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