Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, April 8, 1987
The Battalion
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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
»
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Oil-well heaven
Gov. Bill Clements has been outspoken lately about keeping his
already-broken promise not to raise or implement any new taxes.
Clements has even threatened to call a special session of the Legis
lature unless legislators come up with a budget that he can live with.
He’s said on several occasions that the estimated $6-billion deficit
represents a “wish list” and that he will veto any spending bill calling
for more taxes to fund the proposed budget. In this instance, Clem
ents is quite right. The additional $6 billion does represent a “wish
list.”
Texans “wish” their universities weren’t doomed to mediocrity,
their prisons weren’t in a complete state of disarray and that they
had enough money to fund much-needed social programs.
But even if Clements really believes he can pay for Texas’ future
with less than $6 billion and without increased taxing, he still hasn’t
come to grips with the reality that the oil-well fairy has flown the
coop. The ever-expanding budget hole is getting deeper and deeper,
and Texas gold isn’t going to fill it in the near future.
Instead, the governor’s office told The Battalion Monday that
Clements’ strategy for Texas’ future is to “hold the line on spen
ding.”
The trick, it seems, is to wait for the Texas economy to mirac
ulously improve all by itself — perhaps when and if the price of oil
climbs back to pre-1980 prices and rescues us from slow death.
A representative from the governor’s higher education depart
ment disagreed, however. He said he didn’t think Clements’ “strate
gy” would hurt the future of Texas education or other social pro
grams ranking high on the “rearranged priority list.”
But Texas college faculty members’ average salaries are almost
10 percent below the national average. Still, Clements’ higher educa
tion spokesman said that holding salaries steady while the rest of the
nation grows will be detrimental for our state.
The spokesman didn’t seem to object to a Texas state income tax
as a feasible means for f unding the deficit and pulling Texas back up
to par, but, he said, “the average Texan is not ready for an income
tax.” And he may be right.
At the same time, however, the “average Texan” may decide to
become the average Californian, Michigander or even New Yorker if
Texas winds up at the place it’s now heading— nowhere.
Mail Call
Good point
EDITOR:
The Battalion’s April 6 editorial concerning the College of Business’ first-
time publication of teacher evaluations for student use was basically on target
except for one major point. While it is true that the professor’s permission is
required before their evaluations can be made public, this permission must be
given at the beginning of each semester — long before the professor has any
idea whether his eventual evaluations will end up negative or positive.
Allen Arnold ’87
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters
for style and length, hut will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must he signed and
must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer.
Opinion
Boxing in the name of God
Mr. Don King
Boxing Promoter Extraordinaire
Holy wood, CA
Dear Mr. King,
My name is Mike Sullivan, and I
am the proud manager of a boxing
club called Part-time Boxers for God
(PBG). Some say our initials stand for
Pretty Bad Guys. And those people
are right, Mr. King.
I don’t mean to scare you, but our
stable includes some of the greatest
part-time boxers in the world, and
I’m mighty proud of them. I manage
fighters like “Jabbin’ ” Jimmy Swag-
gart, Jim “The’ Insatiable” Bakker,
Jerry “Fightin’ ” Falwell and, of
course, “Ornery” Oral Roberts.
We’ve got God on our side, Mr. King.
And that’s why my boys are strictly
part-time. When they’re not hitting
the bag, they’re thumping the Bible.
But I’m not writing you simply to
brag about my boxers, Mr. King. I’m
writing to you because recently one
of my boys was robbed. He was
robbed by the Devil himself, and so
was I.
You may have heard about my boy
Oral getting attacked by Satan. Well,
there’s no lying to it, Mr. King. Oral
was sleeping soundly after a hard
workout at the PBG gym one night
last month when that red-haired hea
then lit into him as if someone had
thrown ice-water on hell.
If Mrs, R hadn’t removed her
makeup before going to bed, she
might not have been able to scare off
that r.ed-tailed tyrant, and PBG’s best
fighter might have met his owner —
and we wouldn’t have seen one holy
cent because the fight wasn’t con
tracted.
Mike
Sullivan
Needless to
say, PBG is a
little disturbed
by the Devil’s
deed, and we’d
like you to get us
a rematch.
Forget Hagler
and Leonard.
Phis easily will
be the hottest
fight of the
month. And we’re willing to let our
boy get in the ring and square off
against that horn-headed hippie
from hell under three conditions:
• We want $13 million for our boy
Oral. (That may seem steep, but Oral
has some financial obligations that he
needs to take care of. Besides, I lagler
got $12 million and he only fought
Leonard.)
• Jessica Hahn must get a free ring
side seat. (Please don’t tell anyone
about that condition.)
• A head butt by the Devil is grounds
for disqualification — considering his
horns and all — and absolutely no
pitchforks will be allowed in the ring.
If the Devil wins, he can have
Oral’s “Expect a Miracle” show — re
ligious broadcasting is a bit lopsided
now anyway.
But if our boy Oral dukes it out
with the Devil and comes up a win
ner, he gets a new Mercedes 380 SL,
a Rolex watch, a new Gucci briefcase,
a summer home in the Bahamas and
two more ideas about how to finagle
the idiots who watch his show out of
more money. The Devil must also
talk God into taking a lower cut from
Oral’s fight winnings.
As you may have guessed by now,
Mr. King. I’m an idea man. Andl
have a lew ideas about how you
might promote this fight.
First of all, there’s got tobeanes-
hibition bout before the main even
between Oral and his ungodly oppo
nent. May 1 suggest a tag-team wres
tling match between some of Fal-
well’s fearless Fundamentalists -
who believe the Bible is the literal
word of God — and a fewofBak-
ker’s brain-dead dozen — who con
sider a f udge factor when decipher
ing the Good Book? Wrestle Mania
III, eat your heart out.
You also could save on the cost of
having programs printed by simply
selling Bibles at some incredibly in
flated price — say, $4 or so.
The brawls that break out in the
aisles because of disagreements about
interpretations of the Bible will bean
extra treat for our fight fans.
Think it over, Mr. King. You’ll
probably catch a lot of hell for pro
moting a fight with the Devil, but
when you get to the bank, you'll think
you’re in heaven —just like my boy,
Oral.
Sincerely,
Mike Sullivan is a senior journalism
major and the Opinion Page editor
forThe Battalion.
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Changing mind no longer a woman’s prerogative
Where philoso
phy was mute and
religion tongue-
tied, a judge of
New Jersey’s low
est court turned
loquacious. Faced
with the Gordian
knot of the Baby
M case, Judge Richard
Harvey R. Sorkow
took the sword of
contract law and
smashed everything in sight. In the end,
his decision came down to a sing-song
taunt of one kid who has taken advan
tage of another: a deal is a deal. This is
how Baby M became Melissa Stern and
used cars get new owners.
“The contract is not illusory,” the
judge said. “Mrs. Whitehead was anx
ious to contract. This court finds that
she had changed her mind, reneged on
her promise, and now seeks to avoid her
obligations.” A visitor from Mars would
he surprised to discover that Mary Beth
Whitehead was a mother and the article
in dispute was her child.
Of course, the father, Howard Stern,
was the other half of this contract dis
pute. It was his sperm that on Feb. 6,
1985 artificially inseminated Mary Beth
Whitehead. The two had a deal. In ex
change for $10,000, Whitehead would
bear the child and surrender it at birth.
After the birth, though, she changed
her mind. Sorkow was unmoved: “The
bargain here is for totally personal servi
ce.” Here is a judge who would have
used contract law to uphold Shylock’s
demand for a pound of flesh.
Momentous issues of philosophy, the
ology, law r and psychology were brushed
aside. The child was awarded to what is
probably the better parent, Stern. Gom-
pared to Whitehead, he is better edu
cated, more affluent and, it seems, more
stable. Barring the triumph of Utopian
socialism in America, affluence and ed
ucation will always count. Melissa Stern
will go to camp.
But to Sorkow, social class seemed to
be critical. He was contemptuous of
Whitehead, calling her “manipulative,
impulsive and exploitive . . .”, when she
was, by any standard, confused and
overwhelmed. Without meaning to, it
may have been the Sterns who were, if
not manipulative, then at least, impul
sive and exploitive. They made no con
certed attempt to adopt and offered the
indebted Whitehead a contract for
which they, in essence, wrote the rules.
Just the fact that assorted middle men,
baby jobbers posing as biomedical pi
oneers, cheered the decision shows how
bad it was.
It could be that everything that could
go wrong in this case did — that it is an
extraordinary example of surrogate
motherhood, not an ordinary one. But
the longer the trial stayed in the news,
the harder if was to believe that. As TV
explored the issue, we heard children
who saw a half-sibling turned over to
strangers express fears of abandon
ment. Some surrogate mothers ad
mitted to wrenching second thoughts,
and ethicists and theologians raised
weighty issues: What happens, for in
stance, if the baby is born deformed?
Does the contract come with a warranty?
We watched Mary Beth Whitehead as
she performed mothering for court-ap
pointed observers. She played patty-
cake wrong; she hugged the child too
much and she had a hard time distin
guishing her own needs from that of
her child. She was, in short, a disaster as
a mother, a frantic woman not up on
her Spock. She was outclassed in a
mothering competition by another
woman who had, in addition to a medi
cal degree, something more important
— possession of the baby. Stern could be
relaxed. She could ration her hugs. Like
restaurants, the two were rated. To the
judge, Stern was an epicurean’s delight
and Whitehead a greasy spoon.
But where was the sympathy for
Whitehead? Where in the decision did
the judge empathize with a befuddled
woman who felt a baby grow in her
womb and then balked at giving it away?
Where is contempt for a process in
which the rich pay the poor a version 1 '
stud fees? Where is criticism of a
tract that does not even recognize
right of the mother to maternal insti
— to a change of heart? And where* 1
humility, a recognition ol how 111
know? Instead, Sorkow dismissed 1
recommendation of Baby M’scourtj
pointed guardian that Whitehead
some parental rights. T his judge
clean desk.
1
ij|
likef
Surrogate motherhood isanass 15
on definitions. Neat categories"'
ther, mother — are rendered mean 111
less, and a child becomes a possession
judge groped for what wasbestfor^
child and probably did bestbyher 1
the end, a technocrat of the law
with the new technology of medicals 1
ence narrowed the focus to contract i;l
— a “bargain.” He had the right#
but the wrong parties. T he bargain 1-
not between Whitehead and Stern
was with the devil.
r
T
Copyright 1986, Washingtonf 11
Writers Group