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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1990)
The Battalion OPINION Thursday, February 22,1990 Opinion Page Editor Ellen Hobbs Mail Call Proposal doesn’t condone sex EDITOR: This letter is written in response to Kevin Davis’ letter of Feb. 8. The council’s proposal was not intended to condone or incite sexual activity at this school. Its intention was to ad dress the problem of AIDS on campus. Sarcastically Mr. Davis wrote, “foolish me.” Well, foolish you for thinking that sexual activity does not occur on cam pus. Foolish you for thinking that you can’t get AIDS. And foolish you for thinking that your girlfriend won’t become pregnant. When the hormones kick in, even the wisest of men can become careless and perform foolish deeds. While in the throes of lust, someone might not cross the street and go to the supermarket to buy a box of condoms, but they just might go to a nearby vending machine. Surely no one would argue that AIDS is not a serious problem in any sexually active population. Here on campus, when you have a large number of healthy young men and women living in close proximity to each other, it is only natu ral that some sexual activity is going to occur. It is extremely naive to think that you can get everyone to practice absti nence. The council’s proposition is merely a way to prevent the worst possible outcome to this behavior. While condom machines on campus will not stop the AIDS problem, it is a good first step in the right direction. Paul Herrera ’93 Other schools have traditions EDITOR: Cary Moore’s letter about the Corps runs (The Battalion, Feb. 8) totally disgusted me. I’m sick of Aggies, especially Corps members, belittling other schools and crooning about A&M and its traditions in such a condescending manner. Other schools do have traditions of which they are very proud. A&M is not the creator of the concept of traditions. And A&M’s traditions are no more meaningful to Aggies than are the traditions of other schools to their students and alumni. Have you ever talked to someone at another school? I have. At least the rhetoric about being a “world-class university” has quieted. Such a goal will he impossible while A&M is in fected with narrow-minded snobs like Moore. And if an employer would hire me on the basis of my be ing an Aggie, I would be suspicious. That kind of discrimina tion makes me ashamed, not proud, of being an Aggie. one can see, the library is magnificent enough with its vast ar ray of periodicals and other resources. Aren’t six stories big enough for any library? It’s bigger than most high school li braries, so we should be satisfied. Some of the resources in our library go unused for days. The Board of Regents should raise the money needed to build coliseums by censoring out and selling unused library resources to other universities. Who knows, maybe these other universities will find some strange use for the resources. We should also start building our places of learning more economically. The Harrington Education Center is the epit ome of how we should minimize scholastic costs and maxi mize the construction of coliseums. Falling ceilings in Har rington will help keep students awake and eliminate those students stupid enough to sleep in class. What are two or three students compared to two or three coliseums? I am incensed by fellow students who bicker about minor impurities they claim to have spotted in our magnificent li brary. Some of these impurities, they claim, are the library’s inability to furnish a large amount of periodicals advertised in the Readers Guide and other indexes. Another anguishing impurity is our high-tech Wilson terminal (used to find jour nals) that lists articles that the library does not possess. Some body even suggested the silly idea to me that Wilson should be programmed to specify whether the library has a certain arti cle or not. Obviously, this process wouldn’t be worth its weight in gold. I once unsuccessfully attempted to locate a periodical published in May of 1989. The librarian told me it was in “limbo,” or the it was being sent to Washington to be trans ferred onto microfilm. Sure, I was annoyed at not being able to find the magazine for “six to eight weeks” at first, but then I realized the library just doesn’t have enough money to order two subscriptions of current brand name periodicals. I’m pos itive that if we all want to get good grades on our technical or other research papers, Austin or. Houston won’t seem too far to drive at all! Let’s get these coliseums on the road and forget about the li’l of library, John Brandley! was white, she said they would have to find an alternate candi date. Thev wouldn’t let me attend because of my race. The INROADS program provides minorities with sum mer jobs paying up to $5,()()() per summer. 1 had better grades and higher SA L scores than many of the people who received these jobs. I am also a National Merit Scholar. 1 worked at McDonald’s last summer though, because 1 am white and therefore ineligible for most good summer jobs. I, like Henry West, am a resident of Lechner Hall. I have more scholarships than most people, and 1 consider myself lucky. No one is crying about minorities who earn what they have through hard labor. The “Great Body” of Henry Westis up in arms over being excluded from fair competition with minorities through the disci iminatory policies of affirmative action and quotas.' Douglas Burke ’93 Supreme being a ‘preposterous lie’ Michael Stembridge ’93 Minority quotas stop competition Carol Wiggins Malone ’90 Forget about li’l ol’ library EDITOR: What is all this complaining about A&M’s appropriation of funds to building a new coliseum over improving “educa tional resources?” We should support the building of not one, but three new coliseums. We should he resourceful Aggies and back expansion and construction of our University over trying to fix minute flaws in its information systems. As any EDITOR: Henry Earl West obviously has earned his scholarships. He is a recipient of the most prestigious scholarships given by the University, as evidenced by his residency in Lechner Hall. These scholarships are given to outstanding students without regards to race or sex. This isn’t the way it usually happens, however. As a white student at a nearly all-black school, I was ex posed to a continual stream of reverse discrimination, espe cially when applying for scholarships. In my junior year, ev eryone was given a list of 30 scholarships for engineering majors to apply for. White females were.eligible to compete for three of them, white males could compete for one. I applied to attend a health career symposium for blacks, just for fun. I was notified that my application was superb, and that I had been chosen to attend. All the arrangements had been made. When I told the woman on the phone that I EDITOR: In response to Ronda Shepperd’s column concerning the good and/or evil interactions of the inhabitants of this planet, and whether these interactions bear any relevancetotheques- tion of the existence of a supreme being, I feel that I mustsay, in rather understated terms, that I am both incredulous and irritated. I will proudly claim my atheism and disbelief in iheten- ents of any religion as being ol any signifigance in my life. 1 will also proudly claim my participation in numerous charita ble activities, such as delivering meals to shut-ins, taking handicapped adults bowling and raising hundreds of dollars in pledges for fun-t un benefits. Furthermore, l truly enjot romantic interludes, I love my parents dearly and 1 have nu merous friends. And so, Ronda, according to your quaint approach, I pur port that I have disproved your hypothesis and in tact pro vided undeniable evidence that the existence of a supreme being is a preposterous lie! Or maybe, just maybe, human beings can function be yond the narrow minded realm of subservience and extreme unction to a god. I believe that Jesus Christ was one of the greatest orators and intellectuals to ever stride upon this earth (and I would be an idiot to state otherwise). But that is all I believe about him. My question to Ronda and others: Have you ever considered why his beliefs were noble and vir tuous and have survived and not just that you should obey? 1 he answer is altruism, a novel wav ol thought fur mod ern man. Surprisingly, you need only your mind and your conscience, but best of all, von get to think for yourself! bntat bi R< James Porter Hammit II ’90 Have an opinion ? Express it! Letters to the editor should nut exceed 300 words in length. The editorial stnjj mtrvts the right to edit letters for style and length, hut will make every eff ort to maintain tht author's intent. There is no guarantee that letters submitted will be printed. Lach letter must be signed and must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. All letters ma\ be brought to 216 Heed .McDonald, or sent to Campus Mail Slop 11II. Apartheid’s end may not mean justice in S. Africa My vote for the most profound statement to come out of rock n’ roll is Pete Townsend’s “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” Perhaps'when Pete wrote the lyric he was thinking about South Africa. For some unfathonable reason, the anti-apartheid crusaders of the world seem to think that black rulers will automatically insure justice for the blacks in South Africa. The assumption is that a black leader, due to their love of their own race, will always do what is hest for their follow blacks. This is a strange assumption given the history of hlack nationalistic rule in Africa. Since 1957, there haye been over 150 black African heads of state. Of these, only six were elected through a democratic process. The other 140-odd rulers achieved their positions through assasinations or military coups. Currently, of the 41 black African nations, only two allow their citizens to elect their leaders. The other 39 are either military dictatorships or ‘peoples democracies’ with only one candidate on the ballot. How have blacks fared under black rule? It is a somewhat blemished record. From 1974 to 1978, the Ethiopian- Marxist regime murdered 30,000 people. In 1972, the Burandi government, led by the Tutsi tribe, massacred over 200,000 members of the Andrew Matthews Columnist rival Hut us tribe. This slaughter was repeated in August of 1988, when another 20,000 were wiped out. In Uganda, 300,000 citizens were terminated under the combined rule of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. Aside from actual murder, the black people of Africa have been relegated to lives of hopeless poverty, if not outright starvation. Many of the black leaders upon achieving power imposed an array of socialist policies on their citizens. They nationalized major industries, collectivized farmers and basically destroyed all forms of civil liberties. Zambia, Ethopia, Chad, Tanzia, Zambia, Mozambique ... the list of socialist black governments continues on. Would the African National Congress (ANC) lead South Africans down the same road of misery? Most definitely. For years, the South African Communist Party has been the ANC’s biggest ally. Evidence of this could be seen in the curious absence of any mention of the fall of the Eastern European governments in the official anti-apartheid weekly, The New Nation. In addition, they have been engaged in terrorism against other blacks in the townships. Not exactly the characteristic most desired in statesmen. The biggest question in South Africa today is whether Mandela still believes in the socialist message of the ANC, as laid out in the Freedom Charter. The ANC’s official policy is to nationalize the mines, banks and monopoliy industries. As of last week, Mandela stated he still adheres to the policies of the ANC. Not good news. There is also the possibility that the other ANC? leaders will not let Mandela hold the reins of the party. In the world of power politics, an ousting of Mandela should not come as a surprise. The dismantling of apartheid can only be realized in a society based on free markets and limited government. T he existence of apartheid is a testament to the injustices which government can inflict when it has no limitations. Apartheid originated in the 1920’s with a series of seemingly non-racial legislation. During this time period, many white unions realized that the great influx of low-skilled, low-wage black workers were endangering their job security. As a result, minimum wage laws which, though seemingly race- neutral, effectively priced blacks out of the job market. Practically all of the injustices which have been inflicted on the blacks have been at the hands of regulatory * government intervention in the marketplace. For this reason, the economic status of the blacks can only be raised if the post-apartheid order is founded on free-markets, limited government and minority rights. Before universal suffrage is allowed, a new constitution must be written. Much like the Constitution of the United States, it would have to insure the rights of all ethnic races. An independent judiciary would have to be established to ensure that all laws be racially unbiased. This constitution would set strict limits on the use of government power, and would insure basic fundamental rights such as private property, freedom of contract, voting rights and a vast array of human rights. This is the vision of President de Klerk and his reform minded National Party. Unfortunefly, Mandelastai solidly behind his call for “one-ptrsonI one-vote ’ with majority rule. Eventually, majority voting must be instated, but without a strong constitution it will lead to horrific consequences. Fortunately, the ANC is not the obI politic al black group in South Africa Main moderate black leaders realize that a peac ef ul co-existence with the whites can be achieved without resoi ting to terrorism, One suchleade is Zulu Chief M.(». BulhcTezi. Foryean he has been engaged in constructive talks with white reformers, and has urged that economic sanctions irnposd on South Africa be lifted. He must ah be inc hided in the- political negotiate A solution to aparthied will soonbf consummated. It will require the impit of all the factions of South Africa. Bm the- necessary safeguardsagainst govei mnental power are not established, a new wave of oppresskui and poverty will he imposed on the South Af rican people — black and white. Andrew Matthews is a junior economies major. Adventures In Cartooning Don Atkinson Ji The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Confei ence The Battalion Editorial Board Scot Walker, Editor Monique Threadgill, Managing Editor Ellen Hobbs, Opinion Page Editor Melissa Naumann, City Editor Cindy McMillian, Lisa Robertson, News Editors Richard Tijerina, Sports Editor Fredrick D. Joe. Art Director Mary-Lynne Rice. Lifestyles Editor Editorial Policy The Bnttnlion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. , Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial hoard or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. f lic 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. 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