irates 1 , Houston 13 bi Houston ab r h bi 0 Biggio 2n 4 2 14 0 Finley cf • 5 2 2 1 0 Bgwell 1h 5 3 3 5 0 Cminili 3fl 3 10 0 0 Gnzalez In 3 12 1 0 Bass rf 2 110 0 Mouton rf 10 10 0 Servaisc *10 2 0 Cedeno ss 3 10 0 0 Kile p 4 110 0 Hudek p U) (1 0 0 0 0 0 1 Totals 34 13 11 13 000 000 100-1 003 152^0x - 13 Lieber (2). DP -- Pittsburgh ittsburgh 5, Houston 6. @B - ), Finley (11), Gonzalez (23), , Bagwell 2 (32). IP h r e bb so 5 8 9 2 4 2' 2 3 4 4 3 1 1 0 0 0 1 d 8 5 113 5 1 0 0 0 ,0 l (5-5), the winner ale lost 8-2, gave just two of them innings. Texas Unndav * lufy 25, 1994 Opinio; Students need time to learn true wisdom, not useless facts Columnist , Toronto 4 Houston ab r h bi White cf RAImr 2b Molitor dh Carter rf Olerud 1 b Coles If Butler If Sprgue 3b Brders c Schfeld ss Totals 4 0 0 0 3 10 0 3 111 4 0 0 0 4 0 10 3 110 10 0 0 2 10 0 3 112 3 0 0 0 30 4 4 3 .000 011 000 -2 ..120 000 01x-4 (11), Coles (4). DP- forontoS. 2B-Coles or (13). SB - RAIomar IP h r er bb so 7.1 4 4 3 2 8 .2 0 0 0 0 1 6 5 2 0 0 6 2 3 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 and fourth in four nnto ahead 4-2. (1-5), who came 1 list before the four runs, three hits in 7 1-3 in- k out eight and duding a costly Roberto Alomar (alifications they st. lat the person ications we out- have preferred more, but I un dealing with.” ” by students at to work closely servant, as an sort of guy.” sf Texas A&M, educational ad- l associate’s de- i in 1956 and a i University in ter’s degree in ity. has lived in lany opportu- ood and bad tide from the ne in Miami im,” he said, imi are chil- -do.” [ he leans to- egall said. “I because most and very few tablishing a icy in Haiti re than just y leaders, t impossible, ixist without 1 there is al- iss in Haiti,” thing I know > — it’s been people in ie countries accepting ti, are con- refugees are- ?• jptical,” he de (in the. o be closer-' h other.” ■to Rico can- ake many •o crowded,” oo hard for e to Puerto H ave you ever noticed how some object can jolt one’s subconscious? Such a shock hit me while I was taking a study break I picked up my trusty copy of “The Official Boy Scout Handbook.” flipped through it, entranced by Norman Rockwell’s pictures of young men adventuring in the grand North American woods. I never was much of a Scout, but I felt like I was there, biking along with them or grabbing a canoe and fishing from an ancient lake. Moreover, I found myself wishing I was there. In fact, every time I see anything in magazines or television that shows people accomplishing ordinary feats in some foreign or exotic place, I stare in awe. I have been in school since I was six, like most people. Each year, all of us are encouraged by teachers to make the grade, to produce, so that we all may have stunning futures. As soon as we get out of school, we have wonderful choices ahead, to either get a job or go back to school. How exciting! The more I think about this subject, the more it bothers me. I don’t want to spend my whole life dug into the pit of preparing for a life that wall not be lived, time slowly ticking away. How few of us have actually accomplished JOSEF ELCHANAN anything in our 20- year-plus lives. Alexander the Great had conquered the known world by the time he was our age. We have all this energy, all this desire and drive, and we waste so much of our time in classrooms, memorizing names and formulas for esoteric theories developed by other people - whom we are supposed to respect because they spent their lives out experiencing the real world! These people created an original relationship with nature, with humanity, wdth the ebb and flow of time; and we study them in a stale environment. After all, Charles Darwin did not sit in a classroom to figure-out evolution and Whitman did not write poetry in study hall. Most importantly, why are we allowed no time for realization or self-discovery? The University can continue to push information down our throats at an increasing rate, but what good will this information be to us if we have nothing left to respond to it, no human skills? I have had very few classes that ever placed enough value on experience, wisdom, or common sense. Learning how to do things must be more important than learning the reasons and meanings of old events. And none of us get enough time to build ourselves into people that have anything but regurgitated information. An important note is a definition of experience. Experience is not hanging-out at South Padre drinking beer or going on cruises or any other bought-in-a-candy-wrapper vacation. Experience is one of those things you work for. Hiking through dense forests, sailing ocean waters on a small boat, Hiking through dense forests, sailing ocean waters on a small boat, fly fishing in Alaska - Why shouldn't these be in cluded in the educational experience? fly fishing in Alaska. These activities may not earn us merit badges anymore, but they are no less important. Why shouldn’t these be included in the educational experience? Don’t these self- actualizing activities have as much or more weight than any class we take to graduate? How many of us will get married, have kids, and get old without ever having looked in a clear spring, seen our own face, and be able to say, “I know who that person is?” How can any of us identify with our mates or our children if we cannot know ourselves? Is it enough to have drive, without direction, without true purpose? Through hard exercise of the spirit, we can learn our limitations. Through real-life mistakes, each of us may be able to change now, while we are flexible, instead of when we are too old for it to make a difference. I would love to never be trapped in an office, but see and experience things that will make me grow and mature. Things that will make me wiser. A hundred years ago, if a man wanted to leave his home and find himself, he could simply pack a few things and drop out of time. There were always undiscovered territories, free places. Now, society has expanded and there are no true wildernesses, except one, our own consciousness. Exploring ourselves must become as important as exploring chemistry, math, English and the like. A complete education can be relied upon, a classroom “education” is a fallacy, as well as a misnomer. Josef Elchanan is a senior business management major Endless hike ends with car crisis Personal experience proves Aggies really do help Aggies on highways ERIN HILL L ast spring as everything began to tloom and finals liomed ominously in the not too Jistant future,the (pinion page staff decided to go on a camping trip to Huntsville State Park one Friday. After an enjoyable evening of storytelling around a campfire, we awoke to lovely weather. Nature beckoned. And so we took a group walk down the road that passed our campsite. After successful completion afthat 100-yard trail, we decided to end the camping spree with a real nature walk. The lake around which the trail wound looked small. We could see the other side - it touldn’t be too bad, right? But inadvertently we took the path that circled around the Great Lakes, instead of the two-mile, “jaunt around the pond” trail. For 12 miles we kept looking around each bend in the road for our tents and for twelve miles we aw nothing but nore bends in the lath. No one had bod, water or bug spray... or the tardiovascular itness needed to hike 12 miles in the middle of a humid Texas afternoon. By the time we completed the trail and ihecked out of the campsite we were beyond tired. We were ilso beyond rumpled and dirty. The whole lot of us on a loster with the caption “Save America’s Future - Take care if a pitiful college student” would have brought in untold ortunes to A&M’s scholarship fund. It was in this disheveled and fatigued state that we leaded back to College Station. Not surprisingly, our well Janned caravan of cars fell apart after only a few miles. The ead cars sped ahead and didn’t notice the driver of the car I ode in. Hard to believe since he was honking, flashing his rights and swerving across the road. Believe me, other seople noticed ... and accelerated away from us as quickly as hey could. After all, a swerving, honking and flashing car nth smoke billowing out from under the hood means only We inadvertently took the path that cir cled around the Great Lakes, instead of the two-mile, "jaunt around the pond" trail. No one had food, water or bug spray. one thing: car trouble. We pulled off the highway and examined the steadily growing pool of liquid under the engine. What, we wondered, were we supposed to do? It beat us. We just stood there, opening and closing the hood in hopes that the fanning action would trigger long lost memories of basic car repair skills. But no such memories came back to us since they were never there in the first place. Thankfully, I discovered that the Indian Paintbrush found plentifully in every nearby field was edible (even tasty if you’re into that flora kind of thing). Just as I was trying to weave a basket in which to store our food supply, a truck pulled over. The driver asked if he could help and offered the use of his cellular phone. The man who had been driving our car walked over to the truck to place a call while I, waited behind the car with another woman. Then came the real kicker. Out of nowhere came a Honda with an A&M sticker in the back window. This Aggie stopped because, as she told us, she was concerned when she saw the two of us standing by ourselves and wanted to make sure we were safe. She had nothing to fear, since the man who stopped was a well-intentioned camper returning to College Station - he ended up taking us back to town. But, it was incredibly thoughtful that she stopped to make sure we were in good hands. With a smile, she drove away into the sunset. As we watched her go, we laughed. Laughed because of the irony of these two kind souls stopping to help us: the man in the truck and the Aggie. You see - and I admit this somewhat hesitantly -1 thought The Battalion was receiving an excessive amount of “Aggies helping Aggies on the highway” letters to Mail Call. I may have snickered once or twice at the improbability of so many people being helped and some people may have heard me making comments like, “Where do these letters come from, anyway?” What’s the likelihood that an Aggie will be on the same stretch of road when one’s car breaks down? I don’t know, but it didn’t seem promising. Well, promising or no, I learned my lesson. And now I promise that I will never again chuckle when someone writes in with a heartwarming story about kindness on the highways of Texas. I’ve been there and seen it. Erin Hill is a senior English major The Battalion Editorial Board ; Mark Evans, Editor in chief William Harrison, Managing editor Jay Robbins, Opinion editor Editorials appearing the views of tne editorl necessarily reflect t Battalion staff me student body, regents, administration or staff. f , *• Columns, eu< letters express the < . Contact the opinion editor for information r%r<* f. ittin/T mirurt ttvtrsc X'/- ' Choice Chancellor Thompson capable of meeting challenges iP ty,A) Dr. Barry Thompson, newly named chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, fulfills the Sys tem’s need for a strong, experienced leader in that position. Thompson has been lauded by the Board of Regents as an individual with an exemplary track record. He has spent many years in both public schools and university educa tion as a teacher, scholar and administrator. In addition to his honors in these po sitions, Thomp son has dis played energetic commitment to community and professional or ganizations. Dr. Thompson also boasts a his tory of close, per sonal ties with his students and is re portedly ready to hit the ground running and working hard. He earned the nickname “Dr. T” from some of those former students. His many accomplishments in only three years as president at West Texas A&M University include significant in creases in enrollment, retention, grants and other development funding. Hope fully the System will benefit from his bstinence remains referable to abortion I am writing in response to the July editorial about the inaccessibility of 'ortion facilities. It is not the corn- unity’s responsibility to provide a ace where mothers, who are irre sponsible, can go and have their ba bies killed. It saddens me to think that no one would have said anything if the student who was indicted for manslaughter would have gone and had an abortion. It is the same thing, it’s still murder. People think just be cause the baby is inside the mother’s womb that it’s not a person, and that makes it right to kill. It is terrible to think in some hospitals on one floor they are fighting to save premature babies and on another they are killing them. There are so many people who are not able to have children and would give almost anything to be able to adopt a baby. I think it is the community’s re sponsibility to teach their children that abstinence till marriage is the only way to prevent unwanted preg nancy and the spread of disease. I can only hope that our community and its doctors will continue to have a conser vative attitude about this matter. Stacie Blake Texas A&M Staff Nobody 'knows' right, wrong of homosexuality While reading Buzz Refugio’s letter on July 18, I was pleased to see an ar ticulate response to Susie Carter’s July 13 letter, and I felt he made sev eral good points. I, too, felt that Carter’s letter heavily implied that AIDS and sodomy are exclusive to the homosexual community, and indeed any article on AIDS will show that they are not. I was disappointed, how ever, when I came across Refugio’s closing paragraph which began, “As a Catholic, I know that homosexuality is wrong ...” because his next sentence reads, “... as humans, we are not and never will be the final judge and jury.” His use of the word “know” indicated that it is fact that homosexuality is wrong, when really it is Refugio’s own personal belief. If we as people cannot judge others, then perhaps he would have made a better point by saying that he “thinks” or “believes” this wav direction to the same extent. Thompson already has made plans to polish the tarnished image from which our school is currently suffering. This “Operation Lone Star” will be de signed to aid in changing the public’s view of the System and particularly the University. Under Thompson’s leader ship, perhaps the recent setbacks, ath letic, the state budget and the recent indictments among other pressing public relations sticklers. Despite this ap pearance of per sonal readiness, Thompson will face many chal lenges after he takes the helm on August 1. First and fore most among these responsi bilities will be the preservation and extension of the Sys tem schools’ academic reputations and financing. Dr. Thompson deserves a warm welcome to this campus and best wishes for the best of luck running the System. Hopefully, the decision to choose Dr. Thompson as head of the ad ministration will prove as productive and impressive as his previous record indicates it will be. about homosexuality. No person can ever declare that he or she “knows” that homosexuality is right or wrong, because one can only know facts which can be proven; despite the endless dis cussion concerning this matter, no one has yet to prove either case. Jennifer Wormuth Oceanography Department The Battalion encour ages letters to the editor and will print as many as space allows. Letters must be 300 words or less and include die au thor's name, class, and phone number. We rr>