Opinion
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, March 28, 1984
Voting is easy
get out and do it
The picture on the front page of
Tuesday’s Battalion said it all — five
student body president candidates,
speaking to a room full of empty
chairs.
Indeed, the turnout at Monday’s
open forum meeting with the candi
dates was less than overwhelming.
Considering the importance of this
year’s election, it is sad so few voters at
tended the session. There is something
to be gained by having a strong student
body president, and an informed voter
is always better able to make the right
choice. _
It is easy for Americans, including
university students, to vote — no gue
rilla attacks on polling places, no sab
otage, no violence. Citizens of other
countries don’t have such an easy time
of it.
Granted, a student election at Texas
A&M can’t compare to the perilous
presidential election in El Salvador, but
the spirit is the same. We should ap
preciate our system of government and
support it, even if the election is just a
“simple student election.”
There is growing apathy towards the
election process in the United States.
We sit back while others elect officials,
then complain about those who are
elected. The time to change all that is
now. Get in the habit of voting.
If you’re at all concerned about the
classes you will have to take, the finals
you may have to take, the amount of
money it may cost you to attend this
school and numerous other issues —
don’t just sit back and gripe. Vote to
day.
— The Battalion Editorial Board
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The Battalion Editorial Board has and must have someone else — i.e. The
The Battalion Editorial Board has
taken upon itself to endorse a candidate
for student body president.
The Battalion receives $35,000 from
the University, taken from the student
service fee that all students must pay at
registration.
The basic problem that arises is that a
University-linked organization is ex
pressing a position of favoritism in a
University election. If, however, we con
sider the editorial staff to be nothing
more than a student organization, are
we to conclude that any recognized stu
dent organization may make political
endorsements in The Battalion, free of
cost?
The right of an editorial staff of a stu
dent newspaper to make political en
dorsements has been argued in courts
of law, and the issue will undoubtedly be
brought up again.
The First Amendment guarantees
the freedom of the press. One might
consider it a “right”. There are, how
ever, other rights involved here, such as
the right to hold a true and free elec
tion.
Obviously, everyone’s rights cannot
be completely protected. A compromise
must be found.
In the past, the editorial staffs have
provided a Voters’ Guide for interested
readers which has included basic infor
mation about the canidiates’ qualifica
tions. This guide was extremely helpful
to those students who wanted to cast an
informed and intelligent ballot.
These editorial staffs obviously con
sidered the students themselves intelli
gent enough to make their own deci
sions.
Apparently the current editorial staff
and must have someone else — i.e. The
Battalion Editorial board — decide.
Ironically, this change in policy is be
ing made in the year 1984. Orwell
would not be surprised. “Big Brother”
has decided to make our decisions for us
— in our “best” interests, no doubt.
What is done is done. The Board has
made its endorsement. What is impor
tant now is that all Aggies exercise their
right to cast a vote for the candidate
they believe is best suited for the posi
tion.
Use whatever means are necessary to
make an intelligent decision (I suggest
the Voter’s Guide) and vote.
Some feel that student elections are
not important enough to warrant vot
ing. If you can convince yourself of that.
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reader’s forum
you can convince yourself that no elec
tion is truly important enough.
Remember, very few people in the
world are ever given the opportunity to
cast a ballot in a free election. Do not
forget what price was paid to give you
that privilege. Freedom does not come
easily, but it is unfortunately easily for
gotten.
Rodger A. Drew
Class of ’84
College Station is a pretty nice place
to go to school. In fact I’ll go as far as
saying I like going to school in Texas.
The problem is that I never really
think about it or appreciate it until
something shocks me into doing so.
Well, something shocked me recently.
I learned that a member of foreign stu
dent’s family was kidnapped several
days ago by a Salvadoran death squad
and then found dead. Probably mur
dered. Death squads? Kidnappings?
Those are never in places near to us,
only in the newspapers. We can read the
articles and think how awful the situa
tion is, but it is always something that is
happening in a place somewhere else.
When a friend of mine lost her
brother through the unjust actions that
are commonplace in countries such as El
Salvador, it burst that safety bubble that
surrounds me in College Station. The
reality of what is happening can never
be known by people like me — those of
us who have never been to a war-torn
country, let alone lived in one.
However, there are people near us
who do know what that reality is. They
are the foreign students who come to
Texas A&M and other universities
across the nation from countries like El
Salvador, Nicaragua, and even from as
far away as Lebannon. They have left
their families and the cultures familiar
to them and come here to get an educa
tion.
Possibly these students’ educations
will help thier countries in solving the
problems that cause the conflicts. But
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what about the time until then? How is it
to live in one country trying to better
yourself, while your family is at home in
danger?
One comfort to the students is that
they come to know others like them
here. Most nationalities are represented
in some student association or club. The
student who lost her brother in El Salva
dor knew many other Latin American
students through her church. They are
a strong support to her, as are her
American friends.
The Lebanese students havea
club that is very aware of whatii
on in their country thousands^
away. Since the war has been
they have banded together to
information network because i|
hard to get phone calls through
anon during the heavy fighting
students call home, they aresureil
messages on to other studets tL.... un
through their own. In firm!
But what happens when some y x; (ji slr i t
fighting directly affects one ifB),000 in
friends here? We simply try totacity of Fritcl
them with a feeling of inadeq die water ni
cause our own ignorance. ItisaW 31 " f uescla )
do Wnnson I
if. .. , Wa i Corn.
I feel very fortunate to haveU tclairnir f
students as friends. They haveflafcd the SI
me many things about their con "Act. said Er
both good and bad —and havetn*- 1 'for Hi T
me think about life in myownc®" 1 ' lexas
Because of them, I take interestr''| ei uli '‘ l y
is going on out there. | mus Wolfl
We can learn so much fromtlic Hi Texas V
dents, yet many American .'watersuppli
choose not to get to know them,
loss.
Stephanie Ross is a .“^HStad'S
major and assistant city editor: (| t ! ,
Battalion.
no longer believes that the average Ag
gie is capable of making such choices
Editor’s note: The $35,000 The Bat
talion receives from student service
fees covers the costs of about one
week’s papers. That money is essen
tially a minimal subscription cost —
something all commercial newspapers
receive despite any candidate endorse
ments the paper makes.
Grads: Get off the conveyor belt
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Letters
Time for a change
Editor:
To many of us who aren’t as gung-ho
about the upcoming elections as many
of the candidates, it seems a terrible
waste of time, energy, resources, and,
most of all, respect for Texas A&M to
pollute our campus with expensive graf-
fitti and mindless propaganda.
If any of these quasi-politicians are as
concerned with and have as much re
spect for our University as their signs
and posters claim, they would address
some issues that improve our lot in life
or at least have some bearing on us.
As it stands now, the issues are who
has the most impressive, colorful, fancy,
expensive or largest sign (or should I
say exhibit) and whose last name sounds
like McDonald’s or can be recalled by an
association with an object.
We don’t care if they can build a
windmill or not! The question is if they
can make intelligent, responsible deci
sions to benefit the student body.
If Texas A&M were a country and I
were a citizen, I would revolt! Thank
goodness the Student Government
doesn’t have enough power and isn’t ef
fective enough to really have any lasting
effect on my life!
Couldn’t a few dynamic and intelli
gent individuals replace the group of
self-glorifying, egotistic dopes that sup
posedly represent us? The*way I figure
it, anarchy is better than a shoddy gov
ernment of idea-less “initiators”. Let’s
trade this popularity contest for a de
bate on some issues!
This letter might have seemed strong,
but so is the stench of this election.
Keith Blockus
Class of’87
Ed Board too liberal
Editor:
We are disappointed with The Battal
ion Editorial Board. It is obviously ex
tremely liberal and its viewpoints are
contrary to those of the majority of
Texas A&M students as well as Ameri
cans as a whole.
Your strong opposition to school
prayer and capital punishment are just
two examples. We wish we had an edito
rial board that was representative of our
student body.
Michael and Sally Davis
Class of ’86
Act uncalled for
Editor:
We are appalled by the photo of a
cattle crossing in front of the Kappa Al
pha Theta house in Monday’s Battalion.
We fail to see the humor in an act
which should be considered nothing
short of criminal.
We will lend our full support to the
apprehension of the offenders.
Wham! One Graduate, Texas A&M
University, B.S., Engineering.
Wham! Another, B.A., Business
Management.
Wham! B.S., Agricultural Economics.
Wham! B.A., History
Sometimes I have this sick feeling
that come May 5, I’ll just be another
graduate being rolled out of this place
on a conveyer belt, still wet and steam
ing from the iron mold that I’ve been
living in since my freshman year.
Of course, I know that can’t be true.
Why, I didn’t even pick my mold, I
mean, my major, until my junior year.
But I do feel justified in being a bit
uneasy. I suspect that as a senior I’m
nothing but a little closer to be “cooked”
that I was as a junior.
I’m so proud of “What I’ve made of
myself away from home” and “what I’ve
done at college.” The thought that all
along it has actually been the University
that has done all the doing to me is, nat
urally, just this side of mortifying.
There is comfort, however, in know
ing that there are other students who
have the same suspicions.
The other day in class, for instance, I
banged on the iron wall between my
mold and my neighbor’s.
“Hey, Rosemary!” I yelled. “Do you
ever get the feeling that. . . ?”
“Yeah, sometimes . . .,” her muffled
voice echoed back.
That brings me to why I’m writing, or
rather, what I’m writing.
If I’m feeling more like a product
than I am a student of Texas A&M Uni
versity, Inc. and if a few other people
I’ve randomly talked to feel that way,
then there’s an awfully good chance that
a whole lot of other studdents on this
campus are feeling that very same way.
No, you don’t have to be paranoid,
cynical, or defensive about the matter to
be one of us — just a little curious
whether Aggies make Texas A&M, or
Texas A&M makes Aggies.
But let’s just suppose we are dumb
products of this institution and, other
what electives we take and such, we are
largely passive about this thing called
Education. Suppose that, seen from
30,000 feet in the air, Texas A&M looks
very much like a vast network of con
veyor belts whose forks run through so
many colleges and then Converge on the
stage at G. Rollie White. Bear with me
and suppose that this is the case.
If we are passive objects, then would
reader’s forum
we not be incapable of doing something
as shamefully active as halting ourselves
to consider the whole process? When
was the last time you saw a Campbell’s
Soup can hop off its tracks in the factory
to contemplate how on earth it ever be
came so full of cream of mushroom? I
never have.
Yet that is aexactly what we must do.
What if we all, right now, in the course
of this very sentence, simply hop*r men
the track and began to ruthless!'*p exas ' vas
nize what the hell we are dongim 1
ternoon classes, in our respective!
or even at Texas A&M Universit)
You see, if we do ponder ono« !
ation at college, then we autoitf
prove that we are not dumb pi
products of this industry, Higbei
cation, simply because something
passive cannot act on its ownaccofl
However, this is not easy to do 1
is very rarely done around herefi
simple reason: It is easier not to.
It might also be horrifyingi (
that in the final analysis there! 1
discernible difference between
poor can of cream of mushroom
and a graduate fresh from his 11
iron mold.
If you think my comparisoniFf
geous, then I beg you totrytotfr
ber where along the conveyor 1*1
were told so.
Daveij
The Brother.s of Sigma Alpha Epsilon than a few miniscule decisions about
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
Editor 7. Rebeca Zimmermann
Managing Editor John Wagner
City Editor Patrice Koranek
Assistant City Editors Kathleen Hart,
Stephanie Ross
News Editor Tracey Taylor
Assistant News Editors Susan Talbot,
Brigid Brockman, Michelle Powe, Kelley Smith
Editorial Page Editor Kathy Wiesepape
Sports Editor Bonn Friedman
Assistant Sports Editor Bill Robinson
Entertainment Editor Shelley Hoekstra
Assistant Entertainment Editor ..Angel Stokes
Letters Policy.
Letters to the Editor should not exed
words in length. The editorial staff reset' 1
right to edit letters for style and length^
make every effort to maintain the aulh 1 '-
tent. Each letter must be signed and
elude the address and telephone number
writer.
Reader’s Forum columns and guested
also are welcome. Address all inquiries totb
itorial Page Editor.
Editorial Policy
The Battalion is a non-profit, self-support
ing newspaper operated as a community service
to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station.
Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those
of the Editorial Board or the author, and do not
necessarily represent the opinions of Texas
A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Re
gents.
Our address: The Battalion, 216 Red
Donald Building, Texas A&M Universitf
lege Station, TX 77843.
Unitefl Press International is entitled $
sively to the use for reproduction of aline*'
patches credited to it. Rights of reproduce
all other matter herein reserved.
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TX 77843.