The Battalion
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Kingwood is all wet
Kingwood High School officials need more than life preservers
to save face after going overboard in disciplinary action.
The school barred valedictorian Mike Woosley from graduation
ceremonies Tuesday after he and other students surprised a favorite
teacher by hiring a female stripper to perform during physics class.
An administrator prevented the stripper from baring all, and no real
harm was done — until the school suspended Woosley and told him
he could not deliver his valedictory address.
The young man, who had worked for years to earn the right to
speak before his class, and earned an A-plus average in the process,
made a mistake in the timing of an innocent prank. Granted, he
deserved to be punished — he admitted so himself— but the six days
of suspension that preceded the commencement served as
punishment enough. Denying Woosley the right to speak is unfair to
him, to his classmates and to his family.
Woosley says students who have been in trouble for fighting,
using drugs and carrying weapons have been allowed to graduate
while he is being barred from the ceremony.
Obviously, school officials approve of students being
superachievers, but only if the students can achieve while
conforming to Puritanical values.
America not ready
for Simon's bow ties
I have no idea
who is going to win
the Democratic
nomination for
president in 1988 at
the convention in
Atlanta, but I know
for sure who isn’t.
Gary Hart, for
obvious reasons, and
Sen. Paul Simon of
Illinois, for this
reason:
Lewis
Grizzard
Senator Simon
wears a bow tie, and I simply don’t think
America is ready for a presidential
candidate, much less a president, who wears
bow ties —especailly in the 1980s.
I think of bow ties and I think of Jimmy
Olson, cub reporter for the Daily Planet in
the old Superman TV series.
And didn’t Mr. Peepers wear bow ties? If
not, he should have.
Bow ties have come back into fashion over
the past several years and a number of my
friends are wearing them, but, although they
are good friends, I don’t think any of them
could win the nomination either.
Bow ties, for one thing, make men who
wear them lool like they have square heads.
Next time you see Sen. Simon on television
notice how square his head looks. Do you
think the Russians could have respect for a
man with a square head? Could Congress?
You see a man wearing a bow tie whose
head looks square, and you immediately
think, “What sort of vacuum cleaners does
this man sell?”
Also, it’s a real pain to tie a bow tie, and I
assume Paul Simon’s bow ties aren’t the clip-
on type. If they are, then that’s another
reason he’s not going anywhere in the
presidental race. A man who wears a clip-on
bow tie probably rolls his socks down to his
ankles, too, like your grandfather did.
A man that has to get up every morning of
his life and wrestle with tying a bow tie
probably is completely worn out by the time
he is finished dressing and won’t be worth a
dime the rest of the day.
I’m not certain you can completely trust a
man who wears a bow tie either.
What are his motives for doing such a
thing? Is he trying to make a fashion
statement? Or is he trying to make you think
he’s some sort of harmless dufus so you’ll
think you’re getting a swell deal on the used
Plymouth he’s selling you?
Neckwear says a lot about a man. You
know not to get involved in antying with a
man who wears even a single gold chain
around his neck. This sort of man will try to
talk you into going to work for him selling
encyclopedias door to door.
A man with more than one gold chain
around his neck probably is named Vito,
smokes menthol cigarettes and is in the
import business in Miami.
Also, beware of men in turtleneck
sweaters (they could be terrorists, or,‘worse,
dentists), Nehru jackets (unless they’re
riding elephants), or beads. (This ain’t Club
Med, Jack.)
I hope Sen. Simon gets this message and
either drops out of the race before he wastes
a lot of money or gets himself a regular tie
like the other candidates, who are a bunch of
squareheads, too, but have learned to hide it.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
\Vednes
Opinion
June
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Reagan,
betrayed
like Lee Hart, is
spouse in politics
BREN
The way the
administration
tells it, President
Reagan is the Lee
Hart of the Iran-
contra affair. At
home in the White
House, he was the
policy
personification of
the betrayed
spouse. •
and never understood that the money
was going for the purchase of arms. He
thought funds were being raised to buy
time for television commercials. Once
again, no one told him differently.
Richard
Cohen
Huge amounts
of money were being raised for the
contras, foreign governments were
asked to give at the office, couriers
whisked around Washington keeping
contra leaders on the dole, an attempt
was made to ransom the hostages in
Lebanon and all the time the President
of the United States knew nothing about
any of this. Have to work late again,
Ollie dear?
In the tradition of the Washington
wife, Reagan affirms his epic ignorance
of what was going on. Repeatedly, he
says he can’t wait for the congressional
hearings into the Iran-contra affair to
tell him what happened in his own
White House. Sometimes, as with the
solicitation or offer of $2 million a
month from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia,
he has to check his diary to refresh his
recollection. Without it, he can’t
remember a meeting with a head of
state who dresses like the singer, Prince,
and later offers $24 million annually to
the President’s favorite charity.
Robert C. McFarlane, a ponderous
and creaky witness for whom truth is a
loose football, says he met with the
President “dozens of times” to discuss
the contras. But somehow Reagan never
realized his own aides were — maybe
illegally — f unding and directing an
insurgency in Nicaragua. The President
met with big-givers in the White House
Outside the situation room of the
White House, Oliver North met with his
gung-ho courier, the smirky Robert W.
Owen. Owen wrote memos and letters
in a code a child could have deciphered.
Weapons were called “toys,” he himself
was code-named “TC” (The Courier)
and North was given the monicker
“Steelhammer.” Amazingly,
congressional investigators broke this
code. But, just as amazingly, the
President never knew that North was
running the contra war from inside the
White House. Owen met North there to
receive his cash or traveler’s checks and
even had the assistance of White House
aide Johnathan Miller. Within an hour
of being implicated, Miller resigned. He
can expect a modest pension and a fan
note from Reagan.
the world they had been upto.Atr |
time did Reagan accuse them of
cheating on him, of putting his
administration in peril, of possibly I
breaking the law, of keeping him ini
dark. Like a political wife, hesakHitl
would stand by his men.
works oi
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21 had I
Tuesday
(barges,
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past 10
The inattention, disengagement
at times, ignorance of Ronald Reaf —
now the stuff of legends — certified!™ 11 ' mu<
the naifs of the Tower commission ft
seems to have sleep-walked through
critical portion of his presidency,
establishing such a sorry record that
is excused from knowing what’s
minimally expected of other Presidi
Oh, the poor President! While so
many in his own administration were
skulking around the law, he was
blissf ully ignorant. He referred to the
contra leaders as “the moral equivalent
of our Founding Fathers” when one of
them was hinting that unless he got
some money, he would go over to the
Sandinistas. Owen met the man in
Washington and passed the money in a
parked car. How was the President to
know he was talking about the moral
equivalent of Ivan Boesky and that the
contras were fighting on commission?
But on the issue of anti-comtnuusi
the President has the energy and
of an adolescent. His obsession wasi
remains, the Nicaraguan Sandinte
and just this week he again calledfoi;
continued support of the contras.
Despite the fact that a lieutenant
colonel, relying on the charity of
strangers, kept this enemy at bay,tl
President sees them as a threat toaDi
Central America and, for good
measure, a piece of Texas.
Sometimes the stereotypical
statement of the political wife reflect!]
touching sincerity. But sometimes,a
with Lee Hart’s, it begs somequestij
— such as, behavior aside, why wasn 1
her husband home with her on the
weekends? Questions like thatraisei
f urther question — one ofcomplicit'
is the same with Reagan.
McFarlane, talking like a rundown
phonograph, says the President has
called him twice since news of the Iran-
contra affair was made public. North,
too, got his phone call, the one in which
he was informed that he was an
American hero. Neither time, it seems,
did the President ask either man what in
1 lis proclaimed ignorance of avat j
enterprise that was in consonance"
his ideology and justified byhisrhc
is difficult to accept. In the end,it® i
well turn out that he was not, liketl
cuckolded spouse, the last to know
was us.
Copyright 1987, Washington Post Wri0
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Not the Love Boat
EDITOR:
I found the “motor vs canoe” analogy of Mr. Brown and Mr. Hendf :
mostly inapplicable and ridiculously simplistic. It is not remotely “a parallelof
crimination in our society.”
No one argues that minorities have been severely handicapped by past" 1
injustices. However, I doubt that few, if any, Americans entering the work
today or presently struggling up the corporate ladder ever contributed teas'
which mandated individuals of varying capabilities based on their race.
The challenge is to correct these past inequities in a manner which isam*
to all “racers” including, perish the thought, white males. To now mandate tin 1
norities will “make up for lost distance” by arbitrarily “displacing the rulingnWf
ty” is a grossly discriminatory solution no matter how well-meaning theorigii'
tentions.
A couple of age-old sayings come to mind: “Two wrongs don’t make ail
and “You can’t have it both ways.” I submit that most applications of Affiri"
Action are an attempt to do just this.
Of course, with their logic, or lack thereof, I suppose Mr. Brown and Mi
derson will now conclude that I and others who share these views are “raff 1
cers.”
Daryl G. Parma ’78
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit W ,r ,
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