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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 1987)
Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, October 16, 1987 Opinion 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- •ervice to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta- ated as a community service lion. 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 witnin 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 per full year. Aavertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address. The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4 111. Secona glass postage paid at Coljege Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address* changes to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. Black leaders are way out of line in criticizing Michael Jackson WS; Equality needed Now that the NFL strike is over and the “real” players are re turning to work, it may be easy for ecstatic fans to lose sight of what the players were fighting for. At first glance, the fight for free agency may seem greedy coming from men whose annual salaries are often exorbitant. But by refusing free agency, the owners are refusing the players a right the owners have: the right to get the best deal they can. Houston may be losing the Oilers to Jacksonville because owner Bud Adams is unhappy with the deal he’s getting from the city and the fans, whose support has been waning. The NFL allows owners to pick up and move when they’re unhappy with the deal they are getting; players don’t have the same right. Whether or not you agree with free agency, it’s easy to see the situation is inequitable. The NFL should give in to tne play ers’ demands on free agency — or require the owners to stay in one place along with them. The Association of Black Psychologists, meeting recently in Washington, indicated their displeasure with black rock star M ichael J ackson for not being what they considered a proper role model for black children. Lewis Grizzard The group metioned Jackson’s heavy makeup, his nose job and his artificially straightend hair. “He’s creating an appearance that is more Anglo than African,” Halford Fairchild, past presdientof the group, was quoted as saying. “We need positive models that exhibit pride in African values of beauty.” Allow me to say, up front, I’m not a Michael Jackson fan. When it comes to music, I go back to my own heritage and the country sounds of Nelson, Haggard and Jones, to name a few. However, if I were Michael Jackson, I would do one of two things: I would either ignore the Association of Black Psychologists or I would tell them, in no uncertain terms, where they could go. Regardless of Michael Jackson’s African heritage, he is currently an American citizen, which means he can do anything he pleases in regard to how much makeup he wants to wear, what shape he wants his nose in and how he wants to style his hair. I will admit that the few times I’ve seen Michael Jackson on television, he did tend to remind me more of a Michele than a Michael, but Willie Nelson has gone to wearing earrings, and I still play and enjoy his music as I did before he decided to bejewel his lobes. throughout the world, and hepn gets all the free Pepsi he wants. He gets a little weird at times.doi] things like sleeping in an oxygen chamber, making Friends witna chimpanzee and trying to buy wbaii of the Elephant Man. But consider this: Roy Rogers»i role model as a child, and herodci horse decorated like a Christmastis and had a f. .end named PatBradu ^£^0: talked to his Jeep. Other than the fact 1 puta my dog at Christmas and haveafc rariety of who jogs, I turned out fairly welb adjusted. Micl rael Jackson’s new album Black people still have a lot of problems, and one of them seems to be that they get a lot of pressure from so- called black leaders on how they should look, who they should vote for and how they should fit in with other blacks. White people used to do that for blacks, but as soon as they cast off those shackles, here came somebody else — their own — with a set of guidelines. What’s so wrong about a black kid looking up to Michael Jackson? He’s got all the money in the world, he’s known atop the rock charts, incidentallv.a >the. campi Ben Lure of ‘Texana’ threatens our state Recently a young lady and I were sitting up late watching television at her apartment and playing video commander with R. Lee Sullivan Guest Columnist the remote control unit. Without warning, she stopped on the Nashville Network. Aghast, I protested loudly and in the strongest terms possible. “Shhhh!” she hissed sternly, increasing the volume. For the next few agonizing minutes I was shocked at the spectacle of this woman I thought I knew watching a country-western music video in open-mouthed adulation, her wide eyes filling with tears as she sniffed sentimentally. The mucus that filled her nose was a phlegm born of unabashed, inbred Texas romance. Sadly, it wasn’t sitting next to me that made this girl’s heart turn to petroleum jelly. My own considerable charms were upstaged by the images on the screen: cowboys, longhorn cattle, the Capitol, crude oil, a chuckwagon and the Marlboro man all spread out on an endless prairie with the Lone Star flag covering the sky. The music twanged along to lyrics that went something like, “From Brownsville to Dallas/El Paso to Sabine,/the Rio Grande and Red rivers/Keep heaven in- between.” “That’s awful!” I blurted. „ “It’s a damn good song!” she shot back in a accent notably thicker than the one God and nature endowed her with. To tell the truth, this woman normally carries absolutely no trace of Texas in her diction at all. Now she sounded like Jeanna Clare. Unwilling to be Don Mahoney at any price and frankly terrified by a transformation that could only end up in a kind of East-Texas Exorcist (“Your mother sucks chili-dogs in Cleveland!”), I retreated from Calamity Jane’s private Alamo before she started spitting a stream of Wolf Brand at me. This summer I met a girl from New Jersey who refused to believe I was a native Texan. “You don’t sound like a Texan,” she told me. Well, she didn’t pronounce Jersey as “Joisey,” so I don’t think she’s really from anywhere near the Rust Belt. However, she’s right — I don’t talk like I’m from Texas, at least not the Texas you see on the Nashville Network or CBS. Heck, Larry Hagman’s from Texas, and when he’s out of character, even he doesn’t talk like J.R. Ewing. Remember when ’ol J.R was Maj. Nelson? “Oh, Master, you cannot be from Texas; you do not sound like Slim Pickens!” Truth is, Jeannie, the Texas J.R. and Slim come from is the one you have to blink up on prime-time. Driving through Austin, Dallas or San Antonio, you can find ample evidence of make-believe Texas, which has come to be known as “Texana”: cowboy boots and 10-gallon hats and six-shooters merchandising everything from barbeque to baby oil. Reason is, a good part of these cities’ economies depend on tourism. If expectant yankees are short-changed on their visit to the Lone Star State, they may not come back. Travel farther south, though, to Houston, and it’s difficult to tell you’re in Texas at all. Houston is downright ugly, but it’s real live Texas nonetheless. It’s unpretentious and power-hungry, dedicated to commerce and doesn’t care who knows it. A lot of its citizens may be out of work at the moment, but that’s the reason most of the pioneers who originally came to Texas crossed the Red River in the first place. You don’t get the veneer of Wild West hokum trying to disguise trade as tradition in Houston like you do up in Dallas, where they call it “bidness,” and it’s real cute. Houston is hardball, stripped-down capitalism that everyone can get a piece of no matter who his daddy is. Houston looks the way it does because people don’t go there to sight see; they go there to make money, the oldest authentic Texas tradition there is. The occasional stray tourist who does end up in Houston gets sent to Pasadena because it sort of looks like Hollywood Texas, but that’s only because yahkees know more about Gilley’s than they do about NASA. Besides, before John Travolta made his movie, almost no one wore starched Wranglers and Ropers to Gilley’s. When I was in high school, we used to go there wearing 501s and AC/DC T-shirts, our hair hanging down to our shoulders, and we were more Texan than a whole posse of urban cowboys. Of course, my young lady friend would disagree. It is instructive to note that she comes from old Texas money. The past was good to these people, and it’s hard for them to give up things like an economy based on oil and agriculture. Besides, real he-men don’t have a state income tax on the trust funds their parents worked so hard to inherit. Embracing the same sort of manifest destiny that motivated their forebears, these civic-minded successors to peerage in the redneck realm glory in the heritage that landed them in Highland Park, and they want things to stay that way. No matter if their history is as much of a myth as amateur athletics at SMU. A tough son-of-a-gun like Sam Houston was probably as sentimental as a rattlesnake, and I’ll bet he would have hated country music as much as he did the Confederacy. Dude-ranch Texas is good public relations as long as we don’t start believing our own press. We’re history when the accent becomes more important than what we have to say, when being Texan becomes more important than being successful. The men and women who settled this state concerned themselves with what Texas could be, not what it had been. That’s why it’s called the Lone Star State instead of the Lone Star Republic, or even worse, Mexico. R. Lee Sullivan is a graduate student in English. 'YOU KNOW, THOSE SMOKELESS CIGARETTES REALL'/ MAKE A DIFFERENCE... THESE ARE THE CLEANEST CANCER CELLS I'VE EVER SEEN. he’ll make enough money ofTthesl to buy himself a real elephantiflK wants one. Meanwhile, don’t anybody tel Association of Black Psycholopsca Charlie Pride, the country musku who happens to he black and is jtti rich selling white people’s music is them. WASH IN epartment Joyd Bents is goal of r art of the o The repe ® 1901 SANDeeouMot f'lf® ne n d m e i u -Texas, wo Knowing something like that® j' make a black shrink have a nervosi ^ (| breakdown. Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate Texas A make large provement ties of the Health and thority, said thority’s pu Velasque dents do vo ties, which ration offic The stud aid. About psychology bout two t< olunteers c The psyc [erent thin] aid; some big sisters fc ork as as >t contain! ■in into opp I The tax i ■edicted oil ft; 1990. Th ft the “wind fttin because ■ Hut that’s Bought in J little revenu ijpsc of oil p ■ Instead of out at $9.39 dLfnerican Pe Mail Call Where has 'Howdy' gone? EDITOR: Where have all the Howdy’s gone? In our efforts to become a “world class” university, Texas A&M students, faculty and administrators have lost sight of the spirit of Aggieland. The longstanding tradition of greeting people on campus with a “howdy” is quickly becoming extinct. A&M is well-known for its friendliness and strong school spirit. It is a reputation which students take pride in and which makes A&M unique. With the increase of enrollment because of Vandiver’s goal of a “world class” university, Texas A&M has begun to lose the characteristics which brought people to it in the first place. Texas A&M can be a “world class” university without 40,000-plus students. The quality and spirit of the people are what make the University “world class.” Come on Ags — Say “howdy,” dammit! Gail Turchi ’90 Gina Rumore ’89 Editor’s note: At A&M, lamenting the demiseofibtj dy" tradition is almost as much of a tradition as si$ the first place. The following appeared in The M on Oct. 30, 1947: BLOOM COUNTY 0C&W/ vow' I . Hf\ Hfl HA .dr V 7 HOCfT'mi THANK YOU. i Love YOU ML. FUM'f/ HA HA mm ha ha m m Howdy faces extinction One of A&M’s oldest and most creditable rapidly sinking into oblivion. T he custom of gret® eryone with a friendly “howdy” is one of the most® assets of an Aggie, and yet the present studentlxxM ans and corps members alike, have gradually let tq tice slip into disuse without a single note of dissent To be sure, A&M students still speak, butt be found is that friendly atmosphere that once eft the campus. . . . What is the cause of this in Who is responsible? Why, WE are! Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The tkA serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will mah Tj maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and mwl w j sification, address and telephone number of the writer. by Berke Bret HEY. mrcH THIS... MfT... NO... 1 CANT TAKE /T...