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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 1994)
W- Opinion Wednesday, February 23,1994 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 Page 7 nyDsHmc i 10150--; im and lx i and Bayltl led Coital join the: Ives the:. '0 di visit j : eachsiij decide sider thalj a expand!.! 1st," Cra>j d be one: I be look ' a for:? ,aq Dies-. ! oyer of Ik I rtainmenl as anal-;. - of fruitfiil i rapper, in "Blml ' all thins Vow, what ajor acting :: >it partin | hort, well ran tee tk , however Whitney EDITORIAL No more excuses Victims can still break the law cingatmt bly g ue5i no expert ; a really ut when In the "Dragnet" days of law enforcement, people were told to stick to the facts. But things have changed in our legal sys tem. We are supposed to feel sor ry for criminals when they say they have been victims of abuse. But the consequences of a criminal act should not be discarded because the offender has had a hard life, a bad rela tionship or a crummy child hood. If the prosecu tion can show motive and means and prove beyond a reason able doubt that the accused is guilty, then the case should be clttsed and the criminal behind bars. But re cent history has shown that while confessions can be help ful in determining actual events, they are not as helpful in convicting the guilty. The Menendez brothers and Lorena Bobbitt are two exam ples of these misguided ideas about justice. When two broth ers brutally murder their very rich parents without being in volved in a physical conflict and then later confess to it, the case should be a no-brainer for jurors. Whether John Bobbitt was a bad husband does not have anything to do with the fact that his wife cut off his pe nis. Society as a whole is show ing an alarming tendency to ward dismissing unacceptable behavior as "understandable." Something has to be done. Criminals \ should not be allowed to con tinue manipu lating juries of their peers into believing they are victims of the crime they committed. When a criminal has a histo ry of abuse, it is as unfortunate for that person as it is for any human being. And while an abusive history can and should be used to shed light on the mo tivation of the criminal, it should not be used as an excuse. There are more constructive ways to deal with abuse than to resort to a criminal act. Our le gal system needs to return to the basics. It must learn to stick to the facts. Lewd behavior not confined to students Some university employees engage in verbal harassment I 'anet wanted to take a break from studying. Research Park seemed to be the perfect place to go on a warm spring af ternoon. Almost every student at A&M has gone there to sun bathe and watch peo- g le play catch, throw is bees or walk dogs. She figured she would catch a little sun and read up on some school work in the comfort of a school park. She found a spot a short distance from the road where she spread her towel out on the grass and put on some tanning lotion. Then she heard a loud rough voice say, "Oh baby!” Startled by the comment, Janet turned to see two men dressed in university uniforms . inside a Texas A&M pickup sitting there and staring at her. "Take it all off!" shouted one of them. She watched as the men drove away. Her much needed break from school was spoiled by a couple of men whose salary she helps pay. Jennifer has similar experiences to re count. As a student-employee at the Univer sity Center last year, she received derogato ry remarks from workers on her way to work. "I get it everywhere I go on campus. Everyday I went to work [last year] the workers would stare at me and call me 'huerra' and say a lot of stuff in Spanish. They thought I didn't know what they were saying/' said Jennifer, who speaks Spanish. "But I just turned it off as soon as I heard them start." "Huerra" in Spanish means "blonde" or " white-skinned girl" which is used by men of Hispanic origin to denote sexual interest in a woman. Basically, it is a come-on line. Another female student, who asked not to be identified, said she too has received this sort of harassment by University employees. Yet another says she has been followed by men in university trucks. Once the men pulled up beside her and one said, "Now that's a healthy girl, a damn healthy girl." That Janet, Jennifer and others have to lis ten to such a lewd comments is simply not acceptable under any circumstances. Sexual harassment is a crime no matter who en gages in, whether the offender is a young handsome college student or an unattractive old man makes no difference. Harassment can happen at a bar, a swimming pool, a Sunday social, anywhere. But the fact that these comments came from University em ployees on school grounds is uncon scionable. The harassment is said to come from a va riety of sources, including men in the little Daihatsus seen so frequently around cam pus. A couple of the women said that there are certain places on campus where the ha rassment occurs more often. "Try going out to the little road behind the [northside] parking garage and watch the guys that sit out there. That's where a lot of that sort of stuff goes on," Janet said. University employees have the right to be their own persons. However, there is a certain code of conduct that any employee should follow on company time. For exam ple, if you had a business and someone who worked for you whistled at clients, how long would it be before that employee was sent packing? The fact that it would hurt your business financially is only half of the prob lem. If your employee offended someone while on the job, that action would reflect poorly on you, the employer. The same scenario applies here. These women axe students at this institution. They and their parents pay a lot of money to this school for an education, and the last thing they should have to deal with is sexual ha rassment from school employees. This sort of behavior is not only offensive to women but it is bad for the University's image — and A&M's reputation doesn't need any more tarnishing. So what can women do who experience such abuse? First, they should try to get the vehicle number or the offending person's name. Then call Janet Winniford's office at Student Services. Inform them of the inci dent even if you don't have identification. They might be able to draw out information from your memory. Just let someone know that sexual harassment is happening. Your actions may keep others from being subject ed to this unwanted garbage. Sexual harassment is a crime — just be cause it is not violent doesn't mean a person is not violated when it occurs. Roy L. Clay is a senior history major H— Proven/ pip y^u To TA I'cE. inn H 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, cartoons and letters express the opinions of the authors. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will print as many as space allows, tetters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, class, and phone number. We reserve the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, style, and accuracy. Contact the opinion editor for information on submitting guest columns. Address letters to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Mail stop 1111 Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843 Fax: (409) 845-2647 Eye can see clearly now, the pain is gone ... no thanks to Doc F I there is no - ine bombs and machinery during the tial to the good oT alphabet eve charts. mv eves as wide as possible. Then with- room. here is no faint smell of alcohol, no contagious sick )t ski sume led is person coughing in ■ your direction or old issues of Peo ple magazine with the second page of — 1 the feature story : missing. But don't | be fooled by the flashy displays of ^eyeglasses decorat- CLUB |fing the walls like I ornaments. This is 1-a doctor's office | just the same. £ Optometrists are a funny hybrid of the Hmedical variety — they are not real doc- -CTEfl! t° rs ' but they are not real people either. SOI® With every trip that I make to my op- | tometrist, I am more amazed at the tech nological advancement made in optical ..^equipment. I am beginning to think that ) Y0UKI, a ij p e0 pi e w ho were employed mak- AVWtf JENNY MAGEE Columnist ing bombs and machinery during the Cold War are now creating torture de vices for the optometrists of the world. Dr. Rudgee (the name has been changed to protect the guilty) walks out into the lobby with a postcard-sized grin and motions me into the chamber ... I mean, examining room. The walls are covered with various eye parts magnified to outrageous proportions. The only evi dence of semi-humanness is a picture of Dr. Rudgee, with the same postcard-sized grin, holding a chain with six dead fish hanging from it. This brings to mind an image of my grandfather sticking hooks through minnows' eyes when he baits my line. Suddenly, the room is getting smaller. It is closing in on me like a dilating pupil. It is dark now, but I can see two shield- like flaps moving toward my face. The cold metal catches the end of my nose, just as Dr. Rudgee gives me a small control panel with video game-like but tons to push every time I see a red flash of light. Old fashioned or not, I am still par tial to the good oT alphabet eye charts. The first time this same man decided that I needed glasses, all he did was ask me to read a bunch of letters off of a chart. When I couldn't get past the big E, he de termined, with all the scientific exactness of this highly technical procedure, that I couldn't see past the end of my nose. After I finishing the video game. Dr. At the first machine, I'm told to open my eyes as wide as possible. Then without any warning, a quick, hard burst of air is shot into my eye ball. Rudgee takes me into the new edition of the examining room. In this separate room, machines of all different shapes and sizes are lined up like an obstacle course. At the first machine, I am told to open my eyes as wide as possible. Then with out the least bit of a warning, a quick, hard burst of air is shot into my eye ball. This of course makes my eyes produce 10 minutes worth of uncontrollable tears. After I finally manage to compose my self, I am lead through more machines, where I have to pick between clear and unclear images. My head is beginning to ache; the room is beginning to spin, and I can still see that damn red flashing light from the video game. Dr. Rudgee puts two squirts of some sort of stinging liquid into each of my eyes. I am told to blink rapidly for a cou ple of seconds — he wants to make cer tain that my entire eyeball gets to feel an equal amount of pain. Then It happens. I am lead to the monster of optical torture devices — the camera. Dr. Rudgee prides himself on the fact that he has a photo of every left and right eye of each of his patients for every visit they ever have made to his office. I am certain that Dr. Rudgee has piles of photo albums stored somewhere in a back room. As I sit in front of the large machine, my body begins to shake. Finally, Dr. Rudgee finishes messing with the numer ous buttons on the side of the large metal contraption. Click. Suddenly the world is a giant yellow ball. I stumble back into the main examining room. Dr. Rudgee is standing in the doorway, taking a last look at the machines like a child in front of a Christ mas tree. "Well, everything seems to be just fine, Jennifer," he says. "You're contacts are retarding your nearsighted condition just fine." Somehow the fact that my condition is being "retarded" doesn't sound like such a great thing to me. As I hobble out of the office into the much too bright sunshine, I realize that I can't focus enough to drive home. Jenny Magee is a sophomore English and journalism major pril- hod Alpha Phi Alpha benefits community I am writing to express my opinion over the recent controversy about Al pha Phi Alpha Fraternity and their guest speaker, Quanell X. I am not qualified to give opinions on the speaker as I was not present at the oc casion in question, but I would like to say something which I feel has been overlooked. I have attended some of the other activities which they have prepared and sponsored, including some of the presentations at their "Go-To-High- School, Go-To-College" 1993, their cel ebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and their Miss Black and Gold pageant. Though I am neither male nor African-American, I enjoyed each of these events tremendously. Each was well-organized and professionally done. Though it was important to me that I felt welcomed and included in these events, more importantly I learned something not just about race relations but about life as a whole. I am writing to encourage people to attend such programs. I wish that I could have heard Quanell X speak — I would not have agreed with what I feel were prejudiced statements, but my be liefs would have been challenged, and I would have learned something more about myself and the world in which I live. Finally, I would like to encourage people not to condemn Alpha Phi Al pha Fraternity as an organization. They do many things to benefit the commu nity and to encourage personal respon sibility and commitment to improving not only oneself or African-Americans but ultimately the whole society in which one lives. Personally, I would like to thank them for their contributions to Texas A&M. Christi Sahl Class of '95 On youth violence and the seventies In response to Friday's pro-con. I'd like to say to Robert Vasquez: if you are old enough to do the crime, you are old enough to do the time — even if it is the death penalty. The juvenile justice system was set up when youth violence was uncom mon. Today we are dealing with mur derers and rapists, not just the kids who take cars for joy rides or throw eggs at houses. One of your arguments is that juve niles can't vote or they can't drive cars when they're under 16 years old, and therefore they shouldn't be treated as adults. If you let a juvenile off with a slap on the wrist instead of punishing him or her as an adult, that juvenile now thinks there is no punishment and will commit more crimes later. Criminals of all ages need to be dealt with harsh ly to discourage repeat offenses, since they will also be dealt with harshly. If a youth is convicted of a capital crime, that youth should be sentenced to death or life in prison just like an adult. They are old enough to know right from wrong. And in response to Dena Dizdar's column on the '70s: We need a good dose of the '70s? A good dose of bad music, bad fashion and bad interior decorating? A good dose of the highest inflation rates in the last 40 years? A good dose of mile-long gas lines and oil shortages? A good dose of higher unemployment than we have now? No. Thanks, I'm doing better in the '90s. David R. Webb Class of '93