The Battalion
OPINION
Tuesday, Noverber21,1989
Opinion Page Editor Juliette Rizzo 845-
Aggies : Give it all you’ve got in these last few weeks ^
Ags, a great time is upon us. We
have so much riding on these last few
weeks of the semester. We have the
SWC Championship and the Cotton
Bowl on the line, plus we have grades
to make.
These goals and responsibilities have
been on everybody’s minds, but lately
there have been a great deal of neg
ative feelings on campus. These feel
ings have separated and caused distress
among many Aggies.
. One of the main issues lately has
been bonfire. From a yell leader’s
standpoint, let me say that bonfire is in
no danger of being canceled this year
or in the years to come. As with any
other event or tradition, through time
people sometimes lose sight of the true
purpose. In the past couple of years, as
has been brought to everyone’s atten
tion through the media, drinking has
been getting out of hand on Duncan
Field during the burning of bonfire.
All the negative attention bonfire has
received is not necessary. All someone
needs to do is what I am doing now,
asking Ags to be more conscious of the
tradition behind bonfire instead of just
going to bonfire and drinking — so lets
do that.
Steve Moore, a redpot, summed up
the reasons that keep bonfire burning:
“Bonfire symbolizes A&M as a whole,”
he said. “Centerpole, for instance, is
Texas A&M standing for higher edu
cation at its best. The logs stacked
around the pole are Aggies, you and
me. We make A&M what it is, no mat
ter what walk of life we come from.
Without any one log the stack would
not be complete. That is what makes
A&M so special to Aggies everywhere.”
It is now time to look past those is
sues that have had adverse effects on
student morale. It is time to look be
yond the past, in the direction of the
immediate future. The Arkansas and
t.u. games are coming up, and these
will decide the Conference champion
and the Cotton Bowl berth. Bonfire is
going to burn on Dec. 1. Everyone has
been saying Howdy! Basketball season
has begun. The holidays are near.
So Ags, lets pull together in these
last few weeks, and, like at the end;
race, lets work harder to end this
mester well.
And, one last thing about the Arh
sas game. The team needs thepowei
the Twelfth Man to pull through. 1
$5.9
cept
erg'
like crazy on Friday, and if you b<rs
going to be in town at midnight J D
Thursday night, come out to Kyle Fit M° c
to practice your yelling. If you ;« 10V
going to come in from home Fridavl ‘ st(
ready to yell when you get here. ®L.i
fulc
Waylan Cain is head yell leaders! f° r 5
a guest columnist for The Battalion
Tax payers never seem to get a break
Time for income tax and workers
comp revisited — yes, hashing over
these old favorites once more on ac
count of the beloved readers have
raised points, objections, silly quibbles,
sound alternatives and other matters
that need addressing.
On the matter of a state income tax,
several citizens having an off day wrote
to demand how I dare advocate in
creased taxation: Don’t I have any idea
what it’s like out here in the real world
and some of us are struggling just to
cover the food and the house and the
transportation and I may want the gov
ernment to take another four percent
of my income, but by God there are
some of us who just can’t afford it!
don’t see the sense of saying we
shouldn’t change a bad system because
there’s a chance they’ll mess it up again
later on. They probably will; that’s why
our motto is — PerpetualReform.
you’re probably paying twice as big a
chunk of your income as someone who
makes twice as much as you do. Is that
fair? Are we taking discretionary
spending on luxury items here? No, we
are talking about diapers.
Sheesh. Give me a break, folks. Read
my lips. We need a state income tax to
replace the system we have now be
cause the system we have now is unfair
and costs the average Texan too much.
You say you don’t want the state to take
three or four percent of your income?
Well, how much do you think the state
is taking right now??!! Count it, next
time you spend a dollar, pay attention
when the clerk says, “And tax.” Look at
the receipt you get: See where it says,
“Tax?” What percentage is that? Come
on, tell me.
Why do you think you’re having a
hard time making ends meet? If you’re
not rich, you’re paying much more
than your fair share of this state’s taxes
right now. It’s a little hard to calculate,
but if you’re making under $20,000,
Now, a more reasonable objection
comes from former Yankees and other
refugees, folks with bitter memories of
living in places with both state income
taxes and state sales taxes. One former
Pennsylvanian says that state not only
has an income tax but a sales tax almost
as high as Texas’ to boot. I realize such
places exist. But if that’s your reason
for opposing an income tax, what you
are saying is, “We have an unfair sys
tem of ..taxation, but let’s not scrap it
and start over with one that’s fair be
cause the state government could later
make it unfair again.” Attention citi
zens, of course there’s no guarantee
that once we get rid of the sales tax,
they won’t add it back, penny by
penny. The only guarantee is us. Eter
nal vigilance is not only the price of lib
erty, but of fair taxation as well. I just
Now, back to workers comp. Here
we are, headed straight forthe worst of
all possible outcomes, comp insurance
just shot up another 22 percent,
bidnesspeople all over Texas goin’
rigid with shock — they cannot take
this another month. Remindsme of the
special session on education in ’84,
when the teachers were so poorly rep
resented by their own leadership they
wound up on the wrongside of almost
every important issue. Theyused up all
their chits and all their credibility try
ing to stop stuff that: A. couldn’t be
stopped and/or B. made no difference.
The teachers did themselves so much
damage in that one session they haven’t
recovered yet.
Trial de novo is gone, it’s history,
goodbye, any Texas worker who gets
screwed by the system from now on
can’t take it to court and start over. But
you watch: The insurance companies
are going to turn right around, butter
not melting in their corporate mouths,
and say: “Oh, well. That wasn’t the
problem.”
800 dead workers a year. As themar.:|g ec '
ir
era I
Cow
that
Frankly, I think the bidnesspeople
are being just as poorly served by their
representatives and spokesfolks, from
the Chamber of Commerce on down.
From the beginning, the bidness lobby
ists on workerscomp have been
screaming that we had to get rid of trial
de novo, trial de novo had to go, trial
de novo was the root of all evil, and es
pecially the root of high comp insur
ance rates. The trial lawers kept saying
trial de novo wasn’t the problem, but
the trial lawers obviously had a large
self-interest at stake, so their credibility
was zip. But they were right.
Basically, there’s two ways to cut in
surance rates — improve safety or cut
benefits. We’re about to cut benefits in
a system everyone agrees already pays
abnormally low benefits. Because you
bidnesspeople just will not listen on
safety, even though it’s in your own
self-interest, just like the teachers five
years ago. Bidnessmen from Dallas
called the other day, said how dare I
argue that safety was the root of the
problem — the problem is all these
fraudulent claims, the problem is all
these adjective-deleted workers and
these adjectival-interjection shyster
lawers (whereat we both stopped to
abuse lawyers for a happy spell) rip-
ping off honest, hardworking
bidnessmen.
|g at
the
This fellow says he doesn’t care
about the safety stats, they’re just based
on all these phony claims anyway,
aren’t they, what do I mean bodies,
what do I mean, what are we talking
about, maybe 20 or 40 fatal accidents a
year? No. The safety stats I’m talking
about are not based on the number of
claims, valid or fraudulent. They’re
based on corpses. We’re talking over
the famous Monty Python sketch
that is an ex-parrot. That is noi
phony claim. If you cut the acrid:
rates in this state to average — nottilto 1
ing about being No. 1 or the Topldiffilor
anything ambitious, just average,®
—you save the system $500 nnlliotEF* 01
year and that’s your : Mate
bubba.
Kale
(The man from Dallas almost ha;||recl
wonderful insight. He’s been keep:| F<
track of who files comp claims andli^ 31
has a profile: male workers, 18 to®^
making about five dollars an hoiiK ns
“Guys who can make more moneysojoffic
ing home,” he said. “The guys "il
make eight dollars an hour, theydoltion
file claims,” he said. He had it righnR )rc<
his hands. I waited. But it was just
other c ropped ball on the playingfel j,.'
of life.) jjiec
| pilot
Guy tells me over 80 percent ofMhe
accidents are caused by worker carela ter Sl
sness. I don’t doubt it. BidnesspeoplP/ 101
of Texas, explain this to me — r
know that if you make a widget, tin
widget has to be goof-proof, absolutf
goof-proof , or you wall get your
sued off and spend the restofyourli
in Chapter 1 1. Or so you like toclaiI: ,
Right? OK, why is it you think thepk
where the goof-proof widget is mail
should not be goof-proof as well? Fi
the same reason your widget should!
goof-proof — so it won’t cost ys
money. Looking forward to furtk
correspondence on this point.
The thrill of making a hole-in-one
I made a hole-in-one.
Honest I did. This isn’t some sort of
make-believe column like I often write.
For instance, I recently wrote a column
about Jim Bakker meeting his new cel
lmate, Mad Dog.
But this isn’t anything like that.
I mean that I hit a golf ball on a par
three and it went into the hole for a
“1.” Do you know the thrill of writing a
“1” on a golf scorecard next to your
name?
I’ve had my thrills in sports before.
Playing for dear old Newnan High
back in ’63, I hit a jump shot at the
buzzer to defeat the top-seeded team in
the region tournament.
That got my name and picture in the
paper. (I wanted a kiss from a certain
red-headed cheerleader, but she re
marked how she detested kissing any
one covered in sweat.)
I also pitched a no-hitter in Pony
League, finished second in a tennis
tournament, hit a hard-way six on a
crap table in Vegas, made back-to-back
net eagles playing with Greg Norman
in a pro-am golf tournament in Hilton
Head and once had dinner with the
girl who used to say, “Take it off. Take
it all off,” in the old shaving cream
commercial.
Lewis
Grizzard
Syndicated Columnist
(I realize having dinner with a girl
who made a shaving cream commercial
has nothing to do with sports, but she
made the commercial with Joe Na-
math, so there.)
But none of that compares to my
hole-in-one.
Get the picture:
I’m on the par three, 12th hole at the
lovely Island Club here in coastal
Georgia. I admit No. 12 isn’t that long
a hole, but I didn’t design the course,
so it’s not my fault.
The hole is 128 yards over a small
pond.
It was Saturday morning, Nov. 4. I
was playing in a threesome, comprised
of myself, Tim Jarvis and Mike Mat
thews, two players of lesser talent with
whom I often hang out.
It was a lovely morning, having
warmed to the low 70s as I approached
the tee. I was wearing an orange golf
shirt, a pair of Duckhead khaki slacks
and my black and white golf shoes, the
ones my dog has not chewed up yet.
I was on the first tee.
“What are you going to hit?” asked
Matthews.
“None of your business,”! said.
We were playing for a lotof money.
OK, so we weren’t playing for a lot
of money, but you never tell you oppo
nent what club you are hitting.
“Tell us,” said Jarvis,“or we’ll tell ev
erybody how you move the ball in the
rough when nobody islooking.”
“Nine-iron,” I said.
The green sloped to the right. I said
to myself, “Keep the ball to the left of
the hole.”
(Actually, I said, “Please, God, let me
get this thing over the water.”)
I hit a high, arching shot. The ball
cut through the still morning air, a
white missile against the azure sky.
(That’s the way Dan Jenkins or Her
bert Warren Wind would have de
scribed it.)
The ball hit eight feet left of the pin.
It hopped once. It hopped again. It
was rolling directly toward the hole.
An eternity passed.
It has a chance to go in, I thought.
But that’s not going to happen, of
course, because I’m terribly unlucky
and I’ve done some lousy things in my
life and I don’t deserve it to go into the
hole.
It went into the hole.
A “1.”
It was a joyous moment when if
first hole-in-one fell snugly into iff
hole. But the next moment came atit
next tee, the par four 13th.
For those non-golfers, the pei
with the lowest score on the previoi
hole gets to hit first on the next hole.
I strode up to the tee with my drive'
teed up my ball, and then said to®
opponents, “I think I’m up, but
anybody have a zero?”
Jarvis and Matthews were;
friends and I shall miss them.
Copyright 1989, Cowles Syndicate, Inc.
Meroedes-Krenz
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
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The Battalion Editorial Board
Scot O.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
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