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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 1985)
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, July 17, 1985 OPINION Fine line between privacy and news Citizens of the United States have a constitutional right to privacy. When a person is in the public eye some of that right is relinquished. But the most “public” and “famous” celebrities, entertainers and politicians retain the right to some privacy. Even the Presi dent of the United States. With the news of President Reagan’s colon surgery and the discovery of cancer, the media have been reporting a very im portant news event. But in some cases the reporting of the Rea gans’ private lives has gone too far. The Associated Press reported that Nancy Reagan, “alone in her home, broke down and wept” after learning that the polyp was cancerous. If this fact is so important why not tell us how many tears she cried? Nancy’s reaction was normal and to be ex pected but did not need a play-by-play report. This type of unnecessary detail of the significant events was not limited to the news media. It began with Larry Speakes, White House spokesman, at a news conference Saturday. Speakes told the press that the trip from Reagan’s room to sur gery took about 2 minutes. He also said that when Reagan signed over presidential powers to George Bush, Reagan said told Nancy, “You’re still my first lady.” It’s comforting that the Reagan administration is willfully re leasing information to the media, but both the media and Rea gan’s own staff need to learn where to draw the fine line be tween news about private events and what is truly private. The Battalion Editorial Board Baseball could throw fans curve Strike date. Negotiations. Labor-management relations — big league words that don’t fit in with the beat-up gloves, green fields and curve balls. The Major League Baseball Players Association voted to strike Aug. 6 if they can’t agree to a settlement with team owners over a collective bargaining contract. An August strike would come when several pennant con tenders are scheduled to play. This is prime time for sports fans who need their late summer baseball fix. A strike by major league players would once again em phasize that professional sports have become big businesses that aren’t just kid games anymore. In 1981 when major league play ers stuck for 50 days they forced the cancellation of 712 games. Big dollar salaries, drug investigations and endorsements are routine now in a business where people are paid to play games. Now that sports is a big-bucks industry, the players and the owners, that is the “workers” and “management,” are trying to settle their differences in a business-like manner. Too bad a strike-out in reaching an agreement means more than foul ball for baseball fans — it means no ball at all. The Battalion Editorial Board Is free enterprise turning into frightened enterprise^ The lure of instant — ... — gratification has ere- Michel ated a flood of hos- HalbOUty tile takeovers and Giu-.st Columnist takeover threats — '■ which are now be coming rampant in the United States. The manner in which hostile raiders seek their quick profits without regard of consequences to whomever or what ever comes in their way has raised the question among millions of Americans, “Where is the morality which has always been inherent in our free enterprise sys tem?” Our free enterprise system is soundly based on the foundation of individual liberty and on moral, social and ethical principles. Free enterprise is being mis interpreted as meaning free in the sense of license to act and do as one pleases without due regard to the consequences of others. To the contrary, free enterprise means the freedom for individuals to operate in an ethical environment with due respect for the equal right of others. This system is both the instrument and the result of our individual liberty. A rational individual self-interest is not in conflict with the principles of the free enterprise system. But when ratio nal self-interest becomes entirely self- seeking and ignores other responsibili ties, the system is endangered. Public morality cannot be separated from pri vate morality, and economic freedom does not justify ruthless pursuit of pred atory self-interest. The basic and undisputed reason for America’s growth is that we have contin ually built up its economic structure. Companies built their assets by investing their profits in their businesses. As the industrial complex grew, employment increased and the nation prof ited from sustained growth. Now we see companies that took de cades to build — companies that have enhanced the welfare of the commu nities, states and the nation — raided and dismembered for a fast buck for a select few. Hostile takeovers have little or noth ing to do with increasing our economic growth or fostering productivity. They occur only because our current laws and tax policies provide incentives for the raiders, who essentially believe it is eas ier to buy assets than to work for and build them — and equally easy to aban don or gradually liquidate companies than to stay and labor for long-term gains and growth. Raiding takeovers of the magnitude which have occurred in the oil industry over the past few years will have a neg ative ef f ect on the future not only of our vital petroleum industry but on our economy and our national energy secu rity. National wealth cannot be increased by eliminating jobs and failing to find new energy reserves. The loss of thou sands of jobs and relocation of hun dreds of families are but one aspect of the chaos produced by many of the hos tile takeovers. The United States’ business and in dustrial complex is fueled primarily by oil and natural gas supplies. A healthy and expanding petroleum industry can provide the petroleum reserves our country must have in order to compete successf ully in the global economic com munity. The role some financial institutions play with the hostile raiders is indeed counterproductive. When banks sup port a hostile takeover they become partners of the raiders and, therefore, are equally responsible for any suffer ing, damage and impairment that result from the raiders’ actions. When any local banking institution assists the hostile raider in a successful takeover of a company which has em ployees and offices in the local area, the entire community is hurt and deprived in many ways. It is unrealistic that any local banking institution would partici pate in backing a raider when it is ob vious that the aftereffects would further injure the community and its economy. Research and development in the takeover companies have been severely curtailed. Two projects to benefit hu- The in g cycle tional in research Ihenom manity are affected by the excesl debt incurred by Phillips Petrola Company in thwarting two hostileiJ over attempts. |L nc „„„. The company was forced to scruliM)od, dii construction of a plant for produciti llotron' single cell protien, hailed as a possl solution to world hunger. More' 1 ’-® years of work has been halted. ditional The c Biary m Bon pro A . • ' J TfieS A second project, a joint resetik f ie id venture in nuclear fusion, is eii(«| tr onge] gered by lack of f unding and maiByclotro abandoned. A saf e energy resource Khe ma| the future and a way to feedthawoii hungry — projects close to commen reality — may not be available. Til tragic losses to society tire also a pan I the raider legacy. There’s more at stake than whelht company can defend itself againsi unwanted takeover. There’s mure stake than loss of jobs and relocati families. There’s more at stake community, economic and reseal losses. This research might havesar lives if the company was in businessa could afford to continue its reseai and development programs. What IS stake is our accepted methodolojjtl doing business in America. W’e are in danger of the free era prise system becoming the frighto enterprise system, which could ml nate in eroding or destroying them I bility of our capital markets and faith in our financial institutions. MUS I keep our faith in doingbusiril with each other and with our finan complexes without fear of beingk apart; we must believe in doingbusit with a feeling of professional prider all parties were treated fairly; wen abide by the principle of protecting vestors by maintaining moral, el and social standards beyond reproa By adhering to these precepts them bility of and the confidence incur tal system are preserved. These obf lives should be uppermost in consciousness. AD camp; Tuesc hand’ for a s Th pecte the 1 after candi more race. YV1 of sta tribul pend endir Bu nor’s prob; avail; fore i Michel T. Halbouty, Class of ’Jd Chairman of the Board and Chiell ecutive Officer of the Michel TJ booty Energy Company. Thi opme CoktLG jOU UEARD IT wm FIRST... COCA-COLA IS GOING TO PUT COCMNk WCK INTO nsFORNau m? dividi to im| CE to get decisi lions Th techn opme agers Th fered sessic effeci level Ev are o temp tax a comp | semit of th< “V\ our i servii “We’ At egori CED certa to tlr What the library needs Why is library assistance hard to get? This is (he first in a three-part series on === what the library CnOTleS needs. Schultz Curst Columnist In a previous cbl- — . . nmn 1 mentioned that the Sterling C. Evans Library would need $150 million in supplementary funding over the next fifteen years to attain excellence by the year 2000. Actually that $150 million would only enable the Evans Library to improve from a Class Cl to a Class A undergrad uate library. That amount of money would not permit the Evans Library to even approach the coveted top ten. That much of a jump in fifteen years is too much to expect. Moving from Class C to Class A in a decade and a half would, in itself, be quite an acomplish- ment. The needs for the supplementary funding fall into four rather broad cat egories: people, materials (books and journals in bard or paper copy, books and journals in micro format, audiovi sual materials, software, and access to data bases), equipment, and facilities. I will outline the needs in the first cat egory in this column and those in the other three categories in later columns. There are two basic needs concerning people: the existing people (particularly faculty members) need to be paid more and the Evans Library needs more peo ple, both faculty and staff. Librarians, who are faculty members and must meet the same rigorous pro motion and tenure standards as do tea ching faculty, are paid substantially less than the average for A&M faculty in all professional ranks. (Note: All the fig ures following are for the Fall of 1983, the last year for which average figures are readily available.) T he average full professor at Texas A&M earned $4,543 per month while the one full professor in the library was paid only $3,476 or $ 1,076 below the av erage for professors and $56 per month below the average for associate profes sors. The library professor had twenty- years of professional experience, twelve of them at Texas A&M and has ad equate publications and sufficient na tional reputation to have been pro moted in rank twice in that time. Not a single one of the six associate professors in the library was at or above the overall average for that rank in the University. Because the librarians are appointed at the instructor level, the li brary associate professors had each been promoted in rank on two occasions while teaching faculty, who generally are appointed at the assistant professor rank, had been promoted only once. Generally then, the librarians all had at least ten years of experience while the teaching associate professors had less than ten years of experience. In addition to paying the current li brary faculty members substantially higher salaries than they now receive, the Evans Library needs to add a good many more librarians. Despite Texas A&M’s tremendous enrollment growth during the 1970’s, the ratio of students to teaching faculty remained about the same. However, the number of students per librarian doubled. Is it any wonder that students found it increasingly difficult to get as sistance in the library? At the same time, new services and programs were added and longer hours were instituted. I his stretched the al ready harried librarians even further. Yes, the number of librarians did in crease, but they did so at a considerably slower rate than did the teaching fac ulty, students, services and programs and collections. By generally accepted staf f ing formu las, the Evans Library needs to add about twenty more librarians without adding any new services, programs, or hours and without increasing the size of the collections. Such an increase would restore the student to librarian ratio to the approxi mate level at which it stood during the early 1970s. This many new faculty posi tions would make it possible for the Evans Library to provide the amount of high quality service Expected at a top- notch university such as Texas A&M. In addition to the twenty new faculty mem bers, the Evans Library needs to add ap proximately one hundred new classified positions. If all of these new positions were added at the appropriate salary levels, the library’s budget would need to be in creased by $1.9 million to $2 million per yeaf. This figure is based upon the $ 13,161, which is the total the library cur rently spends per staff member, plus an increase of 20 percent. To increase the professors as well as the instructors by an average of 20 percent would require an additional $225,000, making a total annual increases in salaries of between $2 million and $2.25 million. Charles Schultz is the University Ar chivist for Texas A&M.