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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1988)
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, January 20, 1988 1 he Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Sue Krenek, Editor Daniel A. LaBry, Managing Editor Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor Amy Couvillon, City Editor Robbyn L. Lister and Becky Weisenfels, News Editors Loyd Brumfield, Sports Editor Sam B. Myers, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa- per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily rep resent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, fac ulty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department 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 request. Our address: The Battalion, 230 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1 111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station TX 77843-4 111. A dead issue? Amid increasing evidence of pedtion forgeries, the Texas GOP announced Monday it was forgoing efforts to verify con tested signatures. The GOP will now allow all six candidates to keep any delegates they win in the March 8 primary. The party officials would do well to take their cue from can didate Pete du Pont, who pulled his name from the ballot when the forged signatures of Democrats and dead people appeared on his petitions. In Sunday’s Houston Post, du Pont was quoted as saying, “I refuse to benefit in any way from those tainted peti tions.” But the Republicans’ decision to abandon their investiga tion has changed du Font’s tune as well; he now wants his name back on the ballot. The issue here is more than whether du Pont — or any can didate or his staff — allowed forged signatures to be placed on a petition. Such an action is a perversion of democracy that we as sociate with news reports from Marcos’ Philippines, not those from our America. The party should do all it can to uncover the wrongdoing rather than whitewash it. The Texas GOP’s will ingness to forgive and forget only serves to further discredit a party already reeling from the discovery that some of its sup porters may never have existed at all. — The Battalion Editorial Board Unsafe at any speed I’ve been hold ing up pretty well during all the re cent problems with air safety. I’ve been dutifully get ting into airplanes and entrusting my life to people I don’t know, just like I really believe it when I’m told, “Hey, you’re a lot safer up here than anywhere else.” Not everybody has done as well as me. I read recently of an Eastern Air lines flight attendant crew asking the pi lot to de-ice the wings before their flight took off. The pilot refused. The flight atten dant said, “Good luck, and you can serve the coffee yourself,” and got off the plane. Smart. But what happened the other day at Pensacola airport has just about taken away all the progress I’ve made over the past years overcoming my fear of flying. What happened in Pensacola was an Eastern airplane landed and broke in half. 1 mean, one half of the plane came almost totally unattached to the other half of the plane. Nobody was seriously injured, but now that I know there is a possibility an airplane can break in half while landing. I’m looking around for my Greyhound timetable again. Can you imagine what the pilot told them back in flight headquarters? “Had a little trouble down in Pensa cola, Chief.” “Yeah. What happened?” “The plane broke in half.” “Did what?” “Well, it sort of came apart at the hinges, but we got the ground crew out there now trying to glue it back toge ther.” You don’t hear that much about buses breaking in half, or trains, or even cars. As much trouble as they had with Corvairs, I don’t remember an instant where one of them broke in half. There has been a great deal of dis cussion lately over what part of the plane is the safest. Most feel the back be cause, as the smart money says, “There never was a plane that backed into a mountain.” All I know is, if I do ever fly again, I’m not sitting in the middle. I don’t want half the plane on its way to La- Guardia while the half I’m in is drop ping down on Baltimore. One other thing that was strange about the Eastern mishap: the officials covered the lettering that identified who owned the plane before they would al low photographers to take pictures of it. They thought that would get them off the hook? Eastern used to be the official airline of Disney World. When that connection was broken off — if you will — did Eastern take Goofy with them to run the airline? Somebody get Ralph Nader on the phone. “Unsafe at Any Speed” is in def inite need of a sequel. Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate Lewis Grizzard Mail Call No ballroom atmosphere here EDITOR: This letter is in response to Robert Martin and Lynn Foster’s letter which appeared in the January 18 issue of The Battalion concerning the presence of the Aggie Band at basketball games. First of all, the intent of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band at the games is to keep the crowd emotional and the inten sity of fan support at its highest. Second, one needs to realize that the Aggie Band does not go to the games just to entertain the masses. It does not play with the intent of recreat ing a ballroom atmosphere for an evening of social gab and chit-chat while the fans watch a group of sweaty young men run up and down a wooden floor throwing an orange ball at each other. Third, if they’re so concerned about the band taking up “too many of the good seats,” maybe they should think that perhaps there is a reason why the band sits where it does. Did Martin and Foster bother to ask a bandsman or one of the directors? Fourth, although I must admit that perhaps the Aggie Band may be loud, this is an Aggie basketball game, not a t.u. tea party. Anyway, the band only sends half its members to the games. If it’s a quiet sporting event you’re looking for, attend a fishing tournament or join a quiet game at an elemen tary school. Perry A. Lister II ’90 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. Balancing the federal budget seated with OOPS and the 10-year pla!. Washington, D.C. — President Ronald Reagan: “Well, you see the federal budget is like one big pie . . . no, wait a sec- JOfin ond, the federal MacDougall budget is like a red apple . . . no, that’s not right. Unim, I’d prefer not to comment on this right now. ” Lewiston, Idaho — Larry S., auto me chanic: “The problem with Reagan’s pie is that everyone wants a piece of it. ” Squaw Valley, New Mexico — Jeanne P., housewife: “Who needs to balance a checkbook when you own the bank?” Hallettsville, Texas — Steve H., farmer: “I got more important things to think about than balancing his budget, like fixin’ my John Deere. ” Obviously, more than one American is confused about or just doesn’t care about balancing the federal budget. During the president’s tenure in office, budget deficits have soared to record heights. Presidential contenders such as Gov. Bruce Babbitt are beginning to talk openly about raising taxes to make up for revenue shortfalls. But before these power brokers shoot themselves in the feet, I recommend they take to heart (no pun intended) my formula for cur ing this nation’s ills. Having studied enough economics to know that an unbalanced budget can lead to an unbalanced economy, I have devised a plan to cure the budget prob lem and alleviate the burden of having federal deficits dirty the hands of our next president. Conventional methods of balancing the budget, keeping infla tion down and stabilizing unemploy ment at a reasonable rate have proven ineffective, even under the guidance of Chicagoan economics. Euphemization The only way to stifle this unwanted baby called the federal deficit, passed down from administration to adminis tration like a dirty diaper, is to imple ment what I call bureaucratic euphemi zation; give it a new name, a clean fresh bib, a peck on the cheek and a whole new department to play in called the Of fice of Optimizational Projectional Stud ies (OOPS). OOPS would supervise budget re management and cost overruns through its exclusive power to rename, reclassify and semanticize. For example, the na tional debt would be relabeled the Re munerative Elastic Liability (REL), a much more ambiguous and confusing term. A bureaucratic reshuffling is nec essary for the budgetary sequence to complete itself. First, the Department of Commerce, responsible for compiling data on the inflation rate, gross national product and unemployment rate, would be incorporated into OOPS, where the number-crunching statisticians and data compilers would be put to a more pro ductive use drawing deceptive graphs, complete with big red arrows pointing downward. No doubt, with their help, the REL could be substantially reduced, maybe even eliminated with the bold stroke of a pen. The Treasury Department, as well as the Federal Reserve, would also come under the wings of OOPS that would manage the printing of money at the president’s discretion. As that shrewd housewife from New Mexico philoso phized, there would be no need to keep track of the amount of money printed. OOPS: The Ten-year Plan Well, right about now you may be thinking, “is this guy off his rocker? Doesn’t he know that eventually all this will catch up with the president?"F(| nately, l have taken this into acts : and have come up with what l call ' Ten-year Plans.” You see, I figure that by its tenth of implementation, OOPS will beotll verge of total collapse because of* j_j ( nomic instability and political disci Tlno Because of this, l propose an adder:, wron to the Wai Powers Act, authori pare OOPS t o wage wars in caseofecot s crisis. About every 10 years, OOPk^'jj engage the United States in aw ton some remote part of the world. E: motl one from Franklin Roosevelt toj: Resn Kenneth Galbraith knows that wani payle super foi stimulating the economy ® rt ‘ ' year would be a terrific time to gei: ball rolling in Nicaragua by botchir; the peace talks and sending in thcl tr j| )L] rines. Who knows, if things realL “V off, we could bring General VVestir for 1 land’s Vietnam statisticians out of * n woodwork to fabricate casualty and 1^1 oner statistics. ||S— We can overcome distrust andp Vietnam skepticism about proposed campaigns by engaging the aid of venerable Mother Teresa as spokes /I son for OOPS. As a token of ourestt® OOPS will aid the Indian governme; - its goal of population control by lent $ our most efficient statistic ians and: | experts. With the right statistics spreadsheets, we could turn In population crisis into a “minor can ? human aggrandizement.” Through my program of eupher ' tion and public deception, the possit ^ ti exists for the government to virw M eliminate those nagging problem, ¥ balancing the budget, keeping em|f ;§ merit high and inflation low. The sill* fact is that “ignorance is bliss” ar v government is to function smooth , must fool most of the people most of |J time. If government gives into i temptation to uncover the facts.fM the dominoes will fall. John MacDougall is a graduate sM and a columnist for The Battalion. E STREET by JON CALDARA m FUTURE or THE PWLE EGO. ROBO STUD w BLOOM COUNTY my WHOue uFe has aeeN otJe long exeRC/se in we AVO/PANCe OH, OF CONFLICT. /T HA5 \ NOT. by Berke Breatft IF THAT'S RIPICUL0U5, VOU'XZ TH6NIM /\JoT RIPICUL0V6. ftp/COCOOJ n FBU- MB FMH mat wee AROO/NCr rf APOVT. I. i