Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, July 7, 1987
Opinion
Cooperation will solve Brazos County
It’s been two
years since the
Harvard
University School
of Public Health
and Physicians
Taskforce on
Hunger in
America statistics
were taken. It has
been two years
since statistics
defined Brazos
County as the hungriest county in
Texas.
The study found 22.3 percent of the
Brazos County population lived below
the poverty standard of an income of
$ 10,609 for a family of four.
Despite the figures, some prominent
local leaders and study researchers
insisted the study was inaccurate
because the data was not adjusted to
account for student population. The
fact is the student population did not
contaminate the majority of the
population blocks examined in the
study.
Ruth Schaffer, a professor of
sociology at Texas A&M, examined the
population blocks in the county used in
the study and found only two areas in
College Station contaminated by
students. No blocks in Bryan were
contaminated.
Brazos County does have a lot of
poverty. It was bad when the statistics
were taken. It is getting worse and will
continue getting worse until
employment opportunities in the
county improve.
“There are a lot of people who are in
bad condition just because there isn’t
enough employment,” Schaffer said.
“You are always going to have people
who cannot work and people who work
the welfare system, but their numbers
are really small compared to the
number of low-income families who are
going to work if they can.”
The lack of available employment in
Bryan-College Station is the largest
factor in the increase of poverty in the
area.
“The area has lost industry,” she said.
“They lost the Texas Instruments plant.
They lost International Shoes, which
was the bottom of the barrel.
International Shoes is a very poor
community company anywhere you
find it. It does nothing for the
community. It pays the lowest wage. It’s
not good to its employees. But they did
provide jobs for very low-income people
who could not get other kinds of jobs.
Now, that’s gone.
“A lot of people do not have jobs. In
addition, the University, in this time of
dollar constraints, has held together the
upper levels of the University but on the
lower end, in terms of custodial services,
it has not re-employed when it’s lost
someone. There are a lot of people
unemployed who used to work for the
University.”
The prospects for the poverty
stricken in this area are not good
because industry does not show signs of
increasing. The amount of
unemployment in Bryan-College
Station area will increase. A large
number of families will drift from
middle-class positions into lower-class
positions because Bryan-College Station
is not a choice place for industrial
development.
Schaffer said, “Bryan-College Station
does not compete well for industry.
They compete with one another, so they
don’t get very much money. The answer
to the poverty problem in the area is
work. You are always going to have
some families whose income is so low
they just can’t make it, but the amswer
to poverty is work.”
I think, given this information, the
chances to rise above the gripping hold
of poverty are grim in Bryan-College
Station; the chances to fall into the
gripping hold of poverty are good.
Poverty exists in our community
regardless of what community leaders
want citizens to believe. Poverty is here,
and it is growing at an alarming rate.
poverty ^
I’ve noticed an increase in service ^
designed to help the poverty Strieker;
Bryan. I’m glad the community citizel
are attempting to confront a probler
that they have been told isn’t that bat
It’s time for increased cooperatior K
bet ween t he community leaders, the < ()V<
community people and the college
community, to find ways to makeout
area more attractive to industries
searching for new locations.
| | led
mei
far
j
College Station work together to att: ;
industry instead of bidding againstet
other. I hope that, as a community,»[
can improve the condition of the
population.
D. A. Jensen is a junior journalism
major and a columnist for The
Battalion.
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Bei
Mail Call
Think before you bite
EDITOR:
Robert Morris needs a vacation, or at least a tranquilizer. His spastic
tirade in Tuesday’s Battalion must have left him with throbbing temples and
a frothing mouth.
He should take it easy next time.
Now, about his exasperating diatribe, I offer some refiections.
Unfortunately, most of the article was void of any cogent points which to
dispute. Instead, it relied on trite liberal “sloganism” and some
extraordinarily impotent sarcasm. As to one point which I think it tried to
make, it seemed to be having a hard time. It said, “To insinuate that America
ever was . . . morally corrupt is absurd.” Then, in the following paragraph, it
said that in 1980 peace was not important to Americans. Apathy where peace
is concerned represents societal moral corruption of the highest form (e.g.
Nazi Germany.) The characterization of liberals as having a monopoly on
virtue and intelligence is both arrogant and preposterous. But then, the
article’s arrogance is most evident when it called the U.S. a nation of sheep
that has seemingly awakened. Is Morris the only enlightened one?
This meandering nonsense saves its most ponderous parcels until the end
when its degree of confusion was reaching its culmination. Was Morris aware
that he actually accused the Reagan administration of funding Sandinistas?
He must have been in a state of complete delirium when he made reference
to “our Brazos bastion of young conservative ignorance . . .” Ignorance? —
Robert, there is no such word as “conservatist.” With your best interests in
mind, I humbly offer the following advice.
The next time you sit down at your typewriter, all hot and bothered and
ready to spew forth all manner of gibberish — STOP. Slow down. And find
something to do that doesn’t get you so excited.
Kirk Stebbins ’88
Sailing away
EDITOR:
I had a bad first day of classes. Class was fine, but on the afternoon of June 8
I was loading my two windsurfing sails in my car at my apartment complex on
College Main, and I locked myself out. After the manager’s second key
worked, I jumped into my car and left to buy new battens. After I took out
my big sail at the shop, I noticed I forgot my small sail on the sidewalk at my
home. I hurried back, but it was gone. It was a 4 square meter yellow and
dark blue Marder sail made by North Sails. It was folded up in a pillowcase
with brown stripes. It is a rare, out-of-business brand worth $135 now. I
really need it, so please be a good Ag and a good neighbor and return it. Or if
anyone sees it on the lake, please call the police.
Paul Svecina ’87
Get the "BS" out
EDITOR:
Dear Cod-fearing, upper-middle class Republicans,
Please take note! Grab your Bible. Satan and the secular humanists are at
it again. If you go to the library and look for a Bible, notice where it is located.
The call numbers start with “BS”! Subtle yes, unimportant never! The
disrespect the Bible suffers (and consequently God and worse, Oral Roberts)
because of “BS” is horrible. We, as good Aggie Christians, must write our
legislators and, better yet, our TV evangelists. We must form a PAG, Political
Auction Committee, and get a Christian elected who w ill do something about
this destructive disrespect. I know Oral Roberts can raise people from the
dead, but can he save the Bible from “BS”?
Andy Vann ’88
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Sondra Pickard, Editor
Jerry Oslin, Opinion Page Editor
Rodney Rather, City Editor
John Jarvis, Robbyn L. Lister, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Robert W. Rizzo, Photo Editor
Editorial Policy
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of Regents.
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dents in reporting, editing and photography classes within the
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What’s better than sex? Read on
Lewis
Grizzard
The fear of
getting AIDS or
some other terrible
disease has caused
many people to
rethink their
attitudes about
having sex.
Some even are
giving up sex
altogether. This is
called abstinence. I
have engaged in
sexual abstinence
often during my lifetime.
Usually, however, this was not a self-
imposed situation. There have been periods
during my lifetime I have wondered if the
entire female population hadn’t somehow
gotten together and made a pact to keep my
sexual activity to nothing more than a
memory.
During these sexually-inactive days I
often had to come up with all sorts of other
pleasures of the flesh to give me at least
some sort of satisfaction and to keep my
mind off being the target of a sexual boycott.
Now that self-imposed sexual abstinence
may soon become quite popular, I have
decided I might be doing a public service to
offer certain alternatives to sex.
Your mother often told you, I’m sure,
“You don’t have to you-know-what to have
fun.”
She was right. You likely will never find
anything that will make you scream and
holler and jump up and down and spend
your money like sex will, but there are a few
things in which you can engage that will at
least give you a Triple-A thrill or two. For
example:
GET SOMEBODY ELSE TO SHAMPOO
YOUR HAIR: It’s great, believe me. And
even if you can’t get anybody to get into your
shower or tub with you to do the honors, you
always can go down to a local hair salon and
pay for a shampoo, which is legal, even in
Georgia, which has a law against most
everything that is fun.
GET SOMEBODY TO SGRATCH
YOUR BACK: Talk about tingles up and
down your spine. The great thing here is
you usually can convince somebody to
scratch your back for free. I’ve only engaged
in boy-girl back-scratching, but, like Jim
Bakker says, “Whatever turns you on . . .”
PIG OUT: Just go crazy and eatalott:
something that is terribly fatteningorba:
for you. Hiding in the closet while doing:
makes the experience more erotic.
I often pig out on Dove Bars, whichan;
glorified Eskimo Pies. Eat 10 Dove Bars:
your closet and I guarantee you your
won’t be on sex again for hours. You'l
busy throwing up.
WRITE SOMETHING DIRTY OX. 1 .
RESTROOM WALL: “l ^assie runs alien
and sucks eggs” will do until you thinkof
something original.
RUN AFTER CARS AND SUCRE®
Ifl .assie enjoys it, maybe you will, too.
WATCH THE EVENING NEWS IN I
THE NUDE: For you kinkier types.
WRITE A LETTER TO PENTHOUl
MAGAZINE: They’ll print anything.
by writing, “I was watching the evening!*!
in the nude when my dog Lassie.. ,”ani!l
on from there.
TAKE UP GOLF: As someone famonj:
once said, golf and sex are a lot alike.
T hey’re both things you don’t havetobel
very good at to enjoy.
Take it from me.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
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