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Thursday, April 23, 1992
The Battalion
Page 11
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The Battalion Editorial Board
DOUGLAS PILS, Editor-in-Chief
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.
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Book cuts
Journal reductions add to library's woes
With the announcement that
subscription fees for academic journals
will jump by 13 percent this year
comes the reality that the Sterling C.
Evans Library does not have enough
money to handle the increase. Different
departments will be affected in
accordance with the costs of their
journals, but the overall results will be
fewer journals in a library that is
T^l OH! alread y deficient in that area.
LUCm Students and faculty have suffered
-1- Bbudget cuts, section cuts and fee
increases while new buildings have
popped up around us. If there is
money to be found, raised or begged,
for these things, then it is unacceptable
to allow our library to be handicapped
by cutting off journal subscriptions.
"I find it very alarming that the
University can't come up with $400,000
to meet the costs," said James
Rosenheim, a professor of history.
"The library is a fundamental
commitment, and 1 think this is time to
show the fundamental commitment in
real terms."
In addition to faculty protests,
students find it disheartening that
journal cuts may occur in a library that
already finds it necessary to bus
refer a planti researchers to the University of Texas
in order to access crucial information.
The Sterling C. Evans Library serves
more than 41,000 students. As it is.
students often spend hours in search of
journals that have not been reshelved
or simply cannot be found. While
reshelving is an unavoidable problem
due to students' unwillingness to
return the material they pulled, it
would be a great improvement if more
than one copy of each journal existed
among the more popular subscriptions.
The reality, at least among the vast
majority of A&M students, is that the
quality and quantity of information
available in our library is an
embarrassment. This is an obvious
result of a lack of funding in such a
crucial area.
The administration at this
University first needs to see to it that
journal subscriptions are not cut. But
this is not enough. Our library needs
more material, which means more
room.
If this school has the resources for a
new parking garage and student
center, then it should have the
resources to improve the quality of our
library. After all, it is the quality of
education that should be the first and
most important consideration among
administrators.
Allowing resources to be cut at a
library that could already stand
improvement sends a message to
students that education is at the
bottom of the priority list.
Conceptual hell
Everyday occurrences relate closely to netherworld's experience
ast week while gaily traipsing
across the pounded cow-paths of
our should-be-green campus
grounds, I noticed a quaint t-shirt
back, faintly yellowed from the stains
of armpits past, and the shirt went
something like this: "Chem-E:
Because everyone needs a concept of
HELL."
I agree. I do think everyone needs a
concept of hell,
because all too
often we tend to
take our
worthless, petty,
trivial existences
a bit too
seriously — or
hadn't you
figured that out
yet?
And since the
Batt has of late
evolved into a
religious tract
along the lines of televangelism and
questing for better meaning in the
daily droning of our droll existences,
rather than share with you a tried and
true heathen concept of heaven, I
thought I'd give you some concepts of
hell.
I mean I watch these extraordinarily
sexist beer commercials on TV —
usually during sporting events that
require remote controls and beer guts
— and I hear the words echoing,
"Wouldn't it be great if..." and out
spews some pre-pubescent wet dream
with Swedish bikini teams and all the
cold, free substandard beer you can
drink.
What if the tables were turned?
Wouldn't it be great if someone could
show us how bad it could be, rather
than how great it could be? Wouldn't
it be great if we had a list of concepts
of hell which we could reference,
because we're not all Chem-E majors,
and because most of us don't have our
own concepts of hell. So here it is, just
in time for exams: "The Stacy Feducia
Quit Your Whining Because At Least
Your Life Isn't This Bad Concepts of
Hell List"
Take your pick and quit your
whining, especially during these
trying times.
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were
trapped in a small Arkansas town in
which the only radio stations to be
found were the country station which
was saluting Garth Brooks and the
Top 40 station which was doing the
Bryan Adams "Everything I Do I Do it
for You" marathon?
• Wouldn't it be hell if every weekend
were Parent's Weekend and you had
to clean up your room and pretend
you didn't drink so much every
weekend? (Granted, I like Parents
Weekend, but my own private
concept of hell and Parents Weekend
stems from the fact that Aggies drive
badly enough as it is — HELL is when
the people who taught them to drive
converge on College Station in mini-
vans, station wagons and sport-utility
vehicles).
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were
trapped in the elevator going to the
sorority rush forum with a wall of
mutant perfume toxins and bows with
hormone problems?
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were
trapped in an elevator with the muzak
versions of Stairway to Heaven and
Freebird playing constantly?
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were as
stupid as the woman I saw in the
bookstore last week who asked the
salesman for a copy of the book
"Malcolm Ten?" When the salesman
asked her (and I will admit she was
wearing a bow) if she meant the book
Malcolm X, she pertly replied "NO!
It's Malcolm Ten! It's my prof, don't
you think I know what book is
assigned?"
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were
pregnant or abused or concerned that
the next time you went outside to play
in your front yard that you would be
shot by a stray bullet?
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were a
member of the TABC?
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were a
campus parking cop — knowing full
well that even if you were a nice
person, everyone would hate you
anyway?
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were the
guy who was in charge of doing the
TV time outs at football games? His
official title is "Red Hat."
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were at an
Easter Egg hunt in Alaska and you got
trapped in the snow? That really
happened, just last weekend. Can you
believe they were hiding Easter eggs
in the snow?q
• Wouldn't it be hell if you were an
electrical engineering major?
• No, worse yet, wouldn't it be hell if
you were trapped in a room with 40
electrical engineering majors whining
about how bad it is to be an electrical
engineering major?
• Wouldn't it be hell if I just
stopped typing right now and quit
my whining and shut up?
I thought so.
You heard it here first.
Feducia is a senior
English and history major
Mail Call
Animal rights
offer many views
The purpose of our letter is to clear up a false
mage presented by an ad from Americans for
Medical Progress Educational Foundation in The
battalion. The ad attacked the "animal rights
movement" and accused it of being against the
ight to save human lives and against a good
Quality of life for humans if either resulted from
mimal testing in medical labs. It also said that any
sane, sensitive, and thinking individual" would
upport animal testing for advancements in
hedicine.
Yes, there are animal rights activists who
wholly support this full respect for non-human
mimals and we could question how someone can
£ sensitive and sane, yet torture and kill helpless
mimals for such an anthropocentric cause,
fowever, we are not addressing that issue. We do
vant to say that there are segments of the
novement which do not oppose medical testing
»n animals for human (and animal) medicine. To
haracterize the entire animal rights movement as
triving to prohibit advancements in medicine if
hey require animal testing is, frankly, to
iistribute propaganda (something AMPEF
ondemned in their ad.) Such propaganda results
in misconceptions of other segments of the
novement and, as a result, hinders their causes
vhich many "sane, sensitive, and thinking" non-
mimal rights activists themselves support out of
andness and humane respect.
The causes of the animal rights movement need
>ot be dismantled because a large group of
professionals" disagree with part of it. The
movement also strives to put an end to pet theft,
inhumane conditions for farm animals being
processed for human consumption, "puppy
mills," the fur industry, destruction of dolphins in
drift nets and testing of cosmetic/cleaning-type
products on animals. And once again, several
segments concentrate on one or two issues above,
and some do not even support all of them.
Our point is not to enumerate all of the horrors
committed against animals (though we wish we
had the time and space); we merely want to
prevent the readers of the ad from opposing this
entire animal rights movement because they
disagree with a segment of it. The movement is
founded on respect and fair treatment, and such a
foundation is not one to be destroyed under the
pretense of vanity or profit or overgeneralization.
If you are concerned about the welfare of animals
yet believe animal testing is acceptable, do not
alienate yourself from the movement because
there is a place for your support in the struggle to
promote respect and fair treatment.
Tracey Spoon
Class of '93
Stephen Silliman
Class of'93
Aggies should
vote for Perot
Howdy Ags. I'm a student worker doing
research for the Agriculture Economics
Department. The job requires that I review reams
of economic data produced by our government.
While shifting through the shocking figures
related to our running deficit. I've come to the
shocking conclusion that the average American
has no idea of the magnitude of our problem.
You've heard the figures, which are in the
trillions, so I won't waste your time — most
people distrust statistics anyway.
In the next 10 tol5 years, we will resemble
Brazil which has its economic policy and
sovereignty practically dictated by banking
institutions such as the World Bank. This doesn't
have to happen to America, but the course our
politicians are setting seems directly on that
course. I've always considered myself Republican,
but I have seen that President Bush has never
submitted a balance budget before Congress. It is
obvious that any Democrat such as Clinton (who
promises a program to cure all, thus increasing
spending) would bust the budget. My point: Ross
Perot is our only hope. As a populist
businessman, he has little chance of playing party
politics and can surely understand the value of
reducing the deficit. Please Aggies do not
discount Perot too quickly. Previous generations
have worked too hard to build this country to
simply squander away our dignity. Don't let us
deteriorate into a Third World nation — sign the
petition and then vote for H. Ross Perot.
Marc E. Stewart
Class of'92
We shouldn't get
Good Friday off
I am writing this letter in reply to Tanya
Williams' Friday (April 17th) article. I enjoyed
reading her article until I got to the end. I do not
think the University (or anyone else for that
matter) forgot that last Friday was Good Friday.
As she indicated, the "state's universities have
neglected to observe this holiday" and there is a
variety of good reasons to do so. One reason is
that the university follows the status of separation
of church and state. Few countries have this
policy, yet most of them do not celebrate
Christmas as a holiday while the United States
does. Don't get me wrong; I love the month we
get off for the Christmas holidays. I believe that
Good Friday is an important day (because of the
fact that it is the day that Jesus died), but there are
many important people that have died (such as
Mohammed, Buddha, Gandhi and Martin Luther
King). I also understand that Jesus, was a very
important individual and this day is significant in
many ways.
But everyday of his life was essentially
significant and unfortunately, we cannot have a
holiday for all of them (or else we wouldn't attend
school at all.)
S ala Senkayi
Class of'94
Have an opinion? Express HI •
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All letters are welcome.
Letters must be signed and must include classification,
address and a daytime phone number for verification
purposes. 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 letters
will appear. Letters may be brought to 013 Reed McDonald,
sent to Campus Mail Stop 1111 gr can be faxed to 845-2647.