Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, April 17, 1987
7
Opinion
The Battalion
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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
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jrnm<
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Th<
lounc
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oriun
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ad n
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Frar
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Ehe cat
our bo
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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.
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