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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 10, 1991)
mon The Battalion Thursday, October 10,1991 Page 11 (Solve social -a woes with Remind* at 696- manual labor Earn money instead of using birth control, attending reform school coming cl sn' an. 12 noon, >lden Coi Hour. O for morj Sp.mtcjS 847-0, . Event: -1091 fa ;he i jelightfu 1 / childh and a iday 4 p.m. :ated at3 ifor more 1 ' the 2nd li Dr. Birch mofe I n these trying times, big issues, big things, overwhelm us ev eryday, penetrating the grating debate of our homes, our hearts, our hallowed halls, our newspapers, our opinion pages, our bastions of com munist dogma. I'm talking about the big ones: AIDS, homelessness, crime, bonfire, sex education, parking tick ets, satan, and the A-word... but this summer, I discovered a solution... While most of you were wavering and waffling in the sultry summer sun, swilling | your effervescent beverages, contracting skin cancer on your bodacious brown bodies and partaking in activities about which your mothers so fervently warned, I toiled in the plastics factory with my working class comrades and did the manual labor thing. Slaving over labyrinths of conveyor belts, I stood in my Nikes, cutoffs, t-shirts, ear plugs and hair-net — yes, I of the hallowed ban danna actually wore a hairnet — and contemplated the state of the world, and here it is in a nut shell boys and girls: MANUAL LABOR IS THE KEY. rserr Feducia is a junior English and history major. the room — feeling rather amorous — and you'll scream: "DON'T POINT THAT THING AT ME! I'm tired! I've been work ing all day! I don't want to get preg nant and do this for the rest of my life! Go back to your room and put that thing away!" (Dammit!) Of course, if you are a man, this method is just as ef fective. You go home. You collapse in your Laz-E-Boy, swill the best beer you've ever swilled and kick back for an exciting round of "Wheel of Fortune." (Spin, Vanna! Spin!). Your woman will slink into the room — feeling hot and bothered — and you'll scream: "WOMAN, I'M TIRED! Leave me alone! All you think about is your own self! You never stop to consider my feelings! Do you want me to knock you up so I can work at that plant for the rest of my life? Go to your room and put that stuff away!" It happens. It's true. Don't deny it. You can see yourself doing it, too. Can't you? But not only is manual labor a good method of birth control, it's also “Manual labor is a gender-neutral form of birth control — both the male and the female can employ it — or rather be employed by it — or only one of the partners can practice it, and it works just as effectively as the others. And even better, you get paid for it. ” iiii| It Manual labor is the solution to all our societal ills. Follow me here. Tliis summer I ground up over five million tampon tubes — not used, mind you, defective. Regular, slender regular, super, super-plus — you name it, I ground it. And I liked it. People actually get paid for this. People actually support their families by doing this. And maybe we all take ourselves a little bit too seriously — but that's a different sermon. Just know this, grinding up tampon tubes gives you a whole new lease on life, and manual labor is the solution to our societal ills. Take for example birth control, which includes the whole spectrum of sex education, social disease, pre-mar- ital sex, the A-word, you name it. Manual labor is the only sure fire method of birth control and carries with it none of the stigmatisms that accompany the pill, condoms, di aphragms, etc. Manual labor is a gender-neutral form of birth control — both the male and the female can employ it — or rather be employed by it — or only one of the partners can practice it, and it works just as effectively as the oth ers. And even better, you get paid for it. You drone in the factory all day with your proletariat buddies. You sweat. You wear a hair net. You grind up tampon tubes. You watch millions of caps, bottles and hospital trays file past on the conveyor belts. You eat peanut butter and jelly sand wiches. You move boxes. You envy the corporate Americans who saunter through the plant in their Land's End power ties and Burberry shirts. And you go home. You collapse in your Laz-E-Boy, swill the best beer you've ever swilled and settle down for an exciting round of Geraldo Rivera. If you are a work ing woman, your man will sleaze into an excellent educational reform. Think we have problems keeping our children in school? Slap 'em in the factory for a summer. Make 'em grind up some tampon tubes. Have 'em watch the assemblies to make sure all the rat guards are properly in serted in the Crisco lids. Make 'em sweat. Make 'em drone. Make 'em wish they would have never even seen this plant. Work 'em till they break. Watch 'em toil. Then listen to them whine when they beg and plead to go back to school, enroll in college and enter an excellent law school — so they can be corporate Americans in Land's End ties and Burberry shirts, instead of one in the toiling masses in Nikes and hair nets. In addition to being an excel lent educational reform, manual labor is a swift and steady deterrent to crime. Though it may make the life of a Columbian drug lord or Louisiana politician seem rather intriguing, I'd rather be grinding up tampon tubes and getting paid every Week than do ing it in prison for free. Could you imagine doing this work for free? Surrounded by hardened criminals and people who store body parts in their freezers? In the company of those who just might be fried on tele vision next week during the next pub lic execution? Near people who make a habit of burping and farting all the time? People who think "The Cat in the Hat" is a pimp? I don't know. You be the judge. But there are just way too many benefits to manual labor to cast it aside as a plaything of corporate in dustrialists. Manual labor: it's the simple solution to all of our societal ills — and besides, you get paid for it. And by the way, "proletariat" is not the name of the horse that won the Triple Crown: it's a communist buzz word. Tell the gang at the plant I said "Howdy." You heard it here first. MA(WI£S _ TUB PECORP Lack of space forces studen ts to park illegally PTTS makes problem worse A lmost every Aggie is familiar with the vocal audience participation segment of the country favorite "Cotton-Eye Joe/’For those of you not familiar with the song, it goes something like this. Song: Now what you say? Participants: Bull (expletive)! This segment repeats itself many times throughout the song. "Bull (expletive)!" is exactly what I thought when 1 read the Sept. 30 article in The Battalion regarding Parking Transit and Traffic Services' promise for parking for all students within two years. Tom Williams, director of PTTS, got off to a great start over the summer by eliminating hun dreds of parking spaces and turning them into bicycle lanes. True this greatly reduces the risk of a bicyclist riding headlong into an open car door at breakneck speed. But it is hardly a giant leap toward Williams' goal. Don't get me wrong — I'm all for bicycle safety, but most of A&M's cyclists seem to have certain suicidal tendencies anyway, such as running stop signs. That will kill them a lot quicker than a car door. One of these bike lanes in particular is poorly placed — the one in front of the health center. This lane re moved many critical parking spaces in front of this facil ity. In the past, many students drove to the health cen ter because they were too sick to walk. However, with the new bil^e lanes, they've got to walk because there is no student parking anywhere near the place. Of course Williams feels that the new bicycle lanes have "met with overall approval thus far." Approval with whom? 1 can just picture Williams briefing all the parking service officers (all of whom seem to have passed the "Crappy Attitude of the Day" test): "OK folks, why do we approve of the new bike lanes?" (PSOs in unison) "Because we can give more tick ets!" And those people have been busy too. They're al ways giving tickets to the tons of people who park in the bike lanes. Williams, if the lanes were approved overall, why the hell are people still parking in them? Well I guess it's because people don't approve of them. Later in the article, Williams states "We are just about at the point where we should be, parking wise." I'll bet they are! What other point would they want to be at than one which eliminates $75 per year parking places for on-campus resi dents but creates $200 per year parking places? It just makes for a "University parking system [that] is completely self-supporting," right? Great! Good for you, Williams! OK, to sum up, let's see if you can follow this line of Williams' logic. It gets kind of hairy, but stick with me. • "We've got to build some multi-million dollar parking garages. • So first of all, we'll eliminate almost all of the other parking spaces. We'll, um, make 'em bike lanes — the bikers will love us so at lease somebody will. • That will mean almost everyone will have to park illegally while we build the garages. • Then we'll hire a bunch of obnoxious t-sips with bad attitudes to give tickets to everyone since there aren't enough legal spots left. • Next we'll raise the fines on those tickets so we can pay for those multi-million dollar garages. • Finally we'll charge 'em $200 per year to get a le gal spot in the garage Should meet with overall approval!" Well Ags? "Now what you say?" (BULL !) Readers Opinion Clay B. Loveless is a sophomore theater arts major. Mail Cali Student must buy midterm ❖ I just want to say that this is BULL! Did the College of Business Administration not just double tu ition for graduate business students? Where has the money gone that the management department is making me go out and buy my midterm for a class?! I think this stinks! Amy Davis graduate student Library users need parking ❖ While visiting the Texas A&M campus on Sept. 10, I got a parking ticket .... ironically on the same date you had an arti cle concerning parking problems on the campus. I am a former A&M stu dent. I never graduated due to the lack of funds to continue school, but never theless I am a former stu dent. I am a newsman, 31 years in radio and now working as a free-lance reporter for a local news paper. I am also working on a cou ple of books and must do research. I have used libraries at the Uni versity of Texas at Austin as well as Southern Methodist University and Evans Library at Texas A&M. I find that at UT, they have plenty of park ing spaces for the LBJ and Barker Li braries visitors — the same at SMU. But not A&M. I find that Evans li brary has much more material for my research. On Sept. 10, my son and I drove over from Cleveland to do some re search. As always, I found it diffi cult to find a parking space near the library, and I got a $25 parking tick et. There was no sign to designate this as a no parking area. The curb was not painted, and, besides, I think $25 is an out-of-the-ball park amount to charge. Oh, I find out there are some parking areas to uti lize, but to find this out, I have to get a ticket that tells me about the park ing areas. I have read about parking problems on the campus in The Bat talion. 1 find that there's ample parking for employees of A&M but not for parents or visitors. I am proud of A&M and wish I had been able to graduate from there. I am proud that A&M will get the George Bush Library, but I am afraid there won't be any parking room. I find the Evans Library the best research library around and that's why I drove two hours to Col lege Station. It's a shame that a per son can't come visit and use this li brary without getting a large park ing fine or having to park elsewhere and walk long distances across the cam pus. One other thing. What has happened to the friend ly attitude of Aggies? I had only three Aggies say "Howdy" to me as we passed on campus. I said "Howdy" to many without any response. Glen Dodson Visitor of Texas A&M Have an opinion? Express iti The Battalion is interested in hearing from its readers. All letters to the editor are welcome. Written letters must be^signed and include classification, address and daytime phone number for verification purposes. Anonymous letters will not be published. The Battalion reserves the right to edit all letters for length, style and accuracy. There is no guarantee letters will appear. Letters may be brought to 013 Reed McDonald, sent to Campus Mail Stop 1111 or can be faxed to 845-5408.