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The Battalion
Opinion
F.DTTORTAT,
Administration must
communicate better
The Battalion reported last
Thursday how a minor accident became
the foundation for rumors of murder
and police cover-up at Texas A&M.
An intoxicated student cut his hand,
leaving blood around various parts of
the Blocker Building in early May.
Director Bob Wiatt and the University
Police quickly solved the mystery, but
the rumors continued.
While a Battalion reporter tried to
sift through all the innuendo and
hearsay, each news source — from
custodial workers to students to faculty
to other employees — either didn't
want to talk or insisted their identity be
protected.
The reason: Fear of repercussions
from the A&M administration.
Several students were afraid that the
University would penalize them for
discussing the incident. Even a dean at
A&M would not talk about it, although
that person did not explain why.
None of the sources said they were
directly threatened, but most felt
insecure to have their name even
remotely associated with anything
negative toward A&M.
While it is hard to blame anyone for
not wanting to be included in a
potentially negative story, it seems odd
that most would rather be quiet than
discover or warn others of a possible
murder in their own work or study
place.
What's even more troubling is that
many sources insisted on anonymity
even after the reporter explained that
the murder rumors were unfounded.
For almost three months, these
rumors lagged on, leaving many faculty
and students worried and confused.
We are not suggesting that a covert
element exists at A&M that secretly
attacks dissenters. The very existence
of Aggies Against Bonfire, Touchstone
and GLSS shows that minority
viewpoints and lifestyles can exist at
this University.
However, a lack of openness seems
to permeate this campus. Sure,
everyone, from the Board of Regents to
faculty members, is talkative during
social functions, or when A&M gets a
grant. But, there is a significant group
on campus that feels uncomfortable
going public during more turbulent
times.
One has to wonder if this is just
paranoia, or are these fears at least
partly justified? Perhaps the admin
istration just needs to dust off
communication channels and let
students, staff and faculty know what's
going on.
As an associate professor said, "I
just wish they would have done a better
job getting the information (about the
rumors) passed down to us."
Dr. Harvey Tucker, interim director
of graduate studies, said students have
no reason to fear speaking out. He said
everyone has first amendment rights,
and no one would be removed from
A&M without due process.
We believe him, but other people
have their doubts.
If President Mobley, the Board of
Regents and the P.R. folks at University
Relations really want to project a
sincere "we are family" image to the
rest of the world, then they had better
start pushing the message harder at
home.
Some are just not buying it.
Second U.S. revolution
of ideology
means war
Anthony C.
LoBaido
the most arnica-
id, and wants
m to see Moon
nberg has not
agent in the
ring his clients
1 drop of a hat.
•uyout is com-
urprised if
idihg the Oilers
.ing on
is in too fragile
ipted again, and
ich a resolution.
: resolution,
lal problems
i consequences,
•out my
said shortly be-
rinity campus.
his stuff was
"7 balanced all,
brbught all to mind.
The years to come
seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the
years behind,
In balance with this
life, this death."
— W. B. Yeats.
y the year 2056
Anglo-Americans
will constitute a
minority in the United
States. As such, the
white male, long blamed and resented for
everything from slavery to anti-feminism
to the destruction of Indian Culture, will
soon face a crossroads of the white man's
Armageddon.
Theodore Roosevelt once wrote, "Hy
phenated Americans will destroy this
country." It appears that this prophecy is
becoming reality before our very eyes.
Realizing that Afro-Americans, An-
I glo-Americans, Homosexual-Americans,
1 Jewish-Americans and other Hyphenat-
ed-Americans are not a monolithic bloc,
this Anglo-American articulates a vision
of our collective future.
As an Anglo (gag)-American, I under
stand the Afro-American desire for politi
cal revolution — Capitol Hill is controlled
by corrupt white men.
Affirmative action, which began as a
good idea to correct past injustices, has
decayed into reverse discrimination
against Anglo-Americans. In many in
stances, minority students and workers
receive scholarships and promotions
without having to achieve the criteria or
standards of their white counterparts.
(See the Georgetown University Law
School snafu.) Not only is it legal to dis
criminate against whites — it is illegal
not to discriminate. A perverse and re
verse form of apartheid.
More alarming is the notion that I
cannot walk the big-city streets without
fear for my life, and if I use a gun to pro
tect myself I will most probably wind up
in prison — instead of the criminal who
attacks me.
What is the white man's alternative? I
cannot join forces with the Klu Klux Klan
or the Neo Nazi's as these groups run
have historically run on hate and there
fore are not Christian.
Besides, there are so many wonderful
people of color in this country. There are
blacks whom I would trust with my life
and my wife, and whites I wouldn't trust
With either. Dead end.
Continuing on, this futurist vision
sees America's current inner-city civil war
spreading from sea to shining sea —
South Africa visits America! White males
must now contemplate whether to flee for
Australia or Scandinavia, or stay and
%ht for our freedom and civil rights —
a n Anglo-American revolt against the
v ery same Frankenstein it has created.
This revolt will not be racial or sex
ist! White men could live under Margaret
Thatcher, not Gov. Ann Richards. Gener
al Colin Powell could lead Anglo-Ameri-
ca, while the election of Jesse Jackson
would be seen as an act of war. You see,
it's not race or gender that matters most
— it's ideology.
Let the American Melting Pot commit
intellectual suicide by blaming the 1992
white man for slavery and the destruction
of Native American culture. Let homosex
ual men stick their penises in other men's
anuses — AIDS will take care of them. Let
the feminists abort 1.5 million children in
the next calendar year — the entire popu
lation of Wyoming and Idaho combined.
Let inner city Afro-Americans kill and
rape and commit genocide against their
own people with crack. Let the lost Afro-
american souls like New York Mayor
David Dinkins tell the animals on the city
streets that their behavior is condoned
under Karl Marx's ideology that "Man is
an economically determined animal who
is a product of his environment."
These are the people who will lead
America through the 21st Century?!?
The only way to turn America around
is to throw away the hyphens and start
thinking of ourselves as humans first —
Anglos, Afros, et. al. second. If this
change does not occur, then the only op
tion of the American white male will be to
seize the revolutionary spirit of our
Founding Fathers — leaving an America
that is a smoldering, burning pyre as an
inheritance to our unworthy successors.
Listen up. Melting Pot. It wouldn't be
hard. America's rivers are more polluted
than its citizens. Tons of nuclear waste sit
idly on railroad cars in many states.
AIDS and the depletion of- the ozone layer
threatens us all. With women out of the
home, the home has fallen apart. Only
three out of 10 Afro-American children
have a father. The American recession is
only steps away from a global depression.
No matter who wins the November presi
dential election, things will continue to
grow worse.
The- revolution will have a gestation
period of 50 years, right on course for
2056. First will come the intellectuals,
who will point out the flaws in the cur
rent societal institutions and draw blue
prints for a new society. The second stage
will see "politicals" who will keep events
in constant turmoil. In the final stages of
the revolution, bureaucrats will replace
the politicals to restore tranquility and to
institutionalize the radical new ideas into
a normal way of life.
What this all means for now is aca
demic, for life will go on as normal in the
Melting Pot. Inevitably, what it means is
that it would be better to die with honor
than to live in shame. The Reagan Revolu
tion isn't over. It's just intermission.
LoBaido is a doctoral student in educa
tional technology and a columnist for The
Battalion.
Monday, July 27, 1992
Page 5
Still so much that we don't know
■ I
Mack
Harrison
n the last days of
the 20th Century,
humanity has
made great strides in
science and technolo
gy. We have gained
insights into the be
ginning of the uni
verse and the primal
forces of the cosmos.
But no matter
how much we learn,
there is so much
more we still don't
know .... Take a walk
on the weird side.
For instance, spontaneous human
combustion. Charles Fort, an archivist of
strange and unexplainable phenomena,
found documentation of many cases of
people, mostly older women, bursting
into flames and burning with an intense
heat that left only ashes and a charred
limb or two. Even the bones were
turned into cinder, but nearby furniture
was not even scorched. However, the
temperature necessary to ignite a hu
man skeleton is so great that mortuaries
must manually pulverize a corpse's
bones after cremation.
What force could consume a person
so completely, yet not set fire to the rest
of the surroundings? An unknown
exothermic biological reaction? Posses
sion by demons?
Impossible. It's no more likely than
fish falling from the sky. But the "Hand
book of Unusual Natural Phenomena,"
by William R. Corliss, lists several cases
where hundreds of fish descended from
the heavens, including an instance in
Marksville, La. in 1947. An observer col
lected several specimens of falling fish,
including a large-mouth black bass over
nine inches long. The weather was calm
but foggy, and there was no severe
weather in the area at that time.
Was the responsible party a water
spout or tornado, or was it some other,
unknown natural phenomenon?
And what makes the sun go dim?
The same book states that New Eng
land's famous Dark Day took place May
19, 1780. Starting about 10:30 that morn
ing, observers noticed a darkness de
scending over the area. By about!2:30
people could not read large type out
side, and the Connecticut House of Rep
resentatives adjourned.
Was the darkness cause by haze
from a forest fire or volcano, or possibly
by interplanetary debris entering the
Earth's atmosphere?
The U.S. space program has elimi
nated many mysteries of the solar sys
tem, such as the composition of Saturn's
rings and what the surface of Venus
looks like. It has also eliminated the pos-
sibili’y of any life existing on Mars. Or
has it?
The two Viking probes touched
down on the planers surface in July of
1976, and automatic experiments the
landers carried out showed no evidence
of microbes in the Martian soil.
The orbiters, however, took pictures
of what appear to be artificial structures
on the planet's surface, including a
group of pyramidal structures and,
enigmatically, what looks like a giant
human face carved atop a nearby mesa.
Dr. Randolfo Rafael Pozos wrote a
book on the inquiry into the structures'
origins. In "The Face on Mars," Pozos
offers expert witnesses, digital imaging
and multiple photos as evidence that the
face is not a natural feature or a flaw in
the photograph. More recently, another
book backs up this evidence with the
latest in fractal simulation and computer
imaging.
Skeptics laugh and say the face is
just an illusion, a natural formation that
with a combination of lighting and sig
nal distortion appears to be a human
image in the NASA photographs. Or
could it have been built by a long-dead
race of Martians? We won't know until
we get there.
Have the Martians (or other aliens)
actually visited this planet? Doubtful.
But there have been thousands of UFO
sightings, many by reliable witnesses
such as pilots or military personnel.
Hundreds of people who claim to have
been kidnapped by extraterrestrials tell
remarkably similar stories while under
hypnosis.
Is it just mass hysteria tapping into
the collective unconsciousness, or is the
government involved in a UFO
coverup? Either way, it's interesting.
A philosopher once said, "The uni
verse is not only weirder than we sup
pose, it's weirder than we can suppose."
Although the breadth of human
knowledge doubles every generation/
we will never know everything. Deep
down in our subconscious lives a cave
man who shudders and draws closer to
the fire whenever he hears something
strange go bump in the night.
Harrison is a senior journalism major
and opinion editor for The Battalion.
Call*
PTTS needs help
with decisions
I wonder what it feels like to work for
PTTS. I wonder what it would feel like to
be despised by 50,000 people on a daily
basis. I would- think PTTS would make
improvements in order to clean up their
degenerate image, but that is wishful
thinking on my part.
I would like to thank PTTS for placing
blockades that made access to "BQ Lot"
(between the South Side Parking Garage
and the Quad) and "Butt Lot" (between
George Bush Drive and the South Side
Parking Garage) impossible. Also, thank
you for not putting up signs explaining
the reason, this was done. A little warn
ing would also have been appreciated, so
arrangements for a 50-mile hike from Fish
Lot could have been made. •
In addition to PTTS, I would like to
extend my gratitude to the asinine de
partment that decided to repave the
aforementioned parking lots (yes, we fi
nally found out the reason for the block
ades) while school was in session.
First we had to deal with conference
visitors taking our spaces instead of hav
ing them use the new Visitor Parking
Garage, which was built with the rev
enues form those blue-clad, ticket punch
ing rent-a-cops. Now, we have no spaces
at all because the South Side lots are
closed for repaving. Couldn't you have
waited for that two-week break in August
after the second summer session?
Hell, this decision was about as bril
liant as the one some other department
made to tear up Simpson Drill Field a few
weeks before Final Review. Or maybe
both decisions came from the same place.
For future benefit, I highly recom
mend that the decision-makers in the
above departments enroll in an adminis
trative dtcision-making workshop. Per
haps there is a glimmer of hope and a
minute chance that the minimal number
of brain cells they possess might some
how reproduce.
Helene Davidson '93
Wise up: AIDS
can hit anyone
In Michael Snyder's poorly argued let
ter of July 23, he asks, "When are people
going to wise up and take responsibility"
for their actions? I ask, when are pious,
self-righteous people like yourself going
to get off your pulpit and actually go out
and get involved with helping solve the
problem (through education) instead of
whining about government money spent
on this epidemic?
You don't have to remind people-liv
ing with AIDS (not dying of AIDS) that
they have it, they are all too aware of the
fact. Does it serve any purpose at all to
rub their faces in the fact that they sinned
and that now they are suffering the conse
quences of their actions? I think not!
What they did in the past is done and
cannot be taken back. We can only look at
the present and to the future to help those
infected and prevent others from joining
this afflicted multitude.
As for your tactless and unproductive
statement about Congress saving "Magic
and most faggots," you left several other
groups off your list: mothers, grand
mothers, fathers, grandfathers, children,
doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses,
teenagers, babies, etc. ALL of the afore
mentioned groups have people with
AIDS and I'm sure there are several oth
ers I've forgotten. Were you trying to say
everyone but sports stars and 'most gays'
should receive government assistance?
I agree that people should know the
possible outcome of their sexual encoun
ters could very well be HIV, but if some
one is infected, we should empathize and
support them to the best of our abilities.
To make them outcasts would just reflect
our own inner fears of people who are
different. Everyone should remember that
AIDS has no preference as to age, gender,
sexual orientation or ethnic background
— NO ONE is safe from AIDS.
Cory Logan '93
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