The Battalion
OPINION
Thursday, September 21, 1989
Mail Call
Say goodbye to morals, ideals
EDITOR:
I am responding to Matt McBurnett’s column in the
Tuesday, September 19 issue of The Battalion. For those of
you who did not get a chance to read his column, Mr.
McBurnett started out by stating that he was not in favor of
legalizing prostitution; yet, his last statement was “Let’s give
prostitution the green light.”
Mr. McBurnett then proceeded to give a quotation that
any “vice” that could not be suppressed should be made a
virtue. For some reason I wondered if cockroaches and ants
could qualify. Mr. McBurnett then clarified himself and
stated that prostitution should be legalized since it was an old
profession that could not be suppressed. I then wondered if
the “old” profession of hired killers could be legalized.
Later in his column, Mr. McBurnett stated that he was
under the impression that laws prohibiting prostitution came
from a “warped” Judeo-Christian philosophy of sex and that
religious views are dictating our laws.
First of all, the Bible says that sex is to be between man
and his wife, not between man and a prostitute. (1
Corinthians 6:15, 7:3-5.) Now what’s wrong with that?
Second, our forefathers came to what is now America in
order to get away from religious persecutions. They then
began to establish laws, which incorporated their beliefs,
religious and non-religious.
I think that if prostitution were to become legalized, our
nation would become even more corrupt and that many of
our ideals and morals (whether religious or not) will become
warped too. I hope the day will never come when a child says,
“Mommy, I want to grow up to be just like you, a legalized
prostitute.”
Zane Dunnam ’92
Prostitution not profession
EDITOR:
There are still some people in this country that believe sex
should be something special between two people. I have more
respect for women than to think they can only make money
from prostitution. Just because it resembles free enterprise
does not mean it should be legalized. Should we leagalize
crack because it resembles supply and demand?
Having worked in Laredo and been to “boystown,” I can
attest that even the poorest of women do not become
prostitutes because it is easier than holding down a job.
Prostitution is not a profession but an unfortunate by
product of a male-dominated society which belittles women
to subdue them and boost their own male insecurities.
Let’s condemn prostitution and give women some more
credit.
Theodore Liu
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.
Don’t judge TV Guide by its cover
Hop on the
Bonfire. Reveille. The Twelfth Man.
Fish Camp. Center Pole. Of Sarge. El
ephant Walk. Hullaballoo. Aggieland.
Pinfeather. 29th Street. Dartmouth.
2818. Lincoln. Welsh. Southwest Park
way. Marion Pugh. Anderson.
Tell me, what do these two lists have
in common with each other? Well, be
sides the fact that “Hullaballoo” rhymes
with “Marion Pugh,” it seems to me that
the two are totally unrelated.
But A&M’s Department of Parking,
Transit and Traffic Services has de
cided that the two lists are related, sub
stituting traditions from the first list for
bus routes in the second. Beginning this
fall, the traditional bus route names
were scrapped, and were renamed for
many of the traditions at A&M.
And what a concept it is! Whereas
students and faculty who ride buses
used to know the buses general direc
tion, they now have no clue whatsoever
of the buses destination. Every individ
ual is now expected to know where each
specific bus will take them, relying solely
on the name of the tradition on the mar
quee.
This thing about TV Guide putting
Oprah Winfrey’s head on Ann-Mar-
gret’s body and then making a cover out
of the combination is quite shocking to
me.
How can you trust anything that’s in
side a magazine whose editors would do
something like that on its cover?
I’ve been a regular reader of TV
Guide for years. I find this slip into de
ceit quite appalling.
What was wrong with Oprah Winf
rey’s body? I admit it was once cow-like
but she lost a lot of weight, and got her
self down to the point she no longer has
to call in heavy equipment to help her
get out of her jeans.
In an effort to get to the bottom of all
this, I phoned the offices of TV Guide
and spoke to one of the art directors,
who asked I not use his name.
I agreed to that, so we shall call him
Fred.
“You really want the truth?” asked
Fred.
“The truth is the cornerstone of this
Lewis
Grizzard
Syndicated Columnist
column,” I answered.
“Well, what happened was Oprah’s
head is much too big for her squatty
body,” explained Fred.
“And what did you do?”
“We lied to Oprah. We told her she
looked great on the cover and if you
looked at it sideways, it didn’t appear
she had a cabbage head after all.”
“And then?”
“And that’s when we decided we had
to doctor the photograph. At first, we
tried putting Oprah’s head on Geena
Davis’s body, but Geena is so slim,
Oprah looked like a Tootsie Pop.
“So then we went for Maggie Thatch
er’s body, but the results were quite
scary to be perfectly honest with you.
Then we tried
Nancy Reagan, Jane Pauley, Imelda
Marcos, Miss Idaho, Wonder Woman
and Kermit the Frog.”
How did you finally come up with
Ann-Margret?”
“We got it down to her and Barbara
Bush, and we flipped a coin and it came
up Ann-Margret.”
“And you were going to try to pull off
this ruse on the American people until a
designer recognized the dress on the
cover as one he had designed for Ann-
Margret and blew the whistle on you?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said
Fred. “We’ve been up to our necks in
complaints.”
I stand foursquare against such at
tempts to fool the reading public, and I
have vehemently opposed my pub
lisher’s idea to put my head on Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s body for the cover of
my upcoming book, “Autobiography of
a Hunk,” in which I discuss how I
achieved my god-like, perfectly sculpted
body without the use of steroids.
See you in a bookstore soon.
Copyright 1989, Cowles Syndicate
And what is the purpose of a marquee
anyway? (A marquee is a sign above the
front windshield of a bus that suppos
edly identifies its destination.) It would
seem to me that the marquee of a bus
would allow any potential passenger to
identify where the bus is going. But not
here at A&M. Our marquees are
adorned with namesorned with names
of traditions that have no bearing on the
destination of the bus.
Don’t get me wrong. I am very proud
to attend Texas A&M, and I have pride
in and respect for the traditions of our
school. But it seems very strange to me
that our Aggie traditions are riding
around atop bus windshields. Does this
show respect for our traditions?
And what is worse is the potential
confusion the new names may cause.
Try telling somebody that you are going
Howdy bui
to ride “Reveille” home. (I wouldn’ti
were you.) Or imagine if someonefi
you if you’ve seen “Bonfire” drive by
tely? Or what if people expect the “Fii
Camp” bus to go to Palestine? Cam
sit down on the “Twelfth Man" bt
These examples may seem a littlebiti
fetched, but what if you were a visitor!
our campus? Or a freshman? Oreii
an international student?
leg
key
lice
Bus operations thought the
route names would become obsoldj
considering the amount of construci
on and around our campus. They (I
that with routes changing allofthetii;
because of construction, the old nan
did not always describe the correctdes
nation of the buses. They believer
new names will prevent route nan
from becoming obsolete.
But even with all of the constructief
buses still generally travel in thesai
directions they always have. While
justments may have to be made becaia
of construction, it is unreasonable]
compromise a sensible descriptionorl
bus route for a name that is totally!
presentative of the buses general deij
nation. The new names for the 1
routes can only cause confusion on l
part of A&M’s bus-riding population.
So now for the first time in thehistoj
of A&M, “Yell Practice” arrives a I
earlier than midnight, “Reveille” acti
ally carries passengers and “Bonfnl
travels the campus via Goodyear, m
thought “Scarlet O’Hara” was strangj
Silly me.
Damon Arhos is a senior joumhs
major and a columnist for The
ion.
>s<
;hai
er
oui
ncr
ov
or
if tl
iala
he
Spei
;ive;
pro-\
Liei
:r v
iala
vou
irnc
593,
ir ai
mr
ture
in J
the !
kfei
begi:
for
not i
ineli
Meu
Tl
ear
President Bush’s clean air hard to breathe
“1
lir
of
President Bush has outlined his plan
to clean the nations filthy and danger
ous air. The plan would be as successful
at obtaining clean air for the nation as
Exxon’s recently halted clean-up efforts
were at getting oil off of Alaskan
beaches. It is also all but proof that, un
fortunately, he is not the environmen
talist he claims to be. His final plan has
the fingerprints of industry clearly visi
ble all over it.
Michael
Worsham
Guest Columnist
Legislation for cleaning the nations
air has been separated into three areas
of focus: acid rain, urban smog and air
toxics. The House has come up with
strong bills for each of the three identi
fied areas of concern, including an air
toxics bill introduced by the late Con
gressman Mickey Leland.
President Bush’s legislation comes
nowhere near the House’s strong bill,
and incredibly, includes provisions
which downgrade existing regualtions.
One of the new notable positive com
ponents of President Bush’s plan is a
provision mandating a redhetion of
nine million tons per year of sulfur di
oxide emissions from coal-burning elec
tric utilities. This was probably included
to appeal to Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell, whose state of Maine
has been plagued by acid rain.
Incredibly, however, the other major
acid rain precursor, nitrogen oxide
emissions, are allowed to increase. The
proposal includes no net reductions of
nitrogen oxides, as the reductions in the
bill are set from levels projected for the
year 2000, and the “reduction” would
be wiped out by nitrogen oxide pollut
ion growth in the 1990s.
The Bush administration claims that
when it originally promised to reduce
emissions of oxides of nitrogen by two
million tons, it meant the reduction of
anticipated GROWTH of nitrogen ox
ides from three million tons to one mil
lion tons. A professor of mine com
mented to me about his observence
during a recent vacation of the wearing
away of the outside stonework of a cen
turies-old cathedral in Europe, a victim
of acid rain. He noted that the inside of
the structure, composed of the same
material, was intact.
President Bush’s originally promising
goals to reduce the emission of billions
of pounds of toxic air pollutants have
been reduced to a plan seemingly writ
ten by the industries responsible for
toxic air pollution. His plan explicitly in
structs the EPA to allow' the use of less
effective pollution control technology if
better controls cost industry too much.
Environmentalists say the bill would
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Scot Walker, Editor
Wade See, Managing Editor
Juliette Rizzo, Opinion Page Editor
Fiona Soltes, City Editor
Ellen Hobbs, Chuck Squatriglia.
News Editors
Tom Kehoe. Sports Editor
Jay Janner. Art Director .
Dean Sueltenfuss, Lifestyles 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.
Mail subscriptions are SI7.44 per semester, S34.62
per school year and S36.44 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.
continue the present lengthy and inef
fective standard-setting process under
which the EPA has regulated only seven
of some 300 known toxics over the last
19 years. Even some industries have set
stronger goals for themselves than Pres
ident Bush has. Monstrato and Union
Carbide have already adopted the nec
essary goal of zero emissions of air tox
ics.
Another strong weakness with Presi
dent Bush’s plan is the tremendous pro
portion of the bill’s measures that are
discretionary for the EPA, which has
shown a strong reluctance in the past to
use its discretionary powers. There are
more than 270 such “may” clauses in the
279-page bill which must be changed to
“shall” for the bill to be effective in re
ducing air pollution.
Although the nations large cities have
the most urgent need for tough clean
air legislation, even largely rural areas
such as the Brazos Valley would benefit
greatly from tough clean air legislation.
Recent EPA data shows that Texas
leads the nation with 238 million
pounds of toxic air emissions in 1987.
The Alcoa Aluminum plant in nearby
Rockdale was the fifth largest industrial
producer of dangerous toxic emissions
in the state of Texas in 1987. Harris
County lead Texas with 44,494,717
pounds of toxic air emissions, and was
the sixth largest emitter in the entire
country.
Dirty air affects every single person.
Since everyone must breathe, no one is
immune from air pollution. We each
take in about 20,000 quarts of air per
day. Our lungs are extremely vulnera
ble to chemical agents. Eyes are also an
avenue for entrance of toxics toi
body. Airborne chemicals and partidj
do not discriminate, and are notterrj
choosy about who or what they att;|
themselves to.
The colorless and odorless
ulates and chemicals that can’t be se«
or smelled will do their dirty work!
silently and gradually weakening i
mune systems, slowly killing unwittii
members of the public. The lack oh
immediate or obvious physiologicals
sations lulls many into a false feeling]
security. Health effects such as canij
or respiratory disease may not becoj
manifest for several years or decades!
ter exposure.
We can no longer let industries tell]
what to breathe.
Michael C. Worsham is an enrirt
mental engineering graduate student
eff®
i lias proved ^
eutive against AIDS,
and will brin^ new
hope fox* millions:...
BURR0UKHS WELLCOME
EXCLUSIVE MAKERS OF AZT
none;
cultui
prise
produ
Texas
?n th
pgrici
provii
Velop,
fhe p
Fg. c
rowi
The
^tsts
^ceet
gricx
^ie r