Opinion
Tuesday, February 15,1994
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The Battalion Editorial Board
JULI PHILLIPS, Editor in chief
| MICHAEL PLUMER, Managing editor KYLE BURNETT, Aggielife editor
BELINDA BLANCARTE, Night news editor DENA DIZDAR, Aggielife editor
HEATHER WINCH, Night News editor SEAN FRERKING, Sports editor
TONI GARRARD CLAY, Opinion editor WILLIAM HARRISON, Photo editor
JENNIFER SMITH, City editor
The Battalion
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EDITORIAL
Church and State
Leave religion out of sentencing
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Emma Jean Oliver thought she
I was on her way to the big house,
I instead she's on her way to the
I house of God. The line separating
church and state has always been
fuzzy, but with a federal judge's
decision that a convicted criminal
attend church in lieu of prison,
the line got even fuzzier.
The 29-year-old mother of
three faced a maximum $250,000
fine and three-year federal prison
! sentence for a drug-related
felony. When U.S. District Judge
David Belew, Jr. heard Oliver's
father had been a Baptist preach
er, and that she was the lone
provider for her children, the
judge decided church would be
no.r§jprpductive.t.ha.iVa prison
stayv Among the. terms of her
! five-year probation is mandatory
: church attendance along with her
children every week for a year,
unless major illness or other secu
lar disasters keep them away. A
; probation officer will make sure
; Oliver follows the terms of her
; probation.
The practice of giving certain
: non-violent criminals alternatives
to lengthy prison terms is a posi
tive way of dealing with the
prison overcrowding problem —
but to order someone to go to
church is a move wide-open to
criticism. One day a week, Oliver
and her children will attend the
church services of her choice.
What will she be doing with the
rest of her free time, and how
constructive will church services
be when dealing with practical is
sues such as parenting skills?
Mandatory parenting and
lifeskills workshops along with
job training certainly could be
beneficial.
To further complicate matters,
what if Oliver decides that the
church of her choice is the
Church of Scientology or some
other denomination that Judge
Belew almost certainly did not
have in mind when he mentioned
Jesus — would he then order her
to attend services at a church of
his choice?
Leaders of organized religion
complain loudly — and with
good reason — when the govern
ment appears to interfere in mat
ters of the church, so why should
the church be brought into mat
ters of the state? Sending Emma
Jean Oliver to prison may not be
the answer, but neither is forcing
her to go to church.
'When I give my best, you be there'
Regular call home turns poignant when life is threatened
ROBERT
VASQUEZ
Columnist
T his morning I
called home, a
ritual I try to ob
serve at least once a
week.
The call usually be
gins with the simple
intent of saying "Hel
lo," soliciting money
and then "Goodbye."
But then 1 always be
gin talking with my
mother. And she fills
me in on who's get
ting married, why my
little brother needs to
grow up, and who
died recently. Some
one's always dying.
One hour later. I'll be saying goodbye;
my mother apologizing for talking so long.
"That's OK, Mom," I'll say. "It's been
good talking to you."
"Same here/' she'll says. "We're very
proud of you."
"Thank you. Mom."
My mom always tells me she's proud of
me. Both she and my father are convinced
that, no matter what I choose to pursue in
life, I will succeed. It's kind of nice, really.
No matter what awards I win, no matter
what opportunities I manage to screw up,
no one seems to believe in me like they do,
not even I.
"I love you, Rob," she'll say.
"I love you, too. Mom," I'll say, hanging
up the phone.
My poor mother. It seems she's worked
all her life to provide a better one for her
children. Though she was a National Merit
Scholar in high school, her father refused to
send her to college. Why did she need a
college education, he asked, only to get
married?
My mother made sure not to make the
same mistake with her children. From
kindergarten through high school, my
mother made our education her priority.
And school was only a part of that educa
tion. Home was no refuge from learning.
Memories of my childhood are colored with
relentless corrections from my mother.
"Mom, look what happened to him and
I."
"Look what happened to him and 'me.'"
"It was her. Mom."
"It was 'she.'"
When I called home this morning, my
brother told me that my mother had been
admitted to the hospital. I called to the hos
pital.
"Your mother has been having chest
pains," my father told me. "She came in
last night to see a doctor. After a few tests,
they told her she should stay here for the
night and continue testing in the morning.
We didn't want to call and alarm you; it's
only testing, but the doctor says it's risky.
She's going in for diagnostic surgery soon.
You can talk to her for a little bit."
I sat in silence, stunned, while he handed
her the phone. Could it really be that seri
ous? There had been no warning. And then
I remembered how her father had died sud
denly of a heart attack.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Mom. How do you feel?"
"I'm OK," she said in a normal, almost
cheerful voice. "I want you to pray for me."
The words sounded strange coming from
her. All my life, it was my mother people
ran to when they needed something. I never
thought that she might need something for
herself.
"Of course. Mom." Questions jumbled in
my head. "Do you know what's wrong?"
"No." She was silent for a minute.
"They're coming to get me soon. For test
ing. Rob, I want you to know that I love
you. And if I don't see you again ..." Sud
denly there was a smile in her voice. A
smile she was forcing to hide something. "If
I don't see you again ... give it your best."
If I don't see you again. If I don't see you
again — these words were coming from my
mother. "Give it your best," she said.
The words echoed in my mind. I won
dered if those words would haunt me for
the rest of my life. When I interviewed for a
job, would I remember those words, "Give
it your best," In three months I would be
walking across the platform to receive my
degree. Would 1 hear those words then? All
my life, she had worked for that moment.
Had she come this far only to miss it by
three months?
"Why do you say that. Mom?" I asked,
suddenly angry. And sad. And torn.
"When I give it my best. Mom, I want
you to be there."
There was silence. And then she spoke,
her voice trembling.
"I want to be there, too," she said. And
she cried softly.
Robert Vasquez is a senior journalism major
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Editorials appearing in The
Battalion reflect the views of the
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So you wanna find your inner-self — keep on dreamin 7
, I. "Maybe the
occa#, hunger for meaning
5 pit# and the sense of
n, heemptiness that af-
ve by- fli c t so many people
rives, - in our society are
the s# related to the fact
. that we are out of
my 01 touch with our inte-
esidiif nor lives because
;ondp ! we don't make
edmey room for our
nocM jilreams," says
ippeL Robert Moss, a
nsideO writer who has
studied how cul-
ishe# tures incorporate
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ERIN
HILL
Columnist
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Dreams can be a
road to our creative source, or put us in
touch with our larger selves to "recognize
die parts of ourselves we have been deny
ing and make peace with them." They can
be warnings or rehearsals of future events:
Abraham Lincoln, two weeks before he
was killed, dreamed that "the President"
about!' had been assassinated. Jack Nicklaus dis-
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covered a golf grip in a dream.
Dreams can also be a "magic carpet
ride," like when I went on a fabulous vaca
tion to my grandma's house during my
sleep .In many cultures, especially Native
American, dreams are an important source
of knowledge. In some tribes, the first thing
done each morning is sharing dreams with
family members.
I've always been interested in dreams
but never tried to understand them until I
attended a "dream workshop" — a semi
nar designed to help the participants un
derstand themselves through dreams. At
this seminar I learned something crucial
about discovering dreams' meaning —
since they belong to you, only you can de
termine their underlying meanings. The
best way to discover those meanings is by
pondering your dreams.
Those books in the grocery store check
out lines are definitely not the answer.
They reduce the dream to one level — a
specific meaning for a specific symbol —
while dreams are actually multilayered
with multiple meanings.
Carl Jung said: "I have no theory about
dreams. I do not know how dreams arise.
On the other hand, I know that if we medi
tate on a dream sufficiently long and thor
oughly ... something almost always comes
of it."
The last night of my freshman year gave
me a dream I could not easily forget. I was
waiting for my father to pick me up from
college, but when he arrived I wasn't
packed. Since I had spent all day boxing
Dreams can be a road to
our creative source or put
us in touch with our larger
selves. They can be warn
ings or rehearsals of fu
ture events.
my belongings, I was upset that nothing
was ready to go, as was my dad. I ran back
into my room to get things together, and
when I opened my closet, I saw shelves
and shelves of shoes. I was extremely per
plexed because I knew I couldn't take all of
them ... then I woke up.
Weird dream, huh? I didn't pay any at
tention because all dreams have that ele
ment of weird in them. But at the seminar
we had to share a dream to find its mean
ing, and I chose this one. After discussing it
with my group, I realized those shoes rep
resented me; in selecting which shoes tp
bring home, I was trying to figure out
which parts of me to bring home. I was try
ing to decide who I was after my first time
away from home.
This period of readjustment is a com
mon experience for college students — no
universal truth was revealed in my dream,
but it opened my eyes. I hadn't given
much thought to returning home, but obvi
ously it was on my subconscious mind.
Strangely enough, on the last night of
my sophomore year, I dreamed that I was
trying to buy some new boots but couldn't
choose a pair. This time around it was easy
to figure out what I was telling myself — I
was once again unsure about leaving
school.
Most of us, however, do not utilize our
dreams as a resource. The most important
thing is to record them — put a notebook
on the table beside the bed and jot down
whatever fragments you can remember.
It's also useful to tell yourself before falling
asleep that you WILL remember your
dream when you wake up.
Anne Parker, author of "Understand
Your Dreams," gives these steps as a fool
proof way to understand your dreams after
you've recorded them:
• Choose a word or phrase that best ex
presses your feeling.
• Discover when the same feeling is
present in your waking life.
• List the characters in your dream —
what part of you does each figure repre
sent?
• List the significant places, objects and
events and look up their association in a re
liable dream image dictionary.
• Summarize the dream's meaning and
how it applies to you.
Give these steps a try. Sweet dreams.
Erin Hill is a senior English major
Criticism from both
sides shows fairness
I found the juxtaposition of two Mail
Call letters last Wednesday quite inter
esting. One accused The Battalion of
reporting the news with a liberal slant,
while the other chastised the Batt for
being too conservative.
I think this is evidence that The Bat
talion is doing an excellent job of objec
tively reporting the news and offering a
diverse range of opinion in its columns.
You are too liberal for conservatives
and too conservative for liberals.
This is also evidence of the self-
righteousness and intolerance on both
sides of the sociopolitical spectrum.
Both sides are so sure that they are
right that they don't even want to hear
the other side. Rather than engaging in
meaningful dialogue, they simply hurl
insults at each other and lament how
the other side "just doesn't get it," or
how they are not "educated" or "en
lightened."
As long as narrow-minded ideo
logues from the left and the right object
to The Battalion, you are doing your
job. Keep up the good work.
James Paiolikowski
Class of '96
More to rape than
strangers, dark alleys
If it is true that women are raped or as
saulted most commonly by someone we
know, then the article, "Be wary when us
ing aggressive self-defense ..." (Feb. 9) is
inaccurate and unhelpful.
UPD says "avoid circumstances that
could lead to sexual assault," and Linda
Castoria, executive director of the Brazos
County Rape Crisis Center, says "families
are great for support."
But how does a girl avoid her brother
or her mother's best friend? Who does
she go to when her father rapes her and
her mother refuses to believe?
Please give us the facts and not the out
dated notion that if we don't talk to
strangers and avoid dark alleys we'll be
safe.
Gail Lewis
Physical Plant staff
Vote more prisons
before rehabilitation
I agree with the statement from the edi
torial titled "Prison Problems" (Feb. 3)
that one mistake can mean a life. This ar
ticle argued that releasing a capital offend
er without first attempting to rehabilitate
the criminal is a mistake. However, the
mistake in such a situation would be al
lowing a convicted murderer, rapist or
child abuser another chance to commit an
other atrocious crime. Simply because a
criminal is "rehabilitated" does not guar
antee that he or she will return to society
without the intent to harm again. Many
released prisoners commit crimes in order
to return to the better life offered to them
in our prisons. We need olir prisons to be
different, not psychiatric hospitals or
leisure clubs.
It never ceases to amaze me that some
people argue for criminal rights. Once a
person has committed a crime, he or she
no longer deserves the rights available to
law abiding citizens. If given the choice of
building more prisons or of providing re
habilitative services to violent offenders,
the voters should undoubtedly support
building more prisons, unless they wish to
risk becoming a victim of a "rehabilitated"
criminal themselves.
Lee Pamuk
Class of'95