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Opinion
(day, February 18, 1992 The Battalion Page 15
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The Battalion Editorial Board
DOUGLAS PILS, Editor-in-Chief
The
attalion
BRIDGET HARROW, Managing Editor
BRIAN BONEY, Opinion Editor
JASON MORRIS. Night News Editor
MORGAN JUDAY, Night News Editor
MACK HARRISON, City Editor
KARL STOLLEIS, Photo Editor
SCOTT WUDEL, Sports Editor
ROB NEWBERRY, Lifestyles Editor
Helping out
Take time to volunteer
ollege students have many
|emendous opportunities available to
gain mega: | iem g 0 th inside and outside the
best count, | S sroom. Perhaps, the greatest is the
• (O ncet he ^ance to have a positive impact on
rrived, they | e community.
ter.) Once hhe people of Texas, ones seen
ded to help ver yday at the mall,
long witli |ocery store and
ors and the {staurant bear the large
g their job, lUr den of the costs in
harass the jjgher education. The
1st way to say thank
o help Tan ) U to the people is to
t drinking, olunteer in local pro
fraternity. Its. These can range
ity, 1 am iom community ser-
allow greek Ices like road cleaning
Since the 1 helping out at the
ispital.
At Texas A&M, many
dents take part in Big
all was an
ovious that
producing
ty, moral lyent each spring. But
i them the
i\ group of
ard Szecst/
signatures
sition to do a lot of good.
Programs such as Volunteers in
hiblic Schools (VIPs) work with teach-
is and administrators to encourage
Students to succeed. The Thousand
>r support
et, 1 am a
a combat
dll be the
at just for
involved,
rombat is
hat your
sit glued
hat their
ne dead,
so be the
cessary.
■at nation
from the
•e in the
it an end
also war
gression
ersonnel
;ers who
make us
is more
one else
peace, it
lives on
and say
dichael
right to
me else,
us who
do not
pay the
equally
pie who
mding.
e above
? words
, think
jis is only for one day a year. There is
ot more to be done.
At a time when there are record
limbers of people in need of assis-
ce, students in this area are in a
Points of Light organization. Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts and Big Brothers
and Sisters are others to name just a
few.
But there are also programs such as
Meals-On-Wheels and others which
help elder members of our communi
ty. A smile and helping
hand from a young
person can be a bright
spot in a retired per
son's life.
And these are all
programs which
require very little time,
usually no more than
an hour a week. To sac
rifice an hour at a
social gathering or in
front of the television is
a small price to pay to
make our community a
better place to live.
Volunteering in community projects
gives students the chance to work with
those people which society often for
gets and work in a side of life many
prefer to overlook.
No college class can be as reward
ing and no pasttime as productive as
when volunteering in community pro
jects.
Guilty Samaritan
Idiotic award benefits criminal
" It's
Last week, the San Francisco
Jjperior Court ordered taxi driver
■odden Charles Hollom to pay
i$4,595 to Ocie McClure, a mugger he
:ased down and pinned with his car.
cCIure sued Hollom for "excessive
irce" when Hollom pinned him to a
ilding near San Francisco's City Hall
d broke his leg in the
■ocess.
This case was a per-
ct example of the
[bsurdity of lawsuits
day. People resort to
ing each other for rea-
ns that should not
en be brought up. If
is continues
lichecked, society will
tgin to fear stopping,
jreventing or reporting
jjimes if there is a possi-
lity that the criminal
sue them.
McClure acknowl-
ged his guilt for rob
ing the victim. Hollom acted
elfishly to capture the mugger.Yet,
e jury ordered Hollom to pay
cause they thought he could have
ocked McClure instead of pinning
with his car.
McClure's attorney said, " I do not
jhink it is fair to take a 4,000-pound
band ram someone against a wall."
There was no fairness when
IcClure was robbing his victim.
Perhaps the jury and McClure's
attorney wanted Hollom to get out of
his car and try to take McClure down
by hand with a karate chop, without
injuring him of course.
The jury never considered the fact
that McClure could have easily
escaped if Hollom only blocked him
with his car. McClure could have easi
ly, jumped over or ran
around Hollom's car.
Also, McClure could
have been armed with
a knife or gun. Hollom
might not have seen
anything on McClure,
but could Hollom take
the chance and try to
just block McClure
with his car and give
McClure a chance to
shoot or cut him. No
one would have ques
tioned Hollom if
McClure was armed,
and if he was, the jury
never considered that
fact.
The most ironic aspect of this case is
the criminal gets paid for committing a
crime while the hero of the story is
considered a cold human being who
inflicts unnecessary pain.
Society needs to be aware about
cases such as Hollom's and protect
those citizen's against lawsuits by
criminals.
Hollom was guilty only of being a
good law-abiding citizen.
Feeling leftied out
Southpaws suffer from discrimination that others fail to see
L fe is so interesting, with its
nuances and little injustices.
"Interesting," by the way, covers
both good events and bad. Just so you
know. (Are you getting a feeling of
foreshadowing?)
The big events and those magnani
mously (look it up) important injus
tices take up all the front page space
in newspapers, but the little things
add up, too. Many things seem unim
portant to you is
seen as callous
oppression and
forced conformity
to a member of a
minority. Yes
even I, a male
Caucasian, am
being discriminat
ed against daily,
although 90 per
cent of you have
no idea why.
I am left-hand
ed in a right-
handed world, and we are being
oppressed.
We lefties have had it rough since
day one, when some right-hander
decided everyone was going to write
from left to right, ensuring that for
generations to come left-handers
would be smudging pencil and ink all
over the page. Way back in the Dark
Ages the left hand was viewed as evil;
we were called "sinister" for using
weapons with the "wrong" hand.
Today southpaws are no longer
called sinister, but the abuse contin
ues. As children, natural lefties are
discouraged from using the left hand
for writing and other activities, leav
ing many kids scarred for life.
Researchers have concluded that left
ies don't live as long as right-handed
folk. But at least when we die early,
we won't have to put up with new
studies.
Most lefties are left alone now, but
off-handed remarks still abound. A
klutzy person has "two left thumbs"
and one who can't dance has "two left
feet." In science and engineering,
there are l,342(give or take) right
hand rules compared to none for left
ies.
In society we greet each other by
extending the right (not the left, mind
you) hand. A useful sidekick or cohort
is called —you guessed it —a right-
hand man. Will the oppression never
end?
The tortures today include those
lecture room desks all over A&M. You
know, those chairs with the
appendages on the right side that
have just enough room for a notepad
and the right elbow. I am in a constant
state of contortion trying to adjust to
writing on these desks which were
designed by Joseph "Righty"
Mengele, who used them to torture
southpaws to death by discomfort.
Left-handed versions of these
ergonomic (look it up) atrocities (look
this one up, too) are almost non-exis
tent on campus. I've counted a total of
three such desks, all in the same class
room in the basement of Reed
McDonald. I can also claim two more
left-handed compatible desks in a lec
ture classroom in the Engineering
Physics building, although these are
technically designed for wheelchair
users.
Not that lefties are considered com
pletely useless by normal people. My
old friend Simon (you don't know
him) was a great basketball player in
high school and was left-handed.
Southpaw baseball players are major
commodities to a team's roster. We
are considered superior in many
thinking skills due to our right brain
dominance.
Way back in grade school, though,
nobody bothered to tell me there were
baseball gloves made to fit the right
hand. But at least while I was throw
ing a really mean curve ball (with my
right hand as those oppressive, right
ist PE teachers insisted), I managed to
hit a few right-handers in the head.
Speaking of schools and such,
southpaw achievements are never
mentioned in textbooks. This is a
major omission by right-hand-centric
forces in education today. Every per
son mentioned in textbooks who may
possibly have been left-handed
should be labeled a lefty.
The inclusion of such information
would do much to help teach children
and their parents that "it's OK to be
left-handed" by showing them that
many important and famous people
are southpaws, such as President
Bush and a lot of other people, includ
ing my dad and a friend of mine, a
1996 Olympics hopeful (you don't
know her).
What I'd like to see is a Left-
Handed Americans Act that would
correct a lot of wrongs in this country,
like allowing more right-hand drive
cars in this country (so my left hand
can reach all the controls now located
on the right side of me) Add left-
handed telephones (rotary and touch-
tone phones) to all those zillions of
right-hand phones in the country.
Make A&M put some left-handed
desks in classrooms. Provide more
left-handed tools and guns (ever tried
using a right-handed gun left-hand
ed? T'ain't near as much fun). Kill all
the lawyers (oops, sorry, good idea,
wrong column). Provide federal
scholarships based on the hand with
which we write (Hey, my bad hand
writing is caused by having to write
backwards, and many people discrim
inate against bad handwriting. When
was the last time you saw a lefty with
decent penmanship?) Most important
ly, outlaw right-handed butter knives,
can openers and punch ladles, all of
which cause an inordinate amount of
stress for us southpaws. They're
almost as bad as those tiny desks.
I expect this bill will be a difficult
fight, but I hope that the politically
correct forces join in our cause, a
cause pitting an oppressed minority
against an entrenched majority. In the
mean time, all southpaws should
unite in this fight against tyranny.
Write your congressman. Join in
marches for my new group ACT
LEFT! Start pushing newspapers
around. And until we get justice or a
lot of monetary entitlements, write
backwards!
!aH !ti ekil srosserppo dednah-thgir
esoht woh ees s'teL
DeShazo is a junior electrical
engineering major
Beasley
sof'94
Time
teaches us best how to hate
7
O otta' little story for ya' Ags! It
seems that a few years ago
VJ three young boys about 5 or 6
became the best of friends. There
was little Leroy Brown, John Smith
and Mark Goldstein. As kids they
played together, fought together and
did everything together. They were
inseparable. Their parents disap
proved of course, but since the boys
couldn't understand why, it didn't
top them.
As all boys will do, they grew up.
Eventually someone pointed out they
were different. They had always
blown this, but everyone else was
different, too. It never made any dif-
erence to them. But then John began
osee how much darker Leroy's skin
Was, so John kidnapped people from
Eeroy's parent's home country, called
Eeroy inferior and turned him into a
slave. After a while, John saw that
Mark's religion was different. John
tied to steal Mark's parent's home
ountry, and tried to kill Mark's
Guest..,Column
Matthew
McKnight
is a freshman
mechanical engineering
major
entire race. John even started a "war
to end all wars" to accomplish his
task. One person obviously did not
start the African slave trade and did
not kill more than six million Jews
while fighting a world war. It is a
historical impossibility. The idea is
that, as kids, these totally fictional
characters saw their physical and reli
gious differences, but dismissed
them. Despite what their families
told them, they were still friends.
Things like prejudice and racism
didnT exist to them and didn't need
to. Segregation had no meaning to
them as far as they were concerned.
What they saw, as kids, was only
friendship.
Now why can't we be like that?
Why should things like race, reli
gion, age, sex,whatever, have any
impact on our lives at all? So what if
some people look different? So do
you. Why do we need to go through
hell trying to decide what the politi
cally correct word is, so that we don't
offend anyone? Why should we need
to replace "white" students with
"ethnic" students to take a more real
istic picture (Battalion Feb. 10 issue)?
Why should anyone have to worry
about racial balance? John, Leroy
and Mark didn't care until someone
pointed them out, so why do we?
Some might say that the young
friends were ignorant and didn't
know any better. So what? Don't you
think it's worth sacrificing "intelli
gence" to stop fighting? Real intelli
gence is the ability to see past these»
differences to the people themselves.
Some would also say that to
achieve this "intelligence" they
each other
would have to ignore their own her
itage. Can't people realize their her
itage and still be friends?
I am 50 percent Hispanic and very
proud of it (by the way, I don't care if
you call me Latino, Mexican or what
ever. "Spic", I might have something
to say about; though). I love Mexican
food, people, art, language, every
thing. I have great love and respect
for my heritage. I also have great
respect for the Germans and Russians
for what they are going through in
the name of peace and democracy.
None of these things interfere with
my respect for other cultures, and my
pride in being American.
Is there something inherently evil
in looking past your heritage in order
tolearn about someone else's?
Once you learn about it, it's easier
to respect it. When that happens,
racism, prejudice,segregation and,
most important of all, hate will all but
disappear.
Have an opinion?
Express it!
The Battalion is interested in
hearing from its readers.
All letters are welcome.
Letters must be signed and
must include classification,
address and a daytime phone
number for verification purpos
es. They should be 250 words
or less. Anonymous letters will
not be published.
The Battalion reserves the
right to edit all letters for
length, style and accuracy.
There is no guarantee the let
ters will appear. Letters may
be brought to 013 Reed
McDonald, sent to Campus
Mail Stop 1111 or can be faxed
to 845-5408.