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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 1986)
1 Page 2rThe Battalion^fuesday, September 23, 1986 mum The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Cathie Anderson, Editor Kirsten Dietz. Managing Editor Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor Frank Smith, City Editor Sue Krenek, News Editor Ken Sury, Sports Editor Editorial Policy I hr liutmUnn is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bi yan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial hoard or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. I hr Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper lor students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. 1 hr Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holidax and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are SI 7.44 per semester. $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per lull year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald Building. Texas A&M Tnivei sity. College Station. I X 77843. Second class postage paid at College Station. TX 77843. POS1.MAS1KR: Send address changes to The Battalion. 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&rM L'niversitv. College Station TX 77843. Keepin' the faculty The Texas A&M Board of Regents’ decision to use $3.3 million from the Available University Fund to counter job off ers f aculty re ceive from industry and other schools could help lessen side effects of the impending budget cuts. Because of the worsening state economy, Texas already is having trouble attracting new faculty to its universities. A&rM can’t afford to lose quality faculty to other colleges and universities with larger bankrolls. While the Regents’ decision won’t help Texas lure out-of-state faculty to our University, it will help keep those who are already here from leaving. The funds were earmarked as part of the Commitment to Texas program, an effort by the University to help develop and diversify the state’s economic base. Another arm of the program will commit more than $21 million to high-technology research during the coming year. The commit ment eventually will focus on attracting faculty to the University in the future, but the Regents are right to deal with the most crucial is sue first. The Board can do little to fend off the budget cut “compromise” reached by the Texas House and Senate, but the decision to appro priate money from the AUF to reward and retain vital faculty will re duce the inevitable exodus by faculty seeking greener paychecks. Americans in Moscow potential hostages’ It’s time f o r conservatives to stop saying, “Let Reagan be Rea gan.” Let’s give someone else a chance to be Reagan. The incumbent obviously doesn’t know how to do it. Even liberals ax e fuming at the presi dent’s handling of the Daniloff case. He accepted parity in the treatment of the reporter Nicholas Daniloff and the ac cused Soviet spy Ciennadiy Zakharov. Daniloff is no longer in prison, but he can’t leave Russia, which makes him in effect an honarary Soviet citizen. True, Reagan is a nice man, as cheerful as a Rossini overture. That’s why it’s so ter ribly unfair for people to accuse him of bellicosity. If this man is bel licose, I’d hate to see a wimp. My great fear is that George Bush may catch him alone in a dark alley some night. In the Daniloff case, as so often, the president has been letting Sec retary of State George Shultz serve as his point m a n . S h u 1 t z looks like Bert Lain but blusters less plausibly, though he stops short of diving through windowpanes when people roar back at him. What makes it all less than amusing is that the administration obviously un derstands the logic of the situation. The Daniloff deal gives the Soviets further incentive to harass American citizens at the moment when a stiff disincentive was indicated. Reagan said publicly that there would be no deal when a deal was clearly in the works. Furthermore, he has apparently ca pitulated out of a fear of endangering prospects for a summit conference, though he knows the limited value of summitry and, in fact, of any sort of ne gotiations with the Soviets. Such nego tiations, at best, only ratify existing power relations. They can’t achieve even that as long as the Soviets think they can achieve more by using force, which at the moment is what the Dani loff affair has taught them. They took a “hostage” — Shultz’s term — and got the ransom, after snifflly refusing a few preliminary offers as not good enough. In effect, the Reagan administration explained to the world what an Ameri can capitulation in this case would im ply, then took a dive. Reagan is, in a way, a victim of his own lucidity. Disdaining the relativist obscurities of his predecessors, he has bluntly called the Soviet Union “evil” and defined the standards by which he invites us to judge him. Unfortunately, he is beginning to resemble John Ken nedy, who likewise talked a tough anti communist game but lacked the will to follow through on his own rhetoric in the tests of the Bay of Pigs and the Ber lin Wall. Daniloff himself, though com plaining of “mental torture” at the Sovi ets’ hands, says his case shouldn’t get in the way of serious negotiations between the two superpowers. But it should. “When a man is robbed of a trifle on the highway,” Ed mund Burke wrote, “it is not the two pence lost that con stitutes the capital outrage.” Reagan also seems not to ap preciate the prin ciples at stake. The whole reason for tension between the Free World and the communist world is illustrated by what happened to Daniloff. This is by no means the worst of communist atrocities; it if were, it might be absorbed as the administra tion seems to want to absorb it. The Soviet Union is an empire of hos tages. Sometimes it will swap a hostage, like Anatoly Shcharansky, for certain considerations. But such a swap isn’t a victory for human rights. It’s only a deal. And the Soviets are now treating an American citizen as a hostage, thereby serving notice that people who were formerly immune to their bullying have lost exemption. Americans in Mos cow are now potential hostages. The Soviets are usually cautious about offering direct provocations to the United States. But they have evi dently calculated that they can get away with the sort of action against Reagan that the Ayatollah Khomeini took against Jimmy Carter. This is not the sort of relation the American electorate expected Reagan to normalize. That is why he should do something abnormal in a hurry — like sending home a few hundred Soviet personnel who are currently in America, doing w hat Nicholas Daniloff falsely is accused of doing. Copyright 1986, Universal Press Syndicate Opinion "Th Hot e V iole'nce CeNreAL AneiticA^) jo^t isita£ /4Mb HeAvy Abi'/Motze" - vIToun A-_ Ttsfcia-I |©< Oerory DISTRICT DifcftTid I f-T mo (LOTION NATVtAui/BtritH he N will be cl Chiistma: loin the Council e administr Monday. |j|onie i The time has come to voice pent-up fast food criticisms^ H m ^USTI For some years, I have wanted to discuss some harsh feelings I have concerning vey has r ’problems Joseph Sobran McDonald’s, but I always was afraid no body would agree w'ith me. These peo ple have sold zillions of hamburgers, so they must be doing something right. But along comes nutritional exper t/relief pitcher, Goose Gossage, who works for the San Diego Padres baseball team, which is owned by the widow of Ray Kroc, the genius behind McDon ald’s. Not only do McDonald’s personnel wear silh uniforms .ind I. cut5inhl 8 , , ,, . i recruiting hut Ronald McDonald is a disgrace to the dow ning industn qnilcanter couldn't hold Clarabell's seltzer bottle. Kcliniver _H|ors, w Gossage recently fell at odds with the Padres’ ownership and said not only did his bosses know absolutely nothing about baseball, but they — McDonald’s — also were “poisoning the world with their hamburgers.” I don’t think McDonald’s is out to poi son anybody. You might get a little heartburn every now and then from a greasy Quarter Pounder, but you can get that in any fast food joint. There are, however, several things that bug me about McDonald’s, and now that the Goose has had his say, I feel a bit more relaxed about discussing them. Consider these points: • Ever notice how every kid who works in McDonald’s looks the same? They wear those silly looking uniforms and those silly looking hats, and they have those knowing smiles, and you’ve got to figure they’re all going to grow up to he either chiropractors, automobile dealers or lawyers. Just what we need. More chiropractors, more automobile dealers and more lawyers. • McDonald’s foods all look like they were spit out of a computer somewhere. • I tried the new McDonald’s Garden Salad the other day. It came in a little plastic box with a little plastic top, and there was a little plastic fork to eat the salad with. There were even little packages of ba con bits and croutons, and the salad dressing came in what resembled a tube of toothpaste. I felt like 1 was eating food 1 had or dered by mail. • Not only do McDonald’s personnel wear silly uniforms and hats, but Ronald McDonald is a disgrace to the clowning industry. He couldn’t hold Clarabell’s seltzer bottle. • The thing I dislike most about Mc Donald’s is the suggestive selling tech nique of all those future chiropractors, automobile dealers and lawyers. Ever go through the drive-in line. McDonald’s and tell that faceless a chine you want a cup of coffee? The machine will inevitably respuj by asking, “How would you likeaM ish to go with your coffee?” If I had wanted a Danish, I woJ have asked for a Danish. McDonald's also will try topushtlifj French fries off on you. “I’ll have the Quarter Pounder * cheese and a medium Coke.” “How 'Ixsiit some f ries with that? “How ’bout sticking an EggM fin up . . .” Well, you see how these little brats can be. Despite all these complaints, bl ever, I still will go into a McDonald's* casionally just like everybody elseil Donald’s is efficient. McDonald’sisf* Mc Donald is ingenious in develop* new food products. There were the Chicken McNujfl Eook for the Cooked McGooseanvdil Copyright 1986, Cowles Syndicate Mail Call s< pi Fc oi Ifs all on the gridiron EDITOR: the backyard, stains and cleaning). Does Mark Ude not realize (in his Sept. 1 7 column) that the Aggies have to play ranked and higher caliber football teams in order to gain any recognition at all? Sure, the Southwest Conference is a good football conference, but compared to others (Southeastern, Big Eight, Big Ten and Pacific 10), there is a great deal left to be desired. The only w'ay to impress The Associated Press and United Press International pollsters is to play good quality football teams and win — that is, if you do want a national title. Do we want the Aggie’s schedule to look like Brigham Young University’s? I hirty days alter moving out, they filed suit for failure to return the deposit. I sought the advice of two lawyers and both agreed that without a written forwardingaddresi I was not obligated to return a cent. Phis wasn’t my intention. My mistake was wasting time getting low estimates for repairs and doing some myself. 1 have always thought that playing honestly is the best way to lead our j family. Ude is justified in his comment about the 1985 Alabama game, but 1 do recall that Texas A&M was a four- point favorite over the Fightin’ Tigers of Louisiana State University, were they not? I got ready for court, with repair bills, lease and agreement and a copy of Texas law on landlord-tenant disputes. The burden of proving my wrong-doing was on the plaintiff, making me feel this was an easy case. He couldn’t have any proof of a written f orwarding address" he never made one. But he bad three American witnesses. I had my husband (not an American) as witness. With any sort of defense intensity they could have walked away from Tiger Stadium with a one in the win column and a higher national ranking to boot. The game is won and lost on the gridiron, not in a football program’s scheduling tendencies. Kirby Sternfels ’88 Judgement was for the plaintiff. I asked thejudgefor his reasoning, and he said, “There’s always a winneranda loser, you are the loser in this case.” He believed diem, even though they had nothing to prove. Warning to foreign students Beware foreign students. Being f rom anothercouniry can be a disadvantage in a U.S. small claims court. Good advice is to get American witnesses (voters) — which I didn’t know — to testify in your favor and counteract this disadvantage. Good luck. Maria G. Quintanilla EDITOR: This letter is for the information of foreign students. After a lot of thought, I decided to write about my experience, especially w hen some criticism to the U.S. Judicial System appeared in The Battalion (Ed Bolme’s cartoon Sept. 15). We own the duplex where we live and paid cash for it. Obviously, we have a comfortable budget. My former tenants and I had a good landlord-tenant relationship. Even though they didn’t comply w ith the lease and security deposit agreements, I tried my best to be more than fair in returning the deposit. This money was going to pay for damages (a hole in the carpet, torn w^all paper, holes in Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editor# t staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will malt | every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must besigntd and must include the classification, address and telephone numberofthtI writer.