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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1987)
Page 2/ r The Battalion/Friday, January 23, 1987 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 Tom Ownbey, Photo 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 hoard 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. Final fiasco President Vandiver’s new policy for final examinations itself is in need of caref ul examination. Beginning Spring 1988, finals for all students — including grad uating seniors — will begin on Friday and Saturday of what is now dead week and continue on Monday and Tuesday of the following week. This plan is supposedly a compromise to benefit students, fac ulty and administrators, but what’s really being compromised is com mon sense. The policy was adopted so professors would not have to give fi nal exams twice. But the resulting problems are not worth the conve nience. An obvious problem is that students will have less time to prepare for their exams. Students who have lab finals and projects due dur ing dead week will have exactly one evening —Thursday — to pre pare for finals the next day. And Saturday, a day previously set aside for all-day study sessions, will be devoted, at least in part, to finals. That, in itself, wouldn’t be so bad if the new schedule had other merits. It doesn’t. Because grades for graduating seniors are due Tuesday evening after the last exams, professors have less time for thorough grading. Further, a glitch in the computer system could postpone gradua tion, which, according to the new plan, already is pushed back to the weekend after finals. Considering the system’s track record, it’s only a matter of time before this happens, infuriating thousands of graduates — not to mention parents. Instead of implementing the new plan, why not follow the rec ommendations of student and faculty senators and administrators who studied the problem extensively? This plan allows graduating seniors to take finals during dead week and the rest of the student body to take exams during the regular finals week. The idea of requiring seniors to take finals isn’t unreasonable, but inconveniencing faculty members, 33,000 undergraduates and risking the postponement of commencement is. Please read Judith Martin, AKA Miss Man ners, was once my colleague at the Washington Post, so I’m sure she’ll excuse me if I dub myself Mr. Man ners. I was raised to say “Thank You,” to pardon Richard myself when inter- Cohen rupting and to ask to be excused when leaving the table, upon which I was not permitted to put my elbows: “Richard, Richard, well and able, take your elbows off the table.” I did. It is for these reasons that, late in life, I am perplexed and sometimes played for the fool. For instance, I often find myself saying “You’re welcome” to ma chines that say “Thank you.” I did this repeatedly about two years ago when I made the mistake of renting a talking Chrysler. It told me when the door was ajar, when my seat belts were unbuckled and when I needed to turn off the en gine because the whole thing was about to blow up. Everytime I buckled up as instructed, the car would say “Thank you” and I would instinctively say “You’re welcome.” After half-a-day in the car, I stopped responding to it. But I still can’t break the habit with the phone company. When using a credit card, I sometimes get a recording that asks for my num ber. I give it, there’s a pause, then the recording says “Thank you.” From my mouth comes “You’re welcome.” The same thing happens when I get a person who, in personality, is hardly different from a machine. The personoid inva riably says “Thank you for using AT&T,” to which J say “You’re welco me” — but always too late. The perso noid has hung up. I naturally resent being treated like Pavlov’s dog, responding to a stimulus. Not only is it stupid for a machine to thank me — a machine can be neither grateful nor thankful — but it is also stupid for me to carry on a dialogue with a collection of wires and silicon chips. My bank machine says “Thank you.” Answering machines say “Thank you,” and so, for that matter, do restau rant checks. I whisper “You’re welco me” to them. Just as machines now act like people, strangers act like pals. It is a common occurrence for people to call me on the phone and call me Richard right off. Worse, is the stranger who asks if I pre- this column fer Richard or Dick, and even worse is my refusal to give an honest answer: “Mr. Cohen’ would be just fine.” I say nothing like that, though, and pretty soon some guy I never met before is calling me by my nickname. I have a similar difficulty when I call an airline for a reservation. First, I get a machine that tells me that all the reser vation clerks are busy but, in the words of United Airlines, the next available clerk will be with me when he or she is available. Then comes the worst part. A woman answers and says, “Hi, this is Debbie.” What am I supposed to say? “Hi, this is Dickie”? I’ve called to find out if there’s a flight to Akron and here I am talking to some lady as if she just sat down next to me in a cocktail lounge: “Hi, I’m, Debbie. What’s your sign?” “A- quarius, Debbie. Do you fly to Akron?” Back in the days when stewardesses were pronounced obsolete after they ei ther married or turned 30, I found my self unable to handle these Flying Flirts. They were instantly so friendly, so warm — so inquiring. “What’s your name?” “What do you do for a living?” It all made me very uncomfortable. I knew they were not interested in me — not my personality, anyway. I used to envy guys who could banter with the stews, who seemed not to know, or not to care, that the women were being paid to be friendly. There is a word for that- I need time to establish relationships. I like to go from Mr. Cohen to Richard to...may I call you Dick? Each step is a doorway through which I alone want to do the admitting. To call me Dick right off, to announce that you are Debbie, is tantamount to barging right in. Who in vited you? What do you want? You don’t even care about me. Leave me alone! The fact is, I have been programmed to respond to people in certain ways. And the fact is that machines and their human equivalents have been pro grammed to take advantage of the way I have been programmed. Like Don Quixote, I was raised for a bygone age. Waiters announce their names to me. Who cares? AT&T thanks me for using it when, most of the time, I don’t even have a choice. I cling to the lessons of childhood. I respond to talking cars, thank machines, say “Pardon me” to lamposts I brush and call people by their titles. I am the Mr. Manners of the technological age, t ilting at machines as if they were people and, slowly, treating people as if they were machines. Thank you for reading this. Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group Don’t mess with destiny I always be lieved a person was responsible for the events that happened in his or her life. I was cer tain that I con trolled my circum stances — good or bad. If something awful happened it was my fault be cause I made a one guy’s hair. He later asked if Tama- rron’s insurance covered hair loss. Luckily, we all walked away without any serious injuries, only a few bruises, mi nor cuts from broken glass and for one guy a sizeable bald spot. have already been unpacked and in our rooms. But I didn’t. I leans) can’t control everything in youri keeping a sense of humor will help you live through it. mistake or I let someone else make it for me. But of course, that’s not always true. I found that out the hard way on my first ski trip during the holidays. The bus driver sat paralyzed in his seat. Someone yelled at him to open the doors. We grabbed our stuff and got off the bus before it tipped over and sank to the bottom of the lake. As I reached the top of the bank I turned back and looked at the bus. My boyfriend was helping get the skis off the side of the bus, a girl who came on the trip with us was taking pictures, and I was standing there laughing. The next day, we spent ab hours taking ski lessons. Most of us had never skied,scl fun learning together. Bytheenjl week we were skiing intermedia!!! and the guys even ti ied an exp;'® j I lu- irsi <>l the trip was perftdHties crowds were gone so there ing for the lif ts — Coloradogottl snow it had seen all winter durirJ week, and best of all no brokeDj sprains or delays coming home. My boyfriend and I started planning the trip in October and decided to in clude four of our friends — actually, I had never met two of those friends be fore, but it turned out we all got along great. After all our planning, budgeting and anticipation the day to leave finally arrived. Unfortunately, two of the guys we were supposed to meet at the airport didn’t show. So much for controlling your circum stances. If 1 had had my way, we would Jo Streit is a senior journalist- and a columnist For The BattalioJ The rest of us sat in the airport bar waiting and cussing about the other two being late. While we were in the bar, a live news report from the airport came on the TV located above the counter. The report said a man was holding a ten-year-old boy hostage and was de manding a plane and safe passage out of the country. We ignored most of the re port — after all it was our vacation, and we couldn’t be concerned about every thing that was going on in the world. The time of our departure finally came and, with no sign of our friends, we did the only thing we could. We left without them. It turned out our friends missed the [light to Colorado because they were be ing held on board their plane from Houston until the gunman in Dallas could be arrested. And we just assumed they were irresponsible and missed the flight. We learned later what happened, but as it turned out, we had our own trou bles. After our plane landed in the Du rango airport, we were greeted by some one from the resort we were staying at. They took care of our luggage and we took the bus to go get our ski rentals. Everything went smoothly until we got to Tamarron — the place we were stay ing. Tamarron has a main lodge and ad jacent condos for their guests. We were staying in a three-bedroom condo, but it was too far to walk to from the lodge. Tamarron provides a shuttle service to the condos, so we gathered up our carry-on luggage and piled in —about thirty people total. We slowly started up the hill in front of the main lodge and just when we reached the top, the engine died. We started rolling back down the hill, and to our regret the tire chains proved useless on the icy road. We slid about 75 yards, gaining speed the whole way down. No one screamed. Everyone just calmly hung on, except for our bus driver who managed two words — “We’re dead.” On that courageous note, we fell off a ten-foot drop and crashed into a lake. T he back doors of the bus blew open, and water covered the people in the rear of the shuttle. Some of the seats were ripped out, along with a chunk of Mail Call Hopping mad EDITOR: As students walked to class Thursday morning, they were greeted by fluorescent-green frog playing a trumpet as two other toads danced mem! about. As if this were not enough, the students beheld assorted jacks, turnstiles, mutant cacti, and “The Big Red Thing.” Those who frequent^ party scene in Dallas may remember the frogs in front of a local bar. Itis good to see that an exhibit that cannot make it in front of a bar can comef 1 A&M and be called “art.” After such a culturally enriching experience, it was pleasing to discover that our campus would be graced with its presence until May 4. Gee, even time we go to class this semester, we can repeat this experience. What fun! think that, while other schools display King Tut’s exhibit, former students can return to our campus — for example. Parent’s Day — and see this. But seriously, while this exhibit may be attractive in other places, its sin contrast to A&M’s campus creates nothing but an eyesore. We, and most likely other students, would appreciate its removal. Joseph Mercuric ’88 Accompanied by 11 signatures Frozen Ags EDITOR: This is a letter concerning the new “modern art” in the vicinity of the ; Academic and Harrington buildings. First of all Ags, I’ll agree with youtli) 1 | the stuff is pretty ugly! But what’s fantastic about the whole situation isthL this traditionally-thinking university has finally had the notion to do something out of the ordinary! It’s good to know that university officialsa (: | thawing out of their ice age stances. I think it’s great! Chris Pantuso Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to e for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author's intent. Each letter must Aesipn' 1 must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer.