P 2/ r The BattalionAVednesday, July 16, 1986 Death penalty would deter tampering The citizens of the United States have experi enced for the past several years an outbreak of contaminating store-bo u g h t products with so- d i u m cyanide. Not only does this destroy con- _ stimers’ confi dence in the product, but this tam pering results in the death of the consumer. Because many people are aware of the attacks on gelatin-capsule medi cines, they have avoided such products, fearing a potential or actual threat. This unorthodox boycott has led to the deci sion of manufacturers to discontinue the capsule version of their medicine. Authorities even caught a person sus- pected of attempting to corner the stock market by tampering with these prod ucts, then buying up shares of the com pany’s stock when it started to drop. And by then we thought it was all over. But the attacks upon the populace continue. Sure, we had isolated cases ap pear throughout the country, but we dismissed them as unrelated and purely copy-cat crimes. Unfortunately, most tamper scares cannot be dismissed so easily. To date, there have been threats upon Accent seasoning salt in Houston and Jello brand gelatin in the Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin re gion. There have even been reports of contamination of soft drink bottles, and Monday, a rumour of contaminated Aim toothpaste proved false. Even Bryan-College Station has not been im mune to the wave of product tam pering. On March 21, an unidentified caller told a Bryan pharmacist that cy anide had been placed in packets of Dexatrim diet pills. Mail So where does this leave us? Do con sumers live in fear of psychopathic weir dos who find some warped glee in caus ing undue suffering across the nation? Must we be at the mercy of any Tom, Dick or Harry who calls up a store and reports that some fatal chemical has been injected into a popular, name brand product just for kicks? While increased security could help lessen the chance of such incidences oc- curing, it would not prevent future at tempts at food contamination. I have the final solution to the problem. I am a strong believer in deterrence and feel that if we adequately provide warnings to future tamperers, we could alleviate the majority of the problem. The entire motive of these perverted individuals is to gain recognition — however anonymous —just like the in famous terrorist. If Congress would have enough initiative to pass a bill with strong penalties enacted against such of fenders, perhaps the amount of con taminations would decrease. And I mean strong penalties, I don’t expect one to three years in a minimum security facility. The victims have con sumed the product in confidence, un aware of the consquences imposed by vermin who delight in terror. If medi cine tamperers received harsh punish ment, such as the death penalty (by le thal injection seems appropriate), I suspect that there would be no more joy tricks to “scare†the public. Unfortunately, some people maintain that such terrorists have rights that are more equal than others’, and that the death penalty is reminiscent of cruel and unusual punishment in an age of enlightenment. So while defense law yers argue for leniency and understand ing, probably even insanity, more and more cases of contamination will ap pear, causing social fear that will over shadow the present discomfort. Mark Ude is a senior geography major and a columnist for The Battalion. Call Witch-hunt psychology alive and well EDITOR: Thank you so much for your editorial that spoke out against the Supreme Court ruling that state governments may chose to prohibit certain forms of sexual expression between adults. Anyone who feels that this is a free government’s privilege must be a fool! It is interesting, as well as appalling, that right-wingers seem to feel government should be as uninvolved in our lives as possible, except in our bedrooms. Ludicrous! This notion is obviously the result of fear and bigotry and is a vicious anti-gay tactic, as is this late Supreme Court decision. The witch-hunt psychology still exists in this country, and the Salem witch hunters claimed moral rightness on their side, too. Ramsey L. Sealy Graduate Student Horticulture Sciences Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the address and telephone number of the writer. Opinion (j'fi/e 7ri& your bjour poor‘s ^Jorty /tuJJteJ /naves, hreotfU*. -free,,,,, Less tactful followers in to uphold Reagan's legac Richard Cohen A recent White House “issues lunch†reportedly went this way: The report of the Attorney Gener al’s Commission on Pornography came up. Patrick J. Buchanan, the White House di rector of commu- nications, had what is for him a modest proposal — ban the sale of Penthouse and Playboy from military bases. There was a pause until someone said, “Well, that would certainly do wonders for our recruiting program,†at which point everyone, President Reagan included, laughed. Next item, please. The anecdote is instructive. In Bu chanan we have an uncompromsing conservative — what you might call Rea- ganism without the smile. And in the president we have theaw-shucks version of the same thing. One we like; one we by and large do not like. But it is Bu chanan, not Reagan, who has logic on his side. If these magazines are, as a gov ernment commission now says, porno graphic, then they certainly ought to be banned from post exchanges. After all, can the military do less than 7-Eleven? It probably did not occur to either the president or members of his senior staff that Buchanan had, in his uncompro mising logic, put a finger on what might be the most troubling aspect of the Rea gan legacy: the eventual absence of Rea gan himself. When it comes to the so- called social agenda, Reagan has acted as his own best brake. His utterance aside, the president has been loath to use either his popularity or his office to implement what for him are commendable social values. So far, he has saved his ammo for more sub stantial issues — foreign affairs and tax policy, to name two. Unlike Contra aid, for instance, the president has not gone to Congress ten times on school prayer. But there are others, and Buchanan is an example, who burn with conviction where Reagan merely glows with aspi ration. They not only lack the presi dent’s disarming touch, but unlike Rea gan, their own lives do not suggest that they understand there’s many a slip be tween the cup and the lip. The president, for instance, advo cates church attendance, yet he himself does not go. He extols stable marriages, but he has been divorced. He believes in close-knit families yet his has been any thing but. He promotes the stabalizing value to society of heterosexuality, but he counts homosexuals as his friends. And he deputizes his attorney general to clean up smut and then laughs away a suggestion that the insidiouslogic of his own government’s report be imple mented. The problem, though, is that where Reagan hesitates to tread, others will rush right in, attempting to do by gov ernment decree what Reagan attempts with a speech and an Oval Office photo opportunity. The pornography com mission is a case in point. Already ii has gone too far. Playboy and Penthouse are both tasteless and (yes, Buchanan) sex ist, but they are not, by contemporary standards, pornographic. Yet a high-ranking presidential assis tant suggests their removal from mili tary post exchanges — a suggestion that a Reagan heir, less popular andb | cure, might not be able to laugl As am soldier can tell you, (heinta f? the Buchanan proposal is punitive-i punish Playboy and Penthouse censorship at point of purchase. Similarly, Reagan has taken alp and-let-live attitude toward honi® uals. In fact, his personal and pi conduct toward gays always hai decent if only because, likeanyd of Hollywood, he can count sot friends and acquaintances. Vet ke bestowed his personal approv those, like the Rev. Jerry Fa have used demagogic techniques: I issue" to raise funds. the president ha: in homophobiatk In doing so tinned a surge can no longer control, and whichft legal voice in the recent SupreraeC decision upholding the Georgiasod law. 1 he same people Reagan web to the White House, Falwell would! of the* most elemental civil rights-: the Georgia police could bust. Whether the president realizes sanctioned some ugly currents ini ican society is hard to tell. But then nothing funny about Buchanan's gestion. Instead of saying so, tto the president let a laugh do what buke should have — and the mesp dissipated in laughter. Unless Reagan appreciates disarming smile will go out of the of | with him, his legacy will be left toll I who have no compunction againstus | governmental authority to impleul their own values — claiming, in ? process, the Reagan mantle. Stopbf ing, gentlemen. There is nothingfnB about that. Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers^ Archives stores information of past, present A few days ago a student working on an impression istic paper for a freshman English Charles R Schultz Guest Columnist class came into the Archives to look around so she could re cord her first impressions of the build ing, which she previously had not vis ited. As she left she remarked that she was surprised to find such a modern fa cility. It was obvious that she expected the Archives to be an old place full of old stuff. Over the years I have had numerous conversations with fellow airplane pas sengers about occupations. The normal response when I tell them that I am an archivist is “That’s nice,†or “That must be interesting.†To me, it certainly is nice, and it definitely is interesting, but few people outside the archival profes sion know how “nice†or how “interes ting†it really is. At a meeting of archivists a few years ago, I had a brief conversation about oc cupations with a young woman. When I said I was an archivist, she appeared puzzled, and it was obvious she was not familiar with the term. I told her that ar chivists collect records. “Oh!†she ex claimed, “Like 78s and 45s.†I then ex plained that, while some archives do indeed collect musical recordings, the vast majority collect primarily paper re cords with an ever increasing number acquiring machine-readable records. Recently, in discussing a class report with a student, I asked him what he thought an archives is. He replied “It is a place where you can see old things, like a museum.†I quickly disabused him of his notion by informing him that that day’s Battalion was as much a part of the archives as was the act of the Texas Leg islature which established Texas A&M. Because of these experiences, it seems to me that few people really un derstand what an archivist is or what an archivist does. If an archives is not simply a place for old files and musical recordings, an old place full of old stuff or something like a museum, what is it? An archives is a place that is very much alive where well trained, experi enced, knowledgeable professionals help people to understand the past and document the present, so that future generations will be able to understand the present as well as the current gener ation understands the past. By making available appropriate col lections of letters, diaries, photographs, reminiscenes, oral history memoirs, re cords of institutions and organizations, newspapers, motion pictures, video tapes, a variety of ephemeral publica tions and an assortment of artifacts, an archivist can help researchers better un derstand the past. These documents can help to put real flesh onto skeletal family histories which would otherwiseconsist simply of names with birth and death dates. While the ar chives may not have such records from every family, its holdings of papers of some families in some regions may help greatly in gai/ning an understanding of how people lived in a particular area at a given time.. Such records also can help research ers to understand more fully the real meaning of wars, disease epidemics, lonely life on the plains, racial unrest and many otheraspects of history which normally seem to be only dry facts men tioned in history classes. Through the judicious collecting of current records (a task complicated by the failure of people to keep diaries, the propenisity to communicate by tele phone rather than letters, the frequent use of unstable color film instead of more durable black and white, and the increasing use of electronic mail) archiv ists are endeavoring to retain the re cords which will permit f uture genera tions of researchers to understand the 1980s as well as current fesearchers do the 1880s and 1780s. By using new technological devices such as microfilm, microfiche, laser disks and computers, archivists are at tempting to provide for the permanent preservation of at least the information contained in both old and new records. Due to their impermanence, preserva tion of the documents in their original form may not be possible. These new technological devices also help provide greater and faster access to the wealth of information in archives. Visit the archives on campus or one in your home city, state and nation and be come familiar with your past. Get to know the archivist, for he or she can he of great help to you in discovering where to find the information you need and in learning what to save from, as well as how to preserve, your own per sonal historical records. Only in this way can you really learn how “nice†it is to be an archivist and how “interesting†the job is. Charles R. Schultz is the University ar chivist. 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