Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, November 2,1987
Opinion
So you want to know about Skin Heads?
My sophomore
year, I visited the
Baylor campus to
watch our wild
and bodacious
Aggie team take
on those fiesty
Baylor Bears in
our annually
elebrated pigskin
tossing ritual.
Since my friend
was a Baylorite,
and he got the tickets, I found myself
smack dab in the middle of the Baylor
crowd.
Rest assured, though, I was doing all
that good Ag stuff. You know, yelling
and hissing and booing, then looking
around and chastising everyone else for
booing. The good Ag stuff.
But then something very interesting
happened. When our beloved Aggie
Corps of Cadets marched by, a murmur
ran through the Baylor crowd around
me. The murmur formed into a
mumbling, and then the mumbling
formed into a somewhat coherent
chant. After a few seconds of intent
listening, I finally discovered what they
were chanting. It was “Skin Head. Skin
Head. Skin Head.”
Skin Head? I was bemused. Could
this possibly be a nefarious plot hatched
by the Baylor students to insult our
favorite synchronized marchers, our
guardians of academic freedom and
individual expression on the A&M
campus? Surely not. Yet, I could not
shake the idea that this was, in some
small way, something important that I
should be aware of.
I decided to investigate further.
After taking the dust buster to the
unabridged Webster’s, I flipped though
it with great zeal, searching for my
quarry. I soon found it, hidden between
skin grafting and skink. Here is what it
said:
1 Skinhead (skin-hed) n 1: one whose
hair is cut very short 2: a young short-
haired working-class British hoodlum.
2 Skin Head (skee-hey) n 1: a
member of quasi-elite brotherhood
which is dedicated to the universal
conquest of liberalism in political and
social thought by methods equivalent to
those prefered in Germany during the
late 1930s and early 1940s 2: one from a
university whose hair is cut very short.
Usually found dressed in khaki or
fatigues, quelling student masses and
threating students from other colleges
with bodily harm.
I found myself in a conundrum as I
perused the dictionary entry. The
pronounciation of the Baylor students
did sound like “skee-hey, skee-hey,” and
thus I concluded that they were
referring to the dictionary’s second
entry. But could they possibly be
referring to our Corps members? The
evidence did seem to point to that. I
needed more information.
I interviewed a Baylor student and
asked him if this “skee-hey” chant was
meant as an insult. He told me that the
Corps insults itself enough without their
help. After visiting our spacious
campus, he pointed to the songs the
Corps members sang as they romped
around the school as evidence of their
Being a good Samaritan
ain’t what it used to be
A couple of
weeks ago, I wrote
about a kind-
hearted woman
who gave a
stranger mouth-
to-mouth
resuscititation
after he collapsed
on a Chicago
sidewalk and
appeared to be
dying.
When the city’s paramedics arrived,
they looked at the man’s arms and
discovered that he was a mainlining
junkie. And, as it turned out, he was not
only a junkie, but a gay junkie. And not
only a gay junkie, but one with bleeding
gums.
Naturally, the woman was alarmed at
the possibility that she might have been
exposed to AIDS. So she tried to
persuade the hospital where the man
was treated to give her information,
including his name.
The hospital refused, saying the law
prevented it from giving out any
information on the man.
So she turned to the city’s Health
Department for help. She told her story
in detail to a department employee who
listened, then asked: “Did you have sex
with him?”
And that was where we left the story
of Diane, the good Samaritan. Since
then, there have been other
developments.
“My social life has taken a nose dive,”
says Diane, who is divorced.
“There’s been someone in my life. I
showed him the article and obviously
he’s rather hesitant. We haven’t broken
up, but I haven’t seen him very much in
the last couple of weeks.
“My dentist read the article and now
he wears a mask when he works on my
teeth. Friends who used to shake my
hand no longer do.
“I don’t know if I can describe it, but
my friends seem different now. It’s just
a feeling I have, a gut reaction. They’re
concerned about my welfare, but they’re
also concerned about their own. But
with all the misinformation going
around about AIDS, I’m not surprised.
“The impression I get from people is,
they look at me with amazement, and
the look on their faces says: ‘Why did
you do such a stupid thing?’ It’s as if I
could have somehow known that he was
an addict. Or a promiscuous queen.”
The hospital where the man was
treated still hasn’t done much for Diane,
although it has tried.
“They’ve tried to get him to come in
for a test. They’ve been in contact with
his mother, and she thinks it would be a
good idea. But he’s refused.
“What really infuriated me is that the
hospital told me that he’d like to talk to
me and they asked me if they could give
him my phone number.
“When they asked me that, I was
furious. I told them: ‘You won’t tell me
who he is, but you want to give him my
name and phone number? Do you think
I want some junkie calling me at two
o’clock in the morning telling me he’s
sorry?’
Working on her own, however, Diane
has discovered the man’s name. When
the parmedics treated him, they took
down that information, and it is a
matter of public record.
But that hasn’t helped Diane track
him down because the man seems to be
constantly on the move. A busy lifestyle,
I assume.
So Diane is going to go ahead and
take the series of tests. Thre’s no great
urgency. As a state health official said:
“It’s not like she can go in and take a
shot and change anything.” In other
words, if she’s got it, she’s got it and
that’s that.
The state official also said: “I’ve
talked to our medical experts and they
said that her chance of getting AIDS is
extremely slim.”
Incidentally, after I wrote the first
column about Diane’s experience, I
heard from an organization that
promotes educating the public on how
to give cardiopulmonary resuscitiation.
The organization said that I may have
been irresponsible in writing the article,
because I might discourage others from
giving mouth-to-mouth aid to strangers.
They might have a point, so I want to
make it clear that I was not trying to
frighten people into ignoring someone
in need of help.
On the other hand, it might not be a
bad idea to take a couple of seconds and
check to see if he has needle marks on
his arms and is wearing lipstick.
Copyright 1987, Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Mike
Royko
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
South west Journalism Conference
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stupidity and deranged minds. Allow
me to repeat an excerpt of one of the
songs to you:
“Issue me a hand grenade,
You should have seen the mess I’ve
made.
Issue me an M-16
Turn me into a killing machine.”
I rebutted. How can a normal person,
using logic and reason, actually state
that these songs are the workings of
deranged minds? The songs are
obviously the work of poetic geniuses
attempting to show us how the value of
indivualism and the spirit of social
harmony can be merged into one entity.
The songs are inspiring works, telling us
to better mankind with hard work,
perserverance and diligence.
But my initial question remains. Is the
Skin Head (skee-hey) chant an insult?
I decided to take another angle. Are
our Corps members actually Skin Heads
as per the dictionary entry?
I searched the methods of the Corps
of Cadets. Admittedly, they do wear
khaki and fatigues. And at times they
have threatened other school’s students
with bodily harm. But they really don’t
quell our student masses.
I suppose, though, that this is because
we don’t have any masses to quell.
After all, as we all know from
previous literature, we are all apathetic,
slothful creatures driven by our insane
desire to escape the reality of life.
Student masses? Hardly.
The Corps cannot quell non-existent
masses. If the Corps cannot quell them,
then it does not fulfill the qualifications
of the dictionary entry. If it does not
fulfill the qualifications, then it cannot
be considered as a group of “Skin
Heads.” Therefore, our beloved Corps
is composed merely of swell guys just
trying to do their job of upholding our
constitutional right of pure,
unadulterated conservatism. They
uphold our right to have that narrow
mind, to invade any country we see fit,
to make everyone know that the
American way is the only way.
That is what our Skin Heads are all
about. If anyone disagrees, I’ll sic’em
on you.
And gosh dang it, that’s the way it
should be.
Mark Nair is a senior political science
major and a columnist for The
Battalion.
islature
in
ter
Mail
Vote against Proposition 10
EDITOR:
I plead with my fellow Texans to defeat the
constitutional amendment Proposition 10 on Nov. 3.
Described as a personal property exemption, it would
actually accomplish the opposite.
Article VIII, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution
forbids the Legislature to allow ad valorum taxation of
personal property that is not used for business purposes.
Quote: “The legislature by general law SHALL exempt
personal effects not held or used for production of
income.” Webster defines “effects” as movable property.
Texas Property Tax Code 11.14 (b) 2 makes
unconstitutional exceptions to that mandate by stating that
“personal effects” does not include motor vehicles, boats
and other means of transportation (any movable property
that rolls on wheels, floats on water or flies in air.) I
contested that part of the Tax Code in 221st District
Court. Therefore, the legislative lawyers are attempting to
have us change the Constitution to conform to their
unconstitutional law.
Call
Since the Legislature is ordered by the Texas
Constitution to exempt ALL our personal property not
used for income, there is no need to “ALLOW them to
exempt CERTAIN personal property” and in addition to
allow each taxing unit to continue to tax personal property
if they so choose. They can merely change the law to
conform to the Constitution as is.
By approving Proposition 10, we would seriously
weaken or repeal the personal property protection that we
now have under the Texas Constitution. Please vote
against Proposition 10 and any other of the 25 proposed
amendments that you do not fully understand and
approve. As the one who challenged the constitutionality
of Tax Code 11.14 (b) (2) I feel dutybound to inform you
of the purpose behind Proposition 10 and the inherent
danger involved.
Art Rohsner
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
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BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed
BLOOM COUNTY
.rmose crummy, (/n&rrtsfjl
mpLOvees... the strip's
PROFITS PLUMMETING,..
THE PV0UC S LOYALTY
DRIFTING WAV LIKE
FALL LEAVES...
v ^ ^ TO EE
PONE?
OF COURSE/
A P0U3LE WHAMMY /
TOMORROW 1 GO ON
WITH AN TACOCCA
APPLE-P/E, ALL-
AMERICAN prrcH.,.
AHP NEXT WEEK.
HIRE PERMANE-
TEMPORARY
CHARACTERS...
Hee HEE
by Berke Breathed
6CMI
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