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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1984)
5^ Opinion i 1 Page 2/The BattalionAVednesday, October 17, 1984 In a nuclear war who would survive ? Free the roach-three. Three anti-nuclear protestors were arrested last week after releasing live cockroaches inside the White House. They say if President Ronald Reagan’s nuclear arms policies continue along the same lines, these creatures will run America; that is, roaches will be the only beings inhabitating the White House. Some experts have said that after a nuclear war, one of the few creatures that would survive is the roach. Sure, Reagan and his cohorts could survive for a time in the isolated seculsion of the underground shelters that they’ve constructed for such use, but what kind of life would they have? Who could Nancy invite to dinner parties? And as the bodies of America decay in nuclear graves, would roaches inhabit the White House? Or would they be content to be roaches, free without democracy and the U.S. Constitution. Human beings seem to be the only creatures stupid enough to create the means of their own destruction. Is it all the fault of the RUSSIANS? Or the roaches of Rus sia? Or is it the fault of people who refuse to talk — both Ameri can and Russian — who refuse to compromise, who refuse to re move the threat of the destruction of the human race? So, the next time you see a roach scamper across the floor, stop and think: do I want to surrender the earth to the roaches? The leaders of the world may do just that. Roaches helping expand knowledge Universities serve two main functions: to educate the next generation, and to create an environment condusive to collect ing, testing and expanding the pool of knowledge., Arguments against researcn have been around since Plato. Too expensive, useless, and just plain ridiculous are some of the jabs hurled at researchers. Many times the collecting of raw data, or the creation of cer tain experiments yield few tangible results. But the most bizarre theories sometimes reap the greatest dividends. Fake for example the discovery made by chemists at Yale University. A team of chemists led by Stuart Schreiber were able to produce a synthetic cockroach aphrodisiac. The idea of having a cockroach aphrodisiac may seem ludi crous, but there are positive implications of this unusual discov ery. Already companies are negotiating with Yale for the com mercial rights to the formula. The synthetic substance, called periplanone-B, has the ability to lure male cockroaches into traps treated with insecticides. For the millions of homeowners who have to contend with cockroaches this will mean welcome relief from the expense of fumigating their homes four times a year only to watcn in dis may as the roaches reappear. Third World countries have a much more basic reason for showing interest in this development: famine. Roaches often diminish food stocks of countries that can ill-afford any food loss. So even though this discovery may make our everyday lives a little easier and more comfortable, for some countries help could increase the percentage of citizens with full stomachs. The Battalion Editorial Board XT ilimiluiiiMi/itMiii'iiimii Tl 'THE THIRP VJOELP WAR STARTUP AU ACCIVENT. A M4A/ TPOTEST/AJG W &UILPUF OF KJUCLRAK ARMP, RCLOSED PZOACHET. HKl THE WHITE HOUSE: 'AFTEg. THE VAR, OHLV gOAC.HE'y VILI BE >M THE VI HITE HOUSE' HE 5 A IP, WHEfJ TKESIEiEHT' KEUGAK! EOUMp owe ow Hie TPereK, he reacts nj^T/AJCT/VEEV AWP SMACEEP IT WITH hue shoe, unfortunately IT WAS O/V '■'THE &UTTOW" Aklp WITh/m secowds, the emtireus, NUCLEAR ARSEWA-L WA5 WHIZZm TUKOUGW T-HE STRATOS PH ERE. THE SOV/ETTS COURSE RESPO/UPED AW tekj Hiwuree lateRj we the MEEK OF THE EARTH VES WE -THE" ROACHES , INHERITEV THE EA RTLl 1" Oucrren? F Btvo CrPNeKUL TORN SMACK ITS soo( THE THIRD WOKLDW yKi| Jack and the modem? From seed to floppy disk I used to believe in Jack and the Bean stalk. OK, I really didn’t be lieve the whole thing — at least not like fundamentalist Christians be lieve the Bible — but I did hold faith in the important part, the horticul tural part. You know the part of the story I’m talking about, where Jack’s mom — or was it his step-mother — took the magic seeds that he had traded for his family’s cow — or was it a bull — and tossed them out the well-lighted window at work for as little as $2.0( says that he will know by Christmas if his experiment with computer mulching, planting floppy disc tra transplanting modems, and debugging computer plane are successful. Donn Friedman “In the meantime, he is distrubuting the compute seeds for $ 1.00 per package and asking to have immed ate reports from customers who successfully grow tit personal computers or who accidentally grow pode calculators, microwaves, sewing machines, toasters,tele visions, cassette recorders, telephones, vvalkie-talkiei stereos or sport cars.” window. Well that old witch thought it was over for those magic seeds. Boy was she wrong. A few days later, whammo. It was bean-stalk-city. Who knows how tall that stalk grew? Only Jack, cause he climbed it to the top. And that brings us to the moral of Jack’s story, the moral Mother-Jack should have learned. If you toss a handfull of seeds in the general direction of dirt and there’s an ample amount of moisture, after a while you’re going to have a living, growing, honest-to-good- ness plant. At least that’s what I thought. Well being a busy cub reporter, 1 didn’t have timeif take proper care of my nine seeds. 1 placed them in always growing pile of stuff to be taken care of. growing pile of stuff certainly had a general direction« dirt and an ample amount of moisture; I expectedsod to have a honest-to-goodness home-grown organic Coe puter plant. This weekend as I dug through the stuff todo-tk two-month late gas bill, the letter to my aunt, the no« about cleaning the bath-tub — I came across my of ganic personal computer seeds.” During the summer I received a small package in the mail. It came in an ordinary yellow envelope (didn’t Jack’s seeds come in a plain brown sack?). Tearing it open, I found a small package containing nine shirt- button-sized black and red striped seeds. The yellow card attached said: I picked up the package. There weren’t any eraei gents sprouting IBM from the black and red stripe I here wasn’t even a single sprout saying Commodore A Ui c< The iond w' 1 i drive : buildir the Br; Tuesd; the cot week 1 been n Ind Texas Systerr sity, th the th the AS Way c; $110,C count) So $46,15 tal. 0( have g the sy contril Cor dents eight i at the Unite* structi vision: Joh Pi Polit in the and ni keep tl els. Dete Bryan people their thieves “Pet in the A pro Te> hav Che ann Hai 1 and resj Mu acct the r Chi All that grew was fluffy white mold. “Billy Cornelius, a doctoral student at A&rM Univer sity, says that he has been growing typewriters from seeds for several decades and that he may have found recently the secret to growing organic personal comput ers. Is this a failure of Billy Cornelius’ doctoral Will poor Billy be humiliated in front of his commitlee Or did I just miss the point of Jack and the Bel stalk? “He says that these computers, which sometimes cost as much as $7,000, can be grown at home or in a Donn Friedman is a weekly columnist for TheBi talion. His column appears on Wednesdays. Baseball fever continues year round Sports — espe cially baseball — are important in my home. It doesn’t matter if it’s the baseball locker-room atten- dants of the nized way for boys to play a man’s sport or is major league baseball an organized way for men to play a boy’s game? Kellie Dworaczyk The American League playing the locker- room attendants of the National League. If it’s televisied or within driv ing distance of Houston, my brothers are watching. grave nature of Little League games was obvious during the Little League world series when a pitcher from Korea was taken out of the game for allowing one hit. One mistake and you hit the showers if you are from Ko rea and playing for all the marbles. My brother was chosen this year to coach the all-star team. The players are chosen by votes from all the coaches in the league. The all-star coaches them selves are given two picks. scheduled to pitch Saturday, and he was not allowed to swim with the team be cause he would get tired and not be in par condition for the game the next day. One parent, who thinks his boy is all- star material, called my brother at work and asked him why he did not choose his boy to be an all-star. I have never seen a kid try harder to fight off tears and prove that he knew it was best for him not to swim and have fun with his friends. Little League is x also serious on the lo cal level in America. Many parents see Little League as more than a sporting event. It’s also a social event of great importance. My brothers, 23 and 13 are active in Little League baseball, my older brother coaching the younger one. They’ve al ways taken their baseball seriously, and it’s begun to worry me. Before each season, usually in the be ginning of March, players must go to tryouts so coaches can watch the boys run, catch, throw and hit. Coaches make notes on each boy’s performance and plan their draft choices. A “typical” pre-game comment: Yes, I like to win when I play sports, and yes, I like for the team I am rooting for to win, but let’s keep everything in perspective. The World Series and the Little League World Series are over for the year, but baseball fervor or fever as the Major League Baseball publicity calls it still continues. The serious attitude of many adults concerning Little League raises the question: Is Little League ball an orga- This year I overheard my coach- brother and his assistant coach trying to decide if they could talk one particularly talented 13-year-old into putting a fake cast on his arm for tryouts so none of the other coaches would draft the po tential star. “Honey, do I look all right? I mean really, do you think the chiffon is too much for the game tonight? I don’t think so. It is a night game, and Carol wore silk Monday.” My older brother is guilty of the worst case I have ever seen of placing too much importance on winning and not enough on fun. Major league players are profession als; they get paid for playing sports. If they can’t play well, they deserve to be benched, but pushing kids too hard with too much emphasis on winning takes the fun out of sports played by amateur athetes, and after all, Little League is a boy’s CAME. Parents take Little League ball se riously, too. His team was playing for the championship on Saturday morning. Friday night was the team swimming party. My other brother, then 11, was Kellie Dworaczyk is an assistant news editor for The Battalion. The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference In memoriam Bill Robinson, 1962-1984,Editor The Battalion Editorial Board Stephanie Ross, Editor Patrice Koranek, Managing Editor Shelley Hoekstra, City Editor Brigid Brockman, News Editor Donn Friedman, Editorial Page Editor Bonnie Langford, News Editor Ed Cassavoy, Sports Editor Editorial Policy The II.in.ihnn is u non-profit, self-supportingnnspitt operated us a community sen-ice to Texas AtM td II rya n-( iollege Station. 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