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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 2, 1993)
June 2,1993 Jinale >troud Rosas 4owdv, omml ?cts say ivided the ps depend- on of folate, red the inci- i the top 20 lumers and nat among h the high- isumption r incidence npared to ;st level of For men, lower inci- m alcohol d. Women >0 grams of an 84 per- of having 64 percent 560 ursday 6/3 hem. 101 ;t I Review nd >n Opinion Wednesday, June 2,1993 The Battalion Page 5 The Battalion Editorial Board Jason Loughman, editor in chief Mark Evans, managing editor Stephanie Pattillo, city editor Kyle Burnett, sports editor Dave Thomas, night news editor Anas Ben-Musa, Aggie/ife editor Mack Harrison, morning news editor Billy Moran, photo editor Editorial The Battalion 100 years at Texas A&M Referendum shot down Richards silences handgun issue With the end of the regular ses sion of the 1993 state Legislature, there are still a few things left to sort out. One of these is the debate over whether Texans should have the right to carry concealed handguns. The latest attempt to allow con cealed handguns is a bill to put a handgun referendum on the Nov. 2 ballot. This bill is necessary be cause such a referendum would allow the peo ple to decide for themselves if they need to carry handguns. How ever, it appears that the governor would rather make this deci sion herself. The first try at a concealed handgun bill passed in the House but died in the Senate after Richards promised to veto it. After a failed resurrection of the bill, the legislators then tried to as certain the opinion of their con stituents through a referendum. But the governor, in a desperate attempt not to be outdone, has decided to deny Texans the right to express their opinions. Richards has promised to veto the handgun referendum bill even though it is completely non-binding and considerably weaker than the earlier proposals. Her view is that allowing Texans to carry handguns would be a step toward increasing violence. The governor called the referen dum a tax-supported poll for hand gun interests and said any such poll ought to be conducted and paid for by the private sector. The poll is ex pected to cost about $60,000. Whether Texans should be allowed to carry concealed handguns is still debatable. But if the issue is large enough to occu py so much of the Legislature's time, then per haps the people ought to have the opportunity to at least express their opinion. As for the $60,000 price tag, that's a relatively small part of the money the state spends all the time. If they don't spend the money to measure public opinion on a top ic that has become an important is sue, then they will probably spend it on something a lot less construc tive. The handgun referendum war rants a place on the Nov. 2 ballot. The citizens of Texas deserve the chance to let their voices be heard. Summer's for playing catch-up Four-year college degree quickly fading into past Hot time, summer in the city . . . college in the summer can sure be . . . well, a real drag, to put it mildly. Think of it: While you sweat buckets under the College Station steam canopy, your friends are frolicking on beaches, or lounging poolside with all the other scantily clad sum mer bums who chose to enjoy the good life instead of trudging through summer school. Why'd you do it? Are you insane? What would keep you in this lake of fire when you could be debauching your body somewhere with your buddies? You must be anxious to graduate. Either that, or you've been sniffing the wrong kind of glue. Actually, there are thousands of you who made the same decision to attend summer school. More than 16,000 stu dents enrolled for this first summer session here at A&M. That's more than one-third of the students who were here in the spring or fall semesters. Most of you stayed around just so you could graduate on schedule. What happened? How did you fall so far be hind that you have to stick around and pay penance over the summer? Faculty advisers say many students use summer as a time for catching up. They say students use the summer time to take classes they failed to take before — or simply failed. But what about the thousands of students who took the classes they needed, and passed them? Where did they fail? Only at the task of being over-achievers. The average course load is just under 14 hours per semester. Students who take more than 14 hours sometimes live to regret it — if they live at all. Some such students I contacted were found muttering quietly in a corner. They had little to say but offered some advice. I think their exact words were, "It's crazy. Don't do it." and, "Be afraid. Be very afraid." Yes, loading semester hours like a stack of pancakes has left many students feeling rooty, tooty, not fresh, but fruity. Yet, with most degree plans, students must take — and pass — at least 16 hours per semester if they plan to gradu ate in the four years traditionally allotted. So many times I have heard people quietly classify them selves as "fifth-year seniors" as if it were some affliction suffered by a select group of people who soon would be ap plying for minority status. The fact is the students who graduate in four years or fewer are the freaks exceptions. Nearly two-thirds of the students who graduate do so after four years of intense labor. Not before. (Editorial Note: If Vasquez appears to be envious of those students who excel, it is only because he is academically impaired.) Students who graduate in fewer than four years are those who took excessive amounts of classes each semester simply so they could graduate in a timely manner and move to some ex pensive home to make a better life and lots, and lots of money. While such goals/achievements are truly honorable, we mortals who stick around for an extra year or two ... or three . . . should not feel delinquent. The four year college term, says one faculty adviser, comes from a time when students averaged much heavier course loads. Twenty years ago students averaged between 16 and 20 hours as compared to the current average load which is between 12 and 14 hours. The reasons for the decrease in the average number of hours taken range from matters of choice to necessity. Stu dents now have the opportunity to participate in a vast number of activities commonly called "the other educa tion." From football to underwater basket weaving, stu dents can choose from a number of extracurricular activi ties which were not available to students of previous gener ations. While these outside activities may slow students in the race towards graduation, many advisers suggest they are as equally important in the student's development as academics. Other students must work while attending school. Again, this outside activity may postpone graduation, but often it is what makes graduation possible. Increasingly, employers are seeking students who worked their way through college, paying more attention to their persever ance rather than the amount of time taken to graduate. Students shouldn't fret if they take a little extra time to graduate. As one retired executive told me, enjoy the time you have in college. Make the most of it. You only have a few short years here. You'll spend the rest of your life out of school, in the real world. Don't rush it. Vasquez is a senior journalism major. ROBERT VASQUEZ Columnist Dickerson column misinterprets article Columnist Matthew Dickerson in The httalion dated May 31 seriously distorts and misrepresents what appeared in my article titled "College Station's 38% Poverty Rate: High Rank (2nd in U.S.), low Profile" that appeared in the April/May Touchstone. As paraphrased by Dickerson, I sup posedly wrote that "... poverty rates are effected not by College Station's high Percentage of typically low income stu dents .. In my Touchstone article I made no such claim. A point I made in The Touchstone arti- c iewas that since College Station was the °nly university city in the five worst Poverty rate cities with population over 50,000, then most likely there were other causes in addition to a large student pop ulation. The claim that the high poverty rate is only because of College Station's high student population is probably incorrect because no other university city of simi lar size and with a similar or possibly even higher percentage student popula tion rated in the five worst poverty rate cities. In fact, there are at least five other uni versity cities of similar size that (by an admittedly rough measure) had a larger percentage of students than College Sta tion; yet, there were only four university cities total in the 25 worst poverty rate cities. Of the these university cities only College Station was among the worst five. Hence, poverty in College Station is probably much more widespread than our city and university officials are ad mitting. I think that Battalion columnists such as Mr. Dickerson should at the least both er to first read what's written in The Touchstone and to accurately report what's there before criticizing its con tents. Danny Yeager Professor of Chemistry Hunting bill to open season on state parks A common belief is that animal rights and environmentalism don't mix, be cause animal rightists have to be opposed to hunting, even when it is necessary to preserve ecosystemic integrity. I think this is a false dichotomy, and environmental groups' support of a bill currently before the Texas state Legisla ture can be used to illustrate my point. S.B. 179 would permit hunting in Texas state parks, whenever hunting would be permitted outside the parks, whereas current law permits the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to autho rize hunts in state parks on an ad hoc ba sis, whenever hunting is shown to be "bi ologically necessary." Animal rights groups, predictably, are opposing the bill, but so are the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, environmental groups which have taken great pains in recent years to distance themselves from animal rights groups. But I think that the Sierra Club's position on S.B. 179 can be fully endorsed by an animal rightist. According to its State Capitol Report, "The Sierra Club is opposed to any bill that will shift the burden of proof from no hunting in state parks unless 'biologi cally necessary/ to hunting is allowed unless proven harmful to the area's re sources." How could an animal rightist endorse the Sierra Club's position? In a nutshell (albeit an excruciatingly small one), my argument is this: if hunt ing's being "biologically necessary" means that is is necessary to safeguard the integrity of an ecosystem, then re spect for future generations of animals requires us to cull some current individu als whenever this is "biologically neces sary," that is, whenever it would be per mitted in state parks under current state law. In the cas^e of S.B. 179, environmental ists and animal rights activists can join hands; only someone intent upon open ing the state's most heavily used recre ation areas to biologically unnecessary hunting would support S.B. 179. At pub lic hearings, only two people registered support for the bill, whereas opponents produced over 1200 signatures of park visitors (20% of them hunters) in opposi tion to it. Nevertheless, the bill is sailing through the state legislature. It passed the Senate April 7 and the House Agri culture and Wildlife Committee ap proved it unanimously on April 15. As the bill will be set for a vote in the House shortly, calls to state representatives are critical at this juncture. Gajy Varner Assistant Professor of Philosophy Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorial board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty or staff. Columns, guest columns, and Mail Call items express the opinions of the authors. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will print as many as space allows in the Mail Call section. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, doss, and phone number. Contact the editor or managing editor for information on submitting guest columns. We reserve the right to edit letters and guest coiomns for length, style, ond accuracy. Letters should be addressed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Real McDonald /Mail stop 1111 Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843