Opinion
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, June 27,1984
Space technology
not yet perfected
Just when Americans have be
come blase about space travel, a
near disaster seconds before Tues
day’s launch caused more than one
person’s heart to plummet.
The six-member crew spent 38
tense minutes waiting for ground
crews to put out a hydrogen fire be
fore they were hustled out of the
space shuttle Discovery.
The blaze, which flared moments
after two of Discovery’s main en
gines shut down on computer com
mand, occurred 24 hours after the
shuttle’s blastoff was delayed by the
failure of a backup computer. Dis
covery’s maiden voyage now has
been delayed indefinitely.
The space program has come a
long way since the tragedy of
Apollo 1, when three astronauts
were trapped in the burning craft
and died. Since that time, many as
tronauts have flown safely to the
moon and in the space shuttles.
But the program is as human as
the people who put it together. We
shouldn’t take the dangers lightly,
but the near disaster shouldn’t curb
the spirit of adventure and discov
ery that characterizes space flight.
The episode simply reminded
people that technology isn’t so per
fect that disasters don’t happen.
Comity soon to pur Ptpicianfs Freezer.
— The Battalion Editorial Board
IP
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Seedless melons don't a tourist-town make
MONDAY—
Once a week it’s
Monday in Mun-
day and some of
the town’s folk re
joice by opening
the doors of their
businesses and
starting the work
week.
For most of the
citizens of Mun-
day, the work
week never ends.
The 5,329 residents
donn friedman
of Knox
County — 1,785 in Munday, and the
rest scattered near Knox City, Goree
and Benjamin — combine to produce
$24.5 million worth of crops. The po
tatoes can’t take off to Abilene for the
weekend, and neither can the farmers
— they don’t have the time or the
money.
Nor can the seedless watermelons.
Monday’s brochure, it’s not quite a
tourist’s brochure, boasts that Munday
is home of the seedless melon. In fact,
the brochure tells the reader, it’s now
the only place where the seedless
melon seeds — everyone has a mother
and father, but not everyone has chil
dren — are produced and harvested
for commercial markets.
Munday’s other crops: 130,000
acres of wheat, 65,000 acres of cotton
and 1,500 acres of potatoes are de
scribed in detail along with the town’s
offering to the capitalist system. Mun
day has over 90 businesses including a
bank with drive-in facilities, a funeral
IUNPERSTAW HE INHERITS A FORTUNE WHEN HE
WAS A FROZEN EMBRUO,,,
The Battalion
USPS 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 Hart, 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
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Letter:
Gay community
opposing Gramm
Editor:
(An open letter to Phil Gramm)
Dear Phil,
How thoughtful of you to use
Gay Pride Week to launch your gay
baiting campaign. You could not
have made my job any easier if you
had planned it. Until you opened
your mouth and stuck your “Chris
tian” voice for “Moral” Government
in it, you had a pretty solid base of
support in the gay community.
Until you opened your attack, I
had been finding it rather difficult
to get people interested in the elec
tion. Now my phone is ringing off
the wall with people wanting to
know how they can ensure your de
feat. If you had been in Texas in
stead of in Washington voting ag-
ianst the ERA you might havee
noticed that Kent Hance used the
very same tactics.
As a direct result of your barrage
we now plan to launch a full scale
voter registration drive among the
more than 3,000 gay students at
TAMU. I doubt that even one will
vote for you. Oh yes, we have con
tacted the Doggett campaign to
pledge our time, money and votes.
So Phil, keep up the good work. We
couldn’t have done it without you.
Lenny DePalma, president
Alternative
home without drive-in facilities and a
motel.
That’s singular as in one motor
lodge. The motel is clean, the air con
ditioner works and it has color tele
menu. The Mexican special: two en-
chilidas, beans, rice, a tamale and a
trip to the salad bar.
I placed my order and walked into
the other room where the salad bar
vision.
Munday is also home for the Texas
Vegetable Research Center. Texas Ag
ricultural Experiment Service scien
tists are hard at work propogating new
and improved foodstuffs from the
Munday soil.
When supper time comes a visitor’s
choices are few.
I’m not sure what the name of the
place was that I ate at my first night in
Munday, the sign on the rectangular
building said plainly, ‘Good Food.’
I meandered in, taking a seat near
the front of the diner and opened the
sat.
To my suprise, it wasn’t a lettuce
cart with carrots, tomatoes, three
choices of dressing and plastic wrap
ped crackers. Instead, it was a vegeta
ble table with all kinds of vegetable sal
ads. Homemade crackers sat where
their plastic second cousins would nor
mally be. All this, but just a six-inch
plate.
Back at my table I dug in, it was the
first non-fast-nor-fried food I had
sampled since leaving College Station
three days before.
The Mexican plate was just edible,
but my taste-buds had already bee:
appeased by a broccoli salad tk
tasted fresh-picked.
I decided that the next day 1 wouW
have to try another six-inch plate of
vegetable salads from the Good Foot
Cafe.
After a non-eventful morniiif
watching onions sweat, I requested
that my host join me for lunch at tin
cafe. He declined.
With bitterness he said, “No thank
My ex-wife works there.”
Kinda limits your choices in a one
Dairy Queen town.
I had a Hunger Buster.
(Donn Friedman is a seniorjoum
lism major and The Battalion’s roving
columnist covering the plains of Tan
this summer)
Huffing and puffing athletes
By DICK WEST
Columnist for
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Intelligence
tests long have been a part of the
American scene, but I have gone bli
thely through life never knowing what
my FQ is.
Until recently, I didn’t even know I
had a FQ. Then I met Sharon Bar-
bano, a champion long-distance run
ner who lives about as far as you could
throw a bottle of linament from
“Heartbreak Hill” on the Boston Mar
athon course.
Barbano helped develop what are
called “six simple tests to measure
your personal ‘fitness quotient’.”
To describe them as “simple” is to
do complexity an injustice.
To arrive at a score comparable to
what is produced by IQ tests, it seems
to me you would have to add together
such singularly incompatible figures as
heart beats, push-ups, seconds and
inches.
By that count, my FQ is 228. But a
few more seconds of the stairstep test
and I probably could have topped that
sum in pulse rate alone.
It might be more meaningful to say
the FQ tests rate a individual from
“poor” to “excellent” on inflexibility,
agility, strength and endurance.
In some ways, however, I doubt this
scoring system gives as accurate a pro
file of physical condition as IQ tests
provide of brain power.
There are, for example, no mea
surements for “huffing and puffing,”
which I consider a vital part of physi
cal conditioning.
Barbano, who began jogging nine
years ago, told me she developed a
back problem even though she was
winning marathons. That was when
she decided she was “lacking in tod
fitness” — strength and flexibility be
ing the two areas in which she was
most deficient.
I didn’t ask whether she is strongei
and more flexible now, or whethersh
still has backaches. I must say, how
ever, that in a green shirt, white slack
and jogging shoes, she does look to
tally fit. Too bad she never metmylalt
father.
In all of his adult years, my fathei
never turned a muscle that wasn't
somehow connected with work. Recre
ational exertion wasn’t his ideaoffm
Once, I recall, shortly after I began
exercising for pleasure, my father
commented, “You are really going to
be in great shape when you quil
breathing.”
Had he known my huffing and puf
fing quotient, he would have known
that observation was irrelevant.
Senate not safe Mondale draw
By STEVE GERSTEL
Columnist for
United Press International
WASHINGTON — As Walter
Mondale, now seemingly assured of
the Democratic presidential nomi
nation, searches for a running mate he
must take into account the titanic
struggle for control of the Senate.
Unlike previous Democratic nomi
nees — beginning with Franklin D.
Roosevelt and running through
Jimmy Carter — Mondale cannot dip
with impunity into the Senate, which
has produced the Democrats’ vice
presidential candidate since Harry S.
Truman in 1948.
The outlook, shared by analysts in
both parties, is that the struggle for
control of the Senate is going to be so
close, it could hinge on one or two
elections.
At present, the Republicans hold
control of the Senate 55-45. This 10-
vote margin is expected to shrink —
perhaps to below a majority — after
the elections.
The GOP problems are due partly
to the fact that more Republican seats
are at stake in November, partly to the
retirement of two top vote-getters,
Howard Baker of Tennessee and John
Tower of Texas, and partly to the vul
nerability of a number of incumbents.
Despite the hazards, Mondale has
properly included a number of sen-
Unlike previous Democratic
nominees, Mondale cannot dip
with impunity into the Senate,
which has produced the Dem
ocrats’ vice presidential candi
date since Harry S. Truman in
1948.
ators on what is presumed to be his
list, probably incomplete, of possible
candidates for the vice presidential
nomination.
Among those mentioned are Sens.
Lloyd Bentsen of Texas (already inter
viewed), Dale Bumpers of Texas, Jo
seph Biden of Delaware, John Glenn
of Ohio, Sam Nunn of Georgia,
Christopher Dodd of Connecticutt —
not to mention Gary Hart, who is
sometimes named as the second part
of a “dream ticket” for the Democrats.
Bradley, Biden and Nunn are up
for re-election and, depending on the
state laws, probably could not run for
the vice presidency and the Senate at
the same time.
In 1960, Lyndon Johnson managed
to get around that problem, convinc
ing the Texas legislature to make an
exception and allow him to run for
both posts at the same time. He won
both.
But Bradley, Biden and Nunn do
not wield that kind of power in their
home states and probably would have
to abandon their Senate races. It ma)
be the reason that none of the three
have evinced great interest in joining
Mondale on the national ticket.
The others, with the exception of
Bentsen, who was re-elected in 1982.
are due to face the voters in 1986, now
judged an excellent year for the Dem
ocrats to regain control if they cannoi
in November.
Alleviating the problem somewhat
is that the governors of Texas, Arkan
sas, Ohio, Colorado and Connecticut
are all Democrats.
In the event that Mondale chose
Bentsen, Bumpers, Glenn, Hart or
Dodd, the Democrats would not im
mediately lose a seat.
But Bentsen, Bumpers and Glenn
are powerful vote-getters and their
succesors might not be able to matcli
them at the polls in 1986.
In addition, Texas, Ohio, Colorado
and Connecticut are not averse to elec
ting Republicans to statewide office.
There are greater imperatives in
the selection of a vice presidential
nominee but, to some extent, Mondale
will have to take into consideration
control of the Senate. The former vice
president, if elected, will need all the
help he can get on Capitol Hill.
*
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