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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 10, 1984)
Opinion Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, July 10, 1984 Rock 'n' roll effects same everywhere Oh, those rock ’n’ roll blues. For years parents in the United States have screamed at their children about rock ’n’ roll and contemporary music. Charges of obscenity, tasteles sness, immorality and decadence have abounded, all to no avail. Parents are still screaming. “The epitome of tastelessness” is one de scription used for a pop group. But the criticism didn’t come from a U.S. parent. It came from someone in the Soviet Union. Apparently, the United States is not the only country with people who think pop music is trash. People in the Soviet Union have different reasons for objecting to the music — it’s not about communist ideals. And Western pop groups are blamed for the influ ence they’ve exerted on Soviet pop groups. A letter to the editor in a Soviet pa per calls Western pop music “the forceful propaganda of an ideology which is alien to us, to a way of life which is alien to us.” It’s interesting to see how much impact someone from another country places on pop music. No one in the United States would consider “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and other Top 40 songs that blare from car radios as any type of ideological statement. But no matter who you are or what country your from, contemporary mu sic — probably a factor in keeping teens out of trouble and certainly a highlight of college students’ social lives — catches flack. People are people, wherever you are. — The Battalion Editorial Board Dead computers: By ART BUCHWALD Columnist for The Los Angeles Times Syndicate The most frightening words in the English language are, “Our computer is down.” You hear it more and more as you go about trying to conduct your business. The other day I was at the airport attempting to buy a ticket to Washing ton and the attendant said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket. Our computer is down.” “What do you mean your computer is down? Is it depressed.” “No it can’t be depressed. That’s why it’s down.” “So if your computer is down just write me out a ticket.” “I can’t write you out a ticket. The computer is the only one allowed to is sue tickets on the plane.” I looked down the counter and every passenger agent was just standing there drinking coffee and staring into a blank screen. “What do all you people do?” “We give the cxomputer the infor mation about your trip, and then it tells us whether you can fly with us or not.” “So when it goes down, you go down with it.” “That’s very good, sir. I haven’t heard it put that way before.” “How long will the computer be down?” I wanted to know. “I have no idea. Sometimes it’s down for 10 minutes, sometimes for two rours. There is no way we can find out without asking the computer, and since it’s down it won’t answer us.” “Don’t you have a backup com ...JUST THINK-ELEVEN YEARS ig AGO, UNAS AT HOME FIXING PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES FOR THE KIDS... —- ...1RAH, YOU’RE right.. You’re OVER-QUALMED FOR THE JOB... li j 233 otters ^ couple in begar Ilk after I Ijgn class LStels at a 1 Ts exhit Inc. idscapes J1 hang u In teach i [Texas Ail Three ol .)Ches by ( 1,500 apie Kail paint ■ild sell f Jso lias twt Othe exhit pf the i Lid jum Jhey’ve n nous comp ar this st Davison': an American nightmare By L puter, when the main computer goes down?” “I doubt it. Do you know shat one of these things costs?” “Let’s forget the computer. What about your planes? They’re still flying, aren’t they?” “I couldn’t tell without asking the computer, and as I told you....” “I know, it’s down. Maybe I could just go the the gate and ask the pilot if he’s flyingto Washington,” I sug gested. “I wouldn’t know what gate to send you to.” “I’ll try them all,” I said. “Even if the pilot was going to Washington, he couldn’t take you if you didn’t have a ticket.” “Why don’t I give you the money and you could give me a receipt and I could show that to the pilot as proof that I paid?” “We wouldn’t know what to charge you. The computer is the only one who keeps track of air fares because they change every hour.” “How about my credit card?” “That’s even worse. When our com puter is down it can’t notify the credit card computer to charge the fare to your account.” “Is there any other airline flying to Washington within the next few hours?” “I wouldn’t know,” he said, pointing at the dark screen, “only ‘IT’ knows.” “And at the moment ‘It’ don’t know nothing.” A new S' Ibal adv women. T Rtline — ■’s Ad vo By this time there were quite a (f>jorgamzati< people standing in lines. The worf f ,c soon spread to other travelers duP 83 ’, the computer was down. NoboOfl . i »ti* i Ryf vlLCf Sd know exactly what this meant, ft ccut i ve di some people went white, some pwwbrganizati started to cry, and still others kidtjfrom the their luggage. A man in a red blazer tame “Please don’t get excited. Wichiu been notified.” “What’s Wichita got to do withkr asked. Uni: “That’s where our main “‘IT’ knows it,” he said defensively, “‘IT’ just can’t tell me.” I DALL/ compi. Texas, wl went down. But as soon as it getsove the year, its glitch, it’s going to buy everyoijing posit who misses his plane a free drink.” |Southern Letter: which he other sch< I The se ing the re idem Rea Reader says abortions destroy innocent unborn children off [eagan is rid of on a whim. A baby is an entirely the 20th week of pregnancy. Bytii |>osition v Editor: I am writing in response to Kristin Parson’s pro-abortion letter. (The Bat talion, July 3) I’m a mother, too. However, I do not share your casual attitude towards abortion. I believe no one has the right to take the life of an innocent, unborn child. Too often women have abortions because it is not “convenient” for them to have a baby. This is the ultimate in selfishness and cold-heartedness. I don’t buy the old argument that “a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body.” A developing baby is NOT a part of your body like a Finger or an ugly wart, that you can get separate human being within, but not a part of, the mother. Since Ms. Parsons is so familiar with fetal development, she should know that as early as five weeks after con ception, a baby’s heart is already beat ing and other organs are forming. Af ter three months the baby has developed arms and legs with per fectly formed fingers and toes. It can kick its legs, close its fingers, turn its head and open and close its mouth. Despite this, pro-abortionists will still claim this is not a living human being. They call it “tissue” or “the product of conception.” They will perform an abortion up to time the baby is completely formed “I hav< The methods of abortion are era g° v and painful to the baby. An abortid a n< f by suction literally tears it a P art > piftfgujsheci i, by piece. Yes, that sounds ugly, butiif “if j w the reality of abortion. |hat and I encourage any woman who face that, it w an unwanted pregnancy to conside other alternatives, such as adopdoi Abortion is not the answer—itT only the easy way out. Tammy Neil Editor’s note: Kristin Parson’s Idle was pro-choice, which doesn’t nec essariiy mean she’s pro-abortM There is a difference. I V Co Differences give America greatness The so-called American Dream may be just that — a rarely achieved ideal. But it gives sense of purpose to people who are taught to believe they are the best — even when they are not. That is what makes America. By STEVE JAMES Columnist for United Press International WASHINGTON — The idyll — driving on an open road with the radio blasting, twiddling the dial for any one of a thousand images of America. It’s like flipping through a pile of old 45’s. A golden oldies station in Philadel phia — Elvis Presley — my sister dressed in black beatnik, jiving with the bedroom door as partner. Big band jazz — Mum and Dad. My grandfather’s tales of the London blitz and how the Yankee soldiers rescued the neighbors after the street was hit by one of Hitler’s doodlebugs. Glenn Miller and Harry James — my uncle’s bands. He can still sit down at a piano and play those sounds, even though he never had a good thing to say about the country they came from. A soul station in Newark, and my own adolescent memories of America. Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. America — that strange land so far away that we knew so well through movies and “I Love Lucy,” but really didn’t know at all. America — hastily arranged student meetings to condemn this or that American atrocity in Vietnam, talk of marching on the embassy, burn Nixon, yeah. Then there were those wide thighed girls you saw all over Europe — always with knapsacks. You can wallow in a lot of nostalgia driving the roads of America with the radio on. Especially if you’re driving from Washington to Connecticut to be sworn in as a citizen. As I neared New York, the enor mity of it all hit me. That’s when I heard him on the radio. Howard Stern, a very opinionated talk show host. And I got to wondering if I really wanted to be an American. All the way across the George Wash ington Bridge, the Cross Bronx Ex pressway and along the Connecticut Turnpike, Stern was talking at me. “Yes, I would say that 75 percent of female gym teachers are lesbians...” A call from a man who says he is a teacher in a New Jersey prison. “No, don’t want to talk to him,” Stern tells his giggling female assis tant, then hangs up and takes off on a flight of fancy about a TV sitcom in which he is gang-raped by black pris oners. Is this the America that I am em bracing? Where my children are going to grow? The same America that Viet namese boat people braved hurricanes and pirates in the South China Sea for? To have some boorish know-it-all mouth his prejudices and ignorance on the radio? Did Jefferson and Wash ington really have this in mind 200 years ago? Was I going to raise my hand in a Connecticut courthouse and mouth the pledge of allegiance for this? Well... yes. God knows it’s no paradise. There are injustices and discrimina tion and greed and selfishness. I doubt the average American has any more actual freedom than, say, a Swede or an Australian. There’s a lot of self-righteous talk about personal freedom that sneers at state indoctrination in communist countries. But aren’t American chil dren also brainwashed about their country being the greatest? The so-called American Dream may be just that — a rarely achieved ideal. But it gives sense of purpose to people who are taught to believe they are the best — even when they are not. That is what makes America. Now that I have joined the ranks, it has become clearer to me. Americans themselves do not really know who they are. Just like my child hood images of what Americans should be, they are unable to pin down what makes an American. In Boston, for example, an Irish man from Southie or a black man from Roxbury or a Brahmin in Bea con Hill. They are worlds apart, but share a common American-ness. In a country that is meant to be a melting pot, there are so many vociferous fac tions intent on proving their differ ences. Bumper stickers that declare “Pol ish Pride” or “Irish Power” strike one as anachronistic in a society in which all are meant be equal. But that’s it. It’s that something that makes Americans what they are, or should I say what WE are. It’s that dif ference we all have while simulta- neouly being the same. Thank you to the judge, whose name I couldn’t hear. In that room full of strangers with foreign names, you made us all equals in one stroke. Like Simon and Garfunkel, it was on the New Jersey Turnpike that I be gan to find the America I was looking for. And I think I like it. (Editors note: Steve James, a former British subject and an editor on the UP I foreign desk, recently pledged to renounce all “princes, potentates and sovereigns” in favor of the Stars and Stripes and American citizenship.) The Battalion CISPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Rebeca Zimmermann, Editor Bill Robinson, Editorial Page Editor Shelley Hockstra, City Editor Kathleen Hart, News Editor Dave Scott, Sports Editor The Battalion Staff Assistant City Editor Robin [ Assistant News Editor Dcna Brow® | Staff Writers KariFlucg®' ! Sarah Oates, Travis Tingk Copy Editor Trade Holuti ; Photographers Peter Rod# 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. 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