&
Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, October 23, 1986
Opinion
Court attacks alcohol,
but ignores its abuse
T here are prob
ably quite a tew of
you who will read
this and remem
ber how it used to
be legal for you to
buy a drink only
two months ago.
Thousands of 19-
and 20-year-old
Texas A&M stu
dents were turned
into minors over-
Karl
Pallmeyer
By the same reasoning, the Ford Mo
tor Co. should be held responsible be
cause the car was to blame for several
deaths. Fred abused that car, just like he
abused alcohol, and several people
joined the choir invisible. The architect
and builder that put that brick wall in
Fred’s way should be held responsible
for Fred’s Ford falling apart. He abused
that wall and turned his car into a sheet
metal accordion.
night by a piece of legislation Texas was
blackmailed into passing. The federal
government threatening to stop provid
ing highway funds unless the state
raised the drinking age. It felt the best
way to stop drunken driving was to
make sure the drunks had only bad
roads to drive on.
Now the Texas Supreme Court has
made a decision, also aimed at stopping
drunken driving, that is the pinnacle of
stupidity. The decision states that drink
ing establishments can be held liable for
traffic deaths caused by customers who
leave intoxicated.
Imagine a 21-year-old man, let’s call
him Fred J. Alpheratz, goes to a bar and
starts drinking. Fred downs about a
dozen mixed drinks and 47 bottles of
beer. At the end of the evening Fred is
plastered, blottoed, plowed, wasted,
ranked, tanked, totaled, polluted, fizzed
and generally whizzed. Fred jumps in
his Ford and heads on down the road.
On the way home, Fred runs over
three dogs, two cats, 14 children, eight
pregnant mothers, 97 ducks, three po
licemen, a priest, a water buffalo and an
entire high school cheerleading squad
before he smashes his car into a brick
wall. A lot of people are extremely upset
when they see their pets, offspring,
wives and friends turned into highway
pizza by the alcoholic Alpheratz. Fred’s
upset because his Ford is fried.
Obviously Fred should be strung up
by his private parts. I’m sure the fami
lies of those who had to be buried in a
short, thin box would agree. Just about
anybody, except the Texas Supreme
Court, realizes that the drunken driver
is responsible for whatever happens
when he’s behind the wheel.
According to the Court, the bar that
sold the excessive amounts of alcohol
partially is responsible for the massive
mushings that occured under Fred’s
Ford. The bar sold drinks to an irre
sponsible person who then went out and
killed some people. Alcohol became
dangerous because it distorted Fred’s
ability to function, causing him to flat
ten folks.
Once the legal precedent has been
set, Fred can go out and gun down all
the families that have been pestering
him, claiming that Luger, Winchester
and the store that sold him the guns are
liable for murder. Since the gunmakers
and retailers provided Fred with some
thing he abused and killed someone
with, they should be held responsible.
The law is an obvious attempt to stop
the sale of alcohol. You get rid of the al
cohol abuse problem by getting rid of al
cohol instead of addressing the abuse. If
bar owners are going to be held respon
sible for their patrons’ alcohol-related
accidents, bars will have no choice but to
stop serving alcohol. It’s almost impossi
ble to tell that someone is going to get
drunk until they actually get drunk. By
that time it’s too late.
The novel that (luckily) never wa
Bar owners have no right to detain
their customers because they have had
too much to drink. Most drunks will not
admit that they are incapable of driving
a car safely after they have had a few too
many. If a bar owner can convince a
drunk that he has had too much and will
provide him with a way home, that’s
wonderful. But it a drunk wants to
leave, the bar owner can’t stop him.
There are laws against holding a person
against his will.
For years. I've
been trying to
write a novel, but I
keep bogging
d o w n when it
comes to the open
ing.
First, I thought
of:
“It was a dark
and stormy night.
That’s not bad,
Lewis
Grizzard
I understand the need to keep
drunken drivers off the road, but the
state is using the wrong methods. There
is nothing wrong with alcohol, per se.
It’s only when alcohol is abused that
there is a problem. The person who
abuses alcohol, not the person who sells
it, is responsible for its abuse.
If the state wants to stop drunken
driving, it could start with an open con
tainer law. It’s ridiculous when a state in
which it’s legal to drink while driving (as
long as you wear your seatbelt) makes a
law that puts the blame for drunken
driving on someone else besides the
drunken driver and claims it is ded
icated to solving the problem.
Karl Pallmeyer is a senior journalism
major and a columnist for The Battal-
but I seem to remember I've read that in
the beginning of someone else’s novel. 1
never steal another writer’s material un
less it becomes absolutely necessary to
do so.
My next opening went like this:
“As the sun cast its warming spell
upon Hilda’s goddess-like body, Gar
land searched up and down the TV dial
for 'Wheel of Fortune.’ ’’
But I thought, why would Garland
want to watch “Wheel of Fortune” with
Hilda acting goddess-like? Vanna White
is-territk: on FV, but when you already
have Hilda right there beside you,
what's the point?
I know what you’re thinking. You’re
thinking: no puzzle here, Garland is
s a y-
You’re wrong. My novel isn’t going to
have gay people in it. I want to write
something unique.
Later, I thought to myself, why not
write a novel of mystery and intrigue?
The first paragraph went this way:
“Agent 009 crouched in the alley as
Natasha, the KGB’s deadliest operative,
searched in the eerie darkness for him,
crying out sensually, ‘1 know you are
here somewhere. I smell the haunting
scent of your Aqua Velva. Gome out,
wherever you are, so that I may kill
you.’ ”
But what sort of secret agent would
wear Aqua Velva?
Even that dunce Garland would have
more class than that.
Next, I decided on a novel set in some
far away, exotic locale, like a jungle. 1
wrote:
“Startled, Sabu turned around just a
heartbeat before a runaway rogue el
ephant stepped on his heat! and
stomped him flat.
“ 'How many for dinner tonight?’ Sir
Henry asked Raamad, the cook.
“ ‘One less than last night. Sahib,’
Raamad replied, as he attempted to
scoop what was left of his good friend
Sabu into a Hefty bag.”
Not bad. Not bad at all. Except if you
wrote an entire novel about jungles, you
would have to think of a lot of jungle
names, and Sabu and Raamad art
only two names like that 1 know.
What 1 finally decided to do w
begin my novel with the best pans:
the aforementioned openings.Idtoi
on this:
“It was a dark and stormv niti!
Hilda and Garland watched'WW
Fortune’ in their apartmentx
overlooked the alley where agent!
crouched, as Natasha, the KGBsds
best operative, thought she smelW
elephant.
“Startled, she turned aroundjtts
Sabu, who smelled like anelephai 1 :
cause he had been so busy tradinti
down he hadn’t had time to lit
shower for days, hit her over the 1 :
with a Hefty bag full of Raamad)ee;
Aqua Velva bottles."
In the next scene, Sir Henn
Vanna White when she cannot sue!
fully name all five vowels.
Copyright i986, Cowles Syndicate
inirodm ti<
The
Hsits for
■reduced
sa) s the cu
■sit requii
a point ph
rir~x
$|/5 and
■sit, whirl
Ht can
should be
■ The ()<
ft//on ran
ft raise
ftph on s<
ftterstate
| s gi. F
■exas I
■noted as
ftuit won
ft f'atalit
ftnit con!
ftetions o
Bays.
I Howes
ftat lifti
lookin')
■rivers
ftgher rat
Hdiwav
ftnit.
I He add
ftntment
Bon the ci
ithe basis o
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas ft ess 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 Editot
Editorial Policy
The Bm
alrd a* a <c
Opin*
mem of Jc
puhli»hrd Monday througb
vcmcMcrv pxcepi lor hoMau
aub«cr
I $56.
*ddrc»
\*M Ui
Hmu
6 Retd Mi
rvuy. CollegeSuuon. TX77W
i.tgr j mu! .it ( < dirge Sutton,
‘vend addrcM changes to
I rx.t \ x M t nivenitv (
University divestment
Objections don’t justify A&M’s reluctance to purge investments in South Africa
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a two-part
series on divestment of Texas A&M’s funds from
South Africa.
Some questions frequently .
posed by those who oppose LQiry
divestment as a strategy Yarak
against apartheid in South
Africa include:
Won’t sanctions and divestment hurt blacks,
the ones we want to help, more than whites?
The South African government and the white
minority derive the most benefit from continued
American investment. Most blacks realize that di
vestment could cause them additional suffering in
the short run, but see that as the only alternative to
the suffering caused by the continuation of apart
heid.
A 1985 poll of urban blacks showed that 77 per
cent of them believed “that other countries are
right ... to impose economic sanctions unless
South Africa agrees to get rid of the apartheid sys
tem.”
Isn’t it true that economic sanctions don’t
work?
Historically, sanctions have worked. In 1970 the
United States imposed economic sanctions against
the government of Chile, which by 1973 had so
contributed to economic discontent in that country
that the Chilean military intervened, bringing to
an end the regime that the United States had op
posed. Economic sanctions rarely work so quickly,
and in the case of South Africa it is likely to take
some time to produce the desired result.
Sanctions and divestment have to be seen as a
long-term effort, one in which the United States
can play a leading role, influencing its allies and
trading partners to take unified action. Canada,
the countries of Western Europe and Japan al
ready have taken some kind of economic action
against South Africa. These need to be toughened,
coordinated and strictly enforced. By not imposing
sanctions against South Africa, we send South Af
rica’s blacks a clear message of indifference.
Isn’t the South African economy too strong to
be hurt by sanctions?
That the South African government has worked
so long and so vigorously to oppose sanctions and
divestment indicates that it fears their impact.
Since the outbreak of widespread unrest in South
Africa in 1984, U.S. and European banks and cor
porations have imposed their own form of eco
nomic action against South Africa by withholding
loans and closing down operations (just a few
weeks ago Coca-Cola announced its plans to divest
itself of its South African operations, and this Gen
eral Motors and IBM week an
nounced similar plans). These
have had the dramatic effect of
forcing prominent South Afri
can businessmen openly to break
with the apartheid regime and
call for negotiations with the
black opposition.
Last year the head of South
Africa’s most powerful corpora
tion, ironically named Anglo-
American, traveled to the neigh
boring black-ruled country of
Zambia to meet with representa
tives of the African National
Congress. More and more white
South Africans are coming to re
alize, as we must, that the future
of South Africa belongs to the
majority of its citizens and that
negotiations with the black op-
post ion urgently are needed.
Continued divestment will fur
ther drive home that message to
South African whites.
Won’t divestment deprive
A&M of vital income?
It needn’t. In fact, the experi
ence of those institutions that al
ready have mandated divest
ment shows that their portfolios
often have performed better af
ter divestment. By forcing those
the precipitous selling off of tainted investments.
It can and should be done prudently.
Don’t the communists have the most to gain
from the ending of apartheid?
who manage investments to make sure that they do
not invest in companies that do business in South
Africa, they tend to do a better job overall than
they did when there was little scrutiny of their
work. Supporters of divestment are not calling for
If one is concerned about the ideology of the
leadership of the black opposition, then one
should take the time to read the manifestoes and
statements issued by groups such as the ANC and
United Democratic Front
(UT)F), the major opposition
groups.
Their program still is based
on the “Freedom Charter” pub
lished in the 1950s and available
in our library. Briefly, it calls for
a unitary, democratic, multira
cial South Africa, in which the
country’s wealth is not monopo
lized by any one racial group.
Those who raise the specter of
communism aren’t objecting to
sanctions or divestment. 1 hey
are making an argument against
the abolition of apartheid, and
implicitly in favor of retaining
apartheid as the supposed lesser
of two evils. This objection poses
an imaginary future evil that is
only one (and for now, the least
likely) of many possible out
comes, against a real present
evil.
Doesn’t South Africa supply
the U.S. and the West with vital
strategic minerals?
It is true that South Africa is
an important source of four so-
called strategic minerals: chro
mium, manganese, cobalt and
platinum. A recent study by the
Washington-based Center for
Defense Information concludes that the potential
effects of cutting off these minerals can be coun
tered by stockpiling, conserving and developing
substitutes. A full cut-off would not pose any in
surmountable security risk.
Since the future of South A It ica rests ill
hands of the black majority, it is in our intett^
work with and support them in theii effortstil
erate themselves. By continuing to suppoilj
apartheid regime, we jeopardize a close toll
tually beneficial relationship with thefutureUI
majority government.
Won’t a South Africa ruled by theblackn
ity experience the same sort of political!
that the rest of black Africa has expend 1
since independence?
South Africa is the most industrialized,!
ized country in Africa. It makesnoi
to argue that the experience of otherblacM
African nations provides some sort of indka®
South Africa’s future. Independent N
tory is no more a guide to South Africasl
than Great Britain’s past is to Germanyst
All the nations of Africa, like those offod
have their own historical trajectories. It is I' 1
look for the future of one in the pasiofanod#J
Further, those who raise the issue of thep
dependence experience of other nationsoH
select only those cases that fit their prejiidtel
litical stability has been no serious
black-ruled Senegal or Ivory Coast,
stricken T anzania has achieved a hig
rate than any other country in Africa, in
South Africa.
Moreover, this objection convenientlyi
the destabilization campaign thatthewl
African regime has imposed on itsneig
cessantly raiding Botswana, Angola, Moza
and Zimbabwe. It is clear that the major
political instability in southern Africa toda^
white minority regime itself .
This objection is derived from the 1
held by too many, that blacks (wTetheri
the United States) are simply notcapabl
t hemselves. This is racism pure and simple
A careful examination of South Anita!)
and present and America’s role and respt
ties with respect to the apartheid regin
only one conclusion: Divestment is theoii||
of action open to us, and Texas A&M ntto'l
part.
Larry Yarak is an assistant professorolb f