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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 1988)
Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, July 15, 1988 Saving the world is up to us The big news of the month seems _ to be that there’s a Christine drought in the Schroeder Midwest. This is no ordinary Guest Columnist drought, mind you. It has had what the average American would prob ably deem to be disastr ous effects — wa ter rationing and the elevation of food prices. Water rationing is a fact of life in many countries and not just in special ‘drought years’ either. It is something that they live with every day. As far as elevations in food prices go, the average American spends less of his/her income on food than his or her counterpart in any other industrialized country. So why is so much noise being made about this drought? To be sure, many farmers are being threatened with ex tinction, but the American general pub lic has never let that bother them very much before. It’s not as if farmers weren’t going bankrupt long before The Big Drought. The reason this drought is such a big deal is because many experts say it is only a sample of things to come; that the once far-off “greenhouse effect” has arrived. Other experts say that it is only an isolated drought but still admit that it is an accu rate portrayal of what this part of the world will be like when the “greenhouse effect” does occur. The “greenhouse effect.” Wait a min ute. Isn’t that the horrible thing that was going to happen to our great-great- great-great grandchildren (who, by the way, we would conveniently never meet)? Well somewhere along the way, great-great-great-great lost a few “greats” and now we’re down to our grandchildren, our children and even ourselves. Alarming, isn’t it? So the real reason we’re all so scared of this drought is because it is a sign of something that could affect us directly. We seem, however, to have a great ca pacity as a people for forgetting as soon as the crisis is past. A good week of rain in the Midwest, and a couple of “well, let’s not forget about this” reports on CNN and the MacNeil/Lehrer News- hour will be enough to cause Middle America to settle contentedly back into its collective Lazy Boy recliner and turn back to the much-less-disturbing crises that affect “them” akld not “us.” A good example of this is the gang crisis in Los Angeles. This, like drugs before it, and the national debt before drugs, has be come a cause celebre — a “crisis du jour,” if you will. The Middle Class American thinks that the gang problem is a GREAT thing to worry about be cause it has no effect on them, as of yet. Ironically, this is the exact opposite rea son from why they worry about the drought. Unless you happen to be a black or Hispanic teenager walking home from school in south-central Los Angeles, worried about getting mowed down with a gun before getting home, you probably don’t feel very threatened, as of yet, by gangs. It seems that Americans only want to worry about things that are a direct, frightening threat, or, in contrast, are no threat at all to them personally. In this way, we stop the things that imme diately threaten us and then proceed to become fascinated with someone else’s tragedy. Have you ever noticed how tra ffic comes to an absolute standstill dur ing a wreck, even if the lane isn’t blocked? Everyone has to stop and look. It seems to escape everyone’s attention that that’s a real person in there suffer ing, and that this is not a TV show. In a lot of ways, that’s like us, flipping on Headline News at dinner, hearing that three more more teenagers died in Los Angeles today, crack is killing people in droves and hundreds of thousands of people will die of AIDS by 1990. “Tsk, tsk,” we murmur to ourselves. “But are my microwave fishsticks CRUNCHY?” Since the vast majority of us are not teenagers in south-central LA, crack ad dicts, or gay Haitian prostitutes with he mophilia who use intravenous drugs, we’re less disturbed by the prospect of their death than we are by the prospect of our food prices going up a little bit. Indeed the prospect of rising food prices seems to disturb today’s Ameri cans more than leaving a wasteland for the Americans of tomorrow. Why do we pay such selective atten tion to our problems? We’ve known about the possibility of the “greenhouse effect” for a long time now — it’s caused by the combustion of fossil fuels and the resulting carbon dioxide. It seems that it would have been so much easier to have begun to look into alternate energy sources several decades ago. Even now, however, we only look into alternate en ergy sources when gas prices go over a dollar per gallon (a rate that the Ger mans and Swedes would give their eye teeth to pay) because high gas prices are a threat to U.S. We might have to actu ally (GASP!) economize. How ironic that, when we develop an alternate energy source, it is all too often a nu clear power plant, which leaves a toxic waste that remains for hundreds of years. Hopefully however, that won’t be a problem until the time of our great- great-great-great grandchildren . . . Christine Schroeder is a senior psychol ogy major Mighty spirit, tell me more Each year right around the 4th of July, I talk to one of the Founding Fathers of our country, former President Thomas Jefferson. Don’t laugh. If Oral Roberts can talk to God and Shirley MacLaine can channelize with some guy from the Ice Age, I can talk to Thomas Jefferson. “So,” he wanted to know in his last visit, “how were the presidential prima ries?” “They were fine,” I said. “Bob Dole got the nod for the Repub licans, didn’t he?” “Dole didn’t do well at all. George Bush won going away!” “I would never have believed that. Did Bush shed his wimp image?” “Sort of, he went at it with Dan Rather during a televised interview and he said, ‘Doo-doo’ in public.” “Doo-doo?” asked Mr. Jefferson. “Doo-doo,” I reiterated. “What about the preacher? I forgot his name.” “Pat Robertson, sir? The press found out his wife got pregnant before they were married, and he started making up a lot of stuff about missiles in Cuba. “On top of that there was a lot of scandal involving television ministers, and that hurt him, too.” “What sort of scandals?” “For one, Jim Bakker of the PTL Club was nailed for certain sexual indis cretions and then Jimmy Swaggart was caught consorting with a known prosti tute.” “We should have mentioned some thing about television ministries in ‘free dom of religion,’ ” said Mr. Jefferson. “Why didn’t you, sir?” I asked. “Ben Franklin thought nobody would actually take them seriously. We were wrong about a lot of things.” “Mike Dukakis. He is the sure Demo cratic nominee.” “I’ve never heard of him.” “Little short guy with black hair. He is governor of Massachusetts.” “Has he got any personality?” “That of a slice of Velveeta cheese.” “Can he win in Novermber?” “He’s running against George Bush.” “Good point,” said Mr. Jefferson. “That’s enough about politics,” he continued. “Let’s talk baseball. I bet Ben Franklin 10 bucks George Steinbrenner would fire Billy Martin before the 4th of JuJy.” “That makes you a winner, sir,” I said to the former president. “Hey,” he replied before saying good bye for another year, “is this a great country or what?” Copyright 1988, Cowles Syndicate Lewis Grizzard 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 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station TX 77843-4 111. Opinion Chang language ■to ef(e' Ejme inti for the la All ini |ng A&N ■inguag lin achlifn M' a Foreigi of most i jlpuntry. Howe ist sem jis fall students rstem. Oh, those freshman Yesterday I had a terrible, horri ble, no good, very bad day. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not sharing this with all of you in a des perate attempt to gain sympathy. I call my mom for that. I am sharing this because every- Barbara Jones one at one point or another has one of “those days” when you wish you had never gotten out of bed — when there isn’t a “right” side of the bed to get up on. One of those days when you think that whatever superior being it is that holds the power of control over every one’s life on this planet is somehow pissed at you and you don’t know why. You just wish there was some way of making ammends with this person and save yourself from insanity. You make futile efforts to save yourself by apol ogizing for everything you have done wrong in the past couple days. But noth ing was to save me from having one of the worst days of my life. During the course of my day I suf fered several of what I like to refer to as “freshman experiences.” You know what I am talking about. Those com pletely humiliating experiences that you experienced quite often as a freshman. Since my freshman year I have sub consciously blocked out all those horri ble “freshman experiences.” As a senior you get very cocky and become very confident. You look down in contempt every fall when you see those groups (because they never go anywhere alone) of giggling, silly freshmen bouncing around campus in their heels and per fectly primped faces. After my “day from Hell” however I am going to be much more sympathetic when I see the panic-striken faces of a freshmen run ning to class on the first day of school. Well perhaps I should get on with my story. Since I am way too cool to go to the first day of class, I sauntered into my English lit class in Blocker on Tuesday. To my dismay after sitting through the first ten minutes of class I was to find out that I was in the wrong class. Des perately trying to mantain my dignity I attempted to crawl out of way too cool to go to the first day of class, I sauntered into my English lit class in Blocker on Tuesday. To my dismay after sitting through the first ten minutes of class I was to find out that I was in the wrong class. Desperately trying to mantain my dignity I attempted to crawl out of the room undetected. But NO! The prof was not going to let me off that easy. “Are you in the wrong class?” he said. I was horrified. Would you like a bul lhorn? I don’t think the class next door heard you. However he turned out to be semi-helpful and told me that the class I was looking for had been moved to the Military Science building. go. I'll goi .With hopes oi gradual looming so close in the distance “good student” in me usually winsifiil moral battles within my head. 10:10 a.m. I am heading with great speed towards the Military Science Building, but wait! I have absolutely no idea where this damm building is. I stop and ask three different people where it was (defenitely a freshman move). Each student vaguely points in the same gen eral direction. I don’t want you to point I want you to take me by the hand and show me where it is. 10:35 I hobble over to the! buy Band-aids for my wounded i| and to call the English Department! find out if this class truly exists and; does where it is. The English Depa ment said it was to be held in theCltJ istry Building, room 1 10. “Which chemistry building? Thei| two chemistry buildings,” I asked,1 wasn’t sure, so off I go dragging my terecl foot behind across campusagai “It’s somewhere over by Rudder,” one student said. Well gee thanks a lot. 10:25 a.m. 1 finally after circling the building a few times find it. By now I have a very painful blister on the back of my heel so I’m carrying my shoes (an other freshmen move). Then I have an other terrifying thought. I have no idea what room my class is in. By now I am panicked. I am going to be at least 30 minutes late on the second day of class. This is the kind of thing professors re member about you. After running through the whole building, interupting classes to ask them “is this English 232?,” I find out that my class is defi nitely not in this building. 10:45 a.m. I finally arrive. 1 tn gracefully take a seat with minimal turbance to the rest of the class, but) The professor stops class, calls meiif the front of the class, hands measd bus, and then clears his throat asifki about to make a very profom statement. I was silently praying this statement would have nothingi with me. By now there is a very strong consen sus within my brain saying, “Give it up chick, you gave it your best shot and you failed. Hang it up and try again tom- “Miss Jones, you will have to your breakfast before you arrive tod next time,” he said while pointingtoi Coke in my hand. He them proceed to point out to me on his syllabuswl* it clearly states that drinking in thetl room is strictly prohibited by Univen Regulations, 1987-88 edition, p. I could think of was why me? Whatd I done to deserve this day? morrow. But then there is another part of me saying, “If you don’t go to this class you are going to be a marked woman with this prof. You are going to be so far be hind you’ll never get caught up and then you’ll never grad . . .” OK, OK I’ll What are morals of this story? to freshmen; always go to the f of class; never wear a new pair of sin before they are worn in; and never* into a new class on the second da' minutes late. Barbara Jones is a senior journi' major and a columnist for TheBai BLOOM COUNTY by BerKe Breathed $mc£y, 5R. 15 PR£MM0'~ n I'M 50 flOHmeP/ I'M TOO fAfKWRe TV TbtfNK A "SPORTS /LLUSTRATEP " BlMBBTTB 70 Be MY WIFO-Y , IP6AL7 POT AS YOUR /P£AL, ^ m not just a Bimeno... im a peRFeCT Momee, A ORRATCWK ANP ALMOST put not oc/rre A 5 BRtOHT ANP WTTY AS YOUAR6Y .ATP YOU LOOK t/KB BROOKS 5HIRLP5. 12 1 .£ 1.1 1.1 1.* I.' 1.- 1.< 1.< 1.< 1.< 1.< 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 .91 .9: .9: .9: .9 .9i .9i .8 .8 .8 .8 .8 .7 .7 .7 .7 .7 L