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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 1986)
Page ZAThe Battalion/Friday, December 12, 1986 The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Loren Steffy, Editor Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor Jens Koepke, City Editor Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, Department of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, De partment of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. A taxing ordeal College students face some of the most sweeping changes of fed eral tax reform — but students have less information on reform than almost anyone else. Two days after President Reagan signed the reform measures into law, brokers at E.F. Hutton had copies of the law and a compre hensive summary of the changes. Two months later, students and fi nancial aid officers are still in the dark about the changes the law en tails. The difference is bureaucracy. E.F. Hutton documented the changes as they were proposed, making it simple to send out summa ries as soon as the law passed. But while some reform measures took effect immediately, the law still had to pass through the U.S. Depart ment of Education’s formidable regulation machine. Laws dealing with education don’t go directly to universities. In stead, the department rewrites the laws into official regulations, which are then passed on to schools. The problem, A&M director of student financial aid Taft Ben son says, is that the Department of Education takes from two to six months to write its regulations. In the meantime, students and their schools can only guess at what reform will do to them. And guessing is no good when the stakes are this high. University of Southern California Treasurer Dennis F. Doughtery told News week that the new rules “just about triple the tax liability of students” and Benson estimates that 2,000 of A&M’s 7,000 Guaranteed Stu dent Loan recipients may no longer qualify for the program. The changes also limit the deductibility of charitable donations to universities and eliminate the deductions for loan interest, schol arships and grants. A related change makes the federal GSL pro gram need-based for the first time. Texas A&M’s Office of Student Financial Aid has received word on only the change in the GSL program — and that notification came weeks after the changes took effect. High school students are faring no better. Bryan High School se nior counselor Peggy White says she’s requested information on tax reform but has received none. Worse, she says, her students — and their parents —seem uninformed about legislation that may affect their college careers drastically. “I’ve had maybe one student ask out of 600 seniors,” she says. “That’s not too good.” But what’s bad for the students may be good for the financial planners. While university aid officers read magazine accounts of re form changes, financial analysts and consultants examine copies of the law or detailed summary statements. With only profit to gain, they have access to the information desperately needed by college students. The Department of Education must speed up its ponderous reg ulation process. Students rarely have the financial resources to wait six months for word on aid program changes, and lack of informa tion could leave some students without any way to pay for school. Dealing with the department’s dawdling may prove an education in itself— but the school of hard knocks is a poor substitute for a di ploma. Health center won’t sleep over untimely lose an illnesses It was the first home football game of the sea son, and one of the guys I went to the game with got sick. He got food poisoning from a fast-food ham burger and spent the entire first half barfing in a bath- room. We left at halftime and carried our friend to the University health cen ter, also known as the quack shack. Apparently Paul got sick at an incon venient time. The clinic was closed. I rang the buzzer located next to the locked door and spoke into the intercom. “Uh, hello. My friend’s sick.” An unconcerned voice questioned back. “Is this an emergency.” “Uh, I guess it depends on whether or not you consider someone throwing up all over your door an emergency.” Unfortunately, my response didn’t move the voice to let us in. Obviously the person behind the voice didn’t have to clean the door. “I’m sorry, the clinic’s closed. Can you wait til Monday?” The voice must have heard my thoughts. “If it’s an emergency, call an ambu lance on the red phone located next to the intercom.” ‘And say what,” I thought. “Hi, I’m Lie detector tells about Iran A modest pro posal, Jonathan Swift style: Why not have all the top members of the Reagan ad ministration, in cluding the presi dent, take lie- detector tests to determine who is telling the truth about arms to Richard Cohen Iran, cash to the contras and a foreign policy that would make Rambo look prudent? Surely, nobody but Secretary of State George Shultz could object. Once, Schultz adamantly refused to be polygraphed. That was a year ago when the president, obsessed about leaks to the press, ordered the wiring of government officials to lie-detector ma chines. Shultz balked, threatened to re sign and the president backed down. Reagan took the occasion, though, to endorse such tests, calling them “a lim ited, though sometimes useful tool.” Well, isn’t it time to use the “useful tool”? The first to be wired up should be At torney General Edwin Meese III. Meese did not object when the president sug gested the wholesale polygraphing of the government. Then, the issue was leaked to the press, a so-called national security concern. Whatever it was, it was trivial compared to what has happened recently. Now, the Reagan administra tion’s credibility is in tatters, laws may have been broken and the nation’s for eign policy is, we are told, adrift. Take a seat, Ed. Next on the machine should go White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, the man in charge of all things wonderful and nothing awful. If you follow the Meese rule that all suspects are guilty — “If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect,” he told U.S. News & World Report — Regan’s guilt is a fore gone conclusion. Nevertheless, for the sake of formality, he ought to be wired and asked if he knew what Lt. Col. Oli ver North was up to. Did he know that money for American arms was going from Iran to Nicaraguan contras? Re gan says no, but the machine just might say otherwise. Sit down, Don. As soon as Regan gets up, former Na tional Security Adviser John Poindexter should sit down. He was said by Meese to have known of North’s activities in a “general way,” but the machine, I am sure, will demand precision. As long as you’re into polygraphing, you might as well be into hearsay testimony. CIA Director William Casey would be next. Here is a man who says one thing one day and another the next. Casey might just send the needle across the room. He said the CIA was not involved in the transfer of funds from Iran to Is rael to the contras, and now he says, well, it just might have been. He also says that the CIA basically was unaware of the entire operation. The polygraph ing of Casey will require an industrial- strength machine. Ollie North? Any man who takes the Fifth Amendment a reported 40 times before the Senate Intelligence Commit tee is crying out to be polygraphed. If he were a member of a leftist Hollywood union in the 1940s, the president would have condemned him for taking the Fifth; as it was, Reagan praised North as “a national hero.” This hero needs to be wired. Of course, I write this tongue-in- cheek. The polygraph does not detect lies; it detects stress. A really good liar can fool it. A nervous but truthful per son can appear to be a liar. For this rea son, the results of lie-detector tests can not be admitted as evidence in some state and all federal courts. In one study, the machine was wrong 49 per cent of the time; in another, the ma chine was off 55 percent the time. But the administration adores the little machines and has used them with abandon. It wired pentagon employees to determine who leaked information to a Washington Post reporter. And on March 11 of last year, the president or dered widespread testing of many fed eral employees on pain of dismissal. It took Schultz to back the president down. Reagan said his order was misin terpreted, and it was modified — but not his belief in the device. So now we come to the president. If I can make my proposal a bit less modest, I suggest that polygraphing of Ronald Reagan be done on prime-time tele vision. With Reagan on most of the screen and the needle in the right-hand corner, members of the Senate could ask him questions: Did North tell him he was using Iranian money to fund the contras? Did Don Regan say anything about it? Did Poindexter ever mention it? How about Casey and Meese? Mr. President, what did you know? When did you know it? And if you didn’t know anything, how come? It’s just a modest proposal. standing here with my sick friend and the doors are locked. Do you have the keys?” Once again the voice heard me and responded with more helpful advice. “Why don’t you go to an AM/PM cli nic.” I finally realized taking my friend to an after-hours clinic was the only feasi ble solution outside an expensive hospi tal emergency room. “Good idea. Where is one?" “Uh, hold on.” The voice finally came back with di rections, which turned out to be wrong, and our self-appointed ambulance raced off in search of medical attention for Paul. This exchange made me realize that weekends and nights are not a good time to get sick. My friend’s illness was inconvenient. 'The University used to pay local doctors $75 each week night to remain on call. Unfortunately, many of the physicians wouldn’t come in when needed. These longstanding prob lems between the health center and the physicians led to the decision to elimi nate night and weekend outpatient services. Formerly, the health center’s staff physicians were on call over the week ends on a rotating basis but were not paid anything in addition to their regu lar salaries. Staff physicians now have guaranteed weekends off without a pay cut. This attitude of “it’s my day off, so you can’t be sick” suggests that treat ment can only be given when the doc tor’s schedule permits. The University doctors must be reminded that their job is to serve their patients when they need medical attention. Students at the University pay for health care through fees and should be guaranteed that someone will treat them, day or night, if they’re sick. If the present fees don’t cover the costs, then increase them. This incident also mademefl that nobody at the health centers Paul was really sick or not. Aniss should have been given primanc] ei ation came in a distant second I know many students whor the health center because the iia B* * le to convince them that theiriUnel! 1011 ' ),f ( nor or doesn t require treatraet: G )r Another friend of mine hadafofspri ther drive three hours to brintB» a script ion from their family php pStan h cause when she went to tilt centei, they said there wasnotfc Hpmei Mtvost could do. I hey told her she’d to get over it. Th< i 1 he compassion she received^ etl! hr tears to my eyes. Of course.tk this special attention only bee was considerate enough to get t ing t he center’s office hours. But what about people likeij get sick duringiij hours? Surely, itij penalize someone I ting sick at night. J exactly what happf j wasted valuable til ting with the voij Paid suffered. B And the clinical found was no beffl greeting we receive I made me think back to the sw I at the health center. The obsession in our societvt l ing everything convenientcan: | plied to medicine. The doctfl ability and concern for patient I part of the treatment. Maybeil Mom’s chicken noodle soup* made me feel better. Shedidni* illness as an inconvenience. Unfortunately, 1 don’t seeatjB diate change in the Universit' B care policy. 1 just hope the bacteria ir"f play by the same rules and n p my body is only open forillnest H the hours of 8 a.m. andlpni H through Friday. Jo Streit is a senior joumdrf and a columnist for The Battd l Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group Mail Call An unbiased opinion? EDITOR: In response to a letter accusing /Vie Battalion of bias, you made a ^ revealing remark: “Opinions are supposed to be biased, that’s why the' opinions.” I don’t believe that opinions are “supposed to be” biased. Totheci)" 1 I would hope that a writer’s published opinions constitute his best, constructive, most thoughtful and well-informed assessment of thei# hand, and that he makes his views known with due regard lot reader sensitivity and the power of the written word. Bias is commonly understood (and usually defined) to mean prejii | ' i j an attitude which inhibits impartial judgment. Therefore, although op 115 are subjective, they need not be biased. It may even happen thattwoo] are opposite, yet both are unbiased because both examine the issuefai The Battalion Editorial Board does us no favors when it seeks to ^ what it perceives as bias in the community with biases of its own. ButlM paper can perform a great service as informant and commentator# makes a genuine effort to avoid bias within its own ranks beforeexaiit'q reporting an issue. Paul Koch Graduate Student 4 ort to /#' Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The e the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effi author’s intent. Each tetter must be signed and must include the classified and telephone number of the writer.