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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 17, 1987)
Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, September 17,1987 The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Sondra Pickard, Editor John Jarvis, Managing Editor Sue Krenek, Opinion Page Editor Rodney Rather, City Editor Robbyn Lister, News Editor Loyd Brumfield, Sports Editor Tracy Staton, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial 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 students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas 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 p>er full year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address cnanges to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. Birthday of a vision The 200th birthday of the U.S. Constitution this year may be slightly subdued. To some, the summer’s Iran-Contra hearings were evidence that our government’s checks and balances are unchecked and unbalanced. And the Founding Fathers could not have anticipated anything like the name-calling, ideological battle that has surrounded the president’s nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. But the Constitution, thank goodness, is a hardy document. It has served our nation through 26 amendments, a bitter civil war, a multitude of interpretations. The Constitution has shaped Americans’ view of government, while at the same time the collective, kaleidoscopic view of “We the People” shapes the meaning of the Constitution. “The framing of the Constitution has been a continuous process, rather than a purely episodic one,” Harvard law profesor Lawrence Tribe has said. “The real framers were not only the gentlemen who met in Philidelphia . . . but also the many people, who often in the roles of dissent and rebellion, sat in, or marched and sang, or sometimes gave their lives, in order to translate their vison of what the Constitution should be into political and legal reality.” The rough times may not be over yet, but the vison still lives. MdiB Call Confederate flag an insult... EDITOR: Opinion Catholic church too smai? rc to sponsor TV evangelism There’s a nasty rumor going around that the Roman Catholic church will be forced to resort to television evangelism to save itself from certain financial and spiritual disaster. It’s not suprising that the source of DA Jensen the rumor is a television evangelist. Jerry Falwell told the nation during the airing of “Catholics in America” that the Catholic church would be committing suicide by not beginning a television ministry. I hope he’s wrong. I think Pope John Paul II’s decision not to celebrate Mass on television was a wise one considering the image of mass media evangelism in this country. It’s cheap and it’s true: Some entrepreneurs have decided to make a buck from religion. The biggest argument for television evangelism is the easy access it provides for worshipers. It enables those who would not or could not go to Mass the opportunity to share in spiritual life, for a price. Viewers are bombarded with pleas for money. They are threatened with guilt. In short, they are pressured into contributing to an institution about which they know little. They are coerced into buying faith and salvation. I don’t think mass availibility is valid. The Catholic church has never relied on television to raise funds or gain membership. It is the largest religious organization in the world with 628,990,900 followers. The Catholic church offers followers individualized spiritual life. Parishioners have access to an emissary of the church at all times. People relying on television evangelism simply do not have the support structure necessary for a full spiritual life. Television religion does not recognize the specialized needs of each individual viewer, but the parish priest can gauge his sermon to the spiritual community he serves. The people who honestly find religion rewarding find the time and the means to attend Mass. Many churches offer transportation to Mass for those in need. The inconvience did not stop the handicapped from attending the papal Mass in San Antonio. Sometimes religion isn’t convient. Sometimes that is one of the reasons religion is so rewarding. Contrary to popular belief, those unable to attend Mass are not abandoned by organized religion. In most denominations, spiritual leaders make house calls, person-to-person. What other good arguments are there for television evangelism? None. The television evangelists continually are bombarded with criticism over their money-hungry demeanors. In retaliation they point out that the Catholic church solicits more money than any other organization. They ridicule the use of bingo as a fund raiser, saying it is far more objectionable than their television pleas. It’s impossible to deny that religious organizations need money tosi is a necessary evil. It is union so much of the money genen through religion is usedforfri propaganda. God did not take Oral RobtR but not because he didn’t raeei: Imam ial quota. Every timetht: deadline came closer Oralexte^ What really amazed me is the conti ibutions that were genen' snt h obvious propaganda. I hen we have the good Re> Falwell heading up the Mon Either you believe the Moralfe nglu < >i \ < hi ai r damned toheii ] is no salvation for the half-hen I’ll avoid speaking about] I he poor guy is now not< out as a crook, he is also bit giving all television ministr name. Television evangelists have* | television stars. The word N rife with sensationalism. Their ministries are rife with sensatiot think anyone seriously looking spiritual life can easily find oat! local church. The life they finii will Ik- more personalized andft more worthwhile. I am happy for those whoha God through the televisionet^ movement. I just hope thevdce up suffering the emotional par Bakker followers felt. I’m glad the pojxr rejected:;' evangelism. It just doesn’tseer the price. D. A. Jensen is a seniorjourm major and a columnist for Thf Battalion. The evanscam of TV’s ‘Rev. Ike •Wl tVX, im Chesshir t< In response to Mike Burkett’s letter of Sept. .15 : Mike, I STRONGLY suggest that you retake History 105 and bring your gradp up frorp the D you obviously received, because your accounTof the Civil War is about as accurate as spelling dog “KAT”! You are correct that the Confederate flag is part of the history of the South. A dark and ugly part of history. A part of history that millions of people are trying to forget. A part of history that prompted blacks in the ’50s and ’60s to lay their lives on the line to show America and the world that the mentality of the Civil War still existed in a country that prided itself on being the land of the free. Innocent blacks have died by the thousands over the years (and some still do in South Africa) trying to obtain not what every American has the right to but what every human being should have the right to. These are the people who made the ultimate sacrifice — and continue to do so — not a bunch of white supremacists who fought to continue a system that oppressed people simply because they were darker-skinned. This is what the Confederate flag still stands for to us of Afro-American descent. It reminds us of a time when blacks were oppressed and treated as half-human. Asking a black person to tolerate a Confederate flag is about as insulting, outrageous, absurd and dehumanizing as asking a Jewish person to tolerate a Nazi flag. Yet according to your letter, you would defend this by arguing the Germans were Fighting for the love of their country. It is a crying shame that a person who has had at least four years of college, has such a narrow-minded view of the Civil War. I ask you this: When you see news clips of the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazis, and other white supremacist groups, what is on their armbands and what flag do they proudly carry? I rest my case. Wendall Gray ’89 ... or is it? EDITOR: Recently a number of people have complained about the presence of the Confederate battle flag at Texas A&M functions (March to the Brazos, bonfire, etc . . .) I would like to provide a rebuttal to these uninformed souls who seek to ban the “racist” Confederate flag. Around 6 percent of the South’s population at the time of the Civil War was slaveowners. The rest of the population fought, but not to protect the tenets of an institution (slavery) which was confined to a relatively small group of affluent plantation owners and which many believed to be a dying institution. Rather, they fought to protect their right to self-determination, which had been stripped from them by the Union states which sought to impose the will of the populated, industrial North on the agrarian South. They also fought in defense of that which every true American and Texan holds dear: their homeland. Today we’re all one nation, yet the Southern culture and heritage are as evident and unique now as ever. The Confederate flag stands as a symbol of cultural unity for Southern Americans much as the Scottish or Welsh flags do for those parts of Great Britain. The flag serves as a source of pride and a reminder of our rich history to most Southerners, yet the misperception of it being a racist banner is perpetuated by the Klu Klux Klowns displaying it prominently on the 6 o’clock news. Texas A&M has its roots planted firmly as a Southern institution. Confederate Gen. Lawrence Sullivan Ross had a great influence on the school as its first president and is still remebered today through the Ross Volunteers and other events. The “Rebel Yell” is still heard today at our yell practices and football games. I’m proud of my Southern heritage, and the day I’m prevented from proudly displaying the Confederate battle flag will truly be a sad day in Aggie history. Larry Cox ’88 accompanied by five signatures Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. People often send me solicitations they have received from an evangelist hot on the scent for money. Falwell “must” have your money in 24 hours or PTL will be down the toilet (where it belongs), Swaggart needs a million here and a million there or he’s going off the air, and Roberts is up in his prayer tower doing another deal with God that he wants you to finance. But the Rev. Frederick J. Eikernkoetter II — known to millions as the “Rev. Ike” — still has to be, according to his enemies, the Number 1 hood-winker who ever stood behind a pulpit and looked at his Bible and saw dollar marks. I wrote several months ago of Ike’s “prayer cloth.” You hung the cloth in your window, took it out the next day and sent it back to the Rev. Ike with your “seed offering” and somebody would be delivering your new Cadillac before you could say “aluminum siding.” Well, the Rev. Ike is back with a new, improved angle, a “prayer rug.” A reader sent along the prayer rug he received in the mail. It’s not a rug at all. It’s a piece of paper with a picture of what appears to be a bathmat. That’s on one side. On the other side is a drawing of someone the Rev. Ike identifies as Jesus. (Actually the individual looks more like a skinny Grizzly Adams, but let’s not nitpick here.) The message to the recipient of the prayer rug goes like this: “1. Look into Jesus’ eyes. They are closed. But as you look at them, you will see them open and look at you.” (Not really. Whoever drew the picture drew the figure’s eyes closed and put eyeballs on top of the eyelids. A 4-year-old could figure it out, but people who send money to the Rev. Ike aren’t that intelligent.) “2. Decide what you want.” (I want a Lear, a million-seller, a new pair of Gucci’s and Kim Basinger.) “Then go into a room ALONE and either kneel or spread the rug over your knees. It must touch both knees. “3. Place it in a Bible on Phil. 4:19.” “4. In the morning, please return it to me so I can mail it on to another Dear Soul that (sic) also needs a blessing. “5. Place your seed offering on Jesus’ picture. Just like you are investing in what the Bible promises to you. PLEASE, DO NOT KEEP THIS. I laughed at all that when 1 and probably you did, too. Bu individual raises millions with like that. Not only is he scary, butthii many people are walkingarou who are ignorant enough tola to him? W'hat I can’t understand is "j somebody doesn’t introducekrf making such solicitations illegaii the Rev. Ike and otherssendo j mail fraud, then what is? I know someone whowentiol three years for mail fraud.Heie peanuts compared to the revere: flim-flam. If you receive a prayer rug Rev. Ike, don’t send itback.Tah| your next camping triptostaru ; for another use - which 1 can’t®! in a family newspaper. Another soul is waiting for it!” Copyright 1987, CowlesSyndictte The umpire inspects the ball for foreign substances BLOOM COUNTY mMmil£...0UK HZRO, LACKING A 5CRIPT OR STORY, 15 CALLBP UPON TV W(NO IT... PRESSURE'S ON... THEY'RE GONNA "VOIP" MY I PE A... I know it,.. Lessee... HOlN COW/ir'6 JIMMY HOFF ft / wm meow ness monster / /rs by BerKe Breatl