The Battalion
OPINION
2
The Battalion
sty
Friday, June 30,1989
... SftTMM ••• SATMM Sorrows.
QflT/n/M &j<?/)/cees ... fi/jr^vw uNpeR-Me/i/Z • • •
Ws "i^/aj th? BArm8tLf" co^rfsr...
BAr/H/jfij- Fuwc&eo ice cze/f/n... 3AT#w-i
fVUH INFt/meCe LIF<?'jlZc y
/'■ Dolls... batman music */
STURiP ZP/WQjAL CARjctfllSfr
AOvur 8/tTtfAA/..
/
mt m
/
Rf/rii
AM#] u/csr
ms /n/tv /S /) vscr/rt o?>
"*at-mR*n a,
A coMO/r/<*/ rt//*r occurs tai
PeoPcs fKfoseo n> /ill of r//<f
fl/eLZcMA/OfsrrtO S0FR/>uND/rL6>
rtff /vew "&Ar/nM H /no we.
OOA/'T L£T T/-//S
HARPCM 71? you/'!
60 Jif? 7^ mwcr P/Mf /PP
/jA/O 6er /r o'/se. u<rd ■'
ge/nesi&etz, oloA/ei /s *
TfizwGL* to Msr<r
(oM oTHeo. Mo vies ).
-/? MfSSAOe FFoa\
f/f/e pfioDuce/is
Of ''S/fr/TJFA/".
Uprooting of histori
Live Oak trees leave
a lot to be desired
They’re going to take away our trees.
The Texas A&M administration’s
plans for an expansion of the Memorial
Student Center call for the removal of
26 trees, among them the 165-year-old
Rudder Oak.
Thirteen of the trees to be removed
will be demolished, while the remaining
trees will be transplanted to other loca
tions on campus. Whether or not the
trees survive the moving process is ques
tionable.
/
s s s s e s f f s's e e: s'<
11
, s , f s s rs 11 <**.*■(<■ < c f r< <
Gen. Wesley E. Peel, vice chancellor
of facilities planning and construction,
told reporters that the chances of the
trees being saved are “Maybe 50-50,
maybe 60-40. I can’t tell you what the
odds are.”
But why do we need to save the trees,
anyway? They’re getting old —theiri
cycles might end any day now. Ai
good grief, we can’t let a bunch of
amimate objects like trees get in the was
of progress!
#r‘
On the other hand, others say the
trees just won’t make it — especially the
more mature tr^es like the Rudder Oak.
There are many very good reason!
not to remove the trees. Let’s ignorei
couple of the obvious ones, like it's just
another example of man hacking awat
at his environment or that the Ruddei
Oak is a great tradition at A&M.
EPA rules to start tracking waste
The upper Atlantic Coast is a long
way from the Gulf of Mexico, but Texas
and Louisiana beachgoers should take
note: Medical waste is beginning to wash
ashore for the third year in a row.
This summer, however, a new proce
dure for tracking those wastes will be in
effect. The Environmental Protection
Agency is enforcing a two-year program
to track and manage the disposal of
such waste.
siana, will be involved in a program in
which the EPA will require doctors, den
tists, veterinarians, hospitals, medical
laboratories and clinics to keep detailed
records that track a waste product from
origin to disposal; others involved with
handling the product also must sign
documents used in the tracking.
Seven jurisdictions, including Loui-
The new procedure likely won’t make
much of a dent in the medical waste
problem, according to the EPA, which
estimates that only 10 percent of the
waste that floated ashore this past sum
mer came from sources covered by the
new regulations. Much of the rest came
from illegal drugs and from outpatients
who take drugs at home, says the EPA.
To their credit, states covered by the
new regulations have chosen to partici
pate rather than opt out, which they
could have done under an escape clause
written into the law.
Settling these problems a little at a
time is far better that letting them fes
ter.
Beaumont Enterprise
Robert Rucker, a landscape architect
and retired A&M professor, said,
“Trees of this vintage have just reached
their maximum value as environmental
statements and cannot be transplanted
with any degree of success. Trees more
than 10 inches in trunk diameter and
planted in the type of soil on the A&M
campus cannot be transplanted without
killing them.”
This campus is beginning to
rather ugly. Yep, all those new-fangled
tan brick buildings being constructed
aren’t as beautiful as we’d all like
imagine.
What both of these guys seem to be
saying is that the chances of these trees
living aren’t that great.
It’s no surprise that the pictures
A&M recruiting brochures, posters and
postcards are so often of the Academif
Building and the Quad. Nobody want
to go out of their way to look at tilt
Blocker Building, the parking garage
any of the modular residence halls !
‘progress’ we’ve made has pushed
back in the area of aesthetics.
Ladies refuse to become sex objects
These trees have been around for a
long time — longer than any of us have
— and there is no reason to destroy part
“of the history and beauty of A&M to ex
pand the MSC.
Some days you open the paper and
it’s kind of like finding Castro in the re
frigerator smokin’ a cigar. It’s hard to
know what to think. That’s the way I felt
the other day when I learned the Dallas
Cowboy cheerleaders were upset with
the team’s new owner because they
think he’s fixin’ to make ’em into sex ob
jects. Says I to myself, “No doo-doo?”
(That’s the George Bush influence.)
That it had not previously occurred
to the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders that
they might already be sex objects is one
of those revelations that will take a good
feminist by surprise. Nevertheless, I feel
those of us of the feminist persuasion
have an obligation to support the sisters
on the cheerleadin’ squad. Heaven for
bid that they be required by this barbar
ian from Arkansas to wear revealing
costumes! They should stick to the Pu
ritanical outfits they wear now. How ha
teful that the man (we always knew no
good would ever come to lettin’ an Ar-
kie buy the Cowboys) thinks cheerlead
ers whould be required to socialize with
football players, an obviously inferior
class of persons. I’m a little puzzled as to
why it is OK to stand on the sidelines
and jiggle and shake in an effort to whip
up enthusiasm for football players, but
not OK to pal around with them; never
theless, it’s clearly a freedom of choice
issue — no woman should be required as
a condition of employment to socialize
with anyone.
I consider the reasoning behind the
cheerleaders’ unwillingness to perform
at social functions at which liquor is
served to be so obvious as to require no
explanation whatsoever. They say they
want to retain their clean-cut image. I
had not previously been aware that they
had a clean-cut image, but that’s only
because I had not studied the matter
deeply enough. Now being set straight
upon this question, I cry shame upon
Mr. Jerry Jones, who feebly insists that
his intentions have been misunderstood
by “the girls,” who he says are “the pick
of the litter.” Mr. Jones, shut up.
I trust this analysis of these vexing
public policy questions has been of some
assistance to the readership and that my
own newspaper will now remove the af
fair from the front page.
The Supremes, in another 5-4 spe
cial, now say the state of Texas cannot
kill John Paul Penry unless and until the
jury, finding him guilty of murder, is
also informed of the fact that he is men
tally retarded. But, say the Supremes,
should a jury so informed then choose
to off Penry despite the fact that he’s not
bright enough to function in society,
they may do so. Penry is not profoundly
retarded, he can walk and talk; never
theless, his personal history is so ghastly
(he was horribly beaten and abused by
his own mother) that you cannot hear
about it in detail without gagging.
This is one of those cases that defies
the simplistic, judgmental vengeance-
seekers. Penry not only commited a bru
tal murder, his victim happened to be a
lovely young woman, newly married,
from a family well-known in her East
Texas town, with all the bright promise
of her youth and beauty and kindness
destroyed without reason by this sub
normal victim of a hideous upbringing.
Who is to blame? Penry’s mother is
dead and was clearly insane herself. I
can find no one, unless it is the social
workers who failed to remove Penry
from his mother’s care, and while that
was clearly a failure of responsibility,
the death penalty is not yet attached to
it. Is Penry now such a monster that the
state should murder him? To do so is to
hold John Paul Penry responsible for
his acts. But he does not have the mind
of an adult and could not conceivably be
regarded as sane even if he were not re
tarded.
The Supreme Court of the United
States could not bring itself to conclude
that society has no right to murder the
retarded. Under their ruling, someone
with an IQ of 40 can be held account
able for his or her actions, even though
a 3-year-old four times that bright
would not be. It was a gutless decison.
And it means another East Texas jury
will presumably be called upon to re-try
Penry and to sentence him, this time
with all the facts about his background,
and to make a final decision in a case the
Supreme Court didn’t have the collec
tive courage to decide.
The administration has a good point.
The student body and faculty have out
grown the available space on campus.
To solve this problem, extra meeting
and office space needs to be developed.
But, it is not necessary to kill the green
ery around the MSC to do it.
Supporters of the MSC expansion
plans say we don’t need to worry al)
what the loss of thg,trees will do to
general appearance of the MSC, ^
cause new trees will beplanted. Unfortu
nately, it will take 50-60 years for thf
new trees to mature. We will have
uated by then, our children will
graduated by then . . . h’ s g°
be a long time before the new treesco®
pare to the ones already there
The planned expansion calls for an
addition of 58,790 square feet to the
northeastern part of the MSC. The
plans also call for the construction of
two, two-story buildings by the parking
garage that would house offices, meet
ing rooms, classrooms, the athletic de
partment and the placement center.
Gen. Peel told The Battalion
people protesting the tree rem
didn’t care about A&M or its student!
He’s wrong. Protesters aren’t just
testing the potential deaths of tre*
They’re protesting the potential
of the beauty of our campus.
An additional floor added to each of
these buildings could tack on around
57,000 square feet of meeting and office
space to be used by the ever-growing
student body.
Aggies have always gone out oftW
way to protect the grass outside
MSC. Now it’s time for us to pro
trees.
atecttl'
Ellen Hobbs is a junior join
ro0
major and editor of The Battalion
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Ellen Hobbs,
Editor
Juliette Rizzo,
Opinion Page Editor
Fiona Soltes,
City Editor
Drew Leder, Chuck Squatriglia,
News Editors
Steven Merritt,
Sports Editor
Katny Haveman,
Art Director
Hal Hammons,
Makeup Editor
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.
Friday, June
B-C
By Richard Tijeri
STAFF WRITER
“Batman” com pi
run at a local theal
sale of Batman-r<
been going on muc
Bryan-College Stat
The movie ope
plex Odeon Post O
day. The manager,
veal his name, wo
on how local ticket
Nationally, “Bat
Michael Keaton as
Nicholson as the J(
box-office record
taking in $42.7
Brothers Inc. stud
day.
That broke tin
day record set by
sequel, “Ghostbust
nered weekend s;
lion.
But along with
movie, “Batman” a
a huge merchan
Warner Bros, has
firms to sell e
shirts and tooth!
“Batman” insignia
mobiles.
Bryan-College
dealing in Bat-p;
seen a dramatic rn
Chief
By Holly Beesc
STAFF WRITER
As the sky
lion in celebr
Day, people :
dangers of ft
regarding tht
The use a
works is outl
Station, as in
cause of the 1
they cause.
More thai
lated injuries
year. The n
doubled sina
College 5
Harry Davis
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.
3?*
(Ol^t RCWCN FC^T
Q uy 12pc.
another “S
Pop). Each
chicken mi
At
609 Univers
FR
Buy one of
p REE (with 1
1 400 S. Tex;
100
100 p
Discounl
tons pur
°ne couj
20