Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, July 24, 1987
Opinion
Two-percenters improve A&M
Michael
Gardner
Guest Columnist
I am writing
in response to .
the letter that
appeared in
Tuesday’s
Battalion,
written by Mary
King.
She’s upset because a few
freshmen haven’t yet immersed
themselves in Aggie traditions and
progaganda to her satisfaction. She
says, “My response to these
freshmen (why didn’t you refer to
them as ‘Fish,’ for Jackie’s sake?) is
that there are other universities
willing to take people who do not
care. 1 beg them to please go if they
are going to knock anything to do
with A&M.”
Well, I don’t remember the
moment when Jackie struck us with
the bolt of lightning that sent ns
under the Iron Curtain; maybe I
was off spitting on some Aggie
memorial that day, like any self-
respecting two-percenter. But if I’m
not mistaken, TAMU is still located
in the United States, where
differences of opinion are
guaranteed, appreciated and
encouraged. Isn’t this also the place
where folks are innocent until
proven guilty? Did it occur to you,
Miss King, that these freshmen
weren’t yet familiar enough with
Aggie fervor to be lead by it
unfailingly? I guess not, or you
wouldn’t have written your letter.
Given my proud status, by your
definition, as a two-percenter, I
suspect you’d like to ship me off to
someplace where people of my ilk
belong, say UT. Let me tell you
something about one “Bad Ag.” I
participate in few Aggie traditions
because, besides thinking that many
of them have outlasted their original
purpose, I don’t have the time. Poor
excuse, I know. But that’s because
my time outside of classes and work
is Filled not with football games and
yell practice and drinking at the
Chicken and humping it and
playing Traditions Police around
campus, but with wicked and evil
two-percenter activities like working
with MSC Aggie Cinema, a group
that works hard at entertaining
more than 20,000 Aggies each year.
In fact, I’ve been a member of seven
different MSC committees, held
leadership positions in six of those
committees and chaired three of
them. All seven committees provide
a program or a service for Aggies,
from College Bowl to Madrigal
Dinners and Literary Arts.
Depending upon the size of the
program, a chairmanship takes
between 30 and 40 hours a week
during school, and other leadership
positions take 15 to 20 hours each,
with the only compensation offered
(or needed) being the knowledge
that I’ve worked hard to entertain
and educate the students of this
University. I’ve also served as a
despite ‘Good Agt c
c
KANM D.J. for three semesters, a
privilege for which I have to pay so
that the station may continue to
operate.
I’ve made none of these
accomplishments on my own, and
I’ve very much enjoyed every one of
them. Don’t get me wrong, I have
my party time too. And I nave
nothing against yell practice or
football games or most any of the
other trappings of being the Aggie
you want to be. Your letter was
insulting, Miss King, in a way I don’t
think you anticipated; too many
times in this space I have seen letters
that imply that because I don’t melt
and get all weepy when I hear
“Hullaballoo Caneck Caneck,” or
because I have never worked stack
and never will, that I am doing
nothing here but sneakily getting
the benefits of an education and
ruining everyone else’s good time.
My point here is to let all of you
“Good Ags” know that there are a
few of us out there whose blood
not run deep maroon, but who
nonetheless genuinely careaho.
this place and the peoplewhoc||
here, ALL of the people whoco:
here, whether they feel silly
“wildcatting” or not. AndwewJ
hard to help TAMU continueir:
grow, become more interesting,
more diverse each year. WeartJ
of the opinion that Texas /
already as good as it everwillbt,
that nothing should change,
anyone who is different belo
someplace else.
My point may not make it
through your logic-proof 12tl
Towel, but one never knowsi
tries. And just try to sendinybii:
the other way on Highway 6be(;
I’m ready to go.
Michael Gardner is a guest
columnist for The Battalion.
Falwell preaching
prejudice and hate
In the Nazi
concentration
camps, prisoners
were identified by
the color of their
cloth badges. Jews
wore yellow,
communists red
and homosexuals
pink. Along with
the others, Richard
homosexuals were Cohen
marked for
extermination. They died, like Jews,
gypsies and the disabled, for the “crime”
of being what they could not help but
be.
In the history of the Holocaust, the
persecution of homosexuals is a mere
asterisk. Books have been written on the
subject, but the account has been
overshadowed by the greater numerical
crime perpetrated against others — six
million Jews, say, as against possibly
15,000 homosexuals. Maybe for that
reason, it is no longer possible for a
civilized political Figure, especially in the
United States, to be even vaguely anti-
Semitic. It remains possible, however, to
be a demagogue when it comes to
homosexuals.
Jerry f alwell, possibly ignorant of his
historical antecedents, is the example
that comes to mind. In a recent fund
raising letter, Falwell writes about AIDS
as if homosexuals invented it to foist on
the heterosexual community when, in
fact, they suffer most from it. He says
homosexuals “have expressed the
attitude that ‘they know they are going
to die — and they are going to take as
many people with them as they can.’ ”
Falwell calls this “sexual TERRORISM
— and even more deadly than a gun or
a bomb.”
Falwell is in a high dudgeon in his
letter. He says that “militant
homosexuals — carriers of the deadly
disease — have gained civil-rights
advantages” that endanger most
Americans. Falwell does not say what
these “advantages” are, unless by
advantages he means equality, fie says
homosexuals have compelled “local
communities to force morally
upstanding citizens to work alongside
homosexual AIDS carriers.” He
neglects to say that no one has gotten
AIDS from merely working alongside
someone. The contact has to be a bit
more intimate than that.
For Falwell, lies and innuendoes
about homosexuals are nothing new.
Homosexual bashing is his hobby horse.
Several years ago, for instacne, he was a
virtual Paul Revere of homophobia,
riding hither and yon warning
Americans of the nearly mythical gay
school teacher who seduces little boys.
The evidence for such charges is
lacking: Sexual molestation of school
children is rare to begin with and
homosexual molestation even rarer. But
Falwell, in need of funds, had no
patience for facts. He pressed the
button of homophobia to get his cash.
The press holds politicians
accountable for what they say via mail.
Falwell should be no exception to the
rule. In the First place, his actions and
political pronouncements have made
him something of a politician. And in
the second place, what he says in
mailings is just as important as what he
says in the public arena. A letter has a
kind of between-you-and-me intimacy
to it. To the recipient, it seems to say:
This is what I really think. On
“Nightline” and other television shows,
Falwell might appear to be a paragon of
reason and tolerance. His mailings say
otherwise.
Public-opinion polls attest to the
general low regard in which Falwell is
held. But to those who believe in him,
he remains a potent force. People who
think beating up gays is sport can look
to Falwell for succor. Homosexual
groups report an increase in just such
activities. Last year, 5,000 incidents of
harassment or violence directed against
gays were reported. Falwell’s letter all
but provides justiFication for such
incidents. He is the chaplain of
American homophobia.
The mere mention of Nazi
concentration camps colors any
discussion. The image is too horrible,
the experience too awful, for usual
discourse to continue. Surely the United
States is not Nazi Germany and the
homosexual community is in no peril.
And yet we know from this experience
the infinite possibilities of hate and
bigotry. We know, too, what can happen
when public leaders, including
ministers, either offer no rebuke to hate
or mine it for their own purposes — and
worse, are saluted by respected
politicians.
AIDS is a frightening prospect. The
number of potential victims chills us.
Reasonable people will disagree on what
should be done. I, fof one, differ with
the organized homosexual community
on limited mandatory testing. I’m for it.
But there is an older and, even, more
pernicious disease than AIDS and that is
hate — hate of a minority that is
different through no fault of its own.
That disease has already claimed more
victims than AIDS is likely to. Falwell
fights one by encouraging the other.
Copyright 1987, Washington Post Writers Group
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
Tracy Staton, Photo Editor
Editorial Policy
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College Station.
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rial board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the
opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board
of Regents.
The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for stu
dents in reporting, editing and photography classes within the
Department of Journalism.
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion,
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Telephones: instruments
of torture for journalists
any bi
sistan
who v
“W
what
Sumn
wante
issue.
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would
At least 17
reasons for
taking a sledge
hammer and
smashing all
telephones into
unrecognizable
Carol Rust
Guest Columnist
dust occurred to me in the
newsroom on a recent Saturday.
A lady was quite moved by an
article we printed in the newspaper
this month on New Jersey. She was
just certain her uncle in Javahooney,
Tenn., would be, too, and could we
send her a copy so she could send it
to him?
“We ran it in the paper this
month?”
“Or last month — I can’t
remember.”
“Just what did the article say
about New Jersey?”
“Oh, it was something about the
state.”
“Just what aspect of the state was
the article about?”
Long pause. “It was about New
Jersey.”
Another phone was ringing.
Turns out someone’s cousin dyes
peoples’ hair with Kool-Aid and it’s
a new trend and if we did a story
NOW, we’d have the jump on all the
television stations.
And speaking of television
stations, a woman called right then
to see why one of them didn’t show
any blacks at the city council
meeting in their newscast Tuesday.
“Why don’t you call the station
and ask them?”
“Well, I didn’t want to bother
them since it happened Five days
ago.”
You can always tell when a grade-
school civics teacher has assigned a
new project.
“Um, yes, who is our mayor, who
is the current governor of Nevada
and what is the state motto for New
York? Well, the mayor is Maury
Meyers.”
“Spell that.”
“M . ..”
“M or N?”
“M, like in Mickey Mouse.”
“Mickey Meyers?”
Just then a man called to tell me
the world was going to end in
minutes Rocky Mountain Time. I
pointed out that we were an hour
earlier in Gentral Standard Time
and that the world must have
already been over for 15 minutes.
“God bless you,” he said and hung
up.
Then there are those who get
stumped on a question in Trivial
Pursuit who excuse themselves from
the game to go to the bathroom,
sneak into a back bedroom
somewhere and use the phone.
“What do the H’s in 4-H stand for
and what play was Lincoln watching
when he was assasinated?”
I have also noticed that most
people wait until Saturday night to
think of everything that’s ever made
them mad and then call the paper.
“Just what do I have to do to get a
paper delivered? I have asked you
people and asked you people until
I’m blue in the face, and . . .”
“Sir, you need to talk to someone
in circulation.”
“Well, give me someone in
circulation.”
“Their offices are open dun:: ^Jusi
regular business hours, sir. Ifw the S
could call back Monday betweei w ' t ^ ( 1
hours of . . .” which
“It’s just like you people,al® |y ( ntlei
giving me the run-around. Dot ,h ose
give a damn at all or am I theor Te>
person you don’t deliver a papt'
to?” | Ihad a'
“I don’t deliver the papers. l * ,e sl1
* r Musei
“You’re telling me! Let me
someone in charge.”
“I’m the assistant city editorai
I’ll be happy to take ...”
“Yeah, and that’s all you’llet®
— an assistant.”
“I hear Houston has two vert
papers — have you had achancf
look at them?”
I would have loved tostayon
phone with him all night buttlif
other phone was ringing.
“J ust what in the Sam Hilldo
think you’re doing writing that
ridiculous piece in the paper;
“Which ridiculous piece,sir'
write many of them a day.”
“That stupid write-up on
Reagan.”
“Oh, THAT one.”
“You damn liberals are all tin
same. You’re not worth the air'
breathe in 10 minutes’time,
knew how close the CommunM
to taking over this country ..
“Yes sir, I hear they’re in
Javahooney, Term., this minute
“Javahooney, Tenn.?”
“Or New Jersey, I can’t
remember.”
Carol Rust is assistant city*
the Beaumont Enterprise.
/