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The Battalion
Page 11
The Battalion Editorial Board
DOUGLAS PILS, Editor in Chief
The
Battalion
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
The following opinions are a consensus of The Battalion opinion staff and senior editors.
Both ways
Fudged answers hurt Clinton's image
When I was in England, I
|experimented with marijuana a time or
two, and I didn't like it and didn't
inhale and never tried it again,"
HI Democratic presidential candidate Bill
Clinton said last week.
Clinton's confession of smoking
marijuana was unnecessary.
The issue of whether Clinton
smoked marijuana occasionally during
his youth should be of no concern.
Even opposing Democratic
presidential candidate Jerry Brown
defended Clinton, saying it was "not
relevant," and even he went on to
riticize the media for bringing up the
subject of Clinton's past drug use.
Indeed, the most important issue is
sired run dale * whether Clinton is currently using any
)one numbertlj drugs. Americans should not condone
s Up is a Battr; ^is past actions, but rather
'enisandacke acknowledge the fact of Clinton's
t-come, firsl-sn . P,. , , .
an entry willv m mista k e and his ability to correct his
"action.
However, Clinton should still have
been forthright in his answer about his
past or simply refused to answer.
I Instead, Clinton's indecisive nature in
St fOld discussing his past has only hurt his
Jl V,Ulll» can( jj c j aC y This wishy-washy and
d impairedE'fi wea ^'^ nee( d approach to issues has
tired the majority of voters.
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Clinton cannot have it both ways,
answering but not answering the
question. In fact, a poll taken by
WABC-TV in New York last week
stated 57 percent would not be content
with Clinton's honesty and integrity as
president.
In past interviews, Clinton avoided
questions about his past drug use by
saying he never violated "state or
federal laws." Clinton's excuse for
never admitting his drug use before
was "because nobody's ever asked me
that question point blank."
Perhaps, reporters need to scream in
Clinton's ear, learn sign language or
paint a big banner, so Clinton can
answer the more direct or "point
blank" questions.
The art of dodging questions by
politicians only angers and frustrates
the public. They see these politicians as
devious and manipulative individuals
who are not concerned with the public
good.
The media has a responsibility to
uncover the truth about each
presidential candidate. It is up to the
candidate to make the decision of
whether to discuss his past.If the
candidate chooses not to answer a
question, then the public must respect
that decision; however, the candidate
needs to be resolute in discussing his
past.
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Off the hook
Courts play needed role in school equity
Last week, the Supreme Court eased
the way for school districts to escape
court supervision of desegregation in
their schools.
In one of the few recent
desegregation rulings, the court ruled
that lower courts do not need to
^ continue indefinitely trying to correct
racial imbalances in the schools.
The decision could lead to poorer
education for many students by taking
unjust school districts off the legal
‘ ook.
School districts, however, will still
$ carry the burden of proof to show that
ation is due to factors other than
racial discrimination, and that the
schools are taking "all steps necessary"
to remedy the imbalance.
This decision is looked upon as a
victory for the Bush administration as
well as for hundreds of public school
systems that have desegregation cases
pending.
On the other hand, minority
itudents and parents, as well as civil
ights and civil liberties activists who
lave joined in the fight for the
ntegration of schools, are the losers.
With the Supreme Court taking a
liands-off role in this issue, America's
>chool systems run the risk of
regressing to the dismal state of
chools in the '60s: school systems that
discriminated against many of its
students.
Another winner in this battle is a
Georgia school district that after 23
years of court-supervised
desegregation has yet to integrate.
"Federal courts have the authority
to relinquish supervision and control
of school districts in incremental
stages, before full compliance has been
achieved in every area of school
operations," Justice Anthony Kennedy
wrote in the majority opinion.
With this ruling, the Georgia school
district will not be required to put into
effect a busing plan to remedy the
racial imbalance. Without integration
of the district, the school system will
remain as unequal as it did 23 years
ago.
Busing students in to integrate
schools is not always the best solution.
Without court supervision, school
districts might completely demolish
busing systems, which is often the only
way for minority students to obtain
equal education opportunities.
If school districts will no longer be
court supervised, it will be important
for them to either retain their busing
systems or begin distributing district
funds on an equal basis to all schools,
as well as requiring equal standards
for teachers.
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Of mice and me
Rodent madness pervades more than just students' homes
T his is going to be fun. Last
week, in the morning womb of
my room ,while drinking my
morning cup of black coffee and
perusing the news in my paper. The
Batt, I discovered two new
cohabitants moving into my room. Of
course, they were
of the rodent
variety, the
scurrying type,
and since they
weren't really
causing me to
have a bad day
aside from some
unnecessary
shock and
trauma, I decided
to leave them
alone and maybe
even feed them
some cheese —
attached to a poised-for-death
mousetrap.
Now I realize all of you animal
rights activists will have a beef with
this column due to the graphic
violence and mild language which
will entail my tirade of death on your
furry friends, so you might want to
roll this paper up today, quit reading,
and use it to line the cages of the
rodents which you have recently
freed from the bowels of science.
The rest of you, save for the rats
and weasels in the audience (i.e.
members of the Student
Government), can sit back and enjoy
this non-animal-rights column. By the
way. Student Government readers,
that was foreshadowing.
But first, a return to rodent
madness. Normally, I wouldn't resort
to violence in these instances of
infestation, but since my room was in
its traditional state of disarray, and
since I didn't particularly feel like
cleaning it up, I thought I'd take the
lazy way out and flatten 'em like flies
on a Mack truck windshield. I also
talked to my apartment manager who
benevolently presented me with a
piece of cardboard with some glue
smeared over it — talk about faces of
death, what a way to go!
Unfortunately, the vermin (the
mice, not Student Government) have
outsmarted my arsenal of doom. In
fact, they even told me what I could
do with my sticky-board: They left
me little black, pointed presents on it,
after gnawing on the moldy
American cheese which was welded
to the glue. I was impressed. Still am.
In fact, I even called in for some
reinforcements. My friend, Chris, a
marketing major, has decided to
profit from my mousy misfortunes by
building a better mousetrap for my
rodential dismay. He wants to call his
product "Pestilence" and thinks the
mice would dig it more if it came in a
wide variety of fashion flavors like
"American Cheese Anarchy."
Unfortunately for Chris, I think no
endless amount of "Bleu Cheese
Bazooka"-flavored Pestilence could
rid this campus of its rodent madness
— namely that conflagration of
vermin that now infests the new
Student Services building (here it
comes), i.e. Student Government.
Being from Louisiana, where the
state legislature is primarily inbred
and overwhelmingly stupid, I
consider myself an expert on political
pestilence and legislative vermin, and
being at A&M right now feels a lot
like home.
Talk about elections, had this one
run on for a couple more weeks, we
would have started to hear rumors
that the candidates might have
smoked marijuana in college — wait
a minute, they are in college, aren't
they? I mean, these people are
supposed to represent the students,
right? They're supposed to give the
administration an idea of how the
average student feels, correct? But do
these people in any way, shape, form
or substance really resemble the
actual college student? They don't
drink as much beer as we do, and
they certainly are a helluva lot more
anal retentive than the rest of us.
What do these people do in their
spare time, read The Batt? Well
obviously, David "I ain't afraid of no
Batt" Brooks does, but I think that's
about all he does — that and pad his
resume. Let's face it, these people
have way too much spare time on
their hands — and they take
themselves way too seriously. What
has the Student Senate actually done
in the past four or five years that has
had any meaningful effect on our
lives? If they really wanted to
represent the student body on an
important issue, why don't they
lobby to make A&M a wet campus
instead of passing these weasel
brained resolutions about free speech
for everyone who agrees with the
Student Senate? I'd much rather
drink beer — but I am having fun
exercising my First Amendment
rights right now.
Do these people actually have any
power? Well, yes they do — in a
sense — they have the right to
allocate OUR student service fees to
the projects of their choice — like the
"No, we're not biased at all" Election
Commission. Do you want these
people handling our money? I don't!
But fortunately for us, all of their
allocations have to be agreed upon by
the administration, and maybe the
administration will elect to allocate
our funds toward the extermination
of the vermin infestation of the
student senate — dare to dream! Dare
to dream!
Or maybe the administration will
throw some of our student service
fees my way to help pay for my 'T'm-
Glad-that-Ty T'm not illegal, just
unethical' Clevenger-is-Graduating"
Party. It'll be this summer at my
place, the rodent palace.
And don't blame me, I didn't vote
for this plague upon our campus — I
wrote myself in for Student Body
President.
You heard it here first.
Feducia is a senior
English and history major
Mail Call
Show t-sips
Ags' sportsmanship
I In recent years, I have heard many stories of
low-class, obnoxious behavior on the part of t.u.
fans at football games and basketball games.
;Many of my friends have attended football games
in Austin and had hot dogs and ice thrown at
them. Just recently there have been letters
published in several Dallas papers complaining
about the behavior of t.u. fans at the SWC
basketball tournament. I personally had not
Witnessed such behavior myself until I attended
the baseball games between Texas A&M and t.u.
atDisch-Falk Field in Austin on March 21.
| I suppose that most of the t.u. fans were
jsmarting from the loss to A&M the night before.
However, I don't think that losing to A&M
justifies their booing when the Aggie fans tried to
jsing the Aggie War Hymn (a tradition before each
’game and at the beginning of the last inning). Nor
does it justify that obnoxious person rudely
telling me before I ever sat down that I needed to
go sit with the rest of the A&M fans. What really
fftade things worse was that it was not just the t.u.
students exhibiting this obnoxious behavior —it
was 90 percent of all their fans in attendance at
the game whether they were old, young, middle-
age, graduate, or non-graduate.
I have always believed that in competition you
need to learn how to be a gracious loser and a
gracious winner. It was obvious to me on
Saturday that the average t.u. fan is not only a
very poor loser, but a very poor winner.
Texas A&M and t.u. are universities very rich
in tradition. Both schools have a tradition of
excellence in academics and athletics. However, it
seems that t.u. has added another tradition — that
of obnoxious fans at athletic events.
On April 10, 11, and 12, A&M will again play
at t.u. in baseball, but this time it will be at Olsen
Field in College Station. I am certain the stadium
will be filled with enthusiastic Aggie fans who
will show the handful of t.u. fans in attendance
how to behave with class whether A&M wins or
loses. After all, a university's greatness is not
determined by what's on the scoreboard, but by
the quality of its education and by the quality of
the individuals who represent it, whether they are
current or former students, professors,
administrators, employees, or fans at athletic
events.
K.C. Hubbard
Class of'93
PC has no place
here on campus
My letter pertains to the political cartoon
published April 2 dealing with the student
government resolution against political
correctness. I don't know if you realize what your
cartoon suggests, but it implies to limit the First
Amendment abridging the freedom of speech.
Like it or not, a person has the right to say "homo,
dyke, nigger, honky," etc. political correctness
limits these rights and many more. One example
is at Mildred Magowan School Library in
Edgewater Park, N.J. Two books were pulled
from the library's shelves "due to racial ethnic
and sex bias." "Read About the Policeman" was
pulled because it should have said "police
officer," and "Negro in America" was also pulled
because it should have said "black" or "African
American." The purpose of the Student Senate
resolution is to stop things such as these from
happening at Texas A&M. That is why the
Student Senate proposed the following insertion
into the Texas A&M University Rules and
Regulations handbook:
"As an institution of higher education devoted
to academic freedom as well as freedom of
expression, it is inconsistent with the values of
Texas A&M University for any group or
individual within the university community to
impose their opinions of 'Political Correctness'
through intimidation or harassment upon any
other part of the university community."
I totally agree. We shouldn't have government
tell us what is correct. We should be smart
enough to figure it out on our own.
Bret /. Ramsey
Class of‘95
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