48 hours after the shooting. “Pro or con,” a reporter inquire! blandly. presents arguments with which Weiss disagrees, and which he cannot refute. Because he disagrees with Bradley on the issue of evolution, he seems to think that this automatically makes him a writer “in a field he probably knows little about.” In this instance, however, it seems to be a phrase most applicable to Weiss. If Bradley is, as you so eloquently put it, “uneducated,” with a Ph.D. in Me chanical Engineering, what does that make Weiss, a relative neophyte in aa demia who has not yet received an uij dergraduate degree? Mr. Weiss, it is you, who averages a least one letter to the editor a monti who is actually seeking publicity, next time you wish to air your opinio think about what you really want to s before you blurt it out. Thomas 1 Darren Willia Eric Quinti Tom Mosh Mikel The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference author, and do not necessarily represent theopinioasi Editor Rebeca Zimmermann Texas A&M University administrators or faculty t Managing Editor John Wagner bers, or of the Board of Regents. City Editor Patrice Koranek The Battalion also serves as a laboratory nc«p Assistant City Editor Kathleen Hart, for students in reporting, editing and photography Stephanie Ross scs w ‘thin the Department of Communications. News Editor Tracey Taylor Questions or comments concerning any editorial n Assistant News Editors Susan Talbot, ter should be d,rectcd to thc cd,tor Brigid Brockman, Kelley Smith Editorial Page Editor Kathy Wiesepape Sports Editor Bonn Friedman Assistant Sports Editor Bill Robinson Thc B a“alion is published Monday through Fn Entertainment Editor Shelley Hoekstra dunn S Texas A&M rc g ular semesters, except for 1 Assistant Entertainment Editor Angel Stokes and examination periods. Mail subscnpiiom i Photo Editor John Makely f 1 .® 75 P^emester. $33 25 per school yearandttof* J 7 full year. Advertising rates furnished on request Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McD Building, Texas A&M University, College Station. 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