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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 1989)
OPINION Wednesday, August 2,1989 WHICH IS OK TO BURN*? 0A SYMBOL OF AMFR/CA ® AhERJCA ITSELF Tabloids wortl spare change )lia ofT Flash! One of Liz Taylor’s Ex-hubbies Captured By Space-Aliens and Taken to Elvis’s Secret Bermuda Triangle Tor ture Chamber Where he is Mauled by Mike Tyson! Flash #2! Time Warp in the Devil’s Triangle! Vacationers Sail Back in Time To The Spring of 1960 — And Watch Amos ’n’ Andy on LIVE TV! Matt McBurnet Columnist Now for the pop quiz. Which one of the headlines actually came from the Weekly World News? If you guessed number one . . . you lose. The cor rect answer is Flash #2. Mail Call by “shoot-from-the-hip liberalism” and “written on the basis Columnist jealous of Pallmeyer of dogma rather than logic.” I found this gripe amusing coming from someone who wrote really silly and illogical EDITOR: It looks like the green-eyed monster has attacked poor Timm Doolen. He’s mad as hell at being unflatteringly compared to Karl Pallmeyer and he’s not gonna take it any more! Taking crayon in hand, he churned out a column that just exploded the Pallmeyer myth and put ol’ Karl back in his place among Timm’s lessers. Timm’s mind is “boggled” at the “high esteem” that is held for somebody whose columns were “mediocre,” and gives the daunting, overwhelming evidence * of a single four-line column to hammer this point home. He then brands other column topics such as parachuting, lawn mowing and entertainment as “very good, but misplaced,” but I see no definition of “misplaced” other than “not interesting to or not agreeable with Timm Doolen.” He goes on to list columns on “serious and interesting” topics but manages to find fault with these as being “colored” columns about Morton Downey and “English only” laws based on not much more than sophomoricconservatism. Perhaps if Timm concentrated more on “presenting his views in interesting ways” he could build his own “mythical” reputation, rather than trying to elevate himself by gratuitous swipes at someone whose “shadow” seems to haunt him. Last week, my roommate Cameron Orwin and I were in a local supermarket and we saw a middle-aged woman and her daughter avidly reading the Sun, a jazz journalism tabloid. They actually believed the stuff. It was horrible. This sparked my quest to find out what these tabloids are all about. also describes the plight of a mar reads with his glass eye, a womar has been pregnant for 62 yearsanc^ required) an Elvis story. Apparem vis has been reincarnated asaliiil in Tupelo, Miss. By the way, Timm, is an editorial about a columnist who left the paper two years ago a “concrete analysis of current problems” that is “serious and interesting,” or just a personal problem? Steven K Baum graduate student 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. I bought four of these 75-cent tab loids, for research purposes of course, and thumbed through all of them. This equipped me with adequate knowledge to not only write about what I call “ex- press-lane tabloids,” but also to classify them. Never to be undersold is theii 1988 issue described the perp!; mystery of “Hubby’s 103-MPHS Blasts AH The Hair Off His Head.” This week’s feature si “Pregnant Man Gives Birth tolw also contains an explosive story ale man from Hiroshima who plan trumpet with his eye. It seemstk man, Kitska, began playing thetniD at the age of six but discovered ili had an eye for music at age 27. Politics and art don’t mix Two distinct and hilarious groups are found within the tabloid market. The first is the Hollywood gossip/wacky sto ry/psychic prediction type. Members of this illustrious group include the Globe, Star and, of course, the National En quirer. This group is typified by color photographs, apparently taken by ac tual reporters, with attached stories. The stories are, of course, made to suit the pictures of the celebrities. The Au gust 8 Enquirer relays the touching story about “Oprah’s wedding plans,” in which “She Forces Beau to Spend 5 Hours in Locked Limo Until He Says ’Yes’ to Her Terms.” Some days when you look at our na tion’s capital, its collective resemblance to an inept, old-time, penny-ante con man is quite striking. Like some huckster held over from the carney-bar- ker days, like an inefficient pickpocket, a dumb dip, you can see the shifts and stratagems of the old shell game man with painful clarity. art” or for any work that “denigrates, debases or reviles a person, group or class of citizen on the basis of race, creed, sex, handicap, age or national origin.” Here’s Washington trying the watch- this-hand: “Yoo-hoo, watch this hand, see it up here, above my head, I’m wav ing the fingers, I’m making a big show with this hand, lookahere.” And while we can all see the hand up there waving and carrying on, we can also see, plain as day, the other hand — headed straight for our pockets. ers. They had pails of water and hoses at the ready, prepared to do a bucket bri gade if necessary, Weldon said. “We’re ready and our guns are loaded.” Water pistols? All this hooey had the incredi ble, unintended effect of making Gre gory Lee Johnson, the Dallas flag-bur ner whose case went to the Supreme Court and touched off all this furor to begin with, sound like a statesman. He held a press conference the same day asking people not be silly. This is such an old and silly argu ment. The system we have now, where artists select the art that deserves sup port from the National Endowment for the Arts, is not perfect. On the other hand, it’s a lot better than letting poli ticians chose what art should be sup ported. The same issue of the Enquirer also contains some wacky stories to prevent it from being too tame. It seems that a 500-lb. woman killed her husband by sitting on him. Yes, “Stanley Walker won’t be calling his wife Vannie a ‘fat ox’ anymore.” Well, it appears as if Vannie did us all a favor because Stanley wanted to be the “first black man to kill a president.” By far, the most interestinganic this week’s weeklies is the Sun’ssio' the “floatation diet.” This artider an account of a Virgil Fleer’s rano: periences in the ocean. Apparent!' gil couldn’t swim and his boat watt turned by a monster wave. Thei swimmer claims that he couldn’timi stand w hy he was floating. He soon eluded that his diet of baked beaut given him enough gas to float. Ther; ror struck. In Virgil’s words, “Hot out and saw large dorsal fins." Shat! tack. “Hour after hour he foujli keep the voracious-predator fish at by aiming well-tinted bursts ofstinl bubbles at them and frightening!) off.” Virgil describes the experienct “gassy watery hell.” This story, witl attached artist’s rendering of Virgift periences was well worth my 75 cent Constant fixtures in these weeklies are: Roseanne Barr, Johnny Carson, Mike Tyson, Princess Di and, of course, Elvis and anyone related to him or who claims to be. Constant fixtures of the second:' | of tabloid are: the words “sicko” and “experts say,” strange man deformities, grannies f freezers, hilariously doctored pictore snapshot of a full-figured gal randfi placed in the paper and every type mysterious, unexplained birthconce ble to mankind. These tabloids are far the most entertaining and creati' They’re up there waving their fingers and hoo-rahing about flag-burning and dirty art. One of the funniest episodes in recent political history was the case of the “Congressmen Who Stood Ready to Protect the Flag.” Last Thursday a ru mor got started in D.C. that someone was planning to burn a flag on the steps of the Capitol, so the usual suspects, about 30 of your nuttier right-wing Re publicans, vowed not to let it happen and — making sure the photographers were present —decked themselves out in full fire-fighting regalia, boots, rub ber jackets, and prepared to save Old Glory from destruction by fire. As if waving the flag weren’t enough of a chestnut for our pols. Sen. Jesse Helms, the old demagogue from North Carolina, is on about dirty art. Helms, that noted art critic, determined that some photographs taken by the late Robert Mapplethorpe and displayed in an exhibition that some government funding, were actually “homoerotic.” Since Mapplethorpe, a brilliant photog rapher, was as gay as Nellie Forbush, this news surprised no one but Helms. With diligent digging, Helms found an other piece of art intended to offend Christians and it turned out the artist had received some kind of government subsidy at some point in his life. According to the The New York Times, the art in Helms’ house is a painting of a man with his hands folded over his Bible and a painting of a sum mer home he once owned. I’m sure they’re very nice, but there is art beyond paintings of Mom, the flag, apple pie, the Bible and lovely views of every poli tician’s home district. The National En dowment doesn’t neglect traditional art in favor of modern art. In fact, it’s usually criticized for being much too Grandma Moses-y. The second grouping of tabloids is my personal favorite. It is the no-con- cern-for-reality type that I truly adore. The leaders in this category are the Sun and, my favorite, the Weekly World News. This group tends to make absolu tely no sense but it shows much creativ ity. Photographs are of miscellaneous people who either are deformed or are in some awkward situation. As a result of my investigation tabloids, I have concluded thatthef lywood gossip types are relativel) less. The no-concern-for-reality i are hilarious, though. Taken will grain (or shaker) of salt, the storiei be quite entertaining. It is funnytoB one and think that someone actual lieves these things. For 75 cents,) can’t go wrong. byi isla Tu tioi laq law me: clea Ed- d.“ wre Ma / the spe enti mal lar end L mal and catii curs sive E $i.e to gan trip dail thes the latu Den tens shot the Tex T ion prof pay quic gessi “1 solui we s own This week’s News is a classic. Not only does it have the Devil’s Triangle story, it Matt McBurnett is a junior elec® engineering major and a columnisti The Battalion. Tirr Soviet View of Stealth Bomber: U.S. View of Stealth Bomh .V-.-'XvX ' vv .\ • 'v V’J' Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, who had been a fire chief in suburban Philadelphia in an earlier life, taught the other guys how to work extinguish- The Battalion With that, Helms tacked an amend ment on the Interior Department’s ap propriation bill that says no federal money can go to “obscene and indecent (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 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. 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 77843-1111. 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. Flu,EE m3' §i Call