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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 3, 1988)
Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, August 3, 1988 Opinion Giving hope is the only cure for the hopeless Last summer I was in Houston serving chicken fried steak and longnecks trying to save money for the fall. During that time I worked along side a woman I’ll call Joan. She was 37, smart and well read, but she had Jill Webb never looked for a better paying job than the sports bar where we were wait ing tables. Joan had a lot of problems that our society tries to solve. Her boyf riend beat her up; she drank constantly; she smoked three packs a day. She had dropped out of high school 20 years earlier, and she had given up on herself. people we are trying to help like chil dren, we are furthering their own dev astating assumption that they are help less. Many times it is easy to assume that people who have a lot of problems, es pecially mental problems, are some how less grown up than we are. We tiptoe around them with our wise words and thoughtful ideas, acting as if they heard our plans for them they would go to pieces. Everyone has a valuable opinion; we need to listen to the people we are trying to help. An extention of being an adult, and the next way to give hope is giving people real responsibility. Ever the naive idealist, I tried to help Joan. I told her she could get her G.E.D., apply for a student loan, go back to school, and get a better job and a new life. I listed ways she could become independent. I gave her books on how to get out of abusive relationships. I even offered to give her some money and let her stay with me until she could find a place of her own. But Joan just laughed away my suggestions. She said it was too late for her, so after countless frustrating attemps to help her, I left Joan alone. The last I heard she was liv ing with a man who had threatened to kill her. People without hope need to began to feel that things just do not happen to them, that they can made things happen to change their lives. Responsibility is a privilege on one hand and a necessity on the other. It is a privilege because free dom comes from responsibility, and it is a necessity because everyone needs to feel that they matter, that what they contribute in this life makes a difference to others. An individual’s function in so ciety cannot be overlooked because what we are to the rest of society is an impor tant aspect of life. Similarly, people without hope need to feel as if they are part of humanity. Joan needed something none of my ideas or any government programs could give her— hope. Until people like Joan get hope, then they will never en ter the struggle to improve their lives. We need to send hope checks with wel fare checks. We need to serve hope in our soup kitchens. Social workers need to carry lots of hope. There are several ways of giving hope, but none are as easy as writing a check or giving advice. For some reason we like to separate ourselves from those who need our help the most. We seem to have an irrational fear that hopelessness is contagous, that if we associate ourselves with “those” people that we will somehow be haunted by their problems. We have to develop a sense of unity among humanity that our industrial society has started to strip from us. Even people we have not met need to matter to us. They need to mat ter just because they are people, because they have feelings and dreams and chil dren and because they need hope. The first way to bring hope is to treat people like adults. When we treat the It is easy to say “if I were you.” I used to think, if I were Joan I’d leave that jerk. I’d get a little apartment and go to school and work until I dropped if I had to to make some kind of happy life for Mail Call I really will give Y.O.U. money EDITOR: Now that the summer is over, the students in the Y.O.U. program are preparing to return home. Before you leave I would like to take a moment to say that personally I am very glad to have had you on my campus and to know of your program. I feel that your program contains the essence of what Aggie Spirit is all about: to use one’s resources and abilities to help those with the potential and desire to succeed but who have not been shown that their destiny is controlled only by their own vision and dedication. Your lives are in your hands and you have now been shown that you can do with it as you will. Although you do not know' me and I do not know you personally, I would like to make an offer. When you graduate from high school you will all follow different paths. Some of you will go to vocational school, some of you w ill en ter the work force immediately, some of you may enter college. A few of you will return to A&M. To those of you that pursue higher education at my Alma Mater I will provide financial assistance, to the extent possible, so that you can concentrate on your studies and not where your next meal is coming from. Dale Adams ’88 Keep your fire to yourself EDITOR: It is extremely disturbing to know that the firemen can park anywhere they please, without getting a ticket, when students have to pay money and only get to park in student lots, which are being minimized by construction. So you say “Park in a different lot!” Well, I do not feel like taking the shuttle back to my dorm. If I knew I w'as going to be taking the shuttle, I would not have spent the money on a parking permit. Back to the firemen situation. It is bad enough that they take our parking places, but when we do finally find a place, as we are walking by them we get whistled at and perverted gestures are made. This may seem petty to some people, but to those of us who do not enjoy their unnecessary comments, it is very annoying! Jennifer Jones ’92 Cara Murray ’92 Lorri Walker ’92 Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff resen'es the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author's intent. Each letter must he 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 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 I he Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting new spa per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Brvan-Collcgc 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. 1 he Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photographs classes within the Department of journalism. I he Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.4-1 pet semester. $34.(i2 pet school year and $36.44 per full sear. Advertising rates furnished on request. Out address: The Battalion. 230 Reed McDonald. I ex.is A&M Unisersils . College Station. 1X 77843-111 1. Second class postage paid tit College Station. TX 77843. TO.S 1 M AS I T.R: Send address changes to t he Battal ion. 216 Reed McDonald. Texas A&M Unisersits, Col- lege Station TX 77843-41 1 1. myself. But I cannot make those kind of statements anymore because I realized that I’m not Joan— I have hope. If Joan were like me she WOULD leave, but she is not me and I have to accept that and try to help her on her own terms. It is not going to do any good to treat people who need hope as we would be treated, becatse people who have lost hope do not see things the way that hopeful peo ple do. If they did they would not feel so trapped. We have not lived the hope less’s lives and until we do we can’t say, “if I \a ere you.” It seems like the conservatives’ solu tion to the hopeless problem is to do nothing and let the people get motiva tion from suffering. This does not work. Hopeless people are used to suffering, they think it is their lot in life, and they just end up getting worse and worse. The liberals’ solution is to give the hope less lots and lots of money. This only wastes money and makes the general public angry at the hopeless. Neither so lution does anything to get at the root of the problem. They are simply cop-out solutions. I think what we need to do is start listening to these people. We need to start talking to them to find out why they feel this way, what they really need, when they began to feel that tomorrow was not going to be any different than today. We need to find out what made Pic ndig them give up, lose hope and purpose in their life. Without hope there can beno nesss, and it is a tragedy that some pie go through their lives miserablt can make things better for peopt treating them as adults, givingthci sponsibiltiy, and accepting them as of “us” not one of “them.” NoneofcBrear solutions is as easy as pattingoure nust on the back for making a donate saving “work harder,” but as long! are trying to listen, to learn, toon reach out to people and help, theii^ irn {> will be hope. Jill Webb is a senior secondary^ lion major and columnist For lk\ talion. Te nust ystei ohn He umi aid ino hanj “T Censorship won’t save the dayr I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a terri ble odor coming out of the office building at 5 1 West 52nd St. in New York — the der, while the bloodied knife is falling from its hand. Robert Dowdy Guest Columnist home of CBS-TV, the self-proclaimed Messiah of TV journalism for the past 40 years. I thought that when CBS cancelled the “Smothers Brothers Show” in 1969 from Administration pressure (pressure which the network euphemistically called ‘public interest’) and then re instated the Brothers in prime time nearly 20 years later, that it had learned its lesson. To wit: it recieved its license to control a portion of the airwaves with one proviso: this authority over the most powerful medium ever created is a public trust that can never be compro mised. The show in question is “The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse.” I can hear you snickering in the back. “Mighty Mouse” is, quite simply, one of the funniest half-hours on television, despite its Saturday morning slot. It and “Pee-Wee” are the only two not pushing a product — either dolls or breakfast ce reals — and they are the only two with intelligence behind them beyond know ing how to thread an animation ma chine. “Mighty Mouse” is surreal, anar chic, funny and (dare I say it?) can only be appreciated by adults. It would get better ratings behind David Letterman. “The principal thrust of thiscpsj is to show the redeeming quality of j and kindness,” said LeMaster.'‘ThJ nothing in the story line, the dialed the behavior of Mighty Mousei would suggest otherwise.” Referring to the censored franief imator Ralph Bakshi said, “Thestj seconds of footage have been takeil tally out of context by individuals seem to be searching for sinister! tones in a cartoon . . . Nothingcoulj further from the truth.” But, I digress. Cut to the chase, Rob. Well, kids, they’ve done it again. The Rev. Donald Wilson, head of the conservative American Family Associa tion, complained that during one epi sode Mighty Mouse looked as though he was snorting cocaine, when in fact he was sniffing a flower “in typical cartoon fashion,” as described by CBS’s Enter tainment President Kim LeMaster. Quite true. But who made thei sion to cut the scene out of theepisl Rev. Wilson? No. It’s not his prop;! Bakshi? No. He’s under contract CBS, and must ultimately accept! network’s decisions concent] censorship. That leaves only onecuj CBS, w h (4 has bucked undel censorship pressure, and screweditt| dience in the process. Not only do I have to put up with Brent Mussberger blabbing his banal, and often very partial, commentary about every sport known to man, re gardless of whether he knows anything about said sport; not only do I thank God that I have cable television, so that I am not in thrall to the CBS Entertain ment Division. Now, one of my favorite shows on CBS — one of the few worth watching — is being censored. And CBS, through it all, is denying the mur- I’ve seen this particular episode three times, and can vouch for LeMaster’s comments. It’s no more harmful or sug gestive than any of the other surreal epi sodes. Now I know that CBS doesn’t gfI damn about its responsibilites to I public and, specifically, to itsever-d'| tiling audience. Does CBS wonder: more and more viewers are switcM cable to watch the thirtieth rerunW But whether or not he is snorting co caine is irrelevant. The episode has been censored. And what is scary is that CBS is denying something which has ob viously taken place. Here are some ac tual quotes: classic movie or turning off the set J getting some fresh air? Ifs because 1 ; any endeavor, as the stakes get I and higher, the temptation to coni[j mise gets easier and easier. Robert Dowdy is a May graduate.l currently a freelance writer in ton. BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Breatl H nr ftfKZP TV £XPLfl(M W/1T m HUMANE 506/677 HAS APPP0T6P OF THIS M6TH0P TO P6TEPMIN6 7H6 TRV6 66UP6P OF "MALE" SHOW-PUS[NE5S ANMftS. THANKS TO TH/5 T6CHNI0U6. m NOW KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT MR. 5P ANP FLIPPER. PERSONALLY, 7H0, I'M