Page 2AThe Battalion/Friday, September 30, 1988
Opinion
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Mail Call
New bonfire site proposed
EDITOR:
I agree with Anthony Wilson’s proposal to move bonfire to a less populated
area. How about staff parking lot 5 1 behind Zachary. It’s the emptiest placebn
campus.
Darrell Pesek ’88
pti
Hotard exists
EDITOR:
I his is a letter of sincere gratitude to all the terrific guys and the resident
director, Gary Buck, in Hotard Hall. They made a stupendous ef fort and round
up over one-third of the residents — about forty guys — to meet at fourth floor
Mosher for a cross-dine we invited them to on Tuesday.
Unfortunately, I was the only one waiting at the Commons to meet them
(fortunate for me because the odds in my favor were incredible!). Being the good
sports that they are, they graciously invited me to eat at Sbisa with them.
1 he guys handled the whole situation really well and I had a great timeeati®
with them at THE TABLE! I cannot stress enough how much 1 appreciate the
courtesy and non-apathetic attitude shown by the guys from Hotard Mall!
Thanjts, guys! You’re super! Definitely 100 percenters!
Kelly Vaughn ’91
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words m length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit lettmlm
and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author's intent. Each letter must be signed and must incliii
classification, address and telephone number of the writer.
Home sweet home
where the heck are you?
There’s no
place like home. I
always believed
Dorothy’s famous
and oft-repeated
words about her
home in Kansas.
Personally, I could
never see what she
saw in Kansas ex
cept fields and
wheat, but I gave
her the benefit of
At least, that’s how I felt until that fa
teful day last spring when my parents
called me with some good, although not
completely unexpected news. My father
had been offered a position at a presti
gious engineering school in Indiana. He
had been hoping for the opportunity to
make a change of schools, and here was
his chance.
buildings and people. I could not pop in
for a weekend visit. I probably would
not even be able to go home for Thanks
giving or birthday celebrations. I was
going to be an orphan. Deserted.
Lydia
Berzsenyi
the doubt. If she wanted to live in Kan
sas, more power to her. Just give me a
home in hot, humid southeast Texas
and I’d be happy. I figured that would
be just about the order of things for a
long time.
My family had lived in Beaumont for
close to twenty years. Although most of
my friends were away to school, their
parents were still in Beaumont, so we al
ways had a gathering place. I always as
sumed that even if I went to live in Tim
buktu, or even New York, I would
always have my Beaumont home to fall
back on.
I was excited for him and, in fact, for
the whole family. It would mean a new
start in a new place — an adventure. My
little brothers would be attending new
schools, and my mother wouldn’t have
any problem finding a new job in her
field. And my dad would be happy in an
highly academic environment which va
lued his contributions to the mathemati
cal world.
Now that they’ve moved, however,
I’m much more sane about things. I fig
ure that I really didn’t go home that of
ten anyhow, and I could still go back to
Beaumont for visits whenever I wanted
to. I think everyone I know from my
next-door neighbor to my first grade
teacher insisted I stay with them when I
visit. And besides, I’ll probably move
out of state at the end of this year and I
wouldn’t be visiting much anyhow.
summer, and I was only there for three
days and I only have two boxes of old
papers and an old doll house in the attic
there but I have my winter coat and my
summer swimsuit in my apartment in
Bryan and I work in College Station and
.... You see the problem?
But when I hung up the phone, the
realization of the move began to sink in.
There would be no more trips to Beau
mont to see my family and the house 1
grew up in. I would not experience that
little lift I always got when I drove into
town, seeing the familiar streets and
But there is one nagging question
which has been nagging me ever since I
saw Beaumont for the last time: When I
meet new people and they ask the ques
tion which is inevitably one of the first
three questions in any introductory con
versation, what do I answer? The ques
tion: So, where are you from? The an
swer: Well, I grew up in Beaumont but
my parents moved to Indiana over the
Then I started to realize there were
quite a few people in my predicament. I
never really noticed how many friends’
parents had moved since they had be
gun college. Many of them could sym
pathize, and some were even worse off
than me. My roommate’s parents live in
Saudi Arabia, so she definitely won’t be
going for any weekend visits.
Actually, my parents’ move is proba
bly more beneficial for me than I
thought. Although I was already paying
most of my way through college, now
I’m forced to be even more indepen
dent.
go to the optometrist to order anotlu
one tor me. It would take twice as
to get t he contact il she got it in It
so I take care of it myself. Neediest:
the dentist? If I have a cavity,
wait till I go to Indiana where Monui
have conveniently set up an a[
ment for me. Now I take care of it ir
self.
It’s not so much that I teelsobigs:;
grown up now. Rather, I just feeltha:
have more responsibility formyownl
now. And that feels good.
So what if I can’t zip in for thewd
end? I know that I always have a
to return to whenever I’d like./
can still feel homesick even it I misstl
home I’ve only lived in for threedat
Home is where mv family is, or,as
saying goes, where the heart is.
All those little chores I had
unconsciously left up to Mom and Dad
are my responsibility now. Lose a con
tact? I can’t just call Mom and ask her to
Dorothy really had something wilt
she said there’s no place like home.
Kansas? Well
Lydia Berzsenyi is a senior matlm
for and editor ofThe Battalion.
Bush, Dukakis left many tough questions unanswered
WASHING
TON — Some
questions that
would cause Sun
day night’s debat
ers to shrivel up
like salted snails:
George
Will
For Dukakis:
You campaigned in the streets of Ca-
bridge with Helen Caldicott, the Austra
lian extremist, in favor of a “nuclear
freeze.” Yet you adore the INF
agreement which was made possible by
deployments, you and she opposed, of
Pershings and cruise missiles. On Aug.
4, you said you still favored freeze (al
though later your staff told you that you
no longer did). Do you not owe the na
tion an explanation and an apology?
And while you are at it, explain this:
Two weeks after you promised to spend
billions on SDI, you mailed a fund-rais
ing letter promising to “put an end to
the dangerous Star Wars fantasy.” Say
what?
nerability of our land-based deterrent.
It favors the mobile Midgetman and a
mobile basing mode for MX. But the ad
ministration has proposed a ban on mo
bile missiles, because mobility compli
cates verification and thus interferes
with the fetish of arms control. Do you
know which side of the debate you are
on tonight?
use of U.S. forces to plant democracy in
the Dominican Republic in 1965. Is it a
Dukakis Doctrine that two more
dictatorships in this hemisphere would
not matter.
For Dukakis: You are the only gover
nor who opposed his state’s partici
pation in the GWEN (Ground Wave
Emergency Network) project to provide
the President with command-and-con-
trol communications capable of surviv
ing a Soviet first strike. A spokesman for
you still says what you said in your 1986
letter to the Air Force, that such a sys
tem would make nuclear war more
likely. But how can there be deterrence
if the enemy knows the United States
lacks the capability to conduct a coun
terattack?
For Bush: The last large-scale use of
U.S. force was in Vietnam, a disaster in
the end. Should we never have helped
South Vietnam resist aggression? Or
should we have taken stronger military
actions — which ones — to win?
be recession. How far will the dollar col
lapse and how high will interest rates
soar when the next recession turns the
annual Reagan-Bush budget deficit of
$150 billion into a $300 billion Bush-
Quayle deficit?
For Bush: Your solution to the bud
get dificit is a “flexible freeze” of spend
ing. Isn’t that an oxymoron, the adjec
tive nullifying the noun? To dispel the
suspicion that flexibility would be used
to appease every clamorous constitu
ency, name the big-ticket programs you
would not be flexible about.
For Dukakis: You support the Su
preme Court’s 1973 abortion ruling that
a fetus is at no point a person with
rights. But intra-uterine medicine now
conducts surgery and other therapy on
fetuses. Can a fetus be a patient but not
a person? Should the Hypocratic Oath
— “First, do no harm” — protect fetuses
at least in the second and third trimes
ters?
giance; drug use and prostitution-lit
eluding street solicitation — shoup
legalized; homosexuals have a fi|
be foster parents; all prisoners, n
less of their of f enses, should bereleastt
from prison and allowed to return
their last place of residence to voted!'
are you carrying that card?
For Bush: Y ou cite Dukakis’ /
card as evidence that he is unfitforini
office. Will you describe your
horror, revulsion, etc. about the fe
that your Attorney General Riel
Thornburgh was a member of
ACLU in the late 1970s?
For Bush: Before the Republican Na
tional Convention you said, “Watch my
vice-presidential decision. T hat will tell
all.” All?
For Bush: Talk about debates, the
Reagan-Bush administration is having a
dandy debate with itself. It embraces the
Scowcroft Commission endorsement of
mobile missiles as a response to the vul
For Bush: Gorbachev wants a more
efficient communism. Do you? If so,
why? If not, will you link Soviet access to
U.S. and multi-national economic insti
tutions to changes in Soviet behavior,
specifically to an end to arms shipments
to Nicaragua?
For Dukakis: Congress howled when
Attorney General Meese, acting on the
“sauce for the gander” principle, ended
Congress’ immunity to special prosecu
tors. Was Meese right? Or do you think
the Democratic-controlled Congress
should be exempt from the rules it
writes for others?
For Dukakis: You opposed not only
the liberation of Grenada but also the
For Bush: Assuming that business cy
cles have not been banished, there will
For Dukakis: Campaigning in Iowa,
you boasted of being a “card-carrying
member” of the American Civil Liber
ties Union. The official ACLU policy
guide says, among many other things:
there should be no tax-exempt status
for churches and synagogues; the words
“In God We Trust” should be taken off
the currency and “Under God” should
be stricken from the Pledge of Alle-
For Dukakis: The next President"!
reshape the Supreme Court. You at/
other opponents of Robert E
stressed concern about “privacy” ri|
Consider an issue currently
gated: Do people who engage in
sexual acts have a constitutional pritf
right to serve in the military?
For Bush: If during your preside®
anyone proposes a plan as cockeyed*
giving arms to the Ayatollah, do you®
pect Vice President Quayle to respo®
as you did, or do you expect him toi
ject vigorously?
Copyright
Group
1988, Washington Post V/tifi
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Lydia Berzsenyi, Editor
Becky Weisenfels, Managing Editor
Anthony Wilson, Opinion Page Editor
Richard Williams, City Editor
D A Jensen,
Denise Thompson, News Editors
Hal Hammons, Sports Editor
Jay Janner, Art Director
Leslie Guy, Entertainment Editor
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BLOOM COUNTY
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