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
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Opinion
Chang
language
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All ini
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a Foreigi
of most i
jlpuntry.
Howe
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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
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