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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 26, 1984)
Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, June 26, 1984 Opinion Old Sol, humidily take toll The heat is beginning to take its toll — on the pet population, on the elderly, on the very young, and on — us. Yes, us. We, the sweating student body that has decided to stick out the oppressing, body-boggling heat and humidity of Bryan-College Sta tion to catch up on hours, to re-take a previously failed class, to try to graduate or just to have fun. Have fun did you say? No one in their right mind could call this “fun.” The heat and the accelerated summer pace have left us drained and in a rut. Oh to be young again. To ride your bike to the city pool, buy pops- icles from the ice cream man, catch fireflies, or go swimming in a creek, all the while thinking “There’s nothing to do!”. The University of Hawaii sounds right nice at this time. Going to class and hitting the beach sound like sun time, fun time, summer par adise. Forget going to class. Can we get credit for Suntan 101? Surfing 203? Bodywatching 404? Loafing 308? This “greenhouse” we live in, work in and study in leaves some thing to be desired. We think the greenhouse should be air condi tioned, or classes cancelled until the present air conditioning is fixed. It broke in April and the maintenance men say it won’t be working again until October some time. Can we stand it? Or will we melt long before then? Some paradise... — The Battalion Editorial Board The Battalion CJSPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Rebeca Zimmermann, Editor Bill Robinson, Editorial Page Editor Shelley Hoekstra, City Editor Kathleen Elart, News Editor Dave Scott, Sports Editor The Battalion Staff Assistant City Editor Robin Black Assistant News Editor Dena Brown Staff Writers Kari Fluegel Sarah Oates, Travis Tingle Copy Editor Tracie Holub Photographers Peter Rocha, Dean Saito Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non profit, self-supporting news paper operated as a commu nity 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 necessar ily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Re gents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Communications. United Press Interna tional is entitled exclusively to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches cred ited to it. Rights of repro duction of all other matter herein reserved. Letters Policy Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The edito rial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length but will make every effort to maintain the au thor's intent. Each letter must be signed and must in clude the address and tele phone number of the writer. The Battalion is pub lished Monday through Fri day during Texas A&M reg ular semesters, except for holiday and examination pe riods. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester, $33.25 per school year and $35 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald Building, Texas A&M Uni versity, College Station, TX 77843. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. :C*2E0ON\N4- i Support the English ^nienolmeixt V ...IHDERE/WSE DUNG TOOTIN'INE'ZE GOTTA GEDM ENGLISH LANGUAGE THING ON DA BOOKS.. UDDERWISE. DEM FURMNERS'D BE INRECKIN' DA GOOD a' AMURICAN W OF SAW STUFF. AN’ JUNK... > i.IlP ‘ Southern votes important By IRA R. ALLEN Columnist for United Press International WASHINGTON — When the South turned its back on native son Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, it looked as if the conservative old con federacy might be locked up in the Re publican column and taken for granted for years to come. But with the rise of Jesse Jackson as a Democratic presidential candidate, and phenomenal new registration among blacks, the South appears to be a make-or-break region for Reagan in 1984. There are now enough new black, and presumably Democratic, voters in the seven Southern states the COP narrowly won in 1980 to tip the bal ance away from Reagan. So Reagan, as he begins contemplat ing a strategy for amassing the 270 electoral votes needed for re-election, must figure out a way to hold the South, and that means either dampen ing the black turnout or increasing the white turnout. And in this day and age, open ap peals to white voting blocs on the basis of race are passe, at least at the presi dential level. That leaves the Reagan-Bush ’84 committee with few options. In the South, as everywhere else, the Republicans are using their vast fi nancial advantage over the Democrats to buy computer time to identify every possible GOP voter — using drivers’ li cense information, mailing lists and zip codes as prospecting devices. They also have recognized that America is more mobile than ever, and that when people move from a pros perous suburb in one state to prosper ous GOP territory in another, they may have forgotten to re-register. In addition to gathering in unregistered natural Republicans, the party is tak ing advantage of easier state rules for absentee voting, planning to bombard likely absentees with mailings on be half of Reagan. But there is one other way that Rea gan can go after the Southern white vote without appearing to be racist. And that is to campaign extensively in the region before crowds that by the nature of the event they are attending are sure to be almost all white. The tip-off is Reagan’s upcoming travel schedule. At the end of June, he will be in Baltimore — in certain re spects still a Southern city — to attend the National Square Dance Conven tion. And on the Fourth of July, Reagan will celebrate Independence Day in Daytona, Fla., at the Firecracker 400 stock car race. He speaks on July 6 in San Antonio before the Texas Bar As sociation, not a whites-only audience per se, but his schedulers are looking for another event in the Deep South he can attend on July 5. If he stays South for three days, it is likely that the yet-to-be-scheduled event would put him before another all-white crowd. It is no longer fashionable, or even polite, to call square dancers and stock car fans “rednecks” — a healthy seg ment of any Southern electorate — so the White House calls those folks “blue collars.” But the blue collars at the Fire cracker 400 and the National Square Dance Convention identify more clo sely with the politically conservative mores of the Deep South than do un employed factory workers in Cleve land and Buffalo, many of whom are black. It is this Southern branch of blue collar America — not the traditional Democratic bastions of the industrial belt — that is in for a large dose of Ronald Reagan in the months ahead. Americans facing 'reality gap' By CLAY F. RICHARDS Columnist for United Press International WASHINGTON — President Rea gan’s chances of winning re-election this November could well hinge on what could be termed a reality gap. Poll after poll gives Reagan high marks for leadership and improving the economy. When Americans are asked today the question Reagan asked President Carter in 1976 — “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” — a majority of the people answer yes. But in those same polls when people are asked whether Reagan or Walter Mondale would be more likely to get us into war, people say Reagan. And often those same people say Reagan’s programs are unfair; discriminate against blacks and women and hurt the poor. So voters who say Reagan is doing a good job and is a strong leader on one hand, don’t believe some of his key specific policies on the other. Some pollsters say this is because while in many cases they believe they are better off and the nation is better off, they also believe much of what is written and said by critics about Rea gan either being warlike or anti-poor. To date the Democratic strategy for beating Reagan has relied heavily on a massive turnout of anti-Reagan voters — blacks and feminists in particular — who are so unhappy with his record that they will participate in a system they have generally ignored over the years. That is why getting Jesse Jackson on the Mondale bandwagon is considered so important. One network poll in the District of Columbia, where Jackson won the primary by a landslide, showed that 65 percent of those who voted for him had never voted in an election before. Some Democrats also believe that getting Cary Hart on the ticket with Mondale is essential or that the “yup pies” — the young, upwardly mobile professionals, who backed the Colo rado senator in the primaries will go in the Reagan column. But while this added turnout is an important key to the Democratic battle plan, they should not forget that Rea gan was elected by millions of blue col lar and independent voters who joined the ranks of the Republican minority in the country in 1980. Reagan has to keep those votes to win a second term. If they wake up on Election Day and believe they are bet ter off than they were four years ago, Reagan will be re-elected. But if they wake up and see a reality gap — that they just thought they were better off when they really aren’t — the presi dent could be in trouble. Parking meters deserve recognition By DICK WEST Columnist for United Press International WASHINGTON — Although 1984 still has six more months to run, it probably isn’t too early to remind each other that next year marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of the parking meter. Planning a celebration suitable for a milestone as significant as this takes time, you know. So let us get started without further delay. Some science writers, notably Issac Asimov, trace the beginning of Ameri ca’s technological leadership to 1879, the year Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. But I, among others, am convinced that we could never have achieved no. 1 ranking had it not been for the late Carl Magee, an Oklahoma City news paper editor. It was Mcgee who conceived the idea of using coin-operated machines to limit the hogging of prime parking spaces on city streets. According to popular folklore and other reliable sources, experimental parking meters were first installed in 1935. From that humble beginning has come all sorts of technological spin offs, including the inventions of the parking ticket and the meter maid. Today, with our highly developed urban gridlocks, when rush hour traf fic jams are twice-daily occurrences in most metropolitan areas, a motorist can scarcely imagine life without park ing meters. Edison, as you are well aware, hav ing celebrated the light bulb centen nial just five years ago, hit upon the basic design for an incandescent lamp fully two years before he actually in vented it. His biggest hangup was finding the proper filament material. Before he finally tried carbonized thread, many unsatisfactory items were tested, including hair from a red beard. Edison, however, was a piker com pared to the inventive ingenuity dis played by illegal packers. Items tried in parking meters, in lieu of coins, in clude hair pins, paper clips, chewing gum, beer can tabs and round metal washers customarily used with bolts. Any of those items probably would have made a better light bulb filament than hair from a red beard. Nevertheless, the list illustrates how much technological progress this country has racked up since 1935. In New York City alone, parking meter coin boxes have yielded as many as 200,000 slugs in a single month. As the first step toward making 1985 a banner year for celebration, I recommed at the federal level the cre ation of a National Parking Meter Golden Jubilee Commission, with half of the members appointed by the pres ident and the other half named by Congress. To help raise funds for the festivi ties, the commission might sell special commemorative sets of golden slugs, the size of nickles, dimes and quarters and beer can tabs, that would fit meter slots. I mean, if the 1984 Olympics can have an “official beer,” there is no rea son the 1985 parking meter cele bration shouldn’t have an official counterfeit coin. And if the Soviet Union chooses to boycott the anniversary, so much the better. Letters: Wrong decision behind legislation Editor: This letter is written in responseii your editorial, “Abortion a private^ cision.” I am a little puzzled by yom arguements for the legality of abor tion. I appears to me that youredito rial argues that abortions should belt gal because abortion “(is an)issuetla is intensely personal and emotional,’ and “abortion... affects people —non movement.” It seems to me that your arguemeE must rest on more than the emotioiu and personal nature of the questionl would guess that what you meant this: The decision to have an abortioi or to have a baby, will be affectedb different circumstances for each ini vidual or family and will ultimatelya! feet only that family; therefore suchi decision should be made by that fan ily. Doesn’t such a position beg tin question entirely? The question is, when should th baby-to-be be considered a person- an individual — whose right tolivei protected by the Constitution? Ifik fetus is a person, then no argueraeii justifies abortion. It is nonsense tosai that each family, with their doctor,cat decide whether their particularfetusi a human being. We as a society answH the question of when personhoodi* gins whether we want to or not. Ifm allow abortion up to twelve weeks, then we tacitly say that the eleven weel fetus is not a person. If there areno laws against aborting a nine monthfe tus, then we as a society have decided that no one is a human being until they are born. Therefore it is non sense to say that we will let each persoc decide on their own, because wean society are making a decision. It must be admitted that the ques tion of personhood is a difficult one to answer, but an answer will be given There is no instrument to measure when one becomes a person, so them teria must be found on moral andetlti cal grounds. Some would say that fot this very reason no decision canbelej- islated, but I repeat a decision is legis lated already. The question to bead- dressed is: Have we made the rigln decision? I would say we have not madetho right decision. The fetus is alive, whether one believes it is a person or not. Randy Davy Graduate student, chemistry ABL rates - tighten oil tern it cuts ( Islamic “The land ar bian (P will be breath Iran ar daily i Baath I The one of U. l MAI tight se U.S. ar day he tween ease te Americ U.S. deman eign M headed reporte La Voz AU. caragut to Nica was at N Nica the Cl weapo guan r ist San southe In E its driv northe where onfly” guerril said. Meai Jacksor Auxilia Chavez Abortion arguement ignores moral code Editor: Much to the distress of concerned students, or at least to me, The Battal ion has once again managed to come to an erroneous conclusion by ignor ing the basic points of an argument. The Editorial Board’s arguement ignores the the viewpoint that looks upon abortion as murder. If abortion is the taking of a human life, by what ever means, then saying that the mother and father must live with theit decision is like saying that a murderet should not be controlled by societybe- cause it is enough that he or she must live with their decision to kill some body. The Board stated: “abortion must remain a choice. If not it opens the way for coat hangers in the back rooms and sleazy back alley opera tions.” This statement implies that "t should invite criminals to shoot people out on the front streets as comparedto the back alleys so that if the criminald injured he or she might be bettet taken care of. This ignores the fae 1 that many more people would die. All of the above statements assume as mentioned earlier, that the unborn child is alive. In the Jan. 1 1, 1982, h' sue of Newsweek there was a cover story that concluded that life beginsai conception. The next article was titled “But is it a Person.” The conclusion^ that article being: “The problem is noi determining when actual human life begins, but when the value of that life begins to outweigh other consider ations, such as the health or even the happiness of the mother. Finally, the Board’s reasoning on the issue of when life begins seems t° discard the idea of a concrete rightor wrong, or truth or falsehood. The viewpoint seems to be this is true for me but it might not be true for yon This, taken to its logical conclusions abdicates any moral code whatsoever — which, upon any thought at all,8 idiotic. Buckey Lee Turk,Jr Class of‘8! f