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November 22,
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Agg ie life
The Battalion • Page 3
golice reveal best excuses for student speeding
Hichele Brinkmann
Battalion
5y Bra
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aura Weigel was not paying attention to
how fast she was driving. She looked in
her rearview mirror and saw the lights be
gin to flash. A police officer asked Weigel
had an excuse for exceeding the speed limit.
~#old the officer she had a midterm exam she
in a hurry to take.
ie officer wrote her the ticket; he had heard
one before.
eigel, a sophomore economics major, said she
rue speed demon.
eigel said she exceeds the speed limit by such
ge amount that she has never been able to
defensive driving.
have had seven tickets and got out of the
,h,” Weigel said. “The speed limit was 55 and
going much faster. I told the officer I had
iruise control set on 65 so there was no way I
[going as fast as he clocked me, which was a to-
e because I don’t have cruise control. It
ik him as funny so he let me go.”
eigel has even had officers threaten to take
ojail.
)ne time I was doing 108 mph and was weav-
hrough traffic on the highway,” she said. “I
lulled over and the officer threatened to throw
njail, but he ended up writing me up for going
i a 55 instead of 108. Officers lie as much as
1/v 'eigel said none of her excuses worked, even if
LIMIT
65
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55
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were true.
jh p^G. r . A ^vJHV'Wi[ tany college students have used these excuses
a plethora of others in an effort to get out of
ding tickets.
t least that is what University, College Station
Bryan police officers say.
hese were some of the most common excuses
:e officers said they hear on a daily basis:
being late for a test, a class, work, or turning
in an application
• having to go to the
bathroom
• broken speedometer
• feminine problems
University Police Officer Jay Wendell said one of
his favorites was, “You’re just a campus police offi
cer, you can’t stop me.”
Wendell said UPD commonly hears University-
related excuses.
UPD Officer Thomas Armstrong said the best ex
cuse he has heard was, “I was speeding because I
was trying to stay away from y’all.”
Contrary to what most students believe, UPD of
ficers can pull over cars off campus.
Bryan Police Officer Dennis Crain said he has
been on the Bryan police force for six years and has
heard his share of excuses.
“One young lady told me that the new tires on her
car made it run faster,” Crain said. “That was one of
the funniest I have heard.”
Crain said most people try to get out of speeding
STUDENT
LIMIT
o
‘How-
tickets.
“About 75 percent give excuses,” he said,
ever, most do not work.”
Crain said people do occasionally admit they have
no reason for speeding but it is a rare occasion.
Crain said he remembers one occasion in which
he let a woman go without giving her a ticket.
“One woman went to pieces,” Crain said. “She
was bawling, it was just a tragic day for her. So I
got soft hearted and told her to go on down the
road.”
Most officers, however, said they do not fall for
the “crying” trick.
BPD Officer Kenneth Meadors said people give
excuses about 90 percent of the time they are pulled
over, but said he lets them go about 5 percent of the
time.
The funniest excuse Meadors said he has heard
was from a soldier.
“This soldier said he was on call and was in a
hurry because he was about to be air-dropped
over a city in South America,” Meadors said. “He
got a ticket.”
Heather Hunt, a junior elementary education ma
jor, said she considers herself lucky because she has
never been issued a ticket in the six times she has
been pulled over in College Station.
“Most of the officers think I am drunk when they
pull me over,” Hunt said. “They make me get out of
the car and take sobriety tests. After they realize I
am not drunk they always let me go.”
Mark McGoon, a sophomore elementary educa
tion major, said he has used one of those common ex
cuses listed above and it worked.
“I got out of one ticket because I said I had new
tires and the speedometer was off,” McGoon said.
“Once in a blue moon I can get out of a ticket.”
McGoon said he has even made up medical emer
gencies from time to time.
“I know that sounds terrible,” he said. “They did
n’t work, they wrote the tickets.”
Wendell said that despite almost every person’s
attempt to offer an excuse, there really is no excuse
for endangering lives.
Most police departments set standards for police
officers to follow when deciding whether to let a per
son go or not, Wendell said.
An officer is not supposed to let anyone go with
out a valid excuse such as a medical emergency, he
said.
Meadors said students should realize that most
excuses, even the most original and humorous, do
not work.
“People who admit they are speeding have a bet
ter chance of being let go than those who offer excus
es,” Meadors said.
Most officers agreed students should save their
creative ideas for the classroom and not for their
Quatn
Prince’s ‘Black Album’ finally sees the light of day
r score
lesday 11/29
igher score
PLAI
ASS
1 pm)
-9 pm)
pm)
pm)
DISCOUNT
845-163]
Prince
By Rob Clark
The Battalion
Prince
“The Black Album”
Warner Bros. Records
★ ★★★ 1/2 (out of five)
Yes, it is finally here.
The most mysterious album
made in recent musical history
is available for the first time for
a limited time (from Nov. 22 to
Jan. 27) on CD. And where
there’s mystery and weirdness
in music, of course there’s
Prince.
“The Black Album” was creat
ed in 1987 by His Royal Badness.
The album was widely regarded
as a vicious X-rated tirade by
Prince, and anticipation was
high for its release.
But December release plans
were scrapped at the last minute
and the spiritual “Lovesexy” al
bum was released instead.
But a few “Black Album”
copies leaked out, and it became
the biggest bootlegged album
ever. Prices paid for vinyl copies
of the album soared to $11,000.
In a 1990 Rolling Stone inter
view, Prince explained his rea
sons behind pulling the album.
“I was very angry a lot of the
time back then,” he said, “and
that was reflected in that album.
I suddenly realized that we can
die at any moment and we’d be
judged by the last thing we left
behind. I didn’t want that an
gry, bitter thing to be the last
thing. I learned from that al
bum, but I don’t want to go
back.”
Luckily for us. Prince has fi
nally changed his mind.
This anger is what makes the
album so stunning. There is no
sugary pop-flavored “Kiss” or
“Raspberry
Beret” on the
album. Instead
it is raw, hard
as hell and, yes,
very angry.
Simply put,
it is Prince at
his best. His
career has been
on a downward
spiral since
“Lovesexy”
bombed with
record buyers.
“The Black
Album” shows
the sheer bril
liance of Prince
before he mud
dled things up
with movie
bombs (“Graffi
ti Bridge”) and changing his
name to an unpronounceable
symbol.
The album shows off the grit
tiest, grunkiest funk Prince has
ever made. P-Funk has nothin’
on Prince when it comes to “Le
Grind,” and “Dead On It.”
The fact that the album is
coming out seven years later
shows the difference in musical
perceptions. “The Black Album”
was considered too racy for radio
play, and extremely controver
sial. By today’s standards, it’s
really not that bad.
But the sexual audacity and
surprising violence preceded the
growth of
gangsta rap,
and dissed it be
fore it even be
came popular.
Prince rips
rap with a
scathing dis
missal on “Dead
On It,” saying
“The only good
rapper is one
that’s dead —
on it . . . See the
rappers prob
lem usually
stems from be
ing tone deaf/
Pack the house
and try to sing /
There won’t be
no one left.”
And Prince
busts any rappers’ bravado with
“My bed’s a coffin / Dracula ain’t
got sh-t on me . . .I’m badder
than the wicked witch.”
This hard sound is even more
amplified on “Bob George,” a dis
turbing tale of a jealous
boyfriend discovering his wom
an’s affairs.
But Prince manages to poke
fun at himself, when the
boyfriend realizes the man she is
cheating with happens to man
age a musician named Prince.
“Who? Prince? That skinny
motherf—ker with the high
voice? Please,” Prince says
The customary sexual themes
of Prince’s music come out on
“Cindy C.,” a begging for Cindy
Crawford to “play with me.”
It even reaches the point of
“I’m sure you’re intelligent / a
wizard of math and all that sh-t
but I’m entirely more interested
in flying your kite tonight.”
Well, no one ever said Prince
was chivalrous.
Rounding the album out is
“Rockhard in a Funky Place,” an
other overtly sexual song with an
irresistible drum beat and sax
break. No holds barred on this
one as it is extremely explicit.
Prince is in the midst of the
biggest slump of his career. Re
cent songs like “The Most Beau
tiful Girl in the World” prove he
is still marketable, but lacking
in the usual Princely quality.
He’ll never top “Purple Rain”
or “Sign O’ the Times,” but “The
Black Album” gives us a look
back at the man whose musical
genius reshaped music as we
know it.
Perhaps a look back will prompt
a look forward, and Prince will
find his way once again.
students, faculty joining forces to increase community recycling
ef
Opinion editor
, Photo editor
sports editor
ielife editor
itephanie Dube, Ana"®
md Kari Whitley
am, Tiffany Moore, SW
lameron, Blake Grig#'
daley Stavinoha
ler, Stewart Doreen anti
on, Erin Hill, Jeremy
asr, Elizabeth Preston,
Margaret Claughton
—^ ie Battalion
Just off of Highway 6, fittingly
rrounded by flowers and trees,
the Texas A&M Recycling
inter.
This large warehouse, once
ed by Texas Instruments, is
frounded by large bins filled to
ebrim with newspapers, alu-
inum cans and old phone books
liting to be sorted. Busy work-
dash in and out pushing
®vy containers loaded with pa-
akley
slle Oleson
jring the fall and spring
pt University holidays 31
lege Station, TX 77840.
nald Building, Texas
A&M University in the .
Editorial offices are in
?wsroom phone numb®'
'sement by The Battalia 11
tified advertising, call '
are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ,
vt student to pick up 3
10 per school year and
Express, call 845-2611
Inside, Joe Sanchez sits be
nd an old wooden desk sur-
ttnded by recycling posters and
ndscape paintings, frantically
nulling phone call after phone
U.
“Yes sir, I’ve pooled my re-
lUrces and I’m improvising to
"® : lyou more containers,” he po-
fely pipes into the phone.
Sanchez is the recycling coor-
Hiator for the recycling center,
Mch handles all of A&M’s recy-
itg needs. He and his staff of
Udent workers gather recy
cle materials from buildings
over campus as well as the
facilities located through-
tt the community.
“Out of the 300-plus buildings
campus we regularly pick up
Dm 158 of them,” he said.
Ihere are also a lot of different
A&M offices scattered around
Bryan—College Station and we
pick them up as well.”
Last year, Sanchez and his
crew picked up 431 tons of recy
clable paper and cardboard from
A&M.
The recycling center’s
newsletter said 7,327 trees were
saved because of this effort.
But plain paper is not the
only product the recycling cen
ter works with. Among the ma
terials collected are aluminum
cans, toner cartridges, colored
paper, newsprint, computer pa
per and phone books.
In fact, phone books were the
focus for a recent recycling drive.
On Nov. 15, named Texas
Recycles Day by Gov. Ann
Richards, the Texas A&M Recy
cling Center, along with city de
partments and other community
organizations, sponsored a com
munity-wide phone book recy
cling drive.
The result was more than 20
tons of phone books donated to
be recycled, a significant im
provement from the previous
years’ 3 tons.
Sanchez said this success is
due to the teamwork exhibited
by the community.
“From everybody on campus
and in the community, the coop
eration has been phenomenal,”
he said.
Sanchez said the center has
formed a coalition of sorts with
the cities of Bryan and College
Station, Brazos Beautiful and
Brazos Valley Solid Waste Man
agement.
These organizations help pro
mote community awareness and
gather materials to be recycled.
Other organizations such as
Bryan Iron and Metal and the
Sunbright Paper Company help
process the materials after they
have been collected.
“We have major cooperation
going on just to keep this facility
going,” Sanchez said.
Students and faculty from
A&M have also done their share
of contributing to the communi
ty’s environmental health.
Dr. Roy Hartman, professor of
engineering and technology, has
helped further the A&M’s recy
cling efforts by forming the Cen
ter for Recycling and Waste Man
agement .
Faculty members and stu
dents work to create recycling
awareness through seminars and
other projects.
“We put on seminars with var
ious speakers addressing topics
like EPA regulations or environ
mental shopping such as how to
buy environmentally-benign
products,” he said.
Research done by the Center
for Recycling and Waste Manage
ment has developed many things
including a way to make frisbees
from milk jugs.
One frisbee is made of three
recycled milk jugs. The environ
mental frisbees were used as in
centive gifts at the phone book
drive.
Although the recycling center
and its counterparts have con
tributed significantly to the envi
ronmental effort, both Hartman
and Sanchez would like to see
even more.
Hartman believes if more offi
cials advocate the recycling
process, it will become more ef
fectively practiced.
“I’d like to have top manage
ment of the University really en
dorse recycling and the purchas
ing of recycled content goods,”
Hartman said.
Sanchez is working with city
officials and other environmental
chairs to increase the types of
materials recycled.
Cardboard boxes are one re
source Sanchez hates to see
wasted.
“When students move, they
use so many boxes,” he said. “It
breaks my heart to see them go
into the landfill.”
Efforts are also under way to
develop effective recycling for
dormitories on the A&M campus
as well as recycling strategies for
apartment complexes.
Tim Moog/THF Battalion
The Texas A&M Recycling Center recently picked up 20 tons of
phone books for recycling, up from 3 tons collected last year.