Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 1986)
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, November 26, 1986 Opinion Changing attitudes put bike riders' lives in per I I was blessed this semester. I won a Schwinn 10-speed bi cycle in a drawing. It was a nice big red one — £ rather expensive semi-touring bike. So far, it has been my only method of transportation, save an infrequent borrowing of a friend’s car. ; My bike gets me to campus from my apartment in 15 minutes, about the same time it used to take me to leave the dorm and walk to class. With a trusty, inexpensive back pack to carry all my worldly possessions in, I can ride about campus at will. Riding a bike full-time is a new experience for me. With monthly bills to pay, time is an important element, especially when I am paid by the hour. I can now work at the Military Procurement Center by bonfire and in five minutes be in class on the seventh floor of the O&M building. Mark Ude This is a new experience, because I have spent the past four years walking to class, which is not bad in itself. There was a time when Aggies said “Howdy!” and walking along a sidewalk was a plea surable time well spent. But in those four years, I had to spend another 15 to 20 minutes getting my uniform into a presentable appearance. This adds to the time that one has to drag himself out of the bag, and leads to the ability to decide that lateness is inexcusable, then promptly roll over and go back to sleep. Once I got used to jumping on my bike and screaming across campus at Mach 3, I became spoiled. I can’t understand how I ever bore up un der the amount of time wasted just going to class. Seriously, I usually cruise the course at a lei surely speed, seeking out familiar faces to spend five minutes conversing with. Not seeing other people for a couple of weeks cancels out any bene fit from a quarter hour’s wage. Especially when I may not see them after I graduate this December. But for various reasons, I quit riding my 10- speed this week. The first reason being because of the cold, wet and nasty weather we have had. 1 stomached the first norther we had, though there was no joy in riding in that cold front. There is just so much one can take, even bundled up in a Sierra Nevada Expedition suit and still freezing. The second reason was due to the increasing number of close shaves with death. Death for bicy clists comes in many ways. Cars whose drivers feel they own the road are bad enough, but when the drivers erect crosshairs on the hood one starts to worry. Those guys who were popping darts at bik ers didn’t help matters. The last point of concern is the number of wicked stares from pedestrians. Not that I am run ning others off the sidewalk, but there seems to be a feeling of ill will toward bikers. There are times when I expect the next movement I see by pedes trians to be a foot kicking in my spokes. While I do agree that pedestrians have a case against bikers who have blatant disregard toward others in pursuit of flight, that grudge has a tendency applied to all bike riders. There is a different world among bikers, thing not present in the environment! blackshoes. Bikers are friendlier than pedesi at least to other bikers. One can actually geul spouse from fellow bikers, even when hearj head at Mach 3. 1 have attempted to say “How to pedestrians as I ride past, but I have been with limited success. Even cadets don’t respoi much as they used to. Such negative vibes whether I am on or off the bike. Maybe the situation will change, but 1 think so. The attitude now is almost a vicious when an unfortunate biker is thrown head heels af ter colliding with a bench, fire hydratl shrub. What many people forget is that whole, the majority of mishaps are aresultof! ers attempting to avoid pedestrians. Mark Ude is a senior geography major andi : umnist forThe Battalion. Mail Call Hit the road, Jackie EDITOR: The Dallas Morning News ran a story on Texas colleges and what the nation’s academic leaders thought about them. The only poor mark Texas A&M received was in student quality. This is a result of the overemphasis on sports in Texas’ high schools (Gov. Mark White was right). This overemphasis seems to have reached A&M. In a time of budget cuts, A&M continues to put huge amounts of money into athletics. The News quoted A&M President Frank Vandiver defending sports in the academic world. He said sports encourage former students to contribute to the school. If sports is the only reason old Ags give money to A&M, we do not deserve the title of “world-class university.” A school is not measured by its football team, but by its capability to teach. If we want a world-class university, we should cut back drastically in athletic expenditures and use the money to attract more high-quality faculty. I have one suggestion for Vandiver: Give A&M Athletic Director Jackie Sherrill the option of taking a big salary cut or going to coach at another school. Tye Biasco ’88 Preventative ounce EDITOR: I would like to elaborate on my letter regarding money for AIDS research (Nov. 14) because responses from John Davis and Vanessa Paulley (Nov. 19) reveal several misunderstandings. Firsti a|though Paulley charged that my view was unsympathetic, the statement that “I cannot fathom the agony” experienced by an AIDS victim was meant to communicate the utmost sympathy. On the other hand, the main question raised was whether society should be moved to care for AIDS victims who did not themselves care enough to avoid an obvious danger. Secondly, I did not imply that those who are careless in their sexual relationships “deserve” to contract a deadly disease; it is simply a matter of risk and consequertcq. Thirdly, this view makes no distinction between homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships in this regard. Most difficult, however, is the question of those whose sexual behavior has nothing to do with their infection by AIDS. Among fatal diseases, are there greater numbers of other “innocents,” present and future, for whom we should be more concerned? Is it wise to pour a thousand million dollars into the study of a disea.se whose primary mode of infection has already been identified and against which no drug or vaccination is required for most individuals to protect themselves, when there are other deadly diseases which remain far less predictable. Perhaps it appears cruel to express a hesitance to support research that’s main beneficiaries are; those who have chosen to risk their own lives unnecessarily. But to those who are unwilling to change behavior which endangers everyone, we see a greater cruelty when we recall the young patient dying of AIDS transmitted through a blood transfusion and repeat John Davis’ question;“What about the child?” An ounce of prevention. ... Paul Koch ^ * Simplistic solutions EDITOR:* ; ?-/ Syndicated columnist Lewis Grizzard’s Nov. 18 simple (and simplistic) solution to the teen pregnancy problem is to get more teen-agers to use birth control by making it readily available through school-based health clinics. Fifteen years ago, we were promised that sex education combined with free conraceptives via groups like Planned Parenthood would solve our teen pregnancy problem. A recent study by the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families (December, 1985) found that, despite sex education and contraceptive distribution programs, “there has been no change in the percentage of sexually active teens who become pregnant, but there has been a huge increase in the percentage of teens who are sexually active. And this increase in sexual activity has led to a proportionate increase in pregnancies to unmarried teens (67 percent from 1971-1979).” The decreased teen birth rate in St. Paul (1977-79) widely cited as justification for school dispensing of birth control pills is quite misleading in that it failed to report the 25-percent decrease in female student population during that same time period and also failed to report the pregnancy rate. An increased abortion rate combined with fewer female students accounts for the decreased teen birth rate rather than the decrease in fertility rate implied in the study. By contrast, the enactment of a Minnesota law in 1981 requiring parental notification for abortions correlates with a 40-percent decrease in abortions, a 23.4-percent decrease in pregnancies and a 32-percent decrease in teen pregnancies in that state. Progressively over the last 25 years, we have as a nation decided that it is easier to give children pills than to teach them respect for sex and marriage. With regard to this issue, William Raspberry of the Washington Post recently commented, “Those charged with the education and development of our children have a responsibility not to abdicate fundamental values, even when they are widely ignored. That ‘everybody is doing it’ is in the first place, not true and, in the second, no justification for abandoning our duty to say to the young people under our charge: ‘You shouldn’t!’ ” Walter L. Bradley Professor of Mechanical Engineering Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and Jength, but wjll naake every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. Corporate raiders vital threa to Wall Street’s inefficiencies Richard Cohen The journalistic imperative, like the territorial one for wolves, gov erns us all. We seek information and, if we cannot get it ourselves, we turn to those who can. It is for this reason that God created both jour nalists and arbi tragers, the former to make us wise, the latter to make us rich. Until just recently, Ivan Boesky plied the arbitrager’s trade, making what Wall Street considers a living. He was sup posed to be brilliant, to be informed — to have all the skinny that a 20-hour day on the telephone should elicit. He was not supposed to pay inside informants or trade on that informaton. The Securities and Exchange Com mission charges Boesky did just that. In a financial arrangement with at least one Wall Street merger specialist, Den nis Levine of Drexel Burnham Lam- berty, Boesky agreed to pay for priv ileged information about upcoming mergers. He bought into companies about to be gobbled up and later sold at a handsome profit. That information did not come by dint of working his tele phone console like a mighty Wurlitzer, but from a corrupt relationship. For that, he has paid the price — $100 mil lion in fines and resititutiion, to be ex act. The distinction between information honestly and industriously arrived at and information bought by dint of cor ruption is worth keeping in mind. For already, the sins of Boesky are being cited by those who want to severly re strict the recent wave of mergers — some $178 billion in 1985, maybe $200 billion this this year. Many bills to that effect were introduced in the last session of Congress and more are sure to come. Wall Street, some people think, needs a thorough cleaning. Yes and no. Clearly, there is some thing worrisome about a financial envi ronment that overemphasizes short term profit and therefore the price of the stock. Research and development, often so expensive and chancy, is some times slighted so that the bottom line will look good to short-term investors. The danger is that in the long run there will be no long run. But there is more than a whiff of self- interest in some of the calls for reform. In some cases, corporate America, that cathedral of hypocrisy, is once again running to the federal government for protection. For some executives, noth ing is worse than having their perfor mance evaluated by the marketplace and not their colleagues. There goes the annual bonus. Corporate raiders and their counsels, the arbs, are not an attractive lot. Many of them are Wall Street arrivists, not clubby types. (Indeed, the difference between the nouveau-riche raiders and the more tony members of, say, the Downtown Athletic Club, is that the for mer, less secure socially, keep their clothes on while swapping inside infor mation.) But for all their rough edges, they provide a service — a threat to inef ficiency. Without them, some elements of corporate America would be content to retain their slothful ways. Deputy Treasury Secretary Richard Darman characterized corporate Amer ica in a recent* speech as “bloated, risk- adverse, inefficient and unimaginative.” Darman had two purposes. The first was simply to get our attention — to make us wonder if the nation is being well-served by its corporate culture. The second was to warn corporate America not to look to government to raiders — to keep it living in themafl to which it has become accustoof That manner, while rewarding! executives involved, has seenAmcij business become less and less conf itive. Space does not permit a listiii| executives who, after a dismal ptf mance, rewarded themselves will) nuses — or who parachuted fronnli ters of their own making to land) for lunch at “21.” Congressional Democrats would making a mistake if they rushedlJ defense of corporate America-' with tax reform, they allowed thel gan administration to getonthep® ist side of yet another issue. Some) dies are in order, maybe thereguW of high-risk “junk bonds” used L nance takeovers, maybe a 60-dayp®]; in which newly purchased stodT* not be voted. And, if it is nottoofj' an idea, Congress ought to considt® plight of workers who, through® ;' of their own, are “merged” outofa.H But just as all corporate exetC' are not “inefficient and unimagi# not all arbitragers or corporate are corrupt. The good ones served pose and it would be wrong,as*/ damaging to the economy, toindisfl nately penalize them all. Some reform is needed, but'® comes to dealing with inside trad^ best legislation needs only to ously applied — a good stiff, tence. Nothing will deter tradf"! v much as seeing one of their owa on the inside. Copyright 1986, Washington Post 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 The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting ncmB ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan 11 tion. Mi Opinions expressed in The /^ariii/ion are those of''JfS board or the author, and do not necessarily re P resen )flv||: of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Boardofl| ‘ ^ The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspap^ in reporting, editing and photography classes within' P| ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through fjV. Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday an ||g Periods* Mail subscriptions arc $17.44 per semester, P | year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates h irr ^ quest. Our address: The Battalion. 216 Reed McDo Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 , Second class postage paid at College Station, T n POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, 77843. The College •' ^11