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Page 2rThe Battalion^fuesday, September 23, 1986
mum
The Battalion
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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
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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
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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
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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
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