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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1994)
•; T h 9. 1% Wednesday, March 9,1994 iieel- s on be. ari an at i ■ r ; For I ln 'feral| '°0s fo t Pni. /niou S; ^‘.Og at - f or lo- or 847- A gnos- ^■roup: '•'tyfol- ‘he au . if 7 pm. 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 FRERKINC, Sports editor TONI GARRARD CLAY, Opinion editor WILLIAM HARRISON, Photo editor JENNIFER SMITH, City editor /^Mp rue "f APoPrep thc ' ^^AMgRiCAtf TV. STAWPARP , 3c *al at Megan md Se- James : a talk of the ^■26th ’ger at - Study 'am to at 847- terican | leneral and Ti in 10! B at 847- 1 Com- guest i in 510 at 845- ite En lamen i busi i's Ap tber o e wil 30pm ■neral Build- )plica- tgby. Field! go to :e nec- 7-3759 m ser- tudent ivities. ed no ivance aplica- es are run in e any news- EDITORIAL Singing praises Lady Aggies have super season Over the years, the Lady Aggies basketball team rarely heard a single note of praise. |But now they should hear a whole chorus. Despite the team's loss to Texas Tech Saturday night in the final game of the regular season, the team can take j pride in its best season ever. There were two notable ;and historic achieve- iments during the season. The Lady Aggies won 20 games for the first time in the team's | history and even [ broke into the Top 25 at one point thi& u season. After guiding her team to its best fin- I ish in the Southwest Con ference, Coach Lynn Hickey ! proved her coaching abilities are among the best anywhere. Although all too often over shadowed by other sports, the Lady Aggies deserve congrat ulations and support as they head into the SWC tourna ment and possibly the NCAA playoffs. Basketball attendance was low all season, and it's time for all Aggies to acknowl edge that the Lady Aggies were successful and deserve more support. After all, the Twelfth Man tradition does not come and go with football season. Hickey and her team should be credited for con stantly playing to the best of their abilities. The team serves as a prime ex ample of what it means to never throw in the tow- The Lady Ag- ■HHiilHllliT gies are a very young team, and they will be back next season with most of the talent that has led them to such suc cess. The Twelfth Man will have an opportunity to make it up to the team next season with better support. For Hickey, this season is proof that good things happen to those who wait. After 10 years of coaching the Lady Aggies, she certainly has rea son to be proud of her team. We all do. Opinion The Battalion Page 5 Finding privacy in world of togetherness Fast-paced society forces many to seek solitude at home JENNY MAGEE Columnist P rivacy is still the ultimate Ameri can dream. The American West is no longer a vast prairie of wide, open space that city- dwellers of the early 1900s drooled over like children looking at a Christmas wish book. Everybody wanted to own a little patch of land — something quiet and secluded where the only pesky neighbor to deal with was an occasional fox unexpectedly visiting the chicken coop. Times changed, and slowly McDonald's, Exxon and all the other commercial chains edged their way into this western utopia of nothingness, turning the west into cities be fore anyone had time to question it. So here we are today deep in the heart of city life. There is a lot less grass to mow, but somehow the American love for wide open space didn't die with the onset of the 1,000 square foot apartment. We no longer have land drives, but clas sified ads. And only rarely can one find a 10-mile farm road with five houses scat tered along it. We have residential streets with 20 to 30 houses lined up like chocolate pieces in a box and apartment complexes with eight to ten apartments in a single building. Yet despite everything that has changed, the need for privacy remains strong. We still want our homes to provide us with space, occasional seclusion and a place to escape from the world outside. And sometimes this makes us feel like the world is full of nothing but selfish, unfriendly peo ple who don't care anything about their fel low man, let alone the person who lives next door. While I am certain that there are some truly unfriendly people out there, the heart of the problem is much more complex. In apartment complexes where space is minimal and a backyard is non-existent, the tendency to remain anonymous is especially intense. Living five feet away from someone else is not just living your life five feet from other people. It is living five feet away from their problems, their obnoxious French poo dle and their even more obnoxious boyfriends or girlfriends. And sometimes that is just too much to deal with. In the fast-paced world in which many Americans live, where they do 20 hours worth of work and interact with 50 different people in an eight-hour workday, neighbors become obsolete. Or at least, sometimes we wish they would become obsolete. When that five o'clock buzzer sounds or classes are over for the day, people want to disap pear into an invisible bubble and forget about the world outside. We are often shocked by stories in the newspapers about people who die in big city apartment complexes and their bodies aren't discovered until the smell of decom posing flesh finally forces the resident of a neighboring apartment to respond. Then we have to think about how much we really know about the people next to whom we live. Sure, there are many cases where neighbors become good friends and interact with each other on an everyday ba sis. However, the cases where residents on a street or in an apartment building share a daily camaraderie are extremely rare. Even here at A&M — home of "Howdy" — down-home friendliness is a selective process. When we say howdy, if we say howdy, it is not to everybody. Granted, it would be a little difficult to walk down Ross Street between classes and successfully say howdy to everyone we pass. It would take at least more effort than most us are willing to put forth. So, given that we only have a certain amount of time, energy and attention to de vote to saying howdy, how do we pick to whom we say it? More often than not, we choose to say howdy to people we already know, people we would like to know or people who say howdy to us first. The point is that we want to associate with people on our own terms, when we are ready — the days when we've had enough sleep and our problems are at a minimum. The only problem with this philosophy is that so many people slip through the cracks. Sometimes it seems hard to imagine that there are so many people in this world who are alone and don't want to be. That is one of life's great paradoxes — sometimes we want to be by ourselves for the sole reason that we feel so alone. Jenny Magee is a sophomore journalism and English major to Gerrai thk teWJ WTRl6ttTi» , & al A <:olu$s»1 iouRsa Teuton THE 6££AU.... rn TffflBW TO Ml TUCK 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. Letters 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 Imminence of graduation leads to wide variety of emotions A s graduation inches closer with each Ipassing day, 1 have I never been filled with so much fear. ■ It seems completely logical for me to be ! experiencing this emotion consider ing the gravity of the events which I, las well as more Ithan 4,000 other Aggies, will face af- Iter we walk across Jthe stage in May. ! Obviously, grad- •iuation is an ev ent I have looked forward to Isince I arrived at Texas A&M four years Bago. The reality of it barely entered my aind when I was a freshman or sopho- aore. By the time I was a junior, I started |to create some plan for the future. During JENNIFER SMITH City editor the first semester of my senior year, all I could think about was getting out of this town. But now, graduation is real. It is about to happen, and I don't know if I'm ready for it. How drastically is life about to change! Coining from high school to A&M was nothing compared to the newness of life as a "real adult." College puts us into a set pattern of classes, studying and partying (not necessarily in that order), and in two months that familiar pattern will be gone. Most of us are going into an occupation in which we will have to struggle for a while to keep our heads above water. I am. going into the competitive world of news papers. Whichever newspaper I work for will require more hard work than I have ever given if 1 am to have a realistic chance to reach my career aspirations — a job at the Houston Chronicle. I'm not sure how the demands of this new lifestyle will affect me, so the prospect of heading face forward into it has me wor ried about experiencing a massive case of culture shock. I can do without class and studying, but I am very concerned about a social life. Working 40 hours a week at The Battalion How drastically is life about to change! College puts us into a set pattern, and in two months that fa miliar pattern will be gone. and taking 12 hours of class, my social life is the only thing that keeps me sane right now. But I will soon be in a city where I know no one. I'm sure I will meet people, but all those prospects still frighten me. When I actually sit down and picture myself in some strange city, working 50 or 60 hours a week and coming home to an empty house, I get really scared. I hope I am not the only graduating se nior experiencing these same feelings. I also hope there is at least one person that can empathize with me when I say I find myself clinging to my youth lately. I know 22 isn't that old, but I feel ancient. Adult hood is sucking me in, and I'm trying des perately to resist it. So lately I've been going out way too much and having more wild times than I ever have before. I keep thinking that I might be forgetting something. Maybe there's something I am leaving out or something I missed out on because I was set in a certain lifestyle. So I'm trying to do in two months all the things I might have missed out on in the past four years. But my moods change as quickly as the days pass, and some days I am filled with nothing but excitement about graduation. On those days I think about how I am starting the rest of my life when I graduate. This will be the moment I have dreamed of forever. I will finally be independent and on my own. I'll never again have to ask for money from my parents — at least I hope not. I'll be earning my own way and consequently will have my own responsi bilities. Decisions will now be mine, and I will basically be living for myself in any way I see fit. I never really understood the phrase "The future's so bright. I've got to wear shades," until now. This may sound over ly optimistic, but it really is not. In fact I think the future for me and all of my fellow graduating seniors really is brighter than anything we could possibly imagine. The potential for the future is great, and just thinking about the possibilities gets me excited to be graduating. Tine great un known is looking us straight in the face. All we have to do is take a chance, grasp the opportunity and go for it. Jennifer Smith is a senior journalism major * MAXI. CALL ninal Under circumstances UPD procedure best This is in response to "UPD Policy 'Standard Procedure' Unfair." I commend the University Police Department officers for their actions on the morning of Feb. 13. Why don't you grow up and quit crying about being detained for questioning. What if one of your female friends had been raped earlier that night and the rapist was just taking a stroll on the west side of campus, wouldn't you want a po lice officer to stop him and see just what he was doing at five in the morning with no identification? In the future if you are up for an early morning stroll, why don't you take some identification with you; that way all of the rest of us don't have to listen about a cou ple of officers just doing their job! Scott Tlwmpson Class of'92 Corps lives in fish bowl of scrutiny In response to a letter printed March 2, I would first like to apologize to Muy Seng on behalf of the Corps of Cadets. During the two years that I have been out of the Corps, I have seen it go through some disturbing changes. I am glad to see that it is still around; however, instances like the one described leave me angry and embarrassed. I did not see or hear about the softball game that was played on Feb. 27, but I can assure you that in the Corps of Cadets that I was a part of, the things spoken of would not have happened. However, if they would have happened, severe repercus sions would have ensued, leaving the per petrators wishing that they had never done that and would think twice about EVER doing it again. I dearly hope that the commanding officer of the outfit in question will take the matter of discipline into consideration for this unfortunate event. So, if you don't get an official apol ogy, let this serve as one. Secondly, I would like to address the Corps of Cadets as a whole. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Is anyone paying attention to what is being said about the Corps? Keep in mind that the Corps is in a proverbial fish bowl. This school loves you when you shine, but you are remembered most by the things that you do wrong. With only two thousand cadets to the overall A&M population of 43,000, guess who gets scrutinized the most? We are all Aggies, but if you are a part of the Corps of Cadets, then you'd better practice what you preach. Jason C. Loveless Class of '92 Getting worked up In response to J.D. Slaughter's March 3 letter that said, by leaving the SWC we are abandoning tradition, honesty, loyalty, and friendship, and a move to the Big Eight leaves the remaining poor helpless SWC schools out to dry, and this entire sit uation just "turns my stomach" — Lighten up. Jay McHenry Class of '96 College Republicans seek to inform others The letter by Jerome Lynn Hall has raised the question of ignorance regarding the College Republicans. Senator Kay Bai ley Hutchison was acquitted when a jury of her peers rendered a not guilty verdict in response to Travis County District At torney Ronnie Earle's inability to provide substantive evidence. A recent poll by the Houston Chronicle shows that nearly 68 percent of the Texas voters now believe that these accusations were politically mo tivated. It is the intent of the College Republi cans to practice our right of free speech and to inform our fellow students that Sen. Hutchison was found innocent of all charges. We do not seek to misinform the public; we only seek to repair the unjust damage that has been done. Jody L. Withers Class of '95
