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Page 2Arhe Battalion/ Thursday, November 19,1987 Opinion Kids need information on ‘moral’ issues As a society we believe in educa tion — until it in- volves an issue that is even slightly controver sial. Many wonder why children are taking drugs and getting pregnant. Our reluctance to educate our chil dren about drugs, sis in the home by the nuclear family. I’m talking about current state-of-the- art information presented in a non- judgmental fashion. I wish that type of inforr.iutioii was available to every child, but it's not. DA Jensen sex and alcohol ar^to blame for the de linquency of many youth. It’s not enough to tell the kids that they are too young for sex “just becau se.” It’s not adequate to tell them that drugs are illegal “just because.” It’s like telling them they can’t do something be cause adults say so for no good reason. It just makes experimentation more likely. It increases the appeal of the very things they aren’t supposed to do. There aren’t many parents in this country who will sit down with their children and tell them the facts about drugs and sex. These are subjects many parents don’t feel comfortable dis cussing. While these parents wallow in their discomfort, their children learn about drugs and sex on the street, where the information they receive is usually wrong and sometimes life- threatening. The path to controlling teen-age ex perimentation with sex, drugs, and alco hol is information. Information means education. Education is the answer, but it isn’t a very popular idea because many par ents, politicians and clergy are afraid that educating the kids about the “Naughty Three” will promote prom iscuous behavior and premature use. They claim that information about such controversial “moral” issues should be left in the home, where they can control the climate in which the information is presented. And I agree, in a way. I’m talking about the kind of educa tion that is not provided on a regular ba it’s very important for children to know where their parents stand on per- Pot use no reason for nomination to go up in smoke There are those who say it is unfair that Judge Doug las Ginsburg, Pres ident Reagan’s lat- est failure as a Supreme Couxt nominee, had to take a fall because he’d smoked dope some years ago. And they’re right. A large percent- Beyond that, yon h ive to wonder what is going on in the White House. How could the president r advisers have let him publicly defend Ginsburg? There was no chance — I mean zero chance — that the nomination would fly at that point. Donald Kaul age of the best and the brightest of the Baby Boom generation has experi mented with drugs at one time or an other in their lives. Like it or not, those are the facts. It borders on the idiotic to treat that experimentation as a mark of Cain, one that disqualifies them for posi tions of authority for life. Personally, I would have disqualified Ginsburg for other sleazy episodes of his shady past. In another, larger sense, however, justice was served in the Ginsburg case as it was played out. The Reagan admin istration got precisely what it deserved. The president’s men have been famous for being the tough kids on the block when it came to drugs. Hit the users as well as peddlers, give jail sentences, show no mercy. According to an admin istration official, this is the Reagan pol icy on employment in the Justice De partment. “ . . . . Occasional marijuana use in college is frowned upon, but not an ab solute bar to employment. The use of marijuana in law school is a lot more problematic, but any drug use after be coming a member of the bar is an abso lute bar.” Ginsburg’s problem wasn’t Bork’s, that he had too many enemies, it was that his friends didn’t like him. When Ronald Reagan puts up a person for the Supreme Court whom Joe Biden de fends and Chuck Grassley dumps on, you know, to use the words of a future world leader, that he has stepped in the deep doo-doo. I don’t blame Mr. Reagan. I sincerely believe he doesn’t know what’s going on — not in the economy, not in the world, not in his basement. He needs help and he’s not getting it. You have to begin to suspect that At torney General Edwin Meese is a Demo cratic mole in the Reagan Cabinet. It was he who talked the president into putting up Ginsburg’s name after Mr. Reagan had all but settled on a more moderate choice, Judge Anthony Ken nedy of California. One of the side effects of the fiasco is that politicians have started to confess that they too used marijuana in the dear, dead long ago, on the theory that it’s better to admit it now than have it come out later. I too have a confession. I have never used marijuana. Not once, not ever. Ginsburg admitted smoking grass while a law professor at Harvard. Thus, by the president’s own standards, Gins burg doesn’t belong on the Supreme Court. So what does the president do? When Ginsburg was forced to reveal his drug Use, Mr. Reagan said, in effect: “Boys will be boys. Let’s forgive and forget.” Fine, then let’s expunge the police re cords of all the people who have been arrested on minor drug charges in the past 25 years. That’s not a bad idea, ac tually, but until the flat earthers in the Reagan administration are ready to do it, forget high appointments to the high court. I don’t brag that around much, for fear of being accused of being a mem ber of the Moral Majority. My relative innocence is not a matter of high moral standards; it’s cowardice. You see, I have enough trouble controlling my use of drugs that come with ice cubes in them. If I ever enjoyed a drug that didn’t give me a headache and make me want to throw up the next day, I’m afraid I’d be lost. So if President Reagan is looking to change his luck with Supreme Court nominees, he just might look in my di rection. I’m going to be keeping close to the phone for the next couple of days, just in case. On with the comedy. Copyright 1987, Tribune Media Services, Inc. The Battalion (USES 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 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4 111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. tinent issues, like drugs and sex. It is through this knowledge that the morals and values of youth are formed. So I say keep home education and discussion open and lively, but don’t rely on it as the sole source of information available to this country’s youth. Let’s open communication channels for sex and drug education in the public school system. Let’s educate the chil dren about issues they must face, be cause there is no way to protect them from life. Life in today’s society means exposure to drugs and sex — and misin formation about both. understand everything they are told, but at least they will have the foundation for a complete education. It’s possible to tailor an education program to the age level of the students. It’s done every day in reading and math. It can be done for sex and drug educa tion as well. In Texas ting i tiorse erinj I wonder if parents realize that some children (not theirs, of course) are ex perimenting with sex and drugs as early as elementary school. It’s imperative that education begin before experimen tation. Children have a natural curiosity about everything at a very young age, so start education early. Maybe they won’t I think it’s encouraging that the ad vent of AIDS has finally forced the issue of sex education on the public. It finally became possibly fatal to be uninformed or misinformed, where before there was only the risk of VD or pregnancy tection, in the form of information,is nally available on a grassroots level. I’d like to see that information tended to the people who really ned the youth. I believe giving kidsinfon tion will enable them to make inform lives t decisions about drugs and sex. Itisai major cision they will make with or withouti s 0 ^' knowledge. I’d rather have themm their decision with it. I give enough credit to lielieve they area ble of assessing the information they ceive. 1 know they cannot assess ini mation they do not have. I think we should have childrenlin ate in life. D.A. Jensen is a senior journalism jor and a columnist for The Battalioi WHICH MPE WAS MORE TO BLAME FOR. THE GINSBUfyi FIASCO? QqOPS/ Aft he Si prove days 1 dent are electi' A. B. Mail Call Do it right or don't do it EDITOR: I was pleased to see that someone at The Battalion has a sense of humor. The switching of the photographs accompanying the article about my lecture on infant nutrition and a study of roaches was a masterful piece of tomfoolery. Luckily for The Battalion, I also have a sense of humor. I was not amused, however, by the distortions of my lecture about the determinants of infant nutrition was primarily concerned with a peri-urban community in Mali; it was not about “Africa” as the headline implies. In case Mr. Schexnaider doesn’t know, Africa is an entire continent, with 55 countries. Therefore, my lecture was not about infant nutrition in “Africa.” Second, I did not say that infant nutrition was not affected by economic constraints. I said that economic problems did not explain all of the malnutrition in Mali, nor did population problems alone, or lack of education alone. I said that some children were growing well in spite of all these problems, and that their nutritional status could be explained, in part, by certain maternal behaviors. The conclusion to be drawn from this data is that infant malnutrition may have a cultural solution. At no point did I say or imply that cultural beliefs were a “problem” which caused infant malnutrition to the exclusion of economic Battalion explained the error. No sense of humor or masterful tomfoolery was involved. The headline accompanying Lee Schexnaider’s story indeed was inaccurate. Schexnaider, however writes stories, not headlines, and should not be held responsible for the mistake. Wake up! EDITOR: constraints. If your reporters cannot be more accurate, I would prefer that they did not cover such events. They do more harm by misrepresenting what was said than they do good by reporting the event. Mr. Schexnaider gets an “A” for attendance, but a “D” for comprehension. Katherine A. Dettwyler The Corps of Cadets is the oldest and most respected organization on the Texas A&M campus. However, there is a problem in today’s Corps of Cadets that has to be addressed: the problem freshmen in the Corps have in maintaining passing grades. Every morning, I see the results of the Corps tradition of making life miserable for its freshmen. Evidence of early morning Corps runs or late night crap-outs are seen in the classroom through the nodding heads and the snores of freshmen. Not only is this detrimental to their grades, but to the Corps of Cadets as well. In general, freshmen test scores are low, their homework is never complete, and they are too afraid of upperclassmen to concentrate on their education. I am a firm supporter of the traditions of Texas A&M but the time for change has come. Upperclassmen in the Corps should allow their freshmen more time for study than the two or three hours they receive during their call to quarters. Not only would this help to raise the Corps’ GPR, but it would also help to polish the Corps’ image. I ask only for a few extra study hours of freshmen in the Corps. After all, they are here to get an education. Derek Murie ’91 Editor’s Note: The photographs in Friday’s Battalion were accidently marked with the wrong page numbers, and were therefore inadvertently switched and run on opposite pages. A correction published in Monday’s 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. 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