Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, January 20, 1988
1 he Battalion
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Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor
Amy Couvillon, City Editor
Robbyn L. Lister and
Becky Weisenfels,
News Editors
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Sam B. Myers, Photo Editor
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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.
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