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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 1987)
Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, December 4, 1987 The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwestjournalism 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 77843-4111. 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. Fiscal foolishness Student Senate Speaker Jay Hays called Wednesday’s meet ing — in which the Senate recommended how 1988-89 student service fees should be allocated — one of the most productive in three years. It’s unfortunate that much of the movement seems to be not progress but regression. The budget says fee recommendations were made on the ba sis of which services are vital to students. If so, the Senate cer tainly has a skewed view of what is vital. The proposal would force the A.P. Beutal Health Center, the most “vital” service the University provides for its students, to cut its midnight to 8 a.m. services — months after emergency after-hours service was re stored. Using an estimate that only two or three students per day seek care during those hours, the Senate labeled the service “not cost efficient.” But in doing so it overlooked what most universi ties have recognized: the overriding need to provide quality health care for all students, especially those who can’t afford outside care. Meanwhile, the MSC received a whopping 27 percent of al located fees, second only to the health center. MSC programs are of high quality and merit the funding they receive, but they are essentially a fringe benefit of higher education. Designating them as more “vital” than health care is ludicrous. The newly created Multicultural Services Center fared even worse than the health center, with the Senate requesting that all its funding from student service fees be cut. But the reasons given for the cut don’t hold water. The center lists goals concerning minority students, and the Senate provides a breakdown of those goals into administrative and student prerogatives. Senators argued that all the student prerogatives already were addressed by student programs. In effect, the Senate argued that because only the administration’s goals are unfulfilled, the administration should fund the entire program. But student organizations should be more involved in minority issues, and foisting the issues onto the administration only creates the impression that the Senate doesn’t realize mi nority concerns are indeed “vital” in the development of all A&M students. U r Senators also were displeased with the Multicultural Services Center because they said it catered mainly to black students and because only 65 students sought help there in September. Be cause of the low number of students vs. the six full-time staff members, the budget recommends that the staff be reduced to three people. But the Senate chose to base its decision only on the center’s first month of operation, hardly a good indicator of the number and type of students the center will serve once it has a chance to develop. These arguments, however, were a smokescreen for the real objection, that the administration created the center this sum mer, using student service fee reserves to fund it without seek ing Senate approval. In its introduction to the budget, the Senate said students have the “right and obligation” to decide how student service fees should be spent. That’s just plain wrong. The Student Sen ate’s recommendations are just that — recommendations. It’s important to have student input into how student fees are spent, but the Senate should not dictate funding, nor should it let worthwhile programs be the victim of its political battles. The Senate judged the Multicultural Services Center not on its mer its but on its potential as a weapon in a political power game. In so doing, it has used its authority poorly. The proposal now goes to tne Stuaent Services office, which in the past has rubber-stamped it. This year, it shouldn’t. And it can only be hoped that in the future the Student Senate replaces its political stupidity with some fiscal sense. — The Battalion Editorial Board Mail Call Sorry EDITOR: I’m writing in reponse to Ben McGraw’s very eloquent letter concerning the signs of intelligent life at the R.E.M. concert. I don’t presume to speak for everyone as does Mr. McGraw, but I personally don’t feel that I have to fight for my right to speak, nor do I expect or desire anyone else to do so for me. Far be it for me to speak for R.E.M. or their lead singer, Michael Stipe, but somehow I don’t think they would want Ben McGraw or anyone else to protect their rights or attempt to solve the world’s problems by raising arms to other human beings, not to mention murdering them. As McGraw so thoughtfully pointed out, there was much approval, cheer and applause in response to Stipe’s comment, “If you’re in the military, quit.” This just might tend to imply that there is a reasonably large group of people at this fine University who agree (thank the Lord for small mercies.) Maybe the crowd’s response to such a statement might mean that there are people on campus who know that countries cannot continue to battle one another and expect the world to survive. McGraw had the choice to attend the concert or miss a great show. If McGraw does for some reason really enjoy R.E.M.’s music while ignoring the fact that the band consists of human beings who happen to be Americans and have as many rights as he does, than all I can say in reponse to his leaving early and missing out on a wonderful performance of the song “So. Central Rain” is, I’m sorry. Mara K. Moore ’88 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. Opinion Playing the Intemew Game aw They did it. They put me in the game and I don’t even know the rules. Rodney Rather Hmm? What game am I talking about, you ask? Guest Columnist happened to strike up a conversation with the person behind you in the “12 items or less” line at the grocery store, you won’t get the job because the inter viewer wants an answer completely dif ferent from the real answer. Why, the interview game, of course. It’s funny how, when you graduate, society expects you to get a job and produce some sort of tangible evidence that you deserve to earn enough money to at least buy Table Scraps brand frozen dinners. Let me illustrate this point. One of the more popular questions interviewers ask is, “Careerwise, where do you expect to be 10 years from now?” The answer they expect is something like, “Sir, I ex pect to be your boss 10 years from now.” holies, I have absolutely no problems parating work from play. If I did enroll myself in a mental institution correct the problem. Direct questions like these areoutlai dish enough, but perhaps the mosttml terrifying sentence uttered fromtheli) of an interviewer is “Tell meaboutyom self.” :or )M icing ipr.fr yo out But I’m straying from the subject. Whenever I go into an interview, with my sweating palms leaving small tributa ries on the carpet of the office and with a throat as dry as cotton on the stalk on a blistering August day after a dust storm, the interviewer always asks questions. For some inexplicable reason, poten tial employers like this response. In real ity, normal folks have no idea what they’ll be doing in 10 years, nor should they be expected to know. remem I), ,ani Another question that can’t be an swered honestly — if you want the job — is, “What’s your weakest point?” Now that, in itself, makes sense. After all, an interview is suppossed to give the interviewer relevant insight to the qual ifications and character of the intervie wee that relate to the position the inter viewee is interviewing to get. But that’s not what an interview really is. This time, there are two possible an swers you can give if you want them to take you seriously. The first is, “I expect as much from others as I do from my self.” The other is, “I can’t separate work from play.” The entire interviewing process really is a farce. Oh sure, the questions asked sound like legitimate questions, but if you answer them the way you would un der any other circumstances, like if you What a flood of drivel. Sure, you might expect as much from others as yourself, but what if all you expect to do this week is roll out of bed before 1 p.m. and eat a box of Captain Crunch all by yourself? And, although I can’t be positive about the rest of you professed worka- What does he want to know? An) thing pertaining to what qualifies for the job is either on the applicatioi lying on his desk or has already asked. Should you start with brances of your childhood, telling hit about the days you spent in your admiring the cracks in the ceiling, work your way up from there, or you tell him how violently you vomi when you have to stuff wet bread dow Ri the garbage disposal? And when should you stop him about yourself, when he starts yawn and make audible gutteral noisi Somehow, I just don’t think I’llev get the hang of this game.For some son, I keep wanting to say what I real think, which, although it isn’t much, lows me to keep some dignity in myi employment and homelessness and nu nutrition and dandruff. And maybe I' get the rulebook for graduation. Rodney Rather is a senior journalist major and lame duck city editor The Battalion. DALE th er-trair unc lucatior tween wh ve suff Educat leave elemei oi itlegisl more tsthey ep. V\ io chaii ion Cc ■n was ire on In » teach. sed." The Ti ordina cted tc inate n majc lering I Of Ti e-year educat AUST nd le DS, e\ don’s 1 ferers /show WICH men Iged tl their ced th on how not to fight a newspaper Use th oblem Most Americans bear grudges against the media. And many of the customers’ gripes are valid. But mhh when civilians try to muscle a newspaper Jim Wright Guest Columnist they need to know that they are playing around with something that is just as explosive as ni troglycerine and a whole lot trickier: pure-de idealism. Militant, basic belief. Newspaper people tend to think that telling the world what is going on is ex tremely important and that doing that is not just their individual job but their sa cred mission. Apparently, the Amarillo combatants are businessmen unhappy with the newspaper folks’ efforts to cover the news. It’s a free country, and they are certainly free to think that and act upon it. But when any group tries to gag or muscle a newspaper anywhere, there is usually a rallying around the flag by news people everywhere. They are vir tually unanimous in seeing attempts to gag any newspaper as a threat to free dom as well as their own interests. There is, of course, another course of action that critics of a newspaper can take: starting up their own newspaper. Last I heard, presses, ink, computer ter minals, reporters, photographers and editors were available on the market. Gathering up a supply of these and going into the business is a situation that has not been common. Here’s why: When local press critics decide to buck the local Bugle, they often fail to recog nize some of the basics of the newspaper business. For one thing, a newspaper needs to attract readers. To do this, a paper has to be something more than just not the Bugle. A newspaper that cannot attract any readers other than the press critics who started it is going to be a very ex pensive hobby. What it is not going to be, under those conditions, is a real newspaper. If the people see the old Bugle still trying to tell what’s going on and the other paper working to promote the sponsors’ program, they are likely to stay with the existing newspaper. A newspaper tries to tell its readers list about the bad things as well as the go® *r things that are happening. Many foesi e dnesi the press charge that we get much ffiO' enthusiastic about the negatives tin I the positives. But when you getane* paper that gives only “good news,"ti result is invariably not a newspaper ti a chamber of commerce publicity haU out, a community propaganda dofl ment. Before any group of angry cria starts one of these all-positive publit tions, the folks ought to consid f whether the proposed publication 0 pass The Frosty Morning Test. N of Americans will run through thesld of dawn to pick up a newspaper, but® one in recorded history has everdol this for a publicity handout. The groups that mobilize in thena® of demanding “a good newspaper” te® to forget that the life-or-death test o® newspaper, of whatever qualitfi whether it does a newspaper’s job w 1 enough to earn both the readership a® the quarters of the general public. Jim Wright is senior columnist of ft Dallas Morning News. BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Breathe® ftpmmnvnue eurtRe iwtMnoN OF Mm LA. K0CK STARS HAS 56£N eXHAUSTBP.. 'C(J3 CHER'S NEW mtN PUP6 IS ft Z 3-YEAR- OLP MSEC. 3HKER FROM FROOKCYN. ^v\ / SO. lAJHFlT'5 VOVR fiSSESSMEMT, FIS IP r iHemw Pi SMSCtlf IT'S &EEIJ VON TC „ POWNHILL "ijSAlOW tentia Somi