The Battalion
OPINION
B
Friday, May 4,1990
Opinion Page Editor
Ellen Hobbs
845-3i prid
Mail
You’ve got a lot of nerve, baby
EDITOR:
Boy, Matt, you have a lot of nerve! To think that you
can stand there and point the finger at women and call
them selfish! I think you are selfish to say that women
should lower their expectations for a group of inconsider
ate, greedy idiots like yourself. I believe that it is the right
of any individual, whether male or female, to have any ex
pectations they want, no matter how- high. And I’m cer
tainly not going to lower my goals and expectations for
you. And as to the statement you made concerning women
being blessed (by men) with more opportunities and roles:
you are sorely mistaken on this point. I do not consider
these privileges a blessing. As a legal citizen of the United
States of America, I consider it my right. Wake up, Matt;
it’s 1990 and a//citizens have rights and goals and expecta
tions, despite what you think I would rather be considered
selfish and inconsiderate, than be considered dumb and
lose my self-respect, baby.
Faige Brooks ’91
Women not an extention of men
EDITOR:
Had Matt McBurnett’s article concerned any other mi
nority group, I suspect the calls for his termination would
be immediate and righteous. By simply replacing the term
“women” with “African-American,” or perhaps “Hispa
nic,” in his remark “the farther women get, the more they
expect,” the pigheadedness of McBurnett’s position is
made clearer. Unfortunately, though, women are still re
garded as a special sub-category among minorities.
His light-hearted tone on the issue may be explained by
the common perception of women as extensions of men.
The notion holds that women are under “our” special pro
tectorship, since they receive all kinds ol courtesies and
preferential treatments. But, you have only to note their
scarcity among CEO’s (less than 3 percent are women), on
the floor of Congress (less than 5 percent), in the upper
ranks of the military (where only one woman has achieved
the rank of General), or in any position of prominance and
influence, to see the irreality of this notion, as well as Mc
Burnett’s assertion that “since 1970, women have been suc
cessful in acquiring most of the things they have tried to
achieve.”
When he demands that womens’ trend of higher ex-
pections stop soon, Me Burnett reveals a stubborn resis
tance to the fact of change: women, as a group, are becom
ing increasingly disatisfied with their status, and policies to
Call
address instances of sexism are already institutionalized or
being expanded. The 53 percent of our population that is
female must be granted full equality before this nation can
even begin to approach true democaracy.
Your article was doubly offensive because you at
tempted to align all Texas A&M men, solely because of
their gender, with your own ignorant stance. Your remarks
shame this University, struggling as it is out of the stereo
types of its own traditions. Do the right thing, and either
address your poor judgement, or terminate your position
on The Battalion staff.
Bill Sparks
Graduate Student
Mobley’s statisics misleading
EDITOR:
Within The Battalion’s recent segment on the quality of
teaching at Texas A&M, President Mobley was quoted as
stating that the current “student/faculty ratio here is about
19 to 1.” As both an alumnus of this University and an in
structor of freshman English here, I am curious as to how
Mobley arrived at this astounding statistic.
During my undergraduate years (1984-88), most of my
classes contained 40-50 students, and several exceeded 100
students in size. Even the upper level and honors classes
averaged 20-25 students per class. Currently, it is not un
usual tor many introductory math, science, business (and
recently English) courses to contain 200-plus students pet-
class. Even the freshman English course I teach (described
by most students as their smallest class) averages 25-27 stu
dents per class.
Apparently Mobley has divided the total number of
students at A&M by the total number of faculty, and has
come up with an impressive ratio of 19 to 1. Although this
figure may be accurate, it is very misleading and does not
represent the average class size at this University. I ap
plaud President Mobley’s desire to “assess instructional ef
fectiveness,” but in order to do this effectively we must ap
proach our current situaton realistically rather than
statistically.
Barbara Bell ’88
Have an opinion ? Express it!
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff re
serves the right to edit letters for style and length, hut will make every effort to main
tain the author’s intent. There is no guarantee that letters submitted will be
printed. Each letter must be signed and must include the classification, address and
telephone number of the writer. All letters may be brought to 216 Reed McDonald,
or sent to Campus Mail Stop 7/77.
Guide to NOTIS users ^
Now finding the literature you need
at the Sterling C. Evans Library is even
more fun than ever! Thanks to the new
catalog system NOTIS, library users can
now look forward to waiting in line for
NOTIS terminals and suffering
through computer system breakdowns.
The card catalogs have been ousted,
and NOTIS has taken over. The only
remaining card catalog is the subject
card catalog, but even may soon be
extinct. To find authors and titles, one
must use NOTIS.
Since the implementation of NOTIS,
the library’s computerized card catalog
system, several complaints have been
voiced. Faculty and students have
expressed frustration with the system.
For example, waiting for a NOTIS
terminal is a wonderful way to waste
valuable time. If you happen to be lucky
enough to be waiting on someone who is
looking up every entry for the United
States of America, you could wait days.
There are several terminals, but they
seem to be full nearly all the time.
(HINT: try the terminal on second floor
in Documents on a Saturday night
around 11 p.m.)
With the card catalogs, you could pull
out the drawer you needed, find your
card, jot down the location and be on
your way. I’ve seen many brawls break
out at the NOTIS terminals as users try
in desperation to find the information
they need.
Another feature of NOTIS is its
unequaled ability to crash. Computer
systems are notorious for crashing when
you need them most. What is the next
step when the only source of authors
and titles in the building breaks down?
As you stand at the NOTIS terminal,
you can’t help but wonder how many
books have been “lost" in the transfer
from the card catalogs to NOTIS.
Human error is a daily occurrance, so
surely not all the books have been
accounted for. A wad of Bubble Yum
between two entry cards and that’s it.
You’ve lost two or three entries.
Lisa
McClain
Reader’s Opinion
These two or three lost entriesife
have been difficult to locate evenil tend
had been transferred from thecari Youtl
catalogs successfully. Ifyoudon’ter sional
the correct keyword, you mayendu
the dilemma I did.
1 entered John Fitzgerald Kenm
my keyword — two entries were
displayed. 1 hose were the library
named after the former president,
the Kennedy Center in Washingtor
D.C. Surely there are more than tv
documents on JFK in our large libi,
All of my griping cannot go
uncontested, however. I spokewi
concerned library employee who
explained to me how to use NOTK
my advantage, when it’s running,
(I added the running part).
One thing I learned is that theres
difference between “keyword" and
“subject”. “Keyword” is a command
designed to retrieve any entry
concerning the word you enter
K
a
‘Subject” refers to the Library of t | e . st
Congress listings.
The same concerned employee
expressed that the library realizesili
the system can be conf using and
“I
the i
‘1
library staff truly wants to help.
Users experiencing problems wilt
NOTIS should take their complak
the library staff for clarification, liu ass j s
seriousness, they really are pretty
helpful, so don’t hesitate to ask then
aid you in your quest for knowledge
As Texas A&M expands its
technological horizons, it will provid Park
better instruction to the users of th St
new technology.
Lisa McClain is a junior joumah ot
major
Dj
brief
mpi
whei
‘I
distressing to users. She added than
E;
mot<
noui
relie
lent
Dali
NCNB takes advantage of its Texas customers
NCNB Texas is bad bull. This may
sound harsh, but it is tame compared to
what others are saying about an
institution that they feel has
impoverished individuals and
communities:
“What it amounts to is that NCNB has
a license to steal and is raping the state
of Texas. ” — Billy Mobley, a
Stephenville corporate chairman.
“We don't need looters (NCNB),
we’re crying out for builders. ” — Robin
Dennis, President of Consumers For
Ethical Financial Institution,
1 ncorpora ted.
Where to begin? NCNB, based out of
Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the
nation’s largest banks boasting scores of
branches. NCNB entered Texas in July
1988 when the First Republic Bank
Corporation failed and was auctioned
off in its entirety, some 40 banks, to
NCNB in a massive federally assisted
bailout. NCNB acquired the bank
system estimated at a wmrth of $33
billion for a figure between $2 and $4
billion.
Now, there are stacks of
documentation, originating federally as
well as privately, implicating the bank in
several illegal and shady dealings with
the likes of the FDIC and the IRS. In
point of fact, the current Chief
Financial Officer of Texas operations,
Thomas Hartman, was involved in the
largest bankruptcy in American history
in 1983, Baldwin United, and came
away officially censured for
Andrew W.
Yung
Reader’s Opinion
misrepresenting information to
stockholers.
But even if w e are to look beyond
questionable tax credits and previous
indictments. Aggies, Texans, and
American taxpayers have reason to be
outraged at NCNB’s practices.
'The Community Reinvestment Act is
just one of many laws which embody
principles of sound economic equity and
is just one of many laws which several
hold NCNB violates. The rationale for.
these laws which require that financial
institutions invest a percentage of their
resources (deposits, in a bank’s case)
back into the community or area is self-
evident. The November 1 7, 1 989 Wall
Street Journal read, “This has been sad
for the Texas exonomy as well as for the
United States government, because
NCNB has no interest in making or
carrying loans to Texans.”
In a nutshell: NCNB smugly collects
Texas deposits from checking accounts,
IRAs, or whatever, while funneling that
money out of the state and country,
thereby making local loans unavailable
to citizens with aspirations of improving
the community.
Hartman himself slipped and told the
New York Times, “We’re primarily
interested in building a deposit
franchise.” But NCNB has done much
more than deny issuance of new long
term loans to qualified businessmen;
they have classified good performing
loans as ‘bad’ or ‘high risk’ and called for
their immediate payment.
Take Mike Lloyd’s case for example:
Last year Lloyd was a successful dairy
farmer (some 500 cows) in Erath
County, Texas. However, NCNB took
over the local hank and refused to
honor his land loan which he had never
missed a payment on. Instead, they
demanded $230 thousand to pay off the
loan under the threat of foreclosure.
Foreclosure it is, it seems ... But there is
always a soh story or two in business,
right?
Reality Check: It's purported that
between 19,000 and 20,000 other
Texans have already met the same fate
within the past several months. NCNB is
redlining the agriculture, oil and gas,
and real estate industries specifically
and Texans generally. Let me try to
bring this home, Ags.
Imagine your parents borrowed
$ 100,000 in 1980 to buy a house from
the local bank on a 20-year deal with a
repayment plan of $6000 per year.
Well, you parents made every payment
on time and now it’s 1990. The local
bank is taken over, and the new bank
demands your parents’ balance be paid
in full ($40,000). Who has $40,000 cash?
So, even though your family has already
sunk $60,000 into the house, you lose it.
Do you think you are going to be able
to get a new home loan at another bank
with such a poor credit record? No —
you defaulted on a loan. This scenario is
not at all unrealistic for hundreds of
fellow Texans.
What are these modern
carpetbaggers doing with our
(depositors’ and taxpayers’) money? To
begin with they have transferred
(transferred, not loaned) over two
billion dollars to support failing
operations in Florida and to pump up
that state’s economy. The Southern
Finance Project (a pilot light
organization for the advancement of
fair banking) made this comment in
reponse to NCNB’s ‘self-dealing’
policies: “Excessive or careless insider
lending is frequently cited by regulators
and analysts as a leading cause of bank
safety and soundness problems.”
Even more disturbing are NCNB’s
other uses for American effectual
subsidies. The corporation hoards its
funds and collects on history-proven
long-term loans to acquire more failing
S&L’s with the aid of our government.
Why not? This financial myopia makes
sense to a corporation too vast to
remember the individuals in cities like
Abilene and blinded by the matching
funds of green the FDIC is willing to
secure.
And perhaps the final insult this bank
seems to have paid Americans is in the
undermining of our government's
attempt to bring human rights toSoi.
Africa via sanctions. NCNB is the
largest U.S. lender to South Africa.
Hugh McColl Jr., NCNB Corporate
Chairman, has stated, “I’ve lived ina
segregated society, and thatdoesntl
people." The bank balks at its critics!
insists it will continue to do business:
South Africa. There’s hefty profitin
exploitation, undoubtedly.
McColl contends that the United
States should not try to influenceSoi
Africa’s future and his business refle
this ideology with its depositors fundi
In 1988, NCNB Senior Vice Presidec
Willan A. McGee took on a self-sadsf
air and affirmed, “NCNB doesindee
have correspondent relationshipsw
three South African banks.” This
promotion of racial injustices goesfai
beyond de facto involvement seemiiij
implying de jure legitimacy.
There’s more, much more. Buttha
plenty enough to make an informed
decision on who to bank with andwte
not. Furthermore, never discounttte
power of unconventional politicalaco
— an Abilene family’s (the Dennises
picketing was quite efficacious and a
true manifestation of pat riotism. And
let’s not forget letters to our
representatives. But most of all, Agg«
let’s not forget the Mike Lloyds.
Andrew W. Yung is a freshman
political science major.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
American Collegiate Press
The Battalion Editorial Board
Cindy McMiilian,
Editor
Timm Doolen, Managing Editor
Ellen Hobbs, Opinion Page Editor
Holly Becka, City Editor
Kristin North,
Meg Reagan,
News Editors
Nadja Sabawala,
Sports Editor
Eric Roalson, Art Director
Lisa Ann Robertson.
Lifestyles Editor
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Adventures In Cartooning by Don Atkinson J