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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 1989)
The Battalion OPINION Th« Battalion Wednesday, August 23,1989 Movie quality has declined HOSTAGE PLEA RAPSANJANI AWJ6WJB wowsen iwr AT THE MOVIES Mail Call Leland deserved more respect EDITOR: We are truly appalled!! We arrived at work on the morning of Monday. August 14. 1989, expecting to see our school and work-place paying its last respects to our fallen Congressman (from Houston) George Thomas “Mickey” Leland, by placing the flag at half mast. After investigating, it was discovered that the police department is responsible for the raising and lowering of the flag when the Corps of Cadets is gone for the summer, and the president’s office issues directives concerning honoring diseased dignitaries. First the police department was called to find what was going to be done about the flags. The police department spokesperson said no word had been received f rom the president’s office regarding lowering the flags. Next the president’s office was called. Through them we learned the police department had been issued a notice to lower all the flags to honor Congressman Leland and his party. The police department was recalled and the person that answered the phone notified us all that all police personnel were in a meeting and rttr task of lowering the flag would have-ro wait: — W hat could he so important that a blatant error of this magnitude could not be corrected upon request. And if this had been Reveille would this error have been corrected immediately or postponed until after the meeting? This was a slap in the face! It is absolutely unconceivable that a state school would pay homage to a dog and not do the same for a man, who not only stood up for the rights of all people in Texas but in many parts of the world. To find the flaghot at half mast was indeed a disappoint mnet after the University so hastily placed it at half mast for a dog. If the University chooses to pay homage to any fallen congressman, senator, governor, president, etc. we feel that everyone should be treated equally. Jackie Sandies Accompanied by three signatures Don’t point fingers EDITOR: In reference to the “Mail (^alT outcry of ethnic betrayal ( r/ie Battalion 8/10) you should have invoked more humor in your response by say ing that hereafter, the new Battalum Police Beat will refer to any black ma^r that is caught red- handed with stolen colored television sets as a “person" in order to allay presumed guilt. • j ' Eric T. Clarke Graduate student I rttm to the ed*l<n >hnuM not ext mi WO u<orti\ in length t he edUortnl staff reset- es the right to edit letters fo, style (inti length, hut util make rrm effaet to matntmn the authtn'% intent Etuh Utter must he signed anti must , n , tud, the , Uastftemtttm. address and tolrpkone number of the writer. I * L* Even as Hollywood this summer cele brates the largest box-office tallies in its history , Americans sav the movies just aren’t what they used to be. Citing a surfeit of sex. violence and profanity, a majority of respondents in a Media General-Associated Press poll said the overall qualits of movies has de clined over the years — and fewer than two in 10 said the flicks are better The reviews were not all bad: Six in 10 of the 1,084 adults in the national poll gave favorable marks to the last movie they had seen. But as many had an unfavorable impression of new mov ies in general. Many critics acclaim 1939 as the pin nacle of moviemaking, the vear of such classics as “Cione With the Wind.” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Wuthering Heights.” A half-century later, however, “Batman.” “Ghostbusters II’’ and “In diana Jones and the I-ast Crusade" are smashing box-office records. Despite such popular new fare, the poll found that Americans watch movies on home videocassette recorders far more often than they go to the theater. And half of VCR owners said they go out to movies less since buvmg their ma chines. Criticism of film content was extraor dinarily high: Eight in 10 respondents said most new films have too much vio lence and too much profanity in them, and seven in 10 said most new movies have too much nudity. - Women were considerably more crit ical of Hollywood than were men. Strong majorities of women said thev would be less likely to attend a film if it contained nudity, violence or profanity : most men. by contrast, said those factors would not matter in their choice of a movie. Older respondents also were much more critical of film content, and movie attendance declined with age. Respon dents under age 4 e » were much more frequent movtegoers than those over 45; those 18-29 were the most avid Kiftv-stx |>ercent overall said the qual ity of movies has been getting worse over the sears. That sentiment ranged from 42 |H*rcent of the youngest group to 7b jiercent of the oldest, and from 48 percent of men to04 percent of women. Res|>ondents who identified them selves as (literals were more tolerant of profanity and nuditv in the movies, al though thev objected to violence as much as others. Men tended to be more tolerant than women. 77 percent of women said they would lie less likely to attend a movie with violence in it. but just 41 fieri ent of men agreed. On pro fanity the female-male split was 69-44; on nudity. 72-42. Ticket prices weie another cause for complaint. While three-quarters of the respondents paid $5 or less for their last movie ticket, a sizable 45 percent overall said the price was unreasonable. I en percent of all lespondents said they had gone out to see a movie in the previous week But a thud of all respon dents said they had rented a movie cas sette in the previous week to watch on a home VCR Gary tatngcr is a writer for the Asso ciated Press. Is* there a proper place for a toxic waste dump? By George, the good guys won the other day. The Texas Water Cximmis- sion voted to deny a permit to some folks (a foreign corporation, no less) who wanted to put the world’s largest toxic waste dump down in Wharton County. Their plan was to put millions of barrels of toxic gunk into some salt domes in Wharton, first solidifying the glop by a secret process heretofore seen in action only in a Dixie cup. T his one really was a lulu, Wharton County would have been the first in the world to use this secret process. We all ‘understand that no one wants a toxic waste dump in his backyard, but being a double guinea pig was a bit much for the goixl citizens of Wharton. Their six- year struggle to kill off this proposal is probably more an instructive political tale than it is an environmental victory. A couple of hundred^head of Whar- tomtes (Whartoners?) had come to Aus tin for the hearing and they left after the 15-minute meeting with a 2 to 1 in their favor. I heard this exchange: “For that. I could have stayed home.” “Ain’t that the truth.” Bubba. you couldn’t be more wrong. Only reason that vote went 2 to 1 against the toxic dump was on account of there were hundreds of Whartonites willing to come to Austin time after time, be cause Whartons Concerned Citizens Against Polution have been raising hell about this dump for vears and because they in turn mobilized their local poli ticians to fight — Wharton County has spent $ 1 million in a court and adminis trative battle against United Resource Recovery, the French waste disposal company that came up with this scheme. The company claims the salt domes are geologically stable. The concerned citizens of W'harton triumphantly pro duced the case of The SINKHOLE That Ate Two PICK-ups. Truer than a byGod, one day in 1983, a good chunk of PM 442 near Boling flat fell in and took tWo trucks with it, filled up with water and created a nice-si/ed reservoir. This apparendy happened because 442 rides on a fault line, and so much geo logical stability, they say in W’harton. The vote itself was rather interesting, since two of the commissioners had to reverse themselves, rather clearly more because of political pressure than be cause of the staff's recommendations. At the commission meeting, where Wharton turned out in force, commis sioner Buck Wynne announced that he wanted to takevhe whole matter under advisement and study the record in greater depth and so on. and just gener ally postpone the sucker for a month. As though six years had not been long enough for the greased lightning to do its work. Wynne showed up last week with his feelings hurt. He said he Tiad read the remarks of local officials in the Rosen berg newspaper after the last meeting saying he was a cop-out and that he was just dodging the bullet, and, well, they had actually criticned him. And only be cause he is such a big person was Wynne not going to let the that influence his judgment, he was going to vote against the permit anyway. ( Honest to God. he siad all that sounded like a horse’s be hind.) 'The one voce in favor of the toxic dump came from John Houchins. a law yer who professed to lie upset at prtxe- dural violations the reversal required. Houchins announced during an enter taining peroration: *T don’t care if it ha relips the governor and kills every cow in Bell County, I won’t do that kind of stuff because of politic al pressure. This commission can’t make decisions based on popular opinion. Otherwise, the Legislature can handle :t. If we succomb to write-in campaigns and people walk ing around with signs that say, ’My child will glow in the dark.’ we'll never get rid of the waste.” While it may have lieen noble of Houchins to resist political • pressure, in the form of the united sen timent of W'harton County, since the commission’s own technical staff had recommended against the project, it seemed less a matter of integrity than of stubbornness. Houchins favored the crowd with the NIMBY (not in my backyard) lecture, asking: “What are we going to do with this stuff? Hire someone with a dump truckand a 55-gallon bucket to dump it in a liar ditch? Tlfxt’s why we’ve got su- perfund (lean-up sights all over this country." Tcx» true. I have an idea: Let’s outlaw further production of this toxic garbage right now. It exists because a few people make money off it. There are no cases where manufacturing proc esses that produce highly toxic wastes are necessary tor human survival and few cases where they are necessary for human comfort. The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Pres* Association South west Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Ellen Hobbs. Editor Juliette Rizzo. Opinion Page Editor Fiona Soltes. City Editor Drew Leder, Chuck Squatriglia, i \ News Editors Merritt. Sports Editor Kathy Haveman Art Director Hal Hammons. Makeup Editor The i i » a non-profit. aetf-Mipportmg newmpa a comiBiiiMv mersnee to Texas AJcM and V Opinion* rxpmard in The Bsttshon are editorial board or (be author, and do not net reami (hr opinion* of Texas A.AM uitv or the Board of Rr(ferns those of i he The Baumbon also for studenu m re pc classes within the I as a IsS n rssr n nmapapn editing and photograph* during Texas AAM regular semesters, except I and examination periods are $17 44 and $36 44 per E? vear. 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