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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1994)
y 31, 1994 Tuesday • May 31,1994 M—I WBHSam QPINION Page 5 .ms, iSit up and take notice, ‘experts’ often make mistakes >me id never got th six saves iven up 21 4 in 20 in- role as th Jarly in the ently had 'ohn Hudek ef ace. illiams pre- Philadelphia :e the World bought the ■elease him, he believed made Mon- id that pre- iams/Page b I r\ ym was my least favorite class when I was | I -j-in jv - 'or high school. It’s not like I was ; unathietic or a computer jockey with no ! Jesire for physical eaucation - only banks had | computers back then anyway. Instead a ■ passionate distaste for sit-ups drove my hatred. ’ All other exercises geared toward warming us ur for some activity were toleraole at the least ana almost enjoyable by comparison. Beads of sweat would roll down my face as some classmate held my feet and kept my knees from bending. Sit-ups were Satan’s invention. At some point, however, between eighth grade and my freshman year in the Corps, S . tan’s rules governing kinesiological torture changed. No longer would Coach Beerbelly insist on straight knees as the method to increase pain and effort on hapless post-pubescents. And no longer would the demons in charge of official .Army pain for my fish buddies and me insist on the old-fashioned sit-up from hell during physical training (FT). Apparently some doctor or physical exercise guru with the ear of the president and all of gymnasium—dom decided that “conventional” straight-kneed sit-ups were painful, traumatic to the lower back and unnecessary for propt." muscle development.. This was a blessed FRANK STANFORD i hi C . < COLUMNIST proclamation ana it liberated all youths held prisoner by this policy. What was regarded as an accepted common practice had been changed with the wave of an “expert.” They were wrong about sit-ups. Satan lost a big one. Throughout the ’80s jogging became the exercise of choice for almost all Americans who could afford a warm-up suit, a pair of running shoes and a Walkman, which at the time cost over SlOO. Otherwise intelligent and interesting people actually subscribed to jogging magazines. But — Oops! — it happened again. Somebody on an important medical staff determined that jogging was actually harmful to your body. All that pounding and stress of one’s entire body weight on only several square inches of foot space was d ing irreparable damage to as 6-3, berth ion Minor and n two runs in ay, carrying ory over Sooners to es as the il champion, n his second to earn top- 5-17) its ninth :e 1992, when series, it home (AP)- The pain at home the challenge d the decisive larter as the he Eastern with an 83-77 5 still must win > Garden to Finals for the ■ first of two esday night in task for the nicks, just 1-6 yoffs, are 8-0 /'/ Ahll? Po/sJ'r Mi’66 f £ XCLU61* LV f to* FMMily Channel? vour hmt, Pat Ro00.Rt6oa) H06T6 TVie PAcPUcTi'ori 'smck wiuie Adp PAULA Tombs" WHAT WPULD HA\/0- p she sftfp Yes f bones and cartilage. It turned out that your grandma walking to the store each day was actually getting better exercise than someone jogging a few miles. In addition to this finding, there were occasional news stories of 40-year-old accomplished joggers dying of heart attacks, sometimes while jogging. Well, this was all the excuse many Americans needed to head off the social pressure to jog, not to mention buying a bunch of “training” garb. They were wrong abwut jogging. The ’80s version of rollerblading was dead. Somewhere around that time, books on low-fat living began to appear in stores all over the country, and slowly restaurants began to offer healthy items. It started with low-fat salad dressing, then grilled chicken. Nobody wanted to die and it looked like “low fat” was the way to keep the Grim Ree.per at a scythe’s length. Margarine became king of the butter dish all over America. It was marketed on TV as though butter was cyanide spread. Every ad for tl ■ stuff remarked how deliciously similar it was to butter, but wouldn’t kill your family like butter would. Because of this widespread belief, I grew up a margarme child and didn’t even know the difference between the two. When I first sampled real butter I couldn’t enjoy it for visions of arteries hardening in my mind. A couple of weeks ago I saw a news story which reported how some medical researchers have determined that margarine is worse for your body than butter because it contains a type of fat that butter doesn’t. What the hell?! I and countless others have been avoiding butter like the plague, and now this? What about all the Americans the margarine industry employs? Were we all just plain duped? Could we have helped it? The eventsl have described happen to be those of the nature of health and medical advice, but the problem is really much larger. A small number of specialized professionals d eciding how we are going to live and by which method. It doesn’t matter so much whether the determining group means well or not, the outcome is still the same. Much of America doesn’t understand triglycerides or tax law, health care reforms or fuel inje. tors, and therefore must remain totally trusting of those who do. I guess the moral of this story is that we should go on eating what " T e want, exercising in the manner we choose ana assume those who are supposed to know what they’re talking about might not know anything at ail. Frank Stanford is a graduate philosophy student The Battalion Editorial Board Mark Evans, Editor in chief William Harrison, Managing editor |ay Robbins, Opinion Editor 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. Contact the opinion editor for information on submitting guest columns. Tltie. pyeaSt/m. you Ubc, CD WV age 3 is? That i an idea, be subject, own mem- ,t you with st memo- iwn-right ig Aggie of the last Model adds weight to feminine ideal Magazine's choice of 50 most beautiful people includes welcome surprise D ancing lightly around a personal ban on self-debasement, I would like to share with you a heartening lesson 1 have learned. My butt is not really too big. I prepared to flip through the “Fifty Most Beautiful People” issue of People magazine the other day, steeling myself to scoff and devaluate the inevitable images of all the. pencil-thin women who would doubtless wiggle across the pages while I sat wondering if I could really survive on a grapefruit a day. I secretly wish I was not a size 14, but loudly proclaim to all that it is healthy and legal to actually weigh more than my shoe size. Before I even opened the magazine, I condemned the whole American way of life for women and the perpetuation of the famine victim look as the “feminine ideal.” Publications and advertising all seem to be dedicated to the maximum exposure of the gamin, twiggy archetype of a woman. I reminded myself of historical lessons. Weight was desirable in women in older times as signified a certain wealth attached to the woman s family. This is how I have managed to convince myself I am related to the Trumps even though I shop at: ne Twin City Mission, is an industrialized nation, America has the tionor to boast that almost everyone has enough to eat, and it seems the notion would still hold true that fat meant well-stationed in life and therefore result in more popularity. It seems being really poor is “in” this year. I scowled darkly at the People, balking at a promise I made to myself to avoid popular literature and therefore evade the inevitable comparison of myself to images I see in magazines. But I decided I did not have anything else suitable to read, even though I was sitting in a library. Call it a streak of JULIA STAVENHAGEN COLUMNIST masochism. I opened up my Twinkies and the magazine and watched the Bone Parade. At first, it was as I expected. The advertisements featured poster-women for the National Society of Young Bulimics. I wanted to boot my perfectly good but high-fat dinner. As I went further, though, I got a big, fat shock. There’s a fat woman on page 80 who qualified as one of the magazine’s Most Beautiful People this year. Imagine. Her butt is as big as mine and she is raking in all kinds of cash as a model for the Ford Agency. Her name is Emme and she measures 40-32-42. Most people on campus would call her a bus. Mainstream People calls her a success. Emme’s picture, is a photographic reproduction of “The Large Odalisque,” an 1814 painting by Ingres which held for many years as the ultimate standard of female beauty. A few women, (like me), still cling to the image in the painting as a reminder to themselves that there was a time when women were admired for curvature rather than negative space. Mildly encouraged by this new image in a periodical other than the Delta Burke Quarterly, I moved on. “Maybe I can take my 2C extra pounds to the Ford Modeling Agency,” I mused. I turned the page and there was Heather Locklear, a size 3, “despite a taste for Taco Bell.” I spit Twinkies all over myself trying to think about looking like Heather Locklear. The image of a marshmallow squeezing through a hair nei comes to mind. I consoled myself and turned back to read more about women’s newest an. i-he'-o and most men’s horror. In the articje, I find a fact that points to some bizarre probability tampering. According to People, over 60 percent of American women wear a size 12 or larger. Why, then, are more than 90 percent o the women in magazines not anywhere near a size 12? On “A Current Affair.” a couple of years ago, there was a special on a woman who got fired as a nurse because of her .veight. After a lengthy lawsuit, she went on to form a group of fat people who don’t want to be called “overweight” because that implies that there is a weight standard that they should live up to. A line drawn in the whipped cream, so to speak, that once crossed, dooms one to being abnormal. She stated that she would actually prefer to be called “fat” because there is no implied boundary she has perniciously crossed just to gross everyone out. Could this become a mainstream idea? Juliette Binoche, a French actress who also made it as one of the Fifty Most Beautif il People, put it best. Americans are all crazy about looking good, getting face-lifts and pulling an Oprah, but she says, “When you are in the dark, everybody looks the same.” Julia Stavenhagen is a graduate anthropology student Clinton inconsistency Pragmatic policies sacrifice promises Will the real Bill Clinton please stand up? To the dismay of human rights advocates and the delight of American businesses, President Clinton announced last week that he is renewing China’s most favored nation (MFN) status and will no longer require improvement of human rights conditions s a re quirement for maintaining current economic relations. Meanwhile, Clinton signed the abortion clinic access bill into law, which mandates prison terms of six months to life and fines up to 8250,000 for people convicted of blocking access to abortion clinics or threatening patien -? and employees of the clinics. While Clinton should be commended for supporting the clinic access law, which is designed to curtail acts of violence by anti abortion extremists, the president’s flip-flop on China’s trade sta tus brings into question his resolve to follow through on the rest of his campaign promises. During the 1992 election, Clinton chastised President Bush foi 1 - placing economic concerns over human rights and pledged to r voke China’s MFN status unless China made significant progress on human rights. This is not the first time that President Clinton has done a complete about-face from the promises of Candidate Clinton. He similarly criticized Bush during the election for his policies toward Haiti and Bosnia, yet has adopted those policies as his own. rp o justify his most recent turnaround, Clint n said, “To those who argue that in view of China’s human rights abuses we should revoke MFN status, let me ask you the same question I have asked myself; will we do more to advance the cause of human rights if China is isolated, or if our nations are engaged in a grow ing web of political and economic cooperation and contacts?” This gross rationalization demonstrates how economic concerns have taken precedence over human rights in foreign policy deci sion-making yet again. Clinton's latest Harris Poll approval rating, which has dropped six points since early April indicates only 42 percent of the respondents liked Clinton’s performance. Wnether his reversal is lor better or worse, he cannot continue to break promises and exhibit such incon sistency in policy decisions without further losing credibility. Texas stalking law protects victims In November of 1992, I intro duced Senate Bill 25 — the so- telled stalking bill — to which I teceived the support of all 30 of foy Senate colleagues who signed on as cosponsors. Repre sentative Brian McCall carried ftis legislation in the House of Representatives, where it re ceived similar support. The in tent of the bill, which was even tually signed into law by Gover nor Ann Richards in March of 1993, was to address a void in state law that prohibited lav- enforcement officials from inter- venir ^ to protect citizens who were jeing harassed, annoyed, alar ned, abused, tormented, or embarrassed by a stalker. Pre vious law only allowed police to come to a stalking victim’s aid after a crime had been commit ted - which too often meant the assault, rape, or murder of the victim. The language of this stalking bill centered around California’s anti-stalking law, which in 1999 became the first of its kind in the United States. To ensure that this new law could truly protect Texas citizens, I met with stalking victims from 'aii over Texas, as well as their fan ly membo"s, victim’s right’s advocates, law enforcement offi cers, and prosecuting attorneys. Reports I have received from individuals and law enforce ment officials in rural and ir- ban parts of the state indicate that the anti-s. alking law is a useful tool. Hundreds of individ uals have benefited from the protections afforded by Senate Bill 25, that just over a year ago would not have oeen avail-,ble to them. A meeting of the National Criminal Justice Association’s Conference of Western States reveeied that Texas is well ahead of the other 49 states in the amount of protection provid ed by 7 its anti-stalking law (all 50 states now have anti-stalk ing laws in one brm or anoth er). Texas law includes two pro visions not often found on other state’s law books; not only does it cover threats made to the in tended victim, but also threats against their family and person al property. Further, the Texas law allows judges to pla 'e con ditions on an individual’s re- lease-on-bond and probation and allows the Texas Parole Board to do the same for parolees. Such conditions in clude disallowing any form of contact with the victim. Stalking is a crime that oc curs in many forms, involving not only individuals stalking persons of the opposite sex, bu- also stalking persons of the same sex and, as seen last week in Austin, adults stalking juve niles. Stalking is a complicated issue, making it imperative that the law’s effectiveness ’>e con tinuously monitored to ensure that Texas citizens receive the maximum possible protection from stalkers. If our anti-stalk ing law need to be strength ened, the Texas Legislature must make this a priority, while continuing to work with other str-tes as well as federal agen cies who deal with this issue. Sena tor Mike Moncrief Austin 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. Address letters to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-1111 Fax: (409) 845-2647