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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1984)
r Opinion When panic bug bites, bite it back The semester is rapidly drawing to a close and for many students panic is setting in. Projects, papers and tests are piling up in preparation for Finals Week. Organizations have end-of-the- year activities. You’re probably running around from classes to activities to working on projects and panicking in the process. Before all the pressure gets to you, slow down for a minute. Steal some time for yourself. Lay out in the sun. Read a book for pleasure, watch a silly television show or Find something else to do that you really enjoy. Find some safety valve for all the pressure and stress that college stu dents endure during Dead Week and Finals Week. All-nighters take a heavy toll. Too often, by the time you’re through with the semester you’re a wreck— physically and emotionally. Although many of us pull all-night ers to cram for tests, counselors have said that forcing yourself to stay awake — with coffee, No-Doze or whatever — doesn’t do much good. You can only keep going for so long before you inev itably crash. If you feel a crash coming, remem ber that help is around. The Student Counseling Service can help students survive this pressure cooker called college. If things get tough, give them a call and set up an appointment with a counselor. Their offices are in the YMCA building and you can call 845-4427 or 845-1651. College is important, but those straight As should take second place to your health and sanity. — The Battalion Editorial Board Millioi I world ce ling the processi< [sites of |where [ worship] [ In the Russian at the co the lead and KG1 Churc stood shi bushki” generatn dally in middle-a ardized 1 Althoi religious mates th tians in t A 'mellowed' Nixon makes a comeback Behind the scenes with Police Bea By ART BUCHWALD Columnist tor The Los Angeles Times Syndicate A wonderful thing happened to me last week. 1 turned on the set and got to see Richard Nixon on television again. After it was over, I turned to my wife and said, “He looks great. Doesn’t he look great?” “He looked just like the old Nixon,” she agreed. “He hasn’t changed one bit, except possibly he’s mellower.” “He seems to have mellowed,” I said. “But every once in awhile when he was talking about the people who gave him the shaft, you got the feeling the old Nixon spark was still there.” My wife took my hand in hers. “You miss him, don’t you?” “Of course I miss him. Who wouldn’t miss Nixon? He was the greatest presi dent we ever had. If it wasn’t for him you wouldn’t be sitting here tonight in your ermine-lined bathrobe, and I wouldn’t be wearing Sulka silk pajamas and Gucci slippers.” “Watergate was good to us,” my wife sighed. “It was the best,” I said. “Just seeing Nixon on the air brings back so many nostalgic memories.” “Do you think he’s sorry?” she asked. “Sure he’s sorry. Didn’t you hear him say he was sorry he didn’t burn the ta- “I had the feeling he still holds a grudge against the media for driving him out of office.” “I didn’t get that,” I said. “Nixon has been a pragmatic man all his life. If there is one thing he believes, it is that your enemies are always out to get you, so you have to get them First. But as far as carrying grudges, it’s just not in the man’s nature.” “Will you ever forget the night he told us on television ‘I am not a crook’?” “It was the First president in our his tory who said it. He reassured the coun try in its darkest hour.” “I wonder why he’d go on television at this time?” “I suppose he wants to get the record straight. There were so many illegal things they discussed during the cov- erup that Nixon wanted the public to know how much of it he personally re jected. What I liked about him tonight is that he said he didn’t reject them be cause they were wrong, but because they wouldn’t work.” “You can’t be more candid than that,” my wife said. “No one ever accused Nixan of lack ing candor. But he has nothing to lose now by personally taking the blame and saying the advice he got from his law yers was what really did him in.” pes: “I mean sorry about Watergate.” “I’m sure he’s sorry. He said it was a dumb thing to do in the First place and then he said it was a dumb thing to try to cover up, and then he said he was sorry the CIA didn’t keep the FBI out of the inquiry, and you got the feeling he’s very sorry about the people who talked when they should have kept their mouths shut. But he doesn’t seeem to hold any malice toward those who drove a stake in his heart. Then again Nixon was never a hater.” “I believe him,” my wife said. “Why didn’t he have better lawyers?” “They were all on the other side try ing to get the goods on him.” “I think it was very moving when he told about his last night in the White House and how he and Henry Kissinger got down on their knees and prayed together.” “It would have been much more fas cinating if we knew what Henry was praying for.” I’ve taken a lot of good-natured raz zing since I began covering the police beat for The Battalion last January. A letter published in the March 1 edition of The Battalion sums up the most com mon response to the “Police Beat” col umn. This person wrote that when he picked up The Battalion, he experi enced a “strange desire to immediately flip to ‘Police Beat.’” He said he had no ticed “an odd trend among crimes com mitted on campus.” He mentioned various cases of inde cent exposure and other offbeat crimes reported in the column, such as some one who stole liquid paper, markers and stamps, and the case of a hungry thief who entered the Zachry Engineering Center snack bar and ate a quart of tu- nafish salad. “After an hour of uncontrollable laughter,” the author wrote, “I pro ceeded to read ‘Police Beat’ and there it is in print: some guy sits next to a stu dent and fondles himself. “Come on Aggies, let’s not make Texas A&M the laughing stock of all universities. Our reputation is funny enough already!” His closing remark was that Police Beat contained more humor than the comic strips run in The Battalion. Well, I understand the guy’s point. Some of the crimes reported to the Uni versity Police Department are bizarre. “Police Beat” is often funny, if only because it’s hard to believe there are ac tually people on this campus who would do things like breaking into the Zachry Snackry to wantonly pig out on tunaf- ish. People have asked me if some of the incidents reported are the products of someone’s fertile imagination and why does The Battalion publish them? In re sponse to the former, I think the stu dents, faculty and staff here have better things to do than invent weird crimes to report to the University Police. As for the latter. The Battalion publishes “Po lice Beat” for several reasons. One reason is that when the column was not featured in the First 10 editions of the paper this semester, the city desk received numerous complaints about its absence. When “Police Beat” returned as a regular feature, we learned the col umn had an avid following. Based on what people who read the column have told me, sexual deviance generates a lot of laughs. Another reason for running the col umn is that students might recognize opportunists who prey oncareb pie. According to the University Department daily incident repore pie on campus haven’t gotten tin sage. They leave bicycles unlod the bike racks and Hewlett-Pack dilators unattended on tabletops library. Thus, campus thieves ing a Field day. I hope that all those fans of Beat” have become more awarco! easy it is to become a victim whether it’s leaving your tended and returning to or being a witness to someone'sz mal sexual behavior. sarah oates As for people who are surpre some of the stranger incidents^ in the column, Texas A&M has! ful history of outlandish crimes. ample, many people who wert ( during the summer of 1971 reacted 1 it as the summer of the Phantom [embers. Biter, a twisted individual withii controllable fetish. VAT I II wishei languagi end to t man’s “f The | who jar Christiai He sa growing peace,w and opp life-seek thanasia ‘Ope this our zation ( there fi and the By KA: 1 ns Wappei That’s ! tow,” an &M wil enschaw ns — the The Ag )ur-day pen to f its, and hearing stolen items and contact University Po lice. But the real purpose of the column, as far as I’m concerned, is to help pro mote awareness of crime so that, we hope, people will be more careful. Considering the size of this Univer sity, statistics on the rate of violent crimes here are impressively low. Maybe we should be glad that the most unplea sant crimes reported are only those in volving the peccadilloes of an occasional public pervert. However, Texas A&M has an aston ishingly high rate of property theft. From September 1983 to February 1984, property theft accounted for both individual and University losses amounting to $ 174,253. Everyone has heard that thieves are The 19 held oi nd despi cord of ople in The Phantom Toe-Biter lines by crawling around Sterfe igEduca Evans Library on his hands anill Icjocom and munching the toes of sandal-shod students. By thetiw victim recovered sufficiently' 'of. down, the Phantom was gone Annie lator of enschaw ram will fesentati Jch as tl This story is good for a laugM teners sober up when they one hapless student whose big'* almost completely severed by the tom during a fit of surreptitious sion. So, if the most outrageous crimes we hear about are thefts of 1 and stamps, I think we’re pretty^ Snnth Oates is a junior jouflt major and staff miter for Tilth ion. ledicine, iticism, Letters: Demonstrators defend aims Editor: Robin Black’s article on our demon stration against Henry Kissinger was dispicable. This article completely ommited pol icy discussion of any kind and was the utmost in slanted, opinionated journa lism. Instead of informing your readers of differences between our policies and Kissinger’s, you insinuated that we are liberal troublemakers and Kissinger is the bastion of conservatism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kissinger is the chairman of the Tri lateral Commission and a leading spokesman for the eastern liberal estab lishment. Their policy is that of de-in- dustrializing the U.S. to a post-indus trial society. If anyone represents the principle of fostering techological progress in agri culture, industry and commerce, it is the National Democratic Policy Committee. I would like to state the alternatives given to an audience of over 80 people by one of the NDPL demonstrators. “The U.S. must undertake a National Defense Emergency Mobilization. This includes a) for the short-term: rapid de ployment of MX missies and Trident submarines and continued deployment to Europe of Pershing missies; b) for the medium-term: initiate a crash program to develop anti-missle beam weapon sys tems. “To finance this we must adopt the credit policies imposed on the Federal Reserve System by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1939-1943, when he guaranteed long-term, low-in terest credit for the productive sector of the economy. This would decrease the deficit by invigorating the non-defense sector with new technologies in the same way that NASA did during the 1960s.” Brian Wilson Plant Sciences student The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference Editor 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 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. The Editorial Board consists of the editor, managing editor, city editor, news editor, edito rial page editor and sports editor. Letters Policy Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length but will make every effort to maintain the author’s in tent. Each letter must be signed and must in clude the address and telephone number of the writer. Reader’s Forum columns and guest editorials also are welcome. Address all inquiries to the Ed itorial Page Editor. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed Mc Donald Building, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station, TX 77843. United Press International is entitled exclu sively to the use for reproduction of all news dis patches credited to it. Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. by Jim Efl Slouch “This is what we call ‘the graduating senior taper-off.