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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1990)
The Battalion OPINION Monday, September 3,1990 t 4 Opinion Page Editor Ellen Hobbs 845.33^ Mail Trade junk food for real stuff EDITOR: It's two a.rn. on Friday and I’m here again, working away, getting through this pile of work. But I'm hungry. I think I'll go down to the vending machines and pick up some delicious Snickers bars for a wonderful healthy pick- me-up dinner. Oh boy! I’ll also get a nice can of Coke to make my meal complete. Junk food by the barrel is sitting down there in those dollar-sucking machines just waiting to be eaten by diligent students who work late. Well, my belly is sick of it! I WANT REAL FOOD IN THE VENDING MACHINES ON CAMPUS. I’m talking about sandwiches and burritos and apples and oranges. I’m talking about milk and cereal, bagels and cream cheese, egg and cheese muffins, you know, edible food. And I want a microwave right next to the real food so I can heat it Call up. 1 can’t eat another Zinger or pretzel or brownie. I'll just barf. This isn't an unusual request. I know for a fact that UCLA and UC Irvine have this sort of arrangement: I’ll bet that they’re not the only campuses in the world in their vending machines. James Saxon, graduate student 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, but 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. Sorority rush humiliates students When I was told that raising children would not be easy I accepted it and decided nothing could get me down. Live by the “Golden Rule” and everything would be OK. But nothing prepared me for the past week I have had at Texas A&M. You see, I have a daughter that went through sorority rush. I had the mistaken idea that people at A&M did not partake in what has happened to my daughter in the last week. Let’s start from the beginning. It all starts with a point system. That’s where the catch is. You see, if your f ather is a doctor you get high points. If he is a garbage man, you get low or no points. Then they check the activities you are involved in ... the more activities, the more points. Are you beginning to get the picture? And, of course, there are grades. Let’s assume you work to the best of your ability and you are only able to maintain a 2.0 ... low points. But if you are a brain and everything comes easy to you, and you have a 3.5, you will get lots of points. Then we add up the points ... the more points, the more parties. But that is just the beginning of the humiliation you have to endure. This all goes on for five days. You show up only to the parties you are invited to. Then, if you are sweet, or pretend to be, have the right clothes on, the right shoes, the right hair and are as phony as you can be, you too can be invited back to the parties. Mrs. John Paul Johnson Reader’s Opinion While all this is going on there are a lot of girls that are dropped by the wayside. Those are the ones that no one wants. Yes, that is what I said: No one wants them. If you are w hat is considered ugly, fat, dif ferent, not a clone, a hard working student with average grades or you have a f ather and mother that do not have the right occupation, you are not wanted. I watched a wonderful, sweet, kind, giving and tender child become totally humiliated, degraded and treated like a piece of meat this past week. While driving by one of the houses the other day I saw' a bunch of fraternity guys sitting on cars drinking and hooting at the girls. One had a sign on his truck that said “No Fat (’.hicks.” I thought, “This can’t be A&M. This was everything A&M was against. What was going on?” The really funny part about this story is that my daughter ended up with bids from tw 1 © houses-: Now it was her turn to pick, like all the sorority girls had been doing all week. After going through a week of watching all the girls being dropped for one reason or another she had to pick the sorority she wanted. She looked at me and said, “Mom, I can’t pick one, because I like all the girls from both houses. I couldn’t possibly hurt any of their feelings, or do to anyone what has been done to me this week.” That was when I knew my daughter was truly an Aggie. I’m leaving town now, so all you wonderful sorority girls that participated in the hunt, don’t bother to write any letters saying it is a positive experience. I was there, and I saw what you did. There is no excuse for what you did during rush week and anyone who would even try to write a letter and explain it has more gall and is more messed up in the head than I thought. But you probably think what you did is a positive learning experience for all involved and, of course, you do some wonderful things, don’t you? And you girls that were the perfect person and got into just the right sorority will probably say it was a warm, wonderf ul bonding experience. You didn’t see or bother to look around you. I saw those un-perfect girls that were hurting so bad inside after learning they weren’t good enough for your sorority. . _... w,.. iJi I leave you with this: What goes around comes around. And to the girls that were not wanted ... you are the lucky ones. Mrs. John Paul Johnson is the mother of a Texas A&M student- Drop KINE 199 as required course Forcing college students to take four semesters of one-hour Kinesiology 199 courses is ridiculous. The idea behind making KINE 199 or P.E. courses a requirement for graduation is a noble one. Being physically fit is a necessary step to being intellectually fit. A sound body is a sign of a sound mind. You get the picture. That’s great, but instead of implementing a program that will guarantee graduating a bunch of physically and mentally fit people, colleges and universities force everybocly to take four P.E. classes that make little difference in our physical health. I’m not against being physically fit. I just don’t think our P.E. classes do the job. It’s not so bad that we’re being forced to exercise. It is bad, however, that we get so little exercise in the classes that it’s a waste of time. Most people in P.E. classes spend as much time getting to and from the class than they do actually exercising. Think about it. If you live in a dorm on the north side of campus, it’ll take you at least 10 minutes to walk to G. Rollie White Coliseum. And if you live off campus, no telling how long it will take you to get to your class. The actual time you spend exercising in class is somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes tw ice a week or one hour once a week. It doesn’t take a kinesiology major to tell you that that’s not exercise to keep one physically fit. The misguided people that our forcing us to take these classes don’t seem to realize that they’re aren’t really keeping us fit, they’re just pushing us to waste time (and, don’t forget, money) in classes we don’t want or need. If we want to take a P.E. course, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with taking one. But if it’s not helping us that much, why insist that we do it? When I’ve said that I think forced physical education in college is silly before, people always say “Then why don’t you just take the easy stuff?” It’s true that A&M offers a lot of different types of P.E. classes. If you really want exercise you can take aerobics or conditioning swimming or other classes like that. If you want to slack off, they offer you social dance or bowling or that sort of stuff. But to be quite honest, if I want to learn to dance, or kayak, or bowl, or play tennis, I’d prefer to doit without being forced to by the school, or the state, or anybody. Without a KINE 199 requirement, there will still be a large number of people who take P.E. classes because they enjoy them and are dedicated to their exercise program. What there won’t be is a bunch of seniors waiting to see if they passed their bowling class so they can get their degree. It’s time that either we quit making people take physical education classest( graduate, or enforce a rule making physical fitness a requirement for graduation. If those in positions of power insisto wanting us to be physically fit make it a requirement for graduation. Test the students. Measure their physical health It’s not impossible — there are colleges and universities in the United States that require just that type of test. If that’s not acceptable, drop the KINE 199 requirement. If our true physical health is not important enougl to be considered necessary for graduation, then quit making us waste our time and money on silly classes thai pussyfoot around real exercise. Ellen Hobbs is a senior journalism major. It’s time that either we quit making people take physical education classes to graduate, or enforce a rule making physical fitness a requirement for graduation. U.S., U.S.S.R. must unite against nuclear weapons A missile enters Soviet airspace somewhere along the Black Sea. Its destination: Moscow. The Soviets, believing the missle was launched from a United States Military installation in Turkey, launch a full scale nuclear attack. The Soviets are able to destroy numerous civilian and military targets within the United States. In order to ‘save face,’ the United States retaliates with bombers and submarine-based nuclear weapons. It is only a matter of hours between the time the first missile is launched and the last city is destroyed. When the smoke clears the world finds that it was not the United States who launched the initial attack, but rather a group of Azerbaijani radicals who decided that a nuclear attack on Moscow would release the Kremlin’s hold on the small, predominantly Muslim republic. A scenario similar to this one was presented early this past summer in the HBO movie ‘By Dawn’s Early Light,’ and though it seems highly unlikely that the United States and the Soviet Union will ever engage in a full scale nuclear war, the threat to world security no longer lies along a balance beam stretching from Moscow to Washington. Carl Boethel Columnist The superpowers must now take steps to protect themselves and the rest of the world from aggressor nations and other radicals who might use nuclear weapons. In the past year, we have watched communism fall throughout Eastern Europe. We have seen individual Soviet Republics claim their sovereignty and in the case of Lithuania, its independence after seventy years of dominance by the Kremlin. We have also seen democratic movements rise in other areas of the world like Panama, China, and Nicaraqua. Carrying the banner of the democratic nations, the United States has won the Cold War. Through the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), the world has been kept at relative peace for the past forty years. In the MAD scenario, the Soviet Union and the United States would not fight a nuclear war because of the inevitability that both would be destroyed. Then in the past year, hopes have risen that after the Cold War, the The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Cindy McMillian, Editor Timm Doolen, Managing Editor Ellen Hobbs, Opinion Page Editor Holly Becka, City Editor Kathy Cox, Kristin North, News Editors Nadja Sabawala, Sports Editor Eric Roalson, Art Director Lisa Ann Robertson, Lifestyles Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-sup porting newspaper operated as a commu nity service to Texas A&M and Bryan- College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the au thor, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regu lar semesters, except for holiday and ex amination periods. Newsroom: 845-3313. Mail subscriptions are $20 per semes ter, $40 per school year and $50 per full year: 845-2611. Advertising rates fur nished on request: 845-2696. Our address: The Battalion, 230 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col lege Station, TX 77843-1111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-4111. world would enter into a new era of global trust and understanding. These hopes were brutally crushed about one month ago when Iraqi troops pushed into their rich next door neighbor, Kuwait. The ‘Bully of Baghdad,’ Saddam Hussein, revealed his intentions to unite the Arab world under an Iraqi flag, even if it took the use of force to do so. In the past month, troops from Egypt, Syria, Morrocco, and the United States have been placed in Saudi Arabia in order to stop Hussein and his million- man army. In protecting Saudi Arabia, this United States led, multinational force faces Iraq’s horrifying chemical weapons arsenal which it has used against Iran and its own people. But, if Israel had not bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, our boys in Saudi Arabia could be facing nuclear weapons also. Despite the tenseness of the situation with Iraq, this Gulf Crisis has shown that the United States and the Soviet Union under the auspices of the United Nations can work together to prevent aggresion. The two nations should now embrace each other and work toward preventing other nations from acquiring ‘the Bomb.’ At present, six nations have admitted to having nuclear weapons: the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, France, and India. Three of these nations, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which states that these nations with nuclear capability will not give nuclear weapons or the material needed to build them to other nations or parties. France and China have not signed the treaty, but they have said that they agree with its spirit. Israel and South Africa are rumored to have worked collusively to build a nuclear weapon; however, both nations deny these rumors. Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, and Iraq are all believed to have the potential of producing ‘the bomb’ within five years. India and Pakistan have been at odds since the 1940’s, and if armed conflict broke out between the two, nuclear weapons might be used. Israel and the Arab states also have been at odds since the 1940’s, and the possibility of a nuclear war exists in the Middle East. It is a scary thought that Saddam Hussein or some other madman might have the ability to threaten his neighbors with nuclear weapons. I he United States with the help of the Soviet Union should take up another banner: the banner for collective world security through a new nuclear nonproliferation treaty which will provide for economic sanctions against treaty violators, for onsight inspection of nuclear f acilities by an international group of scientists, and a nuclear umbrella provided by the United States and the Soviet Union which would insure the protection of small nations against larger aggressors 1 his plan is not foolproof, and man) nations would not be willing to sacrificf their sovereignty in exchange for superpower dominance. But at the present time, there seems to be no othf alternative. 1 he time to act is now, and only through the cooperation of the superpowers can we insure world security from radicals and aggressors. Carl Boethel is a junior biomedical science major. 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