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
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Southwest Journalism Conference
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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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