Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 29, 1988)
Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, February 29, 1988 I i i i : r Opinion Listen up, Brian My initial reac tion to Brian Fred erick’s column in Monday’s Battal ion was to run out, buy a scapel and confront him in a dark alley. But in order to avoid the label (literally) of a castrating “amazon,” I picked up my pen instead. First, I couldn’t help but see that Mr. Frederick wanted to give the impression that feminists are amazons, that is “tall, strong, masculine women.” (Yep, I looked it up!) This idea makes me re member a conversation I heard between two males. A guy was telling his friend that a girl had displayed some interest in him, but he hesitated to ask her out be cause she was taller than he was. His friend looked disgusted and said, “You don’t want to go out with someone who can beat you up, do you?” I thought no, he probably doesn’t, but then neither would I. Does this make nie a “tall, mas culine woman” Mr. Frederick? Now for the deeper point Mr. Fred erick tried to make: the idea that by let ting females into an all male club would be an infringement of males’ rights. I had thought by now that everyone was well aware of the fact that men have been supressing womens’ political, eco nomic and social freedom throughout history.The most obvious example of how our political freedom had been denied is the fact that women didn’t have the right to vote until 1920. Unfor tunately, we have been and still are be ing supressed economically. According to S.A. Basow, a researcher in the Field of Women’s Studies, a woman’s earning power in 1983 was 63 percent of a man’s. According to a New York Times article, the earning power of a woman has improved to 70 percent in 1986. You are probably thinking, well, hey, that’s pretty close and just look at the Patricia Brubaker Guest Columnist improvement! But to use Dr. Muehlen- hard’s, a professor of Psychology at A&M, example: Say in your English class men could only make 70 percent of the grade of the women. Now say that the average grade of the women at the end of the semester was a 90. That would mean, Mr. Frederick, that you could only make a 60 in the class. That doesn’t seem fair, now does it? I accept the fact that men might want to make associations with other males, free from the scrutiny of females. I even accept the idea that these associations could be beneficial. However, I am re minded that some exclusive groups (cults) ridicule their opposition by dress ing up as them and role playing in order to make a mockery of the opposition’s beliefs. I also can’t help but recall some facts about male clubs. Often these clubs aren’t just a chance for the boys to get together play volleyball and eat barbe- que. In fact men often use the club to make business transactions. Finally, your use of terms “idiotic” and “trivial” when speaking about femi nist ideals bothered me. But then, if my drive for equality and independence seems idiotic, you’ll have to excuse my trivality. After glancing at your column one final time before burning it, I caught the part where you implied that a female leader in boy scouts would no doubt provide an inappropriate exam ple of how to guide a boy into manhood. In case you haven’t noticed, the only thing that makes one “male” is the pos session of a penis — all little boys have one. I wanted to reassure you that all it takes for a boy to become a man is time to grow up. So my advice to you, Mr. Frederick, is to just give those hormones a little time to kick in, and, if you’re like everyone else, it won’t be long before you grow up, too! Patricia Brubaker is a sophomore speech communications major IVICfll v^rdll Students against democracy EDITOR: I was walking through the MSG on Tuesday afternoon and stopped by the anti-apatheid booth. They were distributing an article titled, “The Afri can National Congress Needs Your Help.” Well for all of you who do not know what the ANC is and who they are affiliated with . . . that’s right “The South African Communist Party.” If you need proof of this fact, please write your congressman. Contrary to what you see on TV, there are blacks in South Africa who want to peacefully (like the Zulus — the largest ethnic group in South Africa) work with the Botha government to solve the problems of apartheid. I have a suggestion to the “Students Against Apartheid” club. They should change its name to the “STUDENTS AGAINST APARTHEID AND DEMOCRACY.” I also suggest that if you are involved with “STUDENTS AGAINST APARTHEID AND DEMOCRACY,” that you write your congressman and ask for a copy of the newly updated bipartisan report on how economic sanc tions are only hurting the blacks in South Africa. I guess now that we have communists on campus we really have our goal of being a “world-class-university” just like that little school in Austin. Dick Lonquist ’87 and James Cecil ’88 A little knowledge ... EDITOR: I read with great interest Mr. John MacDougall’s column “Who needs ethics when you have an MBA?” in the Feb. 24 issue of The Battalion. While I fully agree with Mr. MacDougall’s point concerning the importance of ethics, I strongly disagree with the implication that MBA’s who do not have an ethics course are unethical. Using the same logic. Aggies who have not taken coursework in Religion/Theology are atheists. Mr. MacDougall’s column also serves as an illustration of the adage “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” since it contains several important omissions. First, the Texas A&M University MBA Program contains twelve hours of electives. These electives may be from ANY area of the student’s choosing. Second, a significant question exists as to how and when ethical va lues are acquired. Mr. MacDougall’s article does correctly point out that rather than requiring a specific course in ethics, our approach has been to of fer multiple opportunities for the coverage of business ethics. Mr. MacDou- gall may be interested to know that a summer Faculty Task Force identified four MBA curriculum areas where ethical issues have been discussed. In summary, while 1 agree that ethics are indeed an important subject, I believe that Mr. MacDougall’s column leads to an unwarranted and erro neous conclusion. Finally, I submit that Mr. MacDougall’s own label of “over simplified questions” may be a most appropriate description for his column. Dan H. Robertson, Assistant Dean and Director of Masters Program 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. The 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 77843. POSTMAS TER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station TX 77843-4 111. We have really messed up this year’s Olympic Games Donald Kaul Is it just me or are the Winter Olympics a dud? Admittedly, I’ve never been one of your big fans of the Winter Games. To me, watching someone slide down a patch of ice at 90 mph com pares unfavorably with waiting for a bus. Still, in other years there has been a certain entertainment value, a sense of excitement. Not this year. For one thing, nobody American wins anything. Well, hardly anything. A cou ple of gold medals here, a silver there, a bronze, but it seems that every time they set someone up as a hero, he or she falls down. Or whenever a goal is scored, we’re listening to a dumb interview with a sex therapist. They even managed to mess up the figure skating a little, mainly by letting Dick Buttons talk. If I wanted snide, mean-spirited commentary, I’d have watched the Republican debates. They should give Buttons a hockey puck to chew on during competition. And I thought announcer David Santee’s trick of going up to Brian Orser, the Ca nadian figure skater, moments after he’d come off the ice, shoving a micro phone in his face and saying — “I’ve got good news for you and bad news. You skated great but you lost. What’s your reaction?” — should win the Howard Cosell sensitivity award. Could it be that television is eating its own? The Winter Olympics used to be a modest little event for people who wore BLOOM COUNTY leather shorts and yodeled. But now it has become an enormous television ex travaganza that encompasses the world. Even places without snow or ice send competitors to the Games. That means the opportunity to sell a lot of ads presents itself. Giving tele vision a chance to sell ads is like bleeding in front of a Great White shark. They did suppress their feeding urge during the men's figure skating, allowing some 25 minutes to roll by without a commei - cial, but the incident only served to un derline how seldom television permits the drama of a sport to play in its natu ral rhythm. It is a medium that has a unique ability to make everything into a lesser version of "Let’s Make A Deal,” which it seems to have done with the Winter Olympics. Of course, if any sporting event de serves to suffer from overcommerciali zation, it’s the Winter Games. Even in the old days the competitors were al most shameless about making them selves walking billboards for products they endorsed. Now, it seems, the games are dominated by film companies, ski manufacturers and equipment firms. That seems tacky, somehow. Even without television, however, I would find the games dull. A few of the events are exciting, but most are more in the category of tedious. For example: Compulsory figures — The reason this part of the figure-skating competi tion is compulsory is that no one would do it of his or her own free will. Skaters do slow, slow figure-8s, then the judges get down on their hands and knees to see how well it was done. More thrilling than this is cattle-judging at the Iowa State Fair. I think they should make the skaters do their figure-8s the hard way — two 4s — or forget about it. Cross-country skiing — I know difficult sport and you havetobfil great shape and all that, but Id watc h a mailman deliver catalogsikl watc h people ski ac ross country.Tteil one of the Olympic events that commercials look good. Biathlon 1 his is the NationaUftl Assoc iation version <>! cross-countryslj ing; boredom interspersed with merits of shooting. It would be® proved it they allowed (liecontestantiiij shoot at eac h other, but they don't. Luge — Whic h is what we used tool kids named Luigi back in my neig hood in Detroit. It involves lyingdo«i| flat and sliding down a chute back of your neck. It has all thedisad| vantages of being shot outofac backward, but none of the charm. Then there are the contestants'oj forms, which range f rom merebadtafl to bizarre. One of the nice thingsaM skiing used to be that skiiers lot good in their gear. It made youwantljl be like Jean-Claude Killy whenfoij grew up. Now skiiers look likes; with leprosy; pink with blue swirls,i|j amond patterns rampant on a fie fuschia —and t hat’s just the men. It’s enough to make you long for i!k| days of black-and-white television i keep waiting for the Jamaican bow team to show up in Hawaiian shirtsaifl sandals but, no, everybody wearsi slick suits in whic h you havetobej#| Fonda to look good and which pro' that few people look like Jane Fonda. I think what these Olympic Ga®*I are lacking most is a sense of huiW unless you count the guy whothow up the Dr. Ruth sex-on-skis interview. Which I don’t. Copyright 1987, Tribune Media Servicesjtt by Berke Breath^ THANK GOOCmsS FOR AU- 7H6 P5YCH03A3BCe 5eCF-H£CP AVAILABLE... 7H£$e CERTAINLY ARE TOl/EH 71ME5 FOR PEOPLE: TO COPE WITH... RtOHT HOUY EAEY THEY WOT HAVE HAP FT IN THE OCP PAYE ... CMC WARE ' PEET/LEMCE / PCAOUE / MA5E/VE ETAR/AHON / EOAVERY/ INPIAN ATTACHE / MAN- PATINO BEARS/ EMOTIONALLY, MUSTVE SEEN A PfCNIC/Y l ^ he//-ml M0EP CO50 Tl/£50. FT 60! IMS „ ')! M30 W(\ , BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Brea0 THE MIGHTY HUMANISTIC, RATIONALISTIC, ATHEISTIC SCIENTIST PREPARES TO ONE HIMSELF OVER TO AN ANNUAL SPRINGTIME MOMENT OF WfLP \ABANP0N~. iHe VNtvme/5 * urns Too wmo eccmtf.