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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 1987)
Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, April 17, 1987 7 Opinion 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 7Tie* Buttalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to T exas A&M and Bryan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in 7Tie Battalion are those of the editorial board or*the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of T exas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. 7Tie Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. 77ie Battalion is published Monday through Friday during T exas 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: 77ie Battalion, Department of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station, T'X 77843-4 111. Second class postage paid at College Station, T'X 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, De partment of journalism, T exas A&M University, College Station T'X 77843-4 111. f Got a compass? Even though the state budget approved Wednesday by the Texas Senate calls for $3 billion in new taxes, it charts a far better course out of the state’s financial troubles than the path Gov. Bill Clements proposes to pave. The Senate budget allocates more money to education and serv ice agencies than Clements’ plan, which at a local level means $67 million more for Texas A&M. Also, the Senate approved $9.3 mil lion more for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station and $20.8 million more for the agricultural extension service, $2.1 million more for the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and $800,000 more for the engineering extension service, as well as $2.3 million more for the Texas Transportation Institute. Clements, of course, claims the Senate’s budget is “a giant step in the wrong direction,” but when it comes to averting fiscal woes, Clements has been anything but a pathfinder. His own budget schemes are destined to trip over their own feet. Clements said the Senate’s $36.9 billion budget is “nothing more than smoke and mirrors,” but a quick reflection on Clements’ goals reveals who’s throwing the smokescreen. Clements wants a $2.9 bil lion tax bill, largely resulting from the tax increases that were put into effect by former Gov. Mark White. He expects to close the re mainder of the $5.8 billion revenue shortfall with budget cuts. But most state agencies, especially higher education, can’t afford to suffer anymore under the fiscal knife. Given the downturn in the state economy and the cuts already levied against Texas colleges and universities, luring — or retaining — quality faculty is becoming im possible. Yet the best capital investment to disperse the monetary trouble facing the state is to sink funds into higher education. Over all, the Senate budget allots $400 million more to higher education than its Clements counterpart. The Senate’s budget isn’t perfect. It does cut $100,000 more from prison programs than the governor’s proposal. It also reduces mental health spending by $25 million, even though the Senate’s budget gives $150 million more than Clements suggested. Clements has said he would veto the Senate budget if it gets as far as his desk, but given the support for the plan, a veto will be only a minor deterrent. The Senate’s plan is based on common sense, not the pipe-dream the the governor insists on clinging to. Texas must realize that maintaining excellence in higher educa tion is worth paying for, and that it’s better to pay for it at the sales counter now. Q. Where do add rain MARCHES €>\9$7 HOtMDN R^T N Mr American TV cartoons just ain’t what they used to be One afternoon this week, I went over to my boy friend Tommy’s house. We were sitting on the couch switching the TV channels by remote control and we stopped on the channel play ing the cartoon “G.I. Joe.” Re- and the aircraft hurst into flames. II anyone of you sympathize with Cobra, don’t worry. He’ll be back for the next episode. member G.I. Joe when you were little? Well, the guys are back and they even have their own TV series. Like most quality cartoons, the ‘‘G.I. Joe” series leaves the audience with a moral or lesson to be learned. I was ex pecting a discussion on evil world lead ers or countries trying to control the test of earth’s nations. At the very least 1 ex pected a discussion on the standard commandment not to lake cand\ from strangers. I wasn’t even close. Bugs Bunny and timer FuddorW Coyote and Roadrunner. 1 neven liked Wile\ Coyote even thougl wanted to eat Roadrunner, and same is true of Elmer Fudd. Instead laughed at the struggle because knew nothing would ever happen Bugs or Roadrunner. the n the mone Th: he A1 Dix, c jrnm< ion C Th< lounc ward 2,220 oriun Tht [hey w “Wt ad n appe |vere \ ause |on Fr Frar Is a fif jor. “W! Inames Ehe cat our bo droppt I The tiew fo I Neit lor die went t< Antoni almost tell sor 1 n every episode«: In the episode we watched, the Amer ican military men were once again bat tling their old enemy Cobra. The evil Cobra had invented chewing gum that would control the mind of anyone who chewed it. Cobra’s plan was to distribute the gum throughout Asia and even tually take over tbe world. Instead, we see two girls sitting on the beach, one with a severe sunburn. Sud denly, one of the G.I. Joe heroes rushes in with a bottle of sunscreen and warns the young girl not to lay out without protecting herself against the sun’s harmful rays. The young girl quickly puts on a hat and shirt and thanks the G.I. Joe for the helpful safety tip. T he Senate’s budget is leading the state in the direction of fiscal reponsibility, planning for the future and just plain common sense. If Clements thinks that’s the wrong direction, perhaps he needs to check his compass. Of course, the American forces showed up in fighter jets and destroyed Cobra’s headquarters. In a showdown with Cobra, one G.I. Joe jumped on the plane loaded with the cargo of gum and saved the world from the evil scheme. Cobra fell from the plane into a river Children of Holocaust still feel pain Maybe 1 missed the connection be tween the moral and the rest of the story. It probably sounds rational and reasonable to everyone else. After all, doesn’t nuclear radiation cause sun burn? Maybe the idea is that if you ever travel to a war zone where our military men are engaged in battle with nuclear weapons, you’d better bring a bottle of sunscreen. Actually, you tlic‘ir opponents watch Wiley Coyote build some coil lion he’d ordered from the Acme that he was sure would catchRoadr ner. And every time he’d end upli iug himself or landing at thebottoc the cliff, the same was true of Eli tmld, who always went homeeni[ handed at the end of hunting season. today, the stuggles aren’t as fua and tlu* situations aren’t as farfeicli Few of us believe that somewliert Wyoming, Wiley Coyote and ner really exist. Unfortunately,its hard to believe that we have pet sonnel stationed all over theworl an effort to keep onemanoronec try from trying to take over the'' Stars Wars isn’t a new cartoon. ■ The Bid att Jporps ■rank • littfi in 1 1 Fran Aggie 1 ting a though the till lAc I The libertie said th; re ent ey at tes in intoler; John meric in a pj dentC< Peop funded It is the ordina riness that is so striking: A girl at the beach. A girl on roller skates. A girl with her fam ily, with friends, playing with a hoop or, prosai cally, just checking her watch. Then, the pictures stop and imagination must suffice. The the soldiers stopped a man driving by on a motorcycle and demanded he turn over the machine. The man refused and was shot on the spot. “That’s the first time I saw the kill ing,” Chorn said. “I ran back into the house and told my mother and sister. They did not believe me.” Richard Cohen girl was taken to Auschwitz, transferred to Bergen-Bel- sen and there she died. Anne Frank was 15. The pictures of Anne Frank, some of them newly discovered, are on exhibit here at the Boston Public Library. Her story, told through her diary, is a famil iar one by now — the bourgeois Jewish family that fled Germany for Holland, the hiding in the secret “annex,” the be trayal (by whom?), the death of all but her father, Otto, in Nazi extermination camps. And then, ultimately, the publi cation of the remarkable “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Neither did much of the world, and, maybe for that reason, the killing con tinued. Chorn’s family was forced to the countryside. They were worked hard and every day there were killings. The family was separated, and Chorn was taken to a Buddhist temple that had been converted to a human abattoir. Three times a day, executions were held — 15, 20 people killed. The crimes of the victims made racism seem sensible, if that’s possible. Education, profes sional status, ability to speak a foreign language — they all warranted a death sentence. Chorn spoke close to the Anne Frank photo exhibit. To tour that exhibit is to ask all the usual questions — Why? How? Where was the world? — and then to level the usual indictments. An isolationist America, an anti-Semitic and indifferent State Department, a Europe bent on appeasing Hitler until his appe tite could no longer be appeased. It is easy for one generation to condemn an other. Today’s cartoons are both similar to and different from cartoons in the past. The most obvious similarity is the use of violence, which goes along with the good vs. evil theme. The most striking difference between the tw'o is how these commonalities are portrayed. In the past, the struggle between good and evil was showcased as a per sonal battle between two characters. And as an audience, we never really hated the evil character. For example, 1 lie differences stem Iromthtj that many of today’s childrenareawl <>l th< continuing luttles am! hikiBgo.OOI threats of the world they live in. 1 ! itsaysi toons mav help t hildren undentati P® uc ^ ar world situation in an entertaining* C )t course, cartoons aren't justforo dren. Recently, New York Mayor| k<>< h replaced the cartoon Moi isc*” with his own show TVs iiist, Koch's first show fairedv soon the pubic outcry for thert tlu* cartoon was overwhelming.Nod ol the government officials l had on his show could bring in diet* ers like “Danger Mouse." Jo Streit is a senior journalism^ and a columnist for The Battalion. But Chorn condemns our own. The Cambodian holocaust happened, as they say, on our watch. Like Europe af ter World War I, America after Viet nam looked away. The political right underestimated Hitler. The political left would not believe the news from Cam bodia. Evil triumphed in the usual way. Good people did nothing. We were all so busy with our own lives. Here, though, the familiar story was given a new context, an effort to coax from it yet more meaning. It was linked to other outrages such as the Armenian genocide, present-day events in Beirut and Central America and, most disturb ing, the recent auto-genocide of Cambo dia. Arn Chorn spoke to that in the li brary auditorium. Chorn loved one older sister above all. He described her as beautiful, but starvation took its toll. “She became skinny and ugly like an old woman. She was not pretty anymore.” Separated from her, he got word that she had died before she could be executed. The aw ful news pleased him. Women about to be executed often were raped. Her death had cheated her captors of at least that. Chorn, now a student at Brown Uni versity, was nine when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. He remembers their coming, how as a boy he ran out to greet the “liberators,” wondering if they would play with him. They had other things in mind. One of Here Chorn paused. His voice choked, his eyes welled. In the audi ence, handkerchiefs came out. Eyes were dabbed. Chests heaved. Chorn continued his story. He was forced to fight the Vietnamese when they invaded Cambodia and, eventually, he was pushed back to the border with Thai land. There, he sought sanctuary and eventually was taken to the United States as one of the first Cambodian or phans. Facing history and ourselves, an orga nization that uses the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors to teach students about the dangers of bigotry held a din ner before the opening of the Anne Frank exhibit. Chorn was there, but did not speak. Other survivors did, though, and alluded to their guilt. They sur vived when so many — most — did not. One spoke about her difficulty in facing her own history. Another, who had known Anne Frank as a child, simply said, T had a playmate. Her name was Anna Frank. I survived. She did not.” The next day, Chorn struck the same theme. He said he was full of both rage and guilt. “I am terribly angry at the world and my people for letting this happen,” he said. For a long time I felt guilty at being alive.” After seeing the Anne Frank exhibit and listening to Chorn, the wonder is that the rest of us do not. Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group Mail Call The only way EDITOR: In response to the April 14 letter by John R. Spessard concerning Christianity, I would like to rectify a serious fallacy. No one can buy his way to heaven. Jesus C Christ died for everyone so ito any who have faith in him may have eternal life. Accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour is the only way to heaven; it is an act of faith- nothing else. Bryan Kelly ’90 Welcome to the 20th century EDITOR: Howdy Ags! I was blocked from pre-registering (along-with manyolM due to numerous parking violations. I received most of rny tickets after9 p.m. in parking lots that were for the most part empty, while spendinglais nights playing with WYLBUR or studying at the library. (Apparentlyin) year-old sticker is no longer valid). Tit keting vehicles after 4 p.m. isaln# ridiculous as Texas A&M being legally forced to officially recognize theft) Student Services organization. (God knows we tried not to). So what do I plan to do about it? Well, when the day comes when lam 1 rich old Ag looking for ways to donate to my alma mater, I’m going to ji' { A&M something it really needs. No, not a bigger and better bell tower,nf another building, not even a computer system that isn’t down 90 percent the time. I will donate a new campus police department, one thatcanfind better things to do than terrorize studious, hard-working, diligent,off- campus Aggies who find occasion to visit campus late at night. James A. (Bud) Thompson ’88 Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author's intent. Each letter must it if 11 ' must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. Ro< De Jol Tue Re roll job GP| age plai A&i anc