Page 2AThe Battalion/Wednesday, November 20,1985
Opinion
Senate bill right
the second time
The purpose of having a dead week is to give students time
to study for final exams. But many professors choose to ignore
the dead week provisions in the University regulations. The reg
ulations exist for a reason, and the faculty needs to start follow
ing them.
Student Government is proposing that the regulations not
only be enforced, but that dead week “be used by all professors
as a review of all material to be included on the final examina
tion.”
The revised bill is a vast improvement over the original,
which basically regurgitated the regulations. The bill sets down
definite guidelines for academic activity during dead week.
Student Government should be commended for re-thinking
the bill and giving it a true purpose. Dead week needs to be just
that — dead.
If the University does not want to give students a time to
prepare for finals, it should not provide for such a time in its
regulations. As long as the dead week provision exists, it should
be upheld.
The Battalion Editorial Board.
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elle Davis e
It’s not how you nuke ’em, it’s how many time
It’s only fair,
with the summit in
progress, that we
pay tribute to the
world’s great
stockpiles of
atomic weapons.
Without them
there is a good
chance that Ron-:
aid Reagan and
Mikhail Gorba-:
Art Buchwald
chev might not be meeting in Switzer
land today.
A recent survey revealed that being
blown up by a nuclear weapon is not the
biggest fear in the world today. It’s the
fact that people can be snuffed out
more than once that has most citizens on
the globe slightly nervous.
According to a report by Ruth Sivard,
a former official of the U.S. Arms Con
trol and Disarmament Agency, there
are now enough weapons on earth to
kill 58 billion human beings. The catch
is there aren’t 58 billion people in the
world.
Professor Sowa Bratten, who special
izes in nuclear snuff statistics, says there
is an answer to this. “Since we’re short
on the living and long on the weapons,
the scientific community no longer
counts how many people we can kill, but
rather how many times we can kill
them.”
“How many times is that?”
He took out his pocket calculator.
“We can knock off everyone in the
world 12 times — with favorable wind
conditions, of course.”
“That’s a big improvement,” I said. “I
recall just a few years ago that the super
powers were lucky if they could kill each
person five times. To what do you credit
the breakthrough?”
“Better quality control. In the old
days building atomic weapons was little
more than a mom-and pop business.
Mom stuffed the bombs with uranium,
and pop screwed on the fuses. This was
okay for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it
just wasn’t good enough for a global
arms race. No one was thinking big.”
“How did number one and number
two move the arms buildup into the
20th century?”
“Their military advisers warned them
that the low post-World War II kill ratio
would no longer keep pace. Without ex
tra fallout they could not guarantee the
safety of their citizens.”
“Thank God for the military,” I said.
He continued, “Crash programs were
started, and larger bangs were devel
oped, with the help of giant cost over
runs.
“It was obvious, as the demand in
creased for third-generation hardware,
the nuclear powers would spend more
and more of their gross national prod
uct on weapons. Edward Teller, the fa
ther of the H-bomb, said, ‘The building
up of larger and more powerful atomic
weapons is the only way to stop the arms
race.’”
“He didn’t say that,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Bratten admitted, “but
it sounds like something he would say.
In any case we all know if you’re going
to make a nuclear omelette you first
have to crack the plutonium.”
“This still doesn’t explain howtfl
perpowers managed to increase!
stockpiles.”
“The powers didn’t intend to
many deadly weapons.' They jus]
lucky. But it wasn’t the size of the
that made everyone happy. A f«|
make a nuclear bomb. Thetrickis
liver it where you want it to
where the real progress has been*
The breakthrough in the present!
ery systems has given man new
“Do you think we have now read
plateau in overkill?”
He laughed, “You ain’t seen not
yet.”
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Classroom intimidation
The New Right’s newest assault on academic freedom
Efforts to make
people conform to Anthony T.
one particular posi- PodeStO
tion or ideology are Guest Columnist
almost always justi-» m T ■mi
fied with lofty-sounding rhetoric, such
as the need to protect our country from
subversion, or the need to preserve or
der. The New Right has just come up
with a new excuse for intimidating those
who don’t agree with its ideology:, to
protect college students from “misinfor
med” or “inaccurate” teaching.
This fall, a new national organization
was founded called “Accuracy in Acade
mia.” While AIA claims to “combat the
dissemination of misinformation” on
our college and university campuses, it
epitomizes the New Right’s theory of
education, in which diverse points of
view and the free flow of ideas are seen
as un-American activities.
AIA’s founder, Reed Irvine, has
headed an organization for the past 16
years entitled “Accuracy in Media,”
whose purpose is to intimidate and ha
rass the members of the media who
don’t agree with his right-wing views. Ir
vine has built his reputation, and a $1
million organization, on the principle
that there is only one “accurate” way for
a journalist to cover a story.
Now he’s decided there’s only one
“right” way for a professor to teach a
course.
When “Accuracy in Academia” was
announced this summer, many were
horrified by its rhetoric, but few took it
seriously. AIA, however, is emerging as
a formidable institution. It already has
volunteers on about 150 campuses
across the country and has raised
$50,000 of a $160,000 annual budget.
Now AIA has hired as its new director a
former New York Congressman, John
LeBoutiller, whose skill at fundraising is
matched only by his talents at red-bait
ing those with whom he disagrees.
When LeBoutillier warns against
creeping socialism, he’s referring to ac
tivities by members of the Democratic
Party leadership, like House Speaker
Tip O’ Neill. According to LeBoutillier,
former presidential contender Senator
George McGovern is “scum.” When he
talks about radical brainwashing, he’s
talking about what Harvard professors
did to him. LeBoutillier contends that
leading American journalists and nu
merous liberal groups are pawns in a
Soviet-sponsored “disinformation” cam
paign, and while in Congress, co-spon
sored a bill that would have created a
House subcommittee on internal secu
rity.
Given AIA’s founder and new direc
tor, it comes as no surprise that this new
watchdog group isn’t concerned, as the
name suggests, with upgrading the qual
ity of education at our nation’s institu
tions of higher learning. It’s not inter
ested in encouraging academic freedom
or balance in the classroom.
Instead, it is designed to intimidate
those who are teaching what AIA’s first
director, Malcolm Lawrence, calls “in
correct information which leads to con
clusions that may be distasteful from the
point of view of our national heritage or
national security . . . .Just plain bad
facts.”
Take, for example, Dr. Mark Read
er’s political science course at Arizona
State University. According to AIA, it
constitutes “anti-nuclear propaganda”
because it overemphasizes such things
as “fears of nuclear war, power and
weapons.”
It isn’t “verifiable” facts AIA is wor
ried about, it’s “bad” facts. Take Cynthia
McClintock, an associate professor of
political science at George Washington
University. Her course syllabus includes
U.S. government papers and a textbook
put out by the conservative Hoover In
stitution. But she’s on AIA’s hit list be
cause she shows a film that is critical of
the U.S.-backed Contras in Nicaragua.
AIA “logic” dictates that there is only
one correct way to teach students about
our involvement in Vietnam; there is
only one true cause of the Civil War;
and there is only one acceptable inter
pretation of Franklin Roosevelt’s presi
dency. And if a professor doesn’t toe
AIA’s line, he or she will be investigated
by AIA, perhaps pressured to change
the content of the course or vilified in
AIA’s new national newsletter.
And it’s not just professors who are
being intimidated. Students will wonder
.
if their future might suffer by ai
questions or revealing their politic
liefs and ideas.
Such chilling activities are higl 1
appropriate anywhere. They seen
ticularly offensive on a university
pus, where teaching difftt 1
viewpoints and interpretations isT
tegral part of the education pt»
The losers in AIA’s efforts are til
tely the students.
Any effort to limit the exdiaitf
ideas leads to the “dumbing doW
education as a whole. Those wit
trying to keep “biased” facts on
ideas out of the college classroom
following in the tradition of those
want to censor Shakespeare’s $
and Juliet. They have forgotten tW
purpose of education is to teacl
dents to grapple with complexities
learn how to think. Not, as Reedlf
would have it, what to think.
Anthony T. Podesta is preside 1 ,
People for the American Way, a# l
ney and a former professor ofpc 1 '- |
science at Barat College of the
Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Mail Call
Uncovering cults
EDITOR:
While Sondra Pickard , in her Nov. 6 article, por
trays cults to be merely “alternative religions,” incom
patible with the dominant culture, there is a real dan
ger present in such cults as the Mormons, Unification
Church, Scientology, EST, TM, and a host of other
“religious alternatives.”
These groups do indeed provide answers and ac
ceptance, as Dr. Stadelman points out. However, what
Dr. Stadelman and others‘don’t realize is these
“answers” to the many problems we face are only tem
porary solutions.
These cults, which are “characterized by major de
viations from Orthodox Christianity relative to the
cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith” (Walter Mar
tin, The Rise of Cults), have many distinguishing char
acteristics which one needs to be aware of. These in
clude new “truths,” new interpretations of Scripture,
Non-Biblical Sources of Authority, another Jesus or
Messiah, changing theology, salvation by works, false
prophecy and a number of other fatal doctrines.
To anyone really seeking the truth, I would recom
mend Understanding the Cults by Josh McDowell &
Don Stewart, or any of numerous books on the market
which takes the shroud off of these groups and ex
poses them for what they really are: perversions and
distortions of Biblical Christianity.
Mark Shepperd ’86
In time for drop-add
EDITOR: ^
While watching the CBSEveningNews on Nov. 6,1
saw a report on an organization called Accuracy in
Academia. This conservative group clandestinely
monitors professors across the nation trying to root
out those they feel are teaching falsehoods and mis
perceptions. During the report the camera panned a
map of the United States with pins marking the
schools which the organization has agents at work in.
Sure enough, when the map of Texas came into view,
there was a pin marking the site of Texas A&M.
I hope ya’ll AIAers are on the ball and able to get
your report out in time for drop-add next semester.
It’s been my experience that individuals who draw
fire from close-minded conservatives are usually the
most challenging and interesting thinkers. They give
me the opportunity to learn different views, exercise
my mind and form my own opinion — the reason I’m
attending A&M.
Thomas B. Cowart ’85
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The Battalion Editorial Board
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Michelle Powe, Managing Editor
Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor
Karen Bloch, City Editor
John Hallett, Kay Mallett, NewsEdM 6
Travis Tingle, Sports Editor
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