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OPINION
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Protecting the environment a no-win battle
Picture this.
The slimy surface
of a lake scattered
with rotting fish. A
towering smokestack
Ed
Cassavoy
belching ink black smoke. Passing mo
torists pitching garbage onto the side of
a highway.
Sort of a downer isn’t it?
and
Sadly, protecting the environment
d the discussion of pollution prob
lems are victims of a public relations-
happy society. Who can give “good
press” to such a consistently depressing
subject? Imagine trying to wade
through the current toxic waste disposal
problem without wishing for a strong
drink or the next episode of “Leave It
To Beaver.”
It’s hard to deal with such a mind-
numbing subject. The world is danger
ous enough with MIRVs, ICBMs, SS-
20s, F-15s and misellaneous other nas
ties floating around, without having to
worry about whether your ice tea is full
of dioxin.
Scientists had the right idea when
they started naming chemicals. Dioxin,
chlorine and methane scare the hell out
of me just by reading the names out
loud.
So I say them to myself and the fear
does not subside. It’s like being a fly
stuck to fly paper — struggle and sq
uirm and you only get mired deeper
into the mess.
And a very complicated mess at that.
The type of awesome, towering stack of
interrelated problems and conflicts that
promise to hurt something and injure
someone and confuse everyone.
Try to figure out acid rain problems.
Make factories put scrubbers on
smoke stacks to reduce acid rain pro
ducing chemicals. Save the lakes or lose
jobs. Ignore on the short term, pay in
the long term. Keep government out of
our lives or risk companies destroying
our f uture. Not much to smile about.
So most people look down and
shuffle their feet. It’s easy and maybe it
makes life a little easier. There is not a
lot of hope of changing anything.
Then again there is not any hope if
you ignore it.
Spaceship Earth is getting tinier by
the minute. And more fragile. Like that
frayed teddy bear that you dragged
around the house as a child, our planet
is getting loved to death.
Ours is the first generation of finite
dreams. The mind can and will always
journey to distant lands regardless of
time and dimension. The rotten part is
our bodies are literally stuck to a big
hunk of rock whizzing through space.
But earthly dreams are tainted by a
world slowly going to pieces. The deple
tion of fossil fuels looms ahead. Our
lakes are suffocating under a deadly
acid rain. Animal species are disappear
ing at an alarming pace. Atomic waste
won’t disappear.
And the list goes on and on.
Environmentalists are watched suspi
ciously by the public at large. The survi
val of the snail darter, the bald eagle or
Yellowstone Park does not first appear
to be the life or death struggle it is.
But weave each of these separate
threads together, and the pattern grows
more vivid.
The environmentalists are playing a
global game of Russian roulette. Save
this species of whale, watch two more
hopelessly depleted. Get regulationslo
control pollution and watch them be
nored by a sympathetic government.
The human race is beyond the sin I
plistic mentality of Smokey the Bearand
“Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute." Like asm
dent leaving college to deal with a
strange and violent world, the human
race must decide to cast off their emi |
ronmental blinders.
Now our collective gaze moves to the |
stars with yearning. Out there, weiraag
ine,is a new and better place to live. I
Ironically we imagine this ideal world to
look like Earth —the Earth we used to |
have.
Sort of a downer isn’t it?
Ed Cassavoy is the city editor and A
weekly columnist for The Battalion.
Postponing presidential inaugurations until after
the Super Bowl is a sacred American tradition
By ART BUCHWALD
Columnist for The Los Angeles Times Syndicate
If anyone is wondering why the inau
guration of the president of the United
States was postponed from Sunday, Jan
uary 20, to Monday the 21st, all they
have to do is go back to their history
books and read about the creation of the
Constitution of the United States.
The founding father from Rhode Is
land said, “I say verily the inauguration
of the president of the United States
must have precedence over the Super
Bowl.”
Fifty-five of the founding fathers met
in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787
to write the greatest document in the
history of mankind. It wasn’t easy be
cause every paragraph was fought over
to protect the interests of the individual
states.
A founding father from Pennsylva
nia, who also owned a piece of the Phila
delphia Eagles, jumped up and cried,
“The American people will never stand
for it. They didn’t fight a bloody revolu
tion to see the Super Bowl be moved
from Sunday to Monday. I say verily the
Super Bowl be played on its traditional
Sunday and the president have his inau
guration at a less auspicious time.”
This enraged the representative from
Georgia, who had received PAG money
from the Atlanta Falcons. “Nobody in
my state cares when they inaugurate a
president, but everyone knows you only
play a Super Bowl on Sunday. I cannot
go back home and ask my people to rat
ify this Constitution if the day of the Su
per Bowl has to be postponed in the
name of political expediency.”
at the last league meeting. He said he
would be breaking faith with the mil
lions of people in the 13 states if the
game was not held on a Sunday two
weeks after the playoffs.”
The founding father from Delaware
roared, “The president comes first —
first in peace, first in war, and first in
the heart of his countrymen.”
The motion was adopted and the
Constitution was saved. That is why this |
year President Ronald Reagan, a strict
constitutionalist, will be sworn in pri
vately on Sunday, but his inauguration,
according to the wishes of the founding
fathers, will be held Monday.
The founding father from North
Carolina hooted. “What difference does
it make to you? The Atlanta Falcons will
never get to the Super Bowl anyway.”
One of the biggest stumbling blocks
was when to swear in the president of
the country. The suggested date for his
inaugration was January 20, and there
didn’t seem to be any argument about it
until John Adams of Massachusetts
stood up and said, “Suppose January
20th falls on a Sunday, the same day as
the Super Bowl is to be played? Do we
still hold the president’s inauguration
on that day?”
Another founding father from Penn
sylvania, “Speaking for the Pittsburgh
Steelers, I fully concur.”
The house broke into booing and
laughter.
Alexander Hamilton, who had season
tickets to all the New York Giants
games, said, “The delegate can easily say
that since Delaware could never support
a NFL franchise if every person in the
state came to every game.”
The founding father from New Jer
sey, who never dreamed the New York
Giants and the New York Jets would
one day move to his state, took the floor.
“How can the United States become the
most powerful nation in the world,
when it would put off the inauguration
of its leader to pander to the sports
tastes of its countrymen?”
George Washington, who was presid
ing and had no idea that someday an
NFL team would be named after him,
said, “I think we should table this matter
for the moment until we can speak to
football commissioner Pete Rozelle, to
see if his feet are in cement on the Jan
uary 20th date.”
John Adams rose and said, “I can
speak for Commissioner Rozelle, as I
represented the New England Patriots
The constitutional convention was in
shambles and about to disintegrate
when James Madison offered his fa
mous compromise. “Gentlemen, in de
ference to the states that do not have
NFL franchises, I propose we do not
put it in writing that the Super Bowl
have precedence over the inauguration
of the president. But let us include in
the minutes that it was the will of this
body that if the 20th of January falls on
a Sunday we wanted the Super Bowl to
be played First.”
Ifs the size of the screen that counts
By ART BUCHWALD
Columnist for The Los Angeles Times Syndicate
There was a time when the status
symbol in our crowd was the swimming
pool. Then everyone installed a swim
ming pool and it almost became chic not
to have one.
After swimming pools, the thing to
own was a tennis court. The person with
the private tennis court had the drop on
all of us. Then tennis courts started
popping up in the neighborhood, and
pretty soon the tennis court owner had
as much trouble getting players to come
over as the swimming pool proprietor
had recruiting sunbathers.
cheeses and pate, and key lime pie. We
had a lock on the Redskin games played
away from home as well as the NFL
playoffs. New Year’s Day college bowls,
and, of course, the Super Bowl game,
which became the most sought-after in
vitation in Washington.
We thought it would go on forever.
But three years ago at Super Bowl time
I started to call up the gang to get a
head count on who was coming over. I
called Phil and he said he was going
over to George’s.
“Why are you going to George’s?” I
asked.
When I told my wife that we had lost
the Super Bowl to George, she couldn’t
believe it. “But I’ve fed those people for
10 years. Why would they leave us
now?”
“We’re not talking about food. We’re
talking about 25 inches,” I said bitterly.
“I never thought George would buy a
new house with an extra large living
room just to get the crowd away from
us.”
“What do we do now?”
everyone kept congratulating George
on his set, making nasty remarks about
mine. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but
typical of the fickle behavior of NFL
football fans all over America. One Sun
day you’re cheered and the next Sunday
you’re booed.
What could possibly replace swim
ming pools and tennis courts as a social
attraction?
We didn’t have long to wait. It was the
super large TV screen.
I discovered this the hard way. At one
time the gang used to come over to my
house to watch the football games on my
new 25-inch set. My wife provided pop
corn, potato chips, beer, assorted
“Haven’t you heard? He just got a 50-
inch TV screen. It will be like seeing the
game live.”
“How could he do that? The Super
Bowl belongs to us.”
“I’m sorry,” Phil said. “But you can’t
expect to keep it with a 25-inch screen.”
Calls to Jack, Ben, Joe, Harry and
Charley all confirmed my worst fears.
They were going over to George’s to
watch the game. Charley said if it were
just him, he’d come over to my house,
but he had to think of his kids.
“I’m going down to the TV store to
morrow and price 50-inch screens.”
“Not in my living room,” she said.
“I’m not going to turn it into a Holiday
Inn bar. If George wants the Super
Bowl that badly he can have it. Are you
going to go over and watch it on his
set?”
George didn’t hold the crowd for
long. He had two years before David in
stalled an entire “entertainment com
plex” in his basement, including a 60-
inch screen that came down electroni
cally from the ceiling and a custom-built
TV set superior to any on the market.
We all left George for David before the
Washington-Dallas game this year.
It cost David $40,000, but we told him
it was worth it.
“What choice do I have? If I don’t ev
eryone will call me a sore loser.”
I went to George’s for the game. The
screen was 50 inches as advertised, but
the picture was fuzzy and out of shape
and you had to sit directly in front of it
to see what was going on. Despite all this
What David doesn’t know is that Jack
is planning to turn his garage into a
mini-movie theater, with a 7-foot screen
which will be completed for the Redskin
Monday night game next season. It’s too
bad David only has the Super Bowl for
one year, but when it comes to football
watching you’re only as good as the size
of your last TV set.
The Battalion
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Member of
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Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Brigid Brockman, Editor
Shelley Hoekstra, Managing Editor
Ed Cassavoy, City Editor
Kellie Dworaczvk, News Editor
Michelle Powe, Editorial Page Editor
Travis Tingle, Sports Editor
The Battalion Staff
Assistant City Editors
Kari Fluegel, Rhonda Snider
Assistant News Editors
Tammy Bell, Cami Brown, John Halletl
Assistant Sports Editor
Charean Williams
Entertainment Editors
Shawn Behlen, Leigh-Ellen Clark
Staff Writers Catnie Anderson,
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Kirsten Dietz, Patti Flint,
Patrice Koranek, Trent Leopold,
Karla Martin, Sarah Oates,
Tricia Parker, Lynn Rae Povec
Copy Editor Kay Mailed
Make-up Editor Karen Bloch
Columnists Kevin Inda, Loren Steffy
Editorial Cartoonist Mike Lane
Sports Cartoonist Dale Smith
Copy Writer Cathy Bennett
Photo Editor Katherine Hurt
Photographers Anthony Casper,
Wayne Grabein, Frank Irwin,
John Makely, Peter Rocha, Dean Saito
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