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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 1988)
Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, June 28, 1988 Opinion Describe the weather in one word? the T o cl a y : heat. So there I was, tired and drawn out, exhausted af ter a long, tired and drawn out trek across the Great Texas Wast eland also known as The Space Be tween Here And My Apartment. Mark Nair When I arrived home, the first thing I noticed was the very scary headline on an unnamed newspaper. It said: “GLO BAL WEATHER GALAMITY FORE SEEN.” Wowza. But then I started thinking. Gould it be true? Gould it be that we are facing a GLOBAL WEATHER CALAMITY in the ndar future? And just what is a GLOBAL WEATHER CALAMITY anyway? I needed to know. Whenever I see the word “calamity” I get this investigative, research-type itch. I had to know. It seems as though the drought in the Midwest (a.k.a. the breadbasket of the world) is a symptom of THE forseen ca lamity. It seems as though the abnor mally high temperatures sneaking across the country even as you read this are symptoms of THE forseen calamity. It seems as though the lowering of the Great Mississippi is yet another clandes tine symptom of THE forseen calamity. It all has something to do with green houses, fossil fuels and carbon dioxide. This is how it works. We, in our zeal to make it to Skaggs in less than two minutes, travel in our small but sturdy automobiles at a rate slightly greater than the speed of light. In the process we pass many, many other automobiles traveling at various other speeds to va rious other destinations. Now, the last thing on our collective mind is: “Oh, jeez, am I adding to the GLOBAL WEATHER CALAMITY?” We are. What can you say? Let our pride burst forth. Sorry, Carl, it doesn’t wash A columnist is in the news, always a bad sign. Colum nists are supposed to comment on news, not make it. Carl Rowan, syndicated colum nist and a t egular on one of those weekend tele- vision news analy- sis shows that per columns have to hone our sense of self-importance with an occasional crank letter written on lined paper. (Why would anyone want to commit so monumentally vacuous an act as kill a columnist anyway? It would be like as sassinating a vice president.) Donald Kaul make life seem duller than it really is, shot a backyard intruder late one night last week. Ironically, Rowan’s defense makes the case for the gun lobby. “I am for gun control, but I am not for unilateral gun control . . .,” he said after the inci dent. That’s pretty much the NRA posi tion, that “if you outlaw handguns only outlaws will have them.” A bunch of partying kids had decided to take a 2 a.m. dip in the columnist’s Ja cuzzi and appartenly tried to open some windows, so Rowan called the police. When the cops arrived Rowan, packing a .22 pistol, went out to let them into the yard and was confronted by a shadowy figure lurching toward him. That’s not a position totally without merit. You don’t keep things out of the hands of criminals simply by declaring them illegal. That’s what makes them criminals. If Rowan really believes a man (or woman) can only “protect his or her family” with a gun, he should be out there arguing,against stringent gun con trols. 22* <a What happened then is clouded in conflicting testimony, but it ended with Rowan firing the gun and the kid get ting hit in the arm. Oh yes; Rowan is black, the young man is white, which may or may not be significant. I tend to think guns are equal opportunity de stroyers, blind to race, color and creed. More relevant to the case is the fact that Rowan is a card-carrying, knee-jerk liberal and an ardent supporter of gun control. Of the unlimited right to own a gun claimed by the National Rifle Asso ciation, he has written: “We must re verse this psychology. We can do it by passing a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legiti mate officer of the law goes to jail — pe riod!” That was certainly true in Rowan’s case. Had he been unarmed he would have stayed in the house, the police would have found their own way into the yard and the intruder would have been collected. Then he goes and shoots the kid. Well, you can imagine the fun the gun nuts have had witb Rowan’s appar ent hypocrisy. The director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action said: “Obviously, those words were written in the safety and security of Rowan’s professional environment where intrud ers don’t come in the night and one’s ideology isn’t numbed by fear. When fear did come calling, Garl Rowan threw his philosophy out the window and the adrenaline of self-preservation began to flow.” Rowan’s response is that he’s received more than a few death threats and that “as long as authorities leave this society awash in drugs and guns, I will protect my family.” Which is what conservative columnist Pat Buchanan would say too. I was surprised and a little envious to learn that Rowan gets death threats, however. Most of us who write newspa- Copyright 1988, Tribune Media Services,Inc. The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Richard Williams, Editor Sue Krenek, Managing Editor Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor Curtis Culberson, City Editor Becky Weisenfels, Cindy Milton, News Editors Anthony Wilson, Sports Editor Jay Janner, Art Director 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. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station TX 77843-4 111. You see, all that gas we burn whilst on our trip to Skaggs finds its way out of our small but sturdy automobiles in the insidious form of carbon dioxide. This gas travels upward, and in time begins to congregate in the atmosphere, keep ing in the heat like a very firm (yet inex pensive) layer of insulation. And then the world gets hotter and hotter and hotter. OK, enough of the basics. Anyway, the scientists are now saying that this “greenhouse effect” is responsible for the temperature increases over the past 20 years. They’re saying that, as the world gets warmer, the polar ice caps could melt, oceans could rise and we could all be in a mess o’ trouble. As if we weren’t in enough trouble al ready. It didn’t take long for the real danger of a world wide greenhouse to dawn on me. 1 was sitting in my very own un-air conditioned car, enjoying my very own un-air conditioned radio playing and watching the temperature sign on a friendly neighborhood bank flash: 100 degrees. 101 degrees. 102 degrees. 103 degrees. Escape while you can. 104 de grees. RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY. 105 degrees. Then I got nervous. I said aloud to nobody in particular, “You mean, it could get as hot out there as the inside of my very own un-air conditioned au to?” And for those of you who are not that familiar with my automobile — well, that’s hot. I mean, really hot. Some scientists say that the green house effect is what killed Venus. I don’t particularly wish to end up like a roasted Venutian weenie. Give me cool creamed corn anytime. I remember, in the good old days, watching Frosty the Snowman. And 1 remember seeing him melting in a for est greenhouse. And I remember think ing, “Stupid snowman. Get what you de serve walking into a greenhouse.” For a kid of about such and such years old, that was a pretty heavy analy By &M Ceni ystems aiu sis. How applicable it is now, I know. Draw your own conclusions that one. And so, in my heat induced file The wan sanity. Eve come to the conclusion )ythe“gree (the same conclusion by the wayikjBly be pre\ mon, the cranky sinister evildoerBnd turnim was always stymied in his attem J uc ^ as . ,Y' CK I Underdog, reached > Appleby ago) we, as the world s stupidestsp™ - ~ can influence the weather. The problem is that the weather really appreciate it that much f rom what I’ve seen, sitting in my own un-air conditioned auto,wati stuck barges in the Mississippi about corn the size of my thumb in west Texas and seeing column black smoke oozing from smokestacks, things can getjusta out of hand. Ask any farmer in the Midwest tell you the same thing. Murk Nuir is a graduate studeu opinion page editor for The Battali cheduled t Ijforea U.S. 1 fubcommi purees, Bie Enviror learch and The subi problems a E-l Bffect, in v ^eted by cl luch as car 01 The incident itself, however, make the case for gun control, which is this: Most of us are equipped neither by tem perament nor training to defend our selves with a handgun. On a dark night, in a situation that inspires fear, we can not differentiate between burglars, rap ists, Jacuzzi poachers, pizza couriers, Ir ish setters and spouses. While it is theoretically possible to protect oneself from the bad guys with a gun, on aver age guns do more harm than good. One suspects the son, a former FBI agent, gave his old man the relatively in nocuous weapon to make him feel more secure, a feeling that turned out to be false. Rowan is additionally lucky that a cop didn’t round the corner, see a black man holding a gun on a white kid and shoot the one he thought looked most guilty. Sorry, Carl, your excuse doesn’t wash. You either think handguns are a good idea or you don’t; you can’t have it both ways. Whatever the risks to not having a gun around the house, they are minor compared to the risks of having one. NOODL1 ;iid their t teir single utes after t; lort, authoi The Sum iter the ] round sevi oilers. Departm )ox identif > pilot Will ife, Glady lonathon I hristian H The four cene by Jo shell. The plat Instead Rowan almost killed a kid whose main crime was adolescent foo lishness. Rowan can count himself for tunate that the gun he had, given to him by his son, was a .22-caliber pistol, the munitions equivalent of a placebo. You have to be a hit man to do any serious damage with it on purpose. NEWS Mail Call Enough is enough EDITOR: I have to respond to the continuing “fat chicks’ theme you have going in The Battalion this summer. Have you even considered the damaging thoughts you are helping to promote by printing these horribly derogatory letters about girls who may or may not have any control over the size of their bodies? which aid the U.S. economy through the sale of junk fofc items. H ave you considered the vast millions of dollars which are spend each year for the psychiatric treatmeni Anorexia and Bulimiam or the thousands spent by tenili frightened young women on laxatives or ipecac inordei purge themselves of the guilt they feel about eating(wei talking about eating anything here, not just Twinkies)? Last Spring The Battalion printed an article about the newly emerging evidence that some obese people really don’t have to inoulge in Twinkies and Dolly Madisons in order to remain large. Their metabolisms, not their eating habits, control their size. Then there are the girls like me who have suffered from society’s opinions about fat women enough to become victims of the eating disorders that plague America’s young female population. So, the next time you see a “fat chick” walkingaroi campus, you might think twice about how she got that and about what she might go through as a result of beitt blessed with a slow metabolism. And, the next time you* one of your beloved thin girls around campus, thinkal: about what a nightmare she just might be living in ordeii keep all of you happy. Diane O’Keefe ’88 One young man’s letter, printed in the Friday, June 24 issue of your paper, talked about the millions of dollars Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorials^' serves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every if maintain the author's intent. Each letter must be signed amt must includtlb' sification, address and telephone number of the writer. BLOOM COUNTY by BerKe Breattf short THeoKer/CfiL PHYSICIST 0UV6K W. J0N65 STKUGOLBS TO FfNP JT/e GfmNP UNIFICATION"... /? THeORY UNKIN0 RBL/UIV/TY SNIP QUANTUM MCCHANICS. IT (5 TH6 K6Y W THE (AY5T6FI& OF m UNIVERSE. If you don’t believe that, you belong in the NRA. BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Bread