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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 1994)
Wednesday, April 21,1 st sentencel fe in prison •aping boy ciated Press 'KTON, Mass.-An -nan Catholic priest * ' raping and sodomit boy was sentenced i >ur life prison senteitt vish him dead. Tbeit /eness for what te Wood, now 27, saidr ntencing. ev. John R. Hanlon,fi ;red to serve four® ife sentences by Suptn: dge Courtland Matte aim eligible forpatolt: when he would bet, suspended a fourtblf >n was convictedt af sexually asst a summer cottajeinic 1980 and 1981.Ati >od was an altar boj s Church in Plymot: mlon was the pastor, aad to be stopped at; ; sentence you recti ninuscule compared r ood, 27, saidinasttt )re the sentencing. , who gave the mtc m to use his name, a ns active in the Rom r aith. "I’m not goinj a whole group fort: he said. a made no comment! >urt or after sentend; tonvicted at the end id trial; the first Hi it year with jurorst ree on a verdict. The latest| torney, Marshall Jolt dt campus is he would at Opinion Wednesday, April 27, 1994 The Battalion Page 11 ; 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 Images abound in French Quarter Night in Big Easy brings out all kinds of characters SINGAPCCe'S SV'STEM I9 so swift and SUQE; OJK IS 90 MESSY AND ccmpqcmisinq- Don’t get conned jiet-rich scheme hurts students ;et-rich scheme to raudulent, unethi- al and illegal. The students who in. The judge rejeciBtarted it may never be caught, plea to delay the Jut hopefully the public has be- 1 after the appeal, lome aware of the fraud and al Bernard Law, Jrill be more careful in the fu- Boston, said after Jure. ig: “The way aheiJ Much like a chain-mail iparation, healing Jcheme, this con operates by >s. My prayers ate'Jetting people to buy into a who have beentorJpyramid” by offering them the events: those bticJhance to make a $900 return. Father Hanlon, tljhe new member then is to re tire staff and panjruit others to join on the next 5t. Paul’s in Hingnanlevel of the pyramid. One also may face atriii Jnidentified student said it just charges in VermocJecame the thing to do as more olving Wood’s bro': and more people joined, t prosecutor wasinB The chain becomes endless, n when the stawfand everyone loses. The only d down. titute for srs students independent broad e to make any m'ohey back is [) con other people. People who start such a cheme are worse than thieves, hey are people too cowardly to ven look the people on the last er of the pyramid in the eye - the people who lose the most, j ather, they rely on students to pread the fraud on to their •lends who in turn do the same. I and culturs i the )5 Program I take place : 223J. in the /ISC 223F. 15-8770, ational Awarenesi ored events, pltaitcil eds. Taking part in such a scheme is also illegal. Because it is a pri vate circulation of money, Texas law treats such chain activity as a class B misdemeanor which is punishable by up to a $1,500 fine and a jail term of up to six months. This punishment can be as sessed for many gambling crimes we think are legal, such as gambling pools for major sporting events. It is illegal to have poker games where large amounts of money are risked by participants. Most Texans are not educated about such laws, but it only takes a sense of decency to realize that starting this sort of scheme is wrong. No fraud is more deserving of a punishment than a scheme like this one which takes advantage of so many people. Not everyone who takes part in the scheme is a criminal. Many of the people involved are victims. But the people who started the pyramid managed to fail the Aggie Code in one sweep. They’ve lied, cheated, stolen and manipulated others into doing the same. I t was a night to end all nights. Before gearing up for the Hell-on-Earth we know as finals, a few friends decided lo take a road trip which for some of us was to be the last of our college careers. We in tended to make the best of it, and we did. After spending the day at the New Or leans Jazz and Heritage Festival, everyone opted to spend time downtown. What start ed as a simple evening in the French Quarter became a magical tour through the South’s most fantastic city. Perhaps it was simply a long day in the sun or the oddball feeling you get when you’ve stayed awake longer than your body thinks prudent, but for one night New Or leans became the culmination of my educa tion, a kind of stomping ground for the imagination — mine flowed with reckless abandon throughout our trip. We walked past St. Louis Cathedral - be tween the church and Jackson Square. Most of the human activity was centered around the bars and dance joints, so the less intoxi cating parts of the city were absent of all but the homeless and the curious. We roamed down the alley that runs alongside the St. Louis and admired the same view of the church’s quiet tree-shrouded garden that William Faulkner once enjoyed. In the dark alleys where the sounds of drunken revelry are a distant clamor and dead men vault the rooftops, there stood a man in the shadows of a garden entrance. His golden hair flowing over the collar of his well tailored suit and surrounded the piercing blue eyes that fell on us with a rav enous look. Almost unnoticed was the ROY L. CLAY Columnist beautiful little girl that stood slightly behind him. She too gazed at us with intent long ing, but was it a look of jealousy — or hunger? As we turned the corner, I tore my gaze from the two odd creatures. I heard a soft little voice say, “Au revoir.” I looked back only to see only mist in the doorway. The Napoleon House is a restaurant on Rue St. Charles where we stopped to eat. It was a dark place with a quiet inner court yard, the kind of place you would expect to find in the French Quarter. The waiter was a thin man in his late 30s who refused to bring us cheese platters and served nothing but salty margaritas. His demeanor was that of a smug Parisian waiter - only his accent denoted his relation to the New World. After spending much of the meal annoying our entire party, which I’m sure he found inanely Texan, he began arguing with an obese man wearing a dirty hunting cap trying to sell hot dogs to customers situated near the open French doors. The altercation only infu riated the large weenie-wielding man who began to loudly proclaim Napoleon would not have approved of the waiters demeanor. The late Emperor, he said, would not have hesitated to destroy such a foul peasant. We escaped the evening meal with only one of our number becoming violently ill and began our stroll through the dimly-lit streets, looking at various historical land marks littering that section of the city. After combing the Quarter for awhile, we decided on a detour to celebrate the birth day of another of our tribe. By this time a gentleman who had experienced the techni color yawn earlier had revived and enthusi astically agreed to stop for liquid refresh ments. We arrived at a small bistro just west of the French Market. It lacked the excitement and energy of more popular establishments in the Quarter but served our purposes well. There were small groups of people talking quietly, and the waiters sat watching the pa trons with somnolent eyes. The music was not loud. It mustn’t be too loud. We talked quietly amongst ourselves, en joying the cool quite of the evening. We all sat savoring the peace of a clean well-lighted place where nada mattered except the soft breeze in the trees and the company of friends. That night in New Orleans ended, as most fine memories do, but it was a high light of my college career — in large part due to the company, but also because of the par ticular flavor my imagination gave to the evening. I have no money. But that one night among my dearest friends, I was a truly wealthy man. Roy L. Clay is a senior history major at o ’ A* 4 \ Ul 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 ind more productive means than graffiti to voice ideas athroom wall graffiti often says a lot about our culture’s beliefs, and the way people perceive the world in i'hich they live. I find it rather entertaining to go into e bathroom and read a debate on politi- .1 parties, abortion or feminism. In a )wn that is shamefully devoid of quality Iternative publications; I regard bath- )om wall graffiti as sort of ‘the common tidenfs newspaper.” In a twisted sort of fay, bathroom wall graffiti proves people least care about current issues - that ley have an opinion. Of course I have tmdered if these women (I have only een able to study female restrooms) who ke the time to dig a pen or marker out If their purses and write their beliefs on le wall actually vote in elections. Because I spend a large part of my time uhe Reed McDonald building, I wimessed growing political battle in the second stall fbasement bathroom. It all started around lection time last year. “Perot for President i ‘92 Period. Period.” was written in blue a next to “Bush needs to go.” This political debate evolved this year rith lengthy remarks either praising or El rget u r copy )! pay ik. lion’s largest > school year. iJELANG . 9 • j JENNY MAGEE Columnist lambasting the Clinton administration’s fo cus on universal health care. I guess many people felt compelled to share their opin ions on the subject, because the door was almost completely filled with writing. A couple of weeks ago, I went into this bathroom stall to find the door had been scrubbed clean. The graffiti was barely visi ble. The ideas, the outrage and controversy had faded like a finished argument. That is part of the reason I was so sur prised the next time I went into this bath room stall to read, “Cleaning this wall is a violation of our first amendment rights.” And a couple of days later these com ments appeared: “Free speech, yea!” and, “A&M doesn’t want the ‘other’ sides mes sage to be anywhere.” When I memorized the first amendment in junior high school, I do not remember there being anything in drat famous passage giving American citizens the freedom to write on bathroom walls. Actually, defacing property is a crime. The bathroom walls in this university be long to Texas A&M, which has a much greater right to clean them than students have to write on them. If people really feel strong enough about an issue to spend time writing their opinion on the wall, it seems their opinion would have a more permanent impact if they did something like vote in political elections, organize a rally, write their congressman or join one of the A&M political organizations. Writing on bathroom walls says a lot less than taking real political actions. Something else struck me as off-base about the idea that cleaning the bathroom wall was a violation of someone’s first amendment rights. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press give American citizens the right to say or write whatever they want; however, those freedoms do not in clude the right to be heard or agreed with. Realistically, any American citizen can stand out in the street for as long as they want and tell the world every opinion they have, but diat doesn’t mean anybody will listen to them. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press give American citizens the right to say or write whatever they want. Those freedoms do not include the right to be heard or agreed with. Because a large majority of Americans have absolutely no idea what it is like to live in a country where rights like freedom of speech do not exist, we often either take our rights for granted or expect too much from them. In the recent elections in Italy, the Ital ians were upset because they only had an 85 percent voter turn-out and in most nor mal elecdons in Italy, 90 to 95 percent of Italians vote. In the United States, it would be an absolute miracle if we could get 50 percent of the citizens to vote all the time. The funny thing is, I do not think Americans don’t vote because they don’t like politics. Just go to any family get-to gether dinner and you’ll know that is not the case. People feel helpless. They feel like the government doesn’t care about what they think. But, there is hope. If people are willing to write their opinion on the bathroom wall, at least they are showing they have something to say. They have ideas about how this country should be run. What people need to realize is just because the first amendment does not guarantee us the right to be heard, that does not mean we should stop speaking out about the things on which we feel strongly. Some times the door gets washed, the debate ends unresolved or the government ap pears to be deaf, but that is no reason to stop trying. Jenny Magee is a sophomore English and journalism major On Parents’ Weekend Three Cheers for Parents’ Weekend! Me attended with our freshman daughter, nd I was expecting an “OK” weekend, but vow, we were impressed! Cheer # 1 goes to the Variety Show. Very dl done and with professional class. I laven’t laughed so much in a long time. Cheer #2 goes to the Pi Beta Phi recep- ion/skit and Barbecue. The girls demon- trated true Aggie spirit and talent beyond years. It was also a time of skilled and lenuine hospitality. Cheer #3 goes to the Corps of Cadets. The Review and Awards was a time of swelling pride not only in the Aggies but also for Arnerica and what it can once again become through guys like those in the Corps. Good job! Reminded me of my Air Force days. I wonder how many other parents who hail from other universities (like me) were “sold” this past weekend on the Aggie ap proach to things. I think I’ve caught the spirit. Art Mullan Tyler • This past weekend Texas A&M cele brated the annual “Parents Weekend.” Our parents come to visit their loving children for many reasons: to see their dorm rooms, to view classrooms, to ob serve Aggie traditions, and to eat lunch with their little Aggies at the dining halls of Texas A&M. Now we students say to ourselves, “Finally, our parents get to see what we go through each day and eat the mouth-watering rood of Sbisa.” But no. What’s this on a glorious Sun day noon? Not the normal Sbisa, but a beautiful banquet of food. Silverware wrapped in napkins, pans of food not normally seen, not to mention the glori ous ice sculpture with chilled fruit be neath. Here we are complaining to our par ents about the cafeteria food and when they come, they see this beautiful ban quet. Most parents trust their children to tell the truth, but some may have gotten a false impression and left confused or bewildered on what their children really get for their meal plans. After all, most parents pay for their children’s meals anyway — so why not get what you pay for? Isn’t this why parents weekend is celebrated, to let them observe how their children survive as Aggies? Don’t you think that a false image of our cam pus cafeterias were given? Well, we defi nitely do. Naomi Berger Class ol ‘97 Terri Wood Class ol ‘97 About the alien thing This is a letter to the guy who draws the comic strip that has that alien bean shaped thing: Hey man, you are not very funny. Demian Vieira de Souza Class ol ‘92 Muster Committee, speaker outstanding I am writing in reference to the out standing job the Muster Committee did with this year’s muster. I am especially appreciative that Dr. Andres Tijerina was chosen to be the guest speaker. His speech emotionally touched me because I, too, had his thoughts when I arrived on this campus as a “fish” in the Cadet Corps. Dr. Tijerina’s spirit and love for this university is what being an Aggie is all about. Again, many thanks to the Muster Committee for their continued excel lence in preserving this precious tradi tion of ours. Gig ’em. Juan Cruz Class of ‘93 * e * ? B"“