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The Battalion • Page 7
Thursday • June 8, 1995
The BwTTvVLiorvi
Established in 1893
Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views
of the editorials 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.
Editorials Board
Jay Robbins
Editor in Chief
Rob Clark
Managing Editor
Sterling Hayman
Opinion Editor
Kyle Littlefield
Assistant Opinion Editor
Double Standard
Dole's attacks on music lyrics and
violent films are not consistent.
Trying to win conserva
tive support for his presiden
tial bid, Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole attacked
the entertainment industry
last week. In a speech given
in Hollywood, he blasted
gangsta rap performers and
many movies because they
“revel in mindless violence
and loveless sex.”
Although current popular
culture is an acceptable topic
for public officials to debate.
Sen. Dole has made a poor
contribution to the discus
sion, displaying ignorance of
the issue and setting double
standards.
Dole singled out Time
Warner for the rap music it
produces. However, of the
1,250 albums Warner Music
produced last year, only 28
are rap, and only 15 of those
require special labeling to
warn parents of the lyrics.
Warner Music does not
even control the largest mar
ket share of rap music.
In addition, the Republi
can senator singled out the
movies “True Romance” and
“Natural Born Killers” for
their excessive violence. In
an apparent contradiction,
he cited “True Lies,” a vio
lent movie starring Republi
can supporter Arnold
Schwarzenegger, as “family
friendly.”
Dole also avoided criticiz
ing Sylvester Stallone and
Bruce Willis, two other Re
publican contributors who
regularly appear in extreme
ly violent or sexually-explicit
movies.
Furthermore, an aide to
Dole acknowledged that the
senator had neither seen the
movies nor heard the songs
he criticized, but rather had
read the lyrics of the songs
and the movie reviews.
Movie director Oliver
Stone questioned Dole’s cred
ibility, saying, “It’s at the
height of hypocrisy for Sen.
Dole, who wants to repeal
the assault weapons ban, to
blame Hollywood for the vio
lence in our society.”
Stone is right; if Dole
wants to play the morality
hand, he should be consis
tent.
Another example of Dole’s
hypocrisy is his support for
Sen. Packwood for a commit
tee chairmanship, despite
the fact that Packwood is an
admitted philanderer and is
under investigation by the
Senate Ethics Committee for
sexual misconduct charges.
Sen. Dole has a right to
question the direction of
American culture, but he
should use more caution.
Sparing Republican support
ers from criticism, inade
quately familiarizing him
self with the subject and at
tacking identical behavior in
some but not in others hard
ly make him a persuasive
authority on the subject.
His recent remarks do not
make him a moral leader,
but rather just another
politician.
Mail
(Tall
U.S. has strong
Christian roots
This letter is in response to
the June 6 article on prayer in
school.
A brief review of history
shows that our Founding Fa
thers believed in Christianity,
prayer and prayer in school.
Our nation’s first schools be
gan in churches and for more
than three centuries, public
schools not only promoted
prayer, they relied on the Bible
as the primary instrument to
teach reading, character and
morals.
Benjamin Franklin warned
the nation that the exclusion of
God would result in internal
disputes, the decay of the na
tion’s prestige and a dimin
ished national success.
George Washington warned
that if religious principles were
excluded, the nation’s morality
and political prosperity would
suffer.
Clearly, Franklin’s and
Washington’s predictions are
reality today.
“The separation of church
and state” is one of the most
misunderstood concepts in
American history.
The “separation” was to en
sure that a national religious
denomination would not be es
tablished.
This understanding of “sepa
ration of church and state” was
applied not only during the
time of the Founders, but for
170 years afterwards.
When the British blockade
stopped Bibles arriving from
Britain, the Continental Con
gress printed its own.
Congress considered Bibles
important enough to have them
printed using public money.
A more recent example of
the distribution of Bibles by
the American government was
during World War II.
President Roosevelt had
Bibles distributed to American
troops.
America was founded on
Christianity.
This fact is supported by his
torical evidence.
If the Founding Fathers
were alive today, they might
ask why freedom of religion is
now freedom against religion.
Heidi W. Voges
Class of ’95
Gramm begins to show true colors
Texas senator places priorities on presidential politicking rather than his job
R unning for
President is
turning out
to be a full-time
job for former
A&M economics
professor. Sen.
Phil Gramm. So
much a full-time
job, in fact, that
Gramm has forgotten the du
ties required of his other job —
that of representing the citi
zens of Texas.
It seems that Gramm has got
ten so wrapped up in his quest
to be dictator ... uh. President ...
that he has skipped out on 25
votes so far this year, allowing
him to capture the second worst
voting record in the Senate.
The missed votes of all the
other senators running for
president combined does not
even amount to a third of
Gramm’s total.
Ain’t ya proud?
Gramm spokesman Larry
Neal noted that Gramm hasn’t
missed any
close, crucial
votes and that
his constituency
doesn’t really
care about his
missed votes.
I would beg
to differ.
I seem to re
call that we, the taxpayers,
shell out quite a few hard-
earned bucks each year so that
Gramm can sit back in his seat
and yell, “yea” or “nea” a few
times each day.
Do we ask too much?
However, there is a good point
to all of this. Perhaps if Gramm
missed more votes, some of the
ridiculous legislation that has
been ramrodded down the Sen
ate’s hatch would stand less of a
chance for passage.
Sad thing is, even if he does
n’t win the presidential race
(cross your fingers), he may
still have a good chance of re
taining his Senate seat in ’96.
However, that chance is entire
ly speculative, for Gramm has
yet to publicly announce
whether or not he will seek
both offices simultaneously.
A new Texas law, to take ef
fect in 1996, would allow Re
publicans to replace Gramm on
the ballot if he were to capture
the party’s presidential nomi
nation and withdraw from the
Senate race.
Gramm’s campaign has been
asked numerous times whether
he will abide by this new law,
but Gramm keeps refusing to
give a definite answer.
A simple “yes” or “no” would
do. However, Gramm finds him
self in a self-initiated game of
hardball politics. It seems there
is more involved in the decision
than one would think.
Surely Gramm would like to
hold his post as senator if his
presidential bid falls apart.
But, unfortunately for Gramm,
he burned his bridges on the is
sue a few years back.
In 1976, Gramm ran against
Lloyd Bensten for the U.S. Sen
ate. That year, Bensten was
also running for President.
Gramm criticized Bensten’s de
cision to run for both offices si
multaneously, saying that an
incumbent seeking a higher of
fice who does not give up his
seat was being unfair to his
constituents.
Now Gramm finds himself
caught between a rock and a
hard place.
Should he run for both of
fices and hope the citizens of
Texas are too dense to notice
his hypocrisy?
Or should he give up his
Senate seat in hopes of captur
ing a higher office — knowing
that if he loses his presidential
bid, he’ll become just another
average citizen?
Perhaps he should drop out of
both races — we would all benefit.
Sterling Hayman is a senior
political science major
Sterling
Hayman
Opinon Editor
BANG.
Reliance on technology dehumanizes society
M ISSING: Remote
control with large,
gray buttons.
Goes by the names: “the
control,” “the remote,” “the
changer” and “the clicker.”
Last seen somewhere in
the living room.
Reward. If found, please
call ...
I’ve lost the television remote before, but
I’ve always found it within a day or two.
It’s been weeks now, and I’ve almost lost all
hope. I’m ashamed that I can feel this kind of
sorrow over an inanimate object.
Maybe “sorrow” should be replaced with
“inconvenience.” After all, the loss would not
be a problem if I didn’t think it such a chore to
get up and change the channel manually. Ah,
there’s that word again. Nobody wants to do
anything manually anymore.
We are so set in our ways that we don’t see
what is happening to us.
We have moving sidewalks in airports, sub
notebook computers with built-in faxmodems,
video games that are so realistic, you feel tired
after playing them and remote controls for
every device.
The progression of society is a strange
thing. Basically, humans are collectively
working toward something non-human, all in
the name of bettering society.
The AT&T commercial that shows different
situations and how new technology will be
able to facilitate life, ending with the motto,
“You will,” is a perfect example.
Everything is done in the comfort of our
homes and involves as little effort as possible.
Remote controls, the home-shopping club, the
Internet — all of these things offer users the
comfort of not physically moving much.
In this sense, the futuristic “Jetson’s” car
toon was about as on the mark as Orwell’s
“1984.” Technology exists to build
machines to perform such domes
tic chores as the ones on the car
toon: this technology just isn’t
cheap enough to mass-market. But
I’m sure if it was, every household
would not be without something
that would make life easier.
But life isn’t easier than when
the primitive hunting and gather
ing societies roamed the earth. It is a common
fact that we work harder today than they ever
did. And there’s the contradiction: We work
harder in the name of doing less.
Are we a society that shies away from “liv
ing” life?
The whole concept of virtual reality seems
to testify that we are.
Virtual reality systems provide an escape
for the user in his or her own home. It all
comes down to “doing” things without actually
doing them.
The person participating in the business
meeting while relaxing on the beach in the
AT&T commercial is in reality, only interact
ing with a piece of intricately-wired composite.
He does not “feel” the tension in the meeting
or the temperature of the room; nor does he
smell the coffee being served. Technology can
only mimic the human senses.
We’ve all heard the cliche’d metaphor of the
Internet as the “information super-highway.”
A typical session on the “Net” can take you
from Germany to Australia in seconds, right in
the comfort of your own home. As long as you
can type or point and click a mouse, you can
navigate to just about anywhere in the world.
While the ease of cross-cultural idea ex
change is certainly a plus, whatever happened
to the Hemingway/Faulkner ideals of rugged
exploration that would take us to these for
eign places for ourselves? These ideals have
been reduced to Os and Is coursing through
fiber-optic cable.
Something as simple as home delivery of
food says a lot about our society. When once
we would talk to the fruit-and vegetable-stand
owner about the freshness of the produce be
fore we made our purchase, we now just call
McDonald’s and have them deliver the Gar
den Salad.
Supporters of technology will tell you that
it is a good thing you can do all of these things
from your own home. They do not realize that
the goal of technology — realized to its ulti
mate potential — finds us lying in bed all day,
having no need to leave the house because
everything we need to survive comfortably is
there at our disposal.
Once we are used to the amenities
that technology provides, it is tire
some and regressive to go back to
the old ways of doing things.
It’s funny when we see cartoon characters
like the “Jetson’s” tuckered out from the labor
of button-pushing, but the irony is that our so
ciety is not that far removed from that world.
And the sad thing is that there really isn’t
any going back to a more personal, manual so
ciety. Once we are used to the “amenities” that
technology provides, we find it tiresome and
regressive to go back to the old ways of doing
things. Just like losing the remote control — it
is an inconvenience to return to the days when
you had to manually turn the channel.
Once technology is in place, we take it for
granted, and we never stop to think that we
are making our world a little less personal
and a little less “human.”
Kyle Littlefield is a senior journalism major
THE ByYTTTTyVLION
Editorial Staff
Jay ROBBINS, Editor in Chief
Rob Clark, Managing Editor
Sterling Hayman, Ofinion Editor
Gretchen Perrenot, City Editor
Jody Holley, night news Editor
Stacy Stanton, night news Editor
Michael Landauer, Aggielife Editor
NlCK GeORGANDIS, Sports Editor
Stew Milne, Photo Editor
Staff Members
City Desk - Assistant Editor: Eleanor Colvin; Re
porters: Katherine Arnold, Javier Hinojosa,
Scott McMahan, Jill Saunders, Michael Sim
mons, Wes Swift & Tara Wilkinson
Aggielife Desk — Feature Writers: Kristen Adams,
*. Amy Collier & Libe Goad; Columnist: Amy
Uptmor
Sportswriters — David Winder and Lee Wright
Opinion Desk - Assistant Editor: Kyle Littlefield;
Columnists: Elizabeth Preston, Frank Stan
ford & David Taylor; Contributing Colum
nists: Justin Barnett, Margaret Gordon, Alex
Miller, Chris Stidvent & Mark Zane; Editori
al Writers: Jason Brown & Alex Walters;
Editorial Cartoonists: Brad Graeber &
George Nasr
Photographers — Mike Friend, Roger Hsieh, Nick
Rodnicki & Eddy Wylie
Page Designers - News: Kristin DeLuca & Kristen
DeRocha; Sports: Robin Greathouse; Ag
gielife: Stew Milne
Copy Editors — Rob Clark & Sterling Hayman
Graphic Artists — Toon Boonyavanich & Melissa
Oldham
Strip Cartoonists - Valerie Myers & Quatro Oakley
Office Staff - Office Manager: Julie Thomas;
Clerks: Wendy Crockett & Heather Harris
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