Opinion
Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, March 5, 1984
Freedoms include
right not to pray
Considering the Dallas Cowboys’
somewhat sudden fall from National
Football League supremecy, it’s under
standable that coach Tom Landry
would do anything he could to get on
God’s good side.
But wouldn’t just a few solitary rap
sessions with the Lord do the trick?
Landry doesn’t seem to think so. He
joined Joe Gibbs, coach of the Wash
ington Redskins, in calling for a consti
tutional amendment that would permit
prayer in public schools.
“When we removed God from our
public schools, I think what we did was
accelerate the moral decay of our
country,” Landry said.
Has God left the halls of our
schools? Who forced the Almighty to
leave? Surely the Supreme Court
doesn’t have the power to ban God
from our schools.
What the Supreme Court ruling did
was allow individuals the right not to
take the time to pray in a Judeo-Chris-
tian style — a type of worship an indi-
So if Tom’s children wish to pray, let
them do it privately — at home, during
their recesses or silently — rather than
force those children who prefer not to
worship during school hours to do so.
— The Battalion Editorial Board
Orange paranoia
a petty complaint
Just when it seems Texas A&M is al
most over its paranoia about the Uni
versity of Texas, something else hap
pens to shatter the illusion.
This time it wasn’t who has more
National Merit Scholars, more Nobel
prize-winning professors, more money
or more degrees. No. Nothing so im
portant.
This time it was the color used on
the front page of Friday’s Battalion:
orange.
And at least one old Ag found
orange objectionable.
When editors of The Battalion de
cided to use orange on the front page,
we were afraid that some people might
think like that. But as I told the some
what irate phone caller: “I like to think
we’re above that.”
Apparently we’re not.
It’s so incredibly petty to consider
everything orange in poor taste be
cause it’s the school color for the UT
Longhorns.
Texas A&M has plenty of arenas for
competition with UT, and plenty of
opportunities to be paranoid.
Color isn’t one of them.
— The Editor
Slouch
by Jim Earle
‘What’s wrong with it? Isn’t that the way it’s spelled?
Letters
vidual is still free to practice without a
required prayer time.
The Battalion Editorial Board is not
opposed to prayer in public schools.
The First Amendment guarantees reli
gious freedom — no one can stop you
from praying if you want to.
But at the same time, no one should
be able to force you to pray if you don’t
want to. Organized prayer sessions,
sanctioned by the school, could use the
power of authority figures and peer
pressure to do just that.
The Battalion Editorial Board op
poses the potential element of force in
volved in organized school prayer.
The right to pray — and the right
not to pray. The First Amendment
protects both.
By CAM I
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let Friday, on<
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SWAMP served a purpose
■ns throughoi
The cretins from the SWAMP seem
to have shriveled into their shells and
slithered underground. Those long
hair pinko-radical baggies — born-again
Aggies — seem to have disappeared
from the Texas A&M campus.
The group is still a recognized stu
dent organization, but SWAMP surely
has lost the zing that caused a University
administrator to call its members, “them
SWAMP people.”
SWAMP (a.k.a. Students Working
Against Many Problems) was founded
by long-time residents of the Bryan area
as a forum to express fresh ideas, with
the hope of bringing attention to signifi
cant issues through humor and debate.
What does that mean? SWAMP was
formed to stir up a little bit of contro
versy about subjects that should interest
people in the area, but don’t.
And why was a group whose purpose
was to stir people up recognized on this
ultra-apathetic campus?
Maybe it was because the system law
yers knew better than to grapple over
First Amendment rights. Or maybe, it
was because SWAMP’s main activity
wasn’t to counsel or aid people in areas
dealing with sexual preference.
SWAMP members took part in many
interesting activities during their hey
day. They had a ‘Bum Bright Apprecia
tion Day’ to help remind students of
some of the dubious accomplishments
of The Head Regent, such as hiring one
football coach before firing another.
And they attended Regents meetings
from time to time — usually the only
students in attendance other than Bat
talion reporters.
They had rallies against nuclear
weapons. They fought and beat the
MSG Council over the right to display
items in the square display cases in the
front of the MSC that the council didn’t
approve of. And they collected food and
clothing to take to the mission in down
town Bryan.
But the organization’s picture in the
1983 Aggieland shows what SWAMP
stood for. In this picture, the members
of the group are floating above one of
the signs ordering people not to walk on
the MSC grass.
donn
friedman
ty .System,
■egents ai
iw $4.8 million ]
enter, but sti
|aehed a decisic
■. The presen
A member of student govei net Center must
had it right when he wrote a k® iake wa y f° r
SWAMP which said in part:“I tow res ^ ir< r* 1 P 3 . 11
guys do good, in your own way. ■ science
SWAMP members didn’tagretm^rro^ lo
ery issue-— that would have de! 3 uth of Easter wo
the worth of the organization ie west side of F
they did discuss. And they quet^ on F&B Roac
even their own values. "de Center.
Even though discussion may 1 011105
ways lead to settlement of anissiK* p exa £ a&m ^
the individual and society hene&H t h e Board
open debate. Ined a Corps <
As John Milton wrote in Areodpement Gomir
during the 1600’s: Although RO'
“And though all the winds of dowwing across
were let loose to play upon theea!|i nman dant of
T RUTH be in the field, we dol 1 ^ h: Bu rt
They weren’t against time-honored
traditions, per se, but they were against
forcing people to take part in them.
Once a person’s right to not take part is
taken away, the tradition is not a tradi
tion — instead it is an order.
It’s easy to be labeled a left-wing radi
cal on a neo-conservative campus, but
the members of SWAMP were far from
radical. It was, in best terms, a pseudo
intellectual group of college thinkers.
And what they tried to accomplish
was to make students, faculty and ad
ministration recognize that conflicts ex
ist around us and around the world.
These conflicts merit each and every
person’s attention.
riously by licensing and prohibit s , in n
misconduct her strength. Let ne|e Ilear f u [ ure
falsehood grapple; who
ever ■I’m recruiting
TRUT H put to the worse, inafreipny 0 f whose
open encounter?” l|ing during tl
when the militai
SWAMP has the same purposefepular,” Burto:
editorial board — to encounter arf an y °f their pa
bate issues. T he opinions expressed® 1 ^ ^ ter mem
not always be accepted by the mZ^Kepl.'.ys' 1 '
and a solution may not always bet studem’s decisio
but thought will be encouragecfcorps, Burton sai
promoted.
By the way, a few memt>
SWAMP were behind “The Butu
the parody of T he Battalion, I
have graduated and moved on.
And so, it seems, T exas A&MisJ
again safe and secure from thedisi
ing currents of new ideas, occupyii
place that an institute of free thoj
should hold.
fo
Donn Friedman is a seniorjoun
major and sports editor for The l
tudent i
;e Pi
iffairs
Editorials air gripes
Editor:
The article Feb. 29, entitled “No Excuse
for Risks Like Falling Metal” was the
Battalion Editorial Board’s piece de re
sistance. Of course, there is no excuse —
that is what makes an accident!
One of the components of every one
of their articles is to provide a “solution”
to their life-or-death “problems”; their
solution to this one was to tie down all
equipment on top of buildings in case of
high winds.
We can imagine the situation now —
two men working on top of Blocker are
about to go on lunch break and one says
to the other, “Hey, Joe, do you think
there is going to be a gust of wind that
will blow that heavy piece of equipment
down today? Maybe we better tie it
down!”
And what will the editorial be about
the next day when a student trips over a
curb and breaks his ankle?
“Oh, sure, handicapped prsons can
use ramps all the time, but regular pe
destrians have to step down curbs and
risk posible injury everytime! We feel
that all curbs should be spray-painted
red with the word “Curb” on it in white
to prevent any further accident such as
this one!”
If the Board wrote only one or two
editorials a week that stated well-
founded and better written opinions
and didn’t use their space to air gripes,
they might have more credibility. This
also would prompt more thought-pro
voking letters to the editor. Presently,
the only letters we have read written in
response to the Board have been in sim
ilar genre of this letter. We hope this let
ter will make an impact in their future
editorial style.
Carol Caldwell
Dee Little
Class of’87
possible to reproduce the ef fects of car
cinogenic substances with nonspecific ir
ritants.
In addition, the high-dose protocol
for determination of carcinogenicity has
been repeatedly reevaluated, most re
cently by a panel of the National Aca
demy of Sciences in connection with the
saccarin issue.
the overall cancer rate.
extent that safer substitutes
While I agree that there is no cause
for panic every time a food additive is
found to cause cancer in rats, prudence
demands that such substances should be
eliminated from the food supply to the
shown to exist. The substitutionofi|
diation for EDB fumigation is:
certainly a good idea.
Terrell T. Gibbs, 1
Li
EDB tests are valid
Editor:
With reference to Prof. Zingaro’s re
marks in The Battalion Feb. 28, I agree
that the seriousness of the EDB health
issue has been oversold in the media.
I also agree that unseemly haste in
the elimination of EDB could well lead
to increased hazards.
However, the carcinogenic effects of
EDB in animal tests are not, as Zingaro
suggested, a result of the high doses of
EDB used. In general, it has not been
The panel concluded that such tests
are valid in distinguishing carcinogens
from noncarcinogens, but that it is diffi
cult to extrapolate such results to deter
mine the potency of a substance in pro
ducing cancer in humans. Indeed, at the
present time, the only reliable method
of determining the carcinogenic po
tency of a substance in humans is by epi
demiology examination of human pop
ulations exposed to the substance.
Unfortunately, except when the can
cer produced is very rare, such epide-
meology studies warn us of a hazard
only after thousands of cases of cancer
have occurred.
I am less reassured than Zingaro by
the apparent stability of the cancer rate.
A substance could produce many thou
sands of human deaths without making
a statistically significant contribution to
The Battalion /
USPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
Editor Rebeca Zimmermann Letters Policy
Managing Editor John Wagner
City Editor Patrice Koranek Letters to the Editor should not cxceflil
Assistant City Editors Kathleen Hart, words in length. I he editorial staff reservtil
Stephanie Ross right to edit letters for style and length bull
News Editor Tracey Taylor make every effort to maintain the authohi
Assistant News Editors Susan Talbot, tent. Each letter must be signed and
Brigid Brockman, Michelle Powe, Kelley Smith elude the address and telephone numberd]
Editorial Page Editor Kathy Wiesepape writer.
Sports Editor Donn Friedman Reader's Forum columns and guest editol
Assistant Sports Editor Bill Robinson also are welcome. Address all inquiries tofM
Entertainment Editor Shelley Hoekstra itorial Page Editor.
Assistant Entertainment Editor Angel Stokes
Photo Editor . John Makely
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ion
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