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
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A man never stands so taU as when he bends down to help a child