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Editorial
Raising gasoline taxes
Perot's idea painful but prudent
As crazy as. it seems, Ross Perot's
proposal to increase the gasoline tax
is reasonable and beneficial both
economically and environmentally.
Ross Perot, independent candi
date for president, argues that
America needs to increase the feder
al tax on gasoline 10 cents every
year over the next five years.
The probable results include en
vironmental improvement, competi
tive incentive, and increased incen
tive for the federal government.
Increasing the price of gasoline
by 50 cents over the next five years
will spur consumers to buy more
fuel efficient cars and to demand
that new cars produce fewer emis
sions.
Decreased emissions help defer
the possible problem of global
warming and the spread of acid
rain.
Consumers calling for better cars
force American automakers to inno
vate in order to meet market de
mand.
In the 1970s, automakers insisted
that they could not make cars which
used gasoline without lead. By the
same token, they will succeed in
making more efficient cars today.
Better cars for domestic use trans
late into more competitive cars in
the international theater.
The revenue from the tax could
help make the United States more
competitive internationally.
As much as Americans hate to
feed the federal government with
tax money, our country needs to im
prove its infrastructure and to pay
off its debt.
If the gas tax revenue were ear
marked For a certain use, such as
debt reduction, we would be guar
anteed that the painful medicine
would be applied to the most dan
gerous injury.
While some may argue that the
gasoline tax would unfairly hit the
oorest segments of our society, the
act is that gasoline costs us very lit
tle.
By comparison, America has the
cheapest gasoline in the industrial
ized world.
Other nations pay two and three
times as much for gas as we do. In
relation, American gasoline is
cheaper today than at any time in
the last four decades.
Taxing gasoline more heavily will
provide environmental and compet
itive benefits while amassing more
income to pay off the federal debt
without significantly burdening the
American consumer.
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One of those funny
childhood moments
I do not know if you would be inter
ested in a "Kids say the darndest
things" statement, but here it goes:
I have two children, ages 3 and 2, of
whom my son is the oldest. We were
walking across the parking lot of Sonic
on Texas Avenue, and about five Corps
members were sitting in a Blazer with
the top removed. Logan said, "look
Mommy, crash dummies!"
Of course this is in no way a put
down to the Corps, I just thought it was
cute how a 3 year old looked at the the
world!
Thanks for reading this letter.
Andrea Widdison
Department of Student Financial Aid
To PTTS: Don't mess
with Texas A&M
We are offended by the actions taken
by a Parking, Traffic and Transit Ser
vices officer Wednesday night. While
looking out the window of the Agricul
ture Building, we witnessed the officer
throw the back of a warning sticker on
the ground next to the car he was tick
eting.
We waited to see if the officer would
politely pick up his trash before one of
us made him aware of his actions. Af
ter informing him of what we saw, he
made the comment that he was tired
from working all day.
Well, maybe the student who parked
there was tired, so why should that per
son be ticketed and not the officer? He
unwillingly agreed to pick up his mess
after making the statement that he was
tired of college students' attitudes to
ward parking illegally.
We were very shocked at the offi
cer's rudeness and callousness.
Now tell us, fellow Aggies, if we had
been caught in the act of littering,
would we have been slapped with a
bright yellow ticket ranging in cost
from $50 to $200?
A&M prides itself on keeping the
campus remarkably clean. Trash cans
are strategically located throughtout
the campus for this sole purpose. Four
trash cans were within 20 yards of the
car he ticketed.
Students are continually made aware
of their illegal actions.
We think PTTS officers should be
treated no differently than students
when it comes to breaking the rules.
They are not above the laws they are
paid to enforce.
Nicole Santikos
Casi Franklin
Class of'92
Fraternity service
activities no excuse
I wish to commend Joe Salem for his
awareness and sensitivity to an issue
that is often ignored here at Texas A&M
and in our community.
His letter that appeared in The Bat
talion on Oct. 12 concerning the Sigma
Alpha Epsilon "jungle" party reminded
us all that disrespect and disregard for
other minority ethnic cultures is still
very much a part of our lives.
In a response to Salem, SAE Presi
dent Michael Hebert stated, "SAE does
not condone any racially motivated ac
tivities."
Well, Hebert, if your "jungle" party
complete with pledges dressed in black
face and actives chasing them down
does not constitute a terrible act of
racism, I don't know what does.
To SAE members of minority ethnici
ty, I find it most unfortunate that you:
one; failed to recognize, and two; al
lowed such an event to take place.
Furthermore, the fact that your fra
ternity does various service projects is
fine, but these projects should not be
used as a front for your wrongdoing.
Instead, your service should be an op
portunity to better understand what
those in need endure and to share your
good fortune with them.
I am a member of a service organiza
tion that concentrates its efforts on the
low income minority community.
Among other things, we strive to teach
young black and Hispanic children that
skin color does not matter.
Your organization's actions were to
tally contradictory to what we try to in
still.
It is important to realize it will take
more than workshops on cultural sensi
tivity to better understand this great
problem. Racism is not inherited, but
taught.
Let this incident teach us that respect
and sensitivity toward one another is
essential if we hope to end discrimina
tion and racism in this country.
Veronica Valdez
Class of'92
President, Kappa Delta Chi
Multicultural classes
needed to stop racism
Racism has taken on many different
styles and ways of manifesting itself.
I'm curious to know why the fraternity
members didn't stop to think that their
The Battalion
Page 7
A passion for the written word
Love of writing, reading share common principle
M ystery surrounds the depths
of the bond shared by writ
ers and their reading public.
Why do writers love to write? Prob
ably for the same reason others love
to read.
It is a compulsion which con
sumes one's being and controls the
psyche.
The dialectical interplay between
writer and reader is often taken for
granted; yet it is an intimate and
complex process. A writer's
thoughts, or "private language," be
come "naturalized discourse" via the
written word and are digested into
the reader's private world.
Writing is a gift that cannot be taught or purchased. It is
my love, though by no means my first. I fell in love with
the written word as a 10-year-old delivering the Long Is
land Newsday on frigid wintry mornings when the slowly
falling flakes of snow were cut by a wind so sharp it
brought tears to my eyes.
Trekking from house to house, my footsteps leaving
prints in the otherwise virgin drifts, I would often pause
and gleefully read about my baseball heroes training in the
Florida sunshine.
That love, born of youthful innocence, matured to the
point where writing became my passport to the four cor
ners of the Earth; from the Hawaiian Islands to the sun
drenched Mexican desert to the black townships and right-
wing mercenary camps of a blood-soaked South Africa.
The doors to the minds of men like Frank Kush, Bruce
Hurst, Eugene Terreblanche and F.W. DeKlerk were sud
denly thrust open.
As one might expect, such a magical journey is wrought
with danger and pure struggle. For though writers may be
bom, they must be continuously remade each day. Yet this
daily growth is the sweetest part of the writer's honeycomb
since every encounter and observation serves as potential
material. Looking at life like any ordinary soul is Kryp-
tonite to a writer's career.
There is a great price to be paid: a debt which requires
payment in blood, sweat and tears. Low wages, doubt and
rejection are burdens the writer must carry while accumu
lating the needed skills to be stored in a journalistic "tool
box." Words are power, what drives the writer to harness
its energy.
The pen is mightier than the sword only for those who
dare to endure the weeding out process of the professional
writing world. Those writers who dare to rediscover the
freedom, joy and innocence of an imagination lost since
childhood know that it's not what you write; it's what you
rewrite... again and again.
The writer's side of the writer-reader bond is forged in
solitude. What is the genesis of those 3 a.m. "bursts of in
spiration" which lead the writer to hastily scrawl ideas on
napkins and envelopes?
Perhaps it is akin to the force which keeps the reader
turning the pages of a novel like The Stand long into the
night, blissfully lost in Stephen King's world of "The Trash-
can Man," "Tom Cullen" and "The Kid." Or is it something
more? Something like love and the pursuit of dreams?
For this writer, it is both. Writing is not my first love,
nor will it ever be. My ultimate dream was to be a left-
handed pitcher for the New York Mets. However, from
Little League to high school to a major university team,
baseball was always a bittersweet joy of frustration, pain
and unfulfilled potential.
To fill that great void, writing has become my Major
League. Each word is a pitch; each paragraph is an inning,
and each column is a game. There is no coach or rotator
cuff tendinitis to block my way. No random element. Just
my mind and the typewriter.
Secretly hidden behind my love of baseball and writing
is my love for you, the treasured and anonymous reader.
For without you, there could be no "us." The bond we
share is our love for the written word — and that's no mys
tery.
LoBaido is a doctoral student in educational technology
ANTHONY C.
LOBAIDO
Columnist
behavior may offend others or carry
racial overtones.
I honestly feel that they believe their
actions were harmless. Therefore, by
default, they are not racist, just plain
stupid.
So to be racist, one doesn't have to be
conscious of this fact — this is what I
have been trying to tell people for a
long time. Many times you people
don't even realize it.
I think this type of behavior and mis
understanding is the symptom of a
much larger problem. Many fight mul-
ticulturalism and dismiss it as forced
learning.
Without the knowledge of the other
people with whom this world has to be
shared with, "jungle parties" will con
tinue to happen and the behavior will
continue to be thrust aside and
drowned in a sea of "Sorry, I didn't
know's" and defended as being inno
cent on those grounds.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Like the German scientist Max We
ber said, "If people want to understand
others they must put themselves in the
place of the subject of inquiry."
Believe me, members of SAE, I have
put myself in your place and I still can't
figure out a sensible reason for your at
titude.
To the president and faculty and all
of the people with infinite wisdom as to
why multiculturalism should not be a
required course, like kinesiology is, we
should remember what one of our
founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin,
said: "Maybe sometimes we should
doubt our own infallibility."
Knowledge is the key to unlock all
doors, but right now, there are a whole
lot of people locked out — like the
SAE's and the other three fraternities
who have already had "Jungle partief"
this school year.
Steve Miller '92
Former class president
Liberals get a taste of
their own medicine
We would like to respond to the
charges made by Shawn Ralston in her
column on Tuesday, Oct. 13. Conserva
tives all across this country have put up
with a lot of garbage from liberals for'
many years.
We've been called everything from
"right-wing radicals" to "religious fa
natics" — not just by people on the
street, but also by the media, supposed
ly the guardian of truth and fairness.
When Pat Buchanan expressed his
personal views at the Republican Con
vention, he was branded as "divisive"
and "scary."
We are told, however, that Mario
Cuomo's radical convention speech
gave the nation a warm fuzzy feeling.
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., is consistently
called a "right-wing extremist," but
how often do we hear Senators
Mitchell, Kennedy, or Metzenbaum de
scribed as "left-wing extremists?"
They are merely liberals, even
though their views are just as far to the
left as Helms' views are to the right.
David Duke is often ostracised from na
tional politics, as he should be, but Jesse
Jackson (who is clearly anti-Semitic and
anti-Oriental) is considered to be in the
mainstream of American society.
He who controls Information con
trols the world.
Conservatives are finally waking up
to this,reality. We refuse to accept the
lies and distortions any longer, and you
liberals cannot stand the fact that we
are being heard.
So, if you want to know why conser
vatives have become so "aggressively
intolerant," take a long, hard look in the
mirror.
Kani Sathasivam
Jim Clark
Graduate Students
Squelching dissent is
a sign of insecurity
I'd like to thank Shawn Ralston for
her Oct. 13 column. Unlike Philip Peter
stated Oct.12, not everyone at A&M is
either a "very staunch Republican" or a
conservative.
There are those of us with dissenting
beliefs (not necessarily political) who
are not only underrepresented but are
condemned.
We tend to be labeled, and labels in
vite injustice.
Homosexual bashing, racism, "hip
pie" bashing, etc. are more common
than many pretend to believe.
How do tie-dyed shirts and long
hair, combat boots, or dark skin, harm
you?
As long as homosexuals don't attack
you, how do they harm you? I am not
asking you to accept the actions of all
dissenters; militants blemish every
group. .
I just ask you to respect my beliefs as
I respect yours.
1 think you condemn dissenters to
hide your fear; you wouldn't engage in
futile, destructive actions like attacking
protesters if you weren't afraid that a
dissenter may have a valid point or
may cause you to want to open your
mind and change.
Webster's defines conservatism as,
"the tendency to prefer an existing or
traditional situation to change."
Adherence to the status quo works
as long as the status quo still works.
In our turbulent world, demanding
homogeneity borders on ignorance.
You are intelligent; act like it.
Condemning dissenters hardly ex
presses the strength of your beliefs or
displays loyalty to your cause.
Unless you borrowed beliefs from
your families and friends because you
were too unsure to form your own, you
shouldn't be so insecure as to think dis
senters can undermine or threaten your
beliefs.
You shouldn't even assume we want
to.
Personally, I believe much of what I 1
believe because I work to be open-
minded and accepting of others' beliefs.
You should be allowed to believe
whatever you want, but so should I.
Sandie Smith
Class of '94
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