Friday, June 7,1991
5
[ P The Battaiion
Visitors help spice up subdued summer campus life
Trey Jacobson
Columnist
Welcome to summer school!!!
For the first-time summer school
students, you may be developing a mild
complex after your first week of classes.
When you arrived in the twin cities,
you probably reveled over the great
reduction in traffic congestion and
restaurant lines. More fascinating was
the fact there were places to park on the
campus (gasp!).
What a joy you must have been
experiencing when, all of a sudden,
unfamiliar faces started to appear.
"Hey! Wait a second! Those girls aren't
freshmen. They're too young," you may
have pondered. "And who are all of the
boys wearing Wrangler jeans and high-
top basketball shoes?" They looked
young too. "But who are they?," you
surely thought, as you stared
incredulously at the large number of
parents following the kids.
As you scratched your head on the way
to your car, you may also have been
taken aback by the large number of fire
department vehicles from around the
state.
Does this describe your encounter with
A&M this summer? Then you are not
alone. If you haven't figured it out yet,
the campus annually plays host to a large
number of conferences, conventions, and
camps during the summer months.
Not only do the thousands of entering
freshmen and their parents visit
Aggieland, but additional hundreds of
state 4-H students stay in residence halls
for their week-long convention. And
although we haven't seen it thus far, you
may be prevented from crossing streets
by trains of high school drill teams who
hold camps at A&M throughout the
summer.
Additionally, the University hosts the
Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.)
camp for disadvantaged teenagers. If you
happen to be living on the campus this
summer, you will have the pleasure of
interacting with many of the
aforementioned Aggies-to-be.
And while many of you will be able to
assist these visitors around the campus,
others of you will get interesting
comments like, "Buy us some beer,"
"Lets go party tonight," or my favorite,
"Where's that area where the girl's lay
out in their bikinis?"
For those eating in Sbisa dining hall,
you will be able to demonstrate all of
your community dining skills for the
visitors, such as dodging quick-stopping
drill team girls and sweeping around a
crowd of fifty incoming freshmen all
waiting for the same ice machine.
You will also soon discover that the
most beneficial knowledge that students
will acquire this session is the estimated
time of the day that the conferences and
"amps will converge on Sbisa.
Don't let that word "campus" fool you,
because one group of visitors pervades
the entire community. Shortly, you will
see ten times as many cars with
emergency lights on top of them. And
the country radio stations will repeatedly
acquiesce to the requests for George
Strait's "The Fireman." Yes, that's right,
the heroes of Backdraft are coming to
A&M. And they keep coming, and
coining and coming...
The University hosts firemen from all
over the Southwest and Mexico for fire
safety courses. Hundreds, if not
thousands, of firefighters engulf the city,
filling hotels, campus residence halls and
nightclubs. And, as you might expect,
where hundreds of men go, hundreds of
women are bound to follow. That's right,
as the birds and bees would have it,
hundreds of single women invade the
city in search of eligible (or at least
willing) firemen.
Indeed, when the firemen are in town,
it's a scary world outside the campus
boundaries: we see scores of men looking
for women and just as many women
looking for men, with the bookstores
selling T-shirts and other items to
commemorate the event. Nowhere but
Aggieland.
But the fact that so many visitors share
the campus and city should not cause any
problems if we all follow some very
important guidelines. First, run if you
must, but beat the visitors to Sbisa for all
meals. If you don't understand why this
is important now, you'll find out soon as
more visitors make their appearance.
Second, (this one is for women) beware
of firefighters who offer to show you
their hoses and pumper trucks. Third,
(this one is for men) avoid encounters
with minors, especially drill teams. This
may run counter to many of your beliefs
about women, but please understand
that drill teams travel with mothers and
advisors that double as bloodhounds
during "hunting season." If you run off
with a minor you are likely to get nabbed,
and possibly reprimanded by the
University.
Finally, we should assist the guests to ;
our campus whenever possible. We can, ;
for instance, open doors for lines of drill >
teams, point incoming freshmen and .''
their parents to the correct buildings and ’;
answer questions, if possible. Not only ’*
will this provide the campus visitors with ;
a true reflection of the quality of students
at A&M, but may, in fact, lead to a
harmony among the groups that will be
our temporary neighbors.
Again, welcome to summer
school.. .and drill team camp.. .and fire
safety school.. .and fish
orientation.. .and...
Trey Jacobson is a graduate student in
public administration.
Mail Call
The Battalion is interested in hearing from its readers and welcomes all letters to the editor.
Please include name, classification, address and phone number on all letters. The editor reserves
the right to edit letters for style and length. Because of limited space, shorter letters have a better
chance of appearing. There is, however, no guarantee letters will appear. Letters may be brought
to 216 Reed McDonald or sent to Campus Mail Stop 1111.
Flag banning brings controversy
EDITOR:
What's all the hub-bub about banning the Confederate flag? What difference
should it make that a high school's mascot is a former representative of the Con
federacy. Does it truly dredge up OUR forefathers and their horrible Civil War
atrocities or is it merely a symbolic form of speech used by youngsters to rally
their high school troops towards the attainment of a common goal referred to as
victory. . „
Yes! The Civil War was a very tragic and horrible part of our history; but it DID *r-
happen! And surely we've all heard the trite cliche that if we don't remember the
past we are certianly doomed to repeat it. The war, slavery, the murder of inno
cent civilians, the raping of civilians and prisoners and the pillaging and destruc
tion of the earth was real. But it still goes on today. It hasn't stopped. Think about
it. It kind of hurts doesn't it. The unspeakable crimes we are trying so desperately
to escape from are still very prevalent in our society today. Is this perpetuation of
evil due to high schools flying Confederate (or any types) of flags? 1 seriously
doubt it.
Think about some other majestic mascots of other institutions: The Trojans of
U.S.C. - Trojan gods would (often for mere folly) "burst apart the Iron-bound
Gates of War". Any objections? How about those warm, kind, peace-loving and
humane Vikings? You do know they often raped and killed members of their own
clan as well as members of their own family, don't you? I guess we'll just have to
do away with the Tigers (they kill and eat humans), the Bears (same reason), the
Indians (another American tragedy), the Cowboys (they killed the Indians) and
any other team mascot with even a minor character flaw.
History, growth and maturation are a vital part of any heritage no matter how
good, bad or indifferent they may be. Taking away a symbol of an atrocity will not
erase the event. Let's all be supporters of progress, growth and most importantly
-humanity. We cannot rewrite history but we can help forge a more positive fu
ture for generations to follow. Let 'em keep the flag.
Gary P. Carroll '91
Tennis player speaks on court conditions
EDITOR:
The state of the utter disrepair and decrepitude of the University tennis courts
that are open to the general student body is an absolute disgrace to Texas A&M
University. While every student pays considerable fees for sports facilities every
semester, and we continue to see proposals for increasing the sports facilities fees,
it appears that students are not getting their money's worth.
The courts that are available to the general tennis-loving student body either
do not have nets, or do not have lights and the court surfaces appear to have been
subjected to Desert Storm battle-ground actions.
As tennis enthusiasts and students of Texas A&M, we are outraged - is TAMU
interested only in projecting its image, or is there anyone in the administration
who really cares about the quality of services and facilities provided to the stu
dents?
Sid Syam
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Timm Doolen,
Editor
Todd Stone, Managing Editor
Krista Umscheid,
Opinion Page Editor
Sean Frerking, City Editor
J ennifer J effus,
Gallic Wilcher,
News Editors
Jayme Blaschke, Sports Editor
Richard James, Art Director
Rob Newberry,
Lifestyles Editor
Editorial Policy
The Battalion is a non-profit, self-sup
porting newspaper 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 represent the opin
ions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty
or the Board of Regents.
The Battalion is published daily, except
Saturday, Sunday, holidays, exam periods,
and when school is not in session during fall
and spring semesters; publication is Tuesday
through Friday during the summer session.
Mail subscriptions are $20 per semester,
$40 per school year and $50 per full year:
845-2611. Advertising rates furnished on re
quest: 845-2696.
Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed Mc
Donald, Texas A&M University, College Sta
tion, TX 77843-1 111.
Second class postage paid at College Sta
tion, TX 77843.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas
A&M University, College Station TX 77843-
4111.
Battalion mixes pages,
sports summer changes
Change. As the new leaders of The Bat
talion, we feel a responsibility to explain
recent changes and the reasoning behind
them. Most of the decisions were made
by the summer and fall editorial boards.
We hope most of the changes will be an
advantage for both the reader and the
newspaper. We tried to make changes we
felt were worthwhile and not just change
things for the sake of being different.
Before I get into specifics, I would like
to explain a few things about the financial
mechanics of The Battalion, because
some of the changes we made are attrib
uted to "financial reasons."
On paper. The Battalion has lost a
small amount of money for the past few
years, and so recently we have become
more fiscally conservative than usual.
We are funded primarily through ad
vertising, subscriptions and $40,000 in
student services fees, the last of which
makes up only a small portion of our
more than $700,000 annual budget.
The size of a daily Battalion is, for the
most part, determined by the number of
ads we receive. However, the paper can
be no smaller than six pages and no
greater than 20 because of press size re
strictions. The more pages we have with
out advertising, such as Lifestyles and
Opinion, the more it costs the paper.
To keep the paper in the black this
summer, we are tightening up the pages
and running some of our sections less of
ten (such as opinion and sports). In the
fall we have more advertising and will
usually have larger newspapers than in
the summer, which means we have more
freedom to run sections on whatever
days we choose.
Opinion: The opinion page is moving
to the back inside page of the newspaper,
and during the summer it will only run
on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Why? After looking at other newspa
pers both college and commercial, we no-
Timm Doolen
Editor
Todd Stone
Managing Editor
ticed that rarely was an opinion page or
section placed in such a prominent posi
tion as page two. Often, opinion pages
were placed near the back or at best in the
middle of the newspaper.
In addition, several of the editors from
both summer and fall agreed The Battal
ion draws its most severe criticism from
the words thrown around on the opinion
page. Sometimes these words are thrown
rather carelessly, which upsets others.
We decided that to help remove a little
of the edge off the opinion page we
would move it to the back of the paper,
where it did not occupy as prominent a
position. We thought the physical loca
tion of the section might influence the at
titude people took towards the page.
In other words, we don't want readers
to associate The Battalion's unbiased
journalistic philosophy with the attitudes
expressed on the opinion page. This is a
common misconception that's just simply
wrong — the opinion page is an entity
separate from the rest of the reporting in
the paper.
We also are pursuing means of improv
ing the editorial content of the opinion
page by having columnists write tighter
arguments, report accounts in their col
umns more factually and have their opin
ions more steeped, on factual grounds
than hypothetical ones. But we felt the
move would also help improve the image
of The Battalion as well as to keep in line
with the standards of the industry con
cerning the placement of the page.
The reason we will only run the opin
ion page three times a week is more of a
financial decision than a philosophical
one. In order to have a complete Life
styles section on Thursdays, we had to
cut back the editorial space from other
sections. The most logical choice was the
opinion page.
Sports: Sports will only run twice a
week — Wednesdays and Fridays — for
both financial reasons and the fact there
are few A&M sports during the summer.
In past semesters the sports section has
run daily, but we felt that we would not
be depriving A&M sports fans by run
ning twice per week, while at the same
time easing the load on our reduced staff
and keeping the section fresh the days it
does run.
Lifestyles: Before the weekly Life Style
magazine last spring, the Lifestyles sec
tion ran twice per week, and last summer
it ran once per week. This summer the
section will run twice per week — Tues
days and Thursdays — in an attempt to
keep the students and others who read
The Battalion up to date on what's hap
pening around Bryan and College Sta
tion.
Complexity: If this all sounds rather
confusing, that's because a daily newspa
per is a complex operation. With about 45
student workers in the summer and 70 to
80 in the fall, all trying to put a paper to
gether — well, we have our work cut out
for us.
Admittedly, we will probabaly make
some mistakes during these changes, and
although perfection is our goal, we real
ize we will not always achieve it.
Timm Doolen is a senior computer sci
ence major.
Todd Stone is a graduate student in busi
ness administration.
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