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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1989)
The Battalion OPINION Tuesday, August 1,1989 WELCOME TO ALASKA \MHER.E, THANKS TO EXXOM, YOU LAN HARDLY TELL THERE WAS EVER AN OIL SPILL. Columnists shadows of Many times as I discuss working at The Battalion with friends and ac quaintances, at some point in the con versation the person I’m talking to will say, “Well, Timm, you’re a pretty good writer, but you’re no Karl Pallmeyer.” My first semester at A&M was the fall of 1987, just weeks after Karl wrote his last column for The Battalion, so I never had any first-hand experience reading Pallmeyer’s work. And because he has not been at A&M for almost two years, many of the current Aggies have never read any of his work. Yet he re mains a “legend” of sorts here at A&M. analyses of current Imeyer’s offering. Not knowing what his writing was like, I at first dismissed the few people who spoke of Pallmeyer. But as I heard more people speak of him more and more often, I began to wonder about this Pallmeyer man. I’d ask my critics what was so great about Karl Pallmeyer, and most would reply that he had a knack for stirring up controversy and making people mad. Other of his topics included t; fruit pies, his love for his cat, moi his lawn, parachuting, Pee Wee I man, not being able to get asongot his head,. . . well, you getthepici; He also wrote about a dozen coluu entertainment subjects; they were good, but misplaced. have a Hardy since tl give th time is The actualh ackup — Monda ■ the Lo pany sy Thir The Cc had be Coast t confirn Mail Call Some Catholics ignore birth control ban EDITOR: one real family (that has real emotions) should not be assumed to be less painful than a child’s death in a second- world family. Many non-Catholic countries have the population problem. Matt McBurnett has apparently not seen the poll that says a huge majority of Americans who consider themselves Catholics has indeed ignored the papal “ban” on artificial birth control. In Italy itself, which is not usually considered Third World (unless you’ve looked for a restroom there), abortion is widespread as a form of birth control. Reproduction in “Catholic” third-world countries is not determined solely by a papal edict. In many of these countries, cultural tradition places high value on offspring as a sign of manhood. Local cultures have repeatedly proven more powerful than “universal” Catholicism. And despite t high birth rates, infant mortality is high and a single death in The papal office has justifiably been a target for various accusations over the hundreds of years of its existence. But as McBurnett says, times have changed. The Pope is high profile even today, but nowadays he’s high profile and low impact. Overpopulation is far more complex than McBurnett’s solution would suggest. M.L. Creamer Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. Signs of that truth are everywhere. There’s a T-shirt hanging on one of the back walls of the Batt-Cave that says “Beat The Hell Outta Karl Pallmeyer” in big letters. And last fall one of our columnists, Stephen Masters, wrote a column describing how, no matter how hard we try, none of the present colum nists can get out from under Karl Pal lmeyer’s shadow, he was just too good and too controversial a writer. In all fairness, he did write seveui rious and interesting articles. Hi topics included drugs, AIDS.civill ties, football, America as a deck economic pow r er, accessibility of to handicapped students, the Corp Cadets and several columns abouin gion and its many misuses. Yet most of his views on the polls topics of the day (Robert Bork, Bernard Goetz, etc.) were coloredbt shoot-from-the-hip liberalism. Inoi words, many of his articles appear! written on the basis of his dogma stead of well-planned logic. So I pulled out Pallmeyer’s clippings from the files in the Battalion office to experience first-hand from the past. my competition Religious congregations practice what they preach Karl was an entertainment writer in addition to being an opinion page col umnist, so I read a few of his entertain ment reviews and feature stories. For the most part, his reviews portrayed a definite knowledge of the subject matter and his analyses were enjoyable, thor ough and unbiased. I thought he really was a good writer, like everyone had been telling me. The one column that everyone tions when they think of Pallmejei the “Bowhead” article — the one which he describes the new pheiM non (at the time) on campus, who wear bows in their hair. I read and found it to be a paper of sexisli reotyping, though I realize his were meant only in fun. Then I started reading his opinion page columns, the articles for which Contributions to religion, which far exceed any other kind of philanthropy in America, rose to $48.21 billion in 1988, up 8.24 percent. But the money doesn’t go just for religion itself. Other causes such as health, educa tion and the poor come in for a big share of it, for which religion usually isn’t credited but which it sees as part of serving God’s world. Nearly all the religious receipts came from individual donations. The increase in the total was almost double the year’s inflation rate of 4.78 percent. While these figures compiled by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel show a steady climb of religious giving in the country, they don’t show an intriguing aspect of it. This is that the religious recipients themselves give away nearly half of what’s given to them, acting as a conduit to various other causes such as schools, community projects and caring for the needy. The new figures show total American philanthropy last year passed the $ 100- billion mark, reaching $104.37 billion, up 6.7 percent from the $97.82 billion the year before. That, for comparative purposes, is considerably more than the $82.6 billion the federal government spent in 1988 for non-defense goods and services. George W. Cornell AP Religion Writer Aside from the sheer bulk of giving, however, the figures don’t show that much of the more than 40 percent slice received by religion also is passed on to other causes. Consequently, while the report shows $9.78 billion going to education, $9.5 billion going to health and hospitals and $10.49 billion going to human services, that’s not all that these and other social causes received. They also are beneficiaries of reli gious giving, although this indirect funding often is disregarded in classify ing charities. The broader impact was brought out in an extensive study last year by the In dependent Sector of Washington, D.C., and the Gallup Organization of Prince ton, N. J., in cooperation with 100 reli gious organizations. It found that 54 percent of what reli gion receives goes to maintain its own worship and educational institutions, but that the other 46 percent goes to so cial programs beyond the church sphere. Based on the ratio determined by the study, religion in 1988 would have put more than $22 billion into various social improvement causes. That’s far more than $11 billion com bined given in 1988 by foundations ($6.3 billion) and corporations ($4.7 bil lion) for such public purposes. On a national and international level, substantial religiously given funds also are channelled into overseas agriculture improvement and health projects and also tc serving refugees and promoting peace and racial justice. Brian O’Connell, president of the In dependent Sector, a non-profit organi zation of corporate foundations and vol untary organizations, said the study findings showed religious congregations “practice what they preach.” George W. Cornell is an AP Religion Writer. Karl Pallmeyer apparently had become famous. I read through several of them and couldn’t believe it. They were medi ocre at best. I thought that maybe I had read his worst ones, so I read some more, but they didn’t get that much bet ter. Overall, I found him to be a writer, but I couldn’t see how became be perceived as a veritable writinggi ius. Some of his more controversialai cles made many people mad, butnoil cause he presented his views interesting ways that made people C 1 lenge their long-time beliefs. Instes his columns made people mad ink part because they were offensive those people. For example, he cal members of Student Governmt “Young Urban Fascists” and Fish Cat “Fish Concentration Camp.” His columns were not poorly written or incomprehensible, just mediocre. That’s not necessarily bad for a column ist, but it boggles my mind that people hold this guy’s writing in such high es teem. Here’s an example of one of his col umns. I still can’t understand why he k membered to this day, two years a" his last article. I just assume thatafet his articles sparked particular coni versy, for whatever reasons, and al® that he had a reputation for writing troversial articles. So anything hewn* was probably immediatley controvert which built upon itself. Q: What’s this: Buzz buzz buzz... few dozen more buzzes]...buzz buzz? A: The only thing you hear with the new phone registration system. And that’s the whole column! It is very unlikely that something like that would even get printed on the current opinion page. We’re into more concrete The current Battalion columnists j live in a part of Pallmeyer’s shadow.! I hope our writing styles and top choices will provoke people’s think! for the right reasons and in the rig! manner. With some good writing and few more graduations, hopefully Imeyer’s shadow will forever fade. Timm Doolen is a junior comp: science major and assistant opiL page editor for 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 Kathy 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. 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. 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