Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, January 24, 1986
Opinion
Mind over materialism
The American Council on Education’s annual report, re
leased Jan. 13, found that 71.8 percent of 1985 college fresh
men agreed that “the chief benefit of a college education is that
it increases one’s earning power,” rather than increasing one’s
knowledge or social awareness. In 1973, only 55.8 percent held
this view. Fortunately, a program is being developed to combat
this rising selfishness and materialism on college campuses.
The Project for Public and Community Service, created by
40 college presidents in January, is designed to encourage col
lege students to spend some of their time and energy helping
others.
The members of the project expressed concern that Ameri
ca’s future leaders “are becoming increasingly isolated and their
vision increasingly narrow as their purpose in life has become
the fulfillment of self-centered materialism and career aspi
rations.”
In this day of BMWs, big business and Madonna, it’s easy to
forget about others and focus solely on our own needs and
achievements.
We need concerned groups like the Project for Public and
Community Service to remind us that a college education comes
with a responsibility to use it not only for our own advancement
but also for the advancement of society.
The Battalion Editorial Board
workt-i
Grand Dragon-for-governor campaign full of hot a
Thursd
sewer t
in the 1
Each election
year usually holds
a number of sur
prises. This year’s
race for governor
of Texas is not an
excep tion,
Last Monday,
the day set aside to
honor Martin Lu
ther King Jr.,
Houstonian
Karl
Pallmeyer
Charles Lee announced that he would
run for governor. Lee made his an
nouncement on the steps of the state ca-
pitol in Austin wearing white robes and
a hood. Lee is the Grand Dragon of the
Texas Ku Klux Klan.
For those of you who don’t know
about the Ku Klux Klan, they are a
group of grown men who like to run
around the South dressed like ghosts
wearing dunce caps. These men like to
stand around flaming crosses and talk
about how the South is going to do it
again. What is the “it” that the South is
going to do again? Lose?
For some reason the Klan has taken it
upon themselves to purge America of
several “undesirable” elements. These
elements include blacks. Orientals, Jews,
Catholics, communists, homosexuals
and liberals. The Klan believes in the
good of Red, White and Blue — Red
necks, White bread and Blue Ribbon
Beer. The Klan wants to return to the
good of days, a time when men were
men, women were pregnant and our
darker-skinned brothers and sisters
spent their time pickin’ cotton and
screaming “I’s don’t know nuthin ’bout
birthin’ no babies!” Not a big step for
ward for America.
Lee doesn’t claim affiliation with any
major political party saying that the
leadership of both parties cares more
about the interests of minorities instead
of the rights of the white majority. The
only “right” the white majority has lost is
the right to own members of the non
white minority.
It’s doubtful that any party would
want Lee as a candidate. The Demo
cratic Party of the 1880’s might have
supported him but the Democratic
Party of the 1980’s certainly won’t. Even
the Republican Party, under the lead
ership of civil rights champion Ronald
Reagan, would cringe at the sight to Lee
at their next convention. The only party
that might endorse Lee would be the
American Nazi Party.
Lee said some of his major concerns
are education and illegal aliens. Lee said
that Texas public education is worthless
because of integration. Lee must be
right — Texas education must be pretty
bad if a person can get through school
and think like he does. Maybe if our
schools were better intergrated, people
would lose some of their prejudices. Lee
must not have learned much history in
school either. About 200 years ago
whites were the illegal aliens that*
invading Texas.
Lee said another one of his m
concerns is the “large build-up of ha
sexuals” in Texas. A Klansman sin
appreciate that what a person does
der a sheet is his own business.
Texas is a great state. Where else
you drink while driving as long as
wear a seatbelt? I doubt that Texan!
stupid enough to elect a governor
holds the beliefs of the Ku Klux8
After all, Texas needs to be around
another 150 years.
Karl Pallmeyer is a senior journii
major and a columnist for The Bi
ion.
DAL
Reset
lion re
Mail Call
Much Improvement
EDITOR:
We have inherited the consequences of centuries of racial bigotry
and may expect to struggle to remove the scars for the rest of our
lives. But does a generation of whites owe a generation of blacks spe
cial treatment as redemption for wrongs committed by generations
past?
On a grand historic scale, the policy appears just to some. But be
cause it is carried out among individuals, it should come as no sur
prise to hear cries of “reverse discrimination.”
Thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. and others, we as a nation be
came aware that the correction of the racial problem is to come not
only by way of civil law, but by a change of attitude within ourselves.
With an awakened conscience, the country is found today willing to
correct past wrongs, but not to proceed as if two wrongs make a
right.
thanks for everything. We appreciate you.
Jackie Sherrill
Athletic Director and Head Football Coach
Were they transfer students?
EDITOR:
I have been attending Aggie basketball games for 20 years, both
at home and away. I have always been proud.of the way Aggies con
ducted themselves at the games.
They’ve yelled whether the team was behind or ahead. They’ve
yelled to discourage the other team and they’ve yelled to let the refs
know they’d blown a call. They’ve yelled enough to give G. Rollie the
name “Holler House on the Brazos.”
Never have I seen Aggies throw things at the opposing players
or at the refs, never, that is, until the Jan. 15 game against the Uni
versity of Texas.
it so. God grant that I should have that strength when I mustsa
day find it.
God bless you all.
Mike Pryor
Save it for high school
EDITOR:
Let me start by saying that I am a Karl Pallmeyer fan. Hisf
umns are normally a welcome relief from the slightly backward!!
tudes and politics which pervade the area in which we live. Tto
why I find it so hard to believe that the utter tripe contained ini
Wednesday column concerning his Christmas vacation came T
the same person.
Karl, the days of the macho man are over. We really don’tfi
how much beer you can drink or whether you are able to lea' (
party of your own volition.
Cathie Anderson’s story (Tuesday’s Opinion Page) of a young
graduate failing to find a job because he isn’t looking in the right
places is not unique to any race or social class. And although equal
opportunity (“contact”) is all Anderson calls for — and present laws
attempt to provide — quotas are protested because they go beyond
this to mandate, on an ethnic basis, who is hired.
Anderson cites the current disparity of family income and em
ployment between blacks and whites. But please inform us of the
trend. To tell us “black joblessness reached nearly 15 percent last
year” sounds awful, but doesn’t that represent a decrease?
It is a fair assessment to say that much has improved since Mar
tin Luther King’s time. As the country continues to go color blind,
distinctions on the basis of skin color will occur not so much in the
way people view each other as in analyses engineered to promote a
particular racial interest. Meanwhile, we eagerly await the day when
the evidence of past prejudices fades into obscurity.
Paul R. Koch
Graduate Student
Dept, of Agricultural Engineering
Praise from Jackie
EDITOR:
As the new semester gets underway, I wanted to take this oppor
tunity to express, on behalf of the players and coaches of the football
team, our deep appreciation to you for your great support during
the 1985 football season and also during the 1986 Cotton Bowl Clas
sic in Dallas. Your fantastic enthusiasm and support is always one of
the highlights of our year.
The Texas A&M student body is recognized far and wide, not
only for their outstanding dedication to Texas A&M, but also to its
athletic teams, as well. Our players and coaches also feel the great
pride you have for your school. I can assure you that the fans of Au
burn will never forget you.
We will look forward to having you with us again this fall when
we open our 1986 season against LSU in Baton Rouge. Again,
During that game, paper and ice were thrown at the opposing
team and at the refs. I can only hope that whoever did the throwing
was a transfer student from Arkansas or Texas Tech who didn’t
know any better.
Have Aggies joined the ranks of those who throw things at refs
and players and who yell only when their team is ahead? I hope not.
I would hate to lose my pride in Aggies.
Mary Alice Beachy
A special message
EDITOR:
There are some special members of my Aggie family that have
recently suffered a great loss. With the near impossibility of getting
them all together at once and then facing the task of telling them
what I feel in my heart that I surely could not accomplish well, I
would like to ask you to print this instead. I will not mention them by
name to keep possible unwanted attention away from them, but they
will know it is of them I write.
Sitting by myself one time, thinking of my Uncle John who
passed away with cancer some years back, I was at a loss to under
stand how he could face what he knew was coming. I recalled my
grandfather saying after his return from the funeral that the past al
ways haunts you — it’s not what you can do that’s important in the
end, it’s what you failed to accomplish while you had the time.
In a year filled with loss, the last of which touching home very
hard, I have realized there is something I have failed to do. I can
never be more proud to know anyone that I am now. Never before
have I seen such courage and strength from a place where there
must surely be dismay. Never before have I seen such devotion be
tween friends, to be with one another in a time of need in heart and
spirit, when it is understandably unexpected. I did not want to fail
any longer to tell you so.
A friend of mine that I lost this last summer would have told me
that this is what this place is all about. He wouldn’t have told me but
would have expected me to know that it is people like you that make
While stories such as those contained in your column may to
been quite impressive to your pre-pubescent friends at theMoto
lunch table back in high school, frankly, they have no place inai
tionally-respected college newspaper.
So Karl, in the future please stick to the informative, well-wrt
columns that we’ve come to expect from you and leave your hoi
and weekend exploits to your diary.
Derek Bercher ’88
Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorials^
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The Battalion Editorial Board
Editor Michelle Po*'
Managing Editor Kay Malljj
Opinion Page Editor Loren SteJ!
City Editor Jerry Os
News Editor Cathie AndeW
Sports Editor Travis Tin?
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