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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 1995)
The Battalion • Page 7 Thursday • June 29, 1995 June 29,1 greasing de Minister [ '0 said the acrf r 8'ets. I nste! accepted “volt top Japanese 'oost purchase; "nent is specif; It will act- results,” Clir; agton. “I have m the start.” niquf it, the busind ais summer, ustomers tent through," Gt- 1 he approve; i College St; nes were rotte: vere in really >ng as you’ve treet, you mi f : look right, rest, owner y and Navy sc 1 the city is he 1 tion project w ! on had to flj aid. “Theycoi at a better liege Station is to make it ible.” d the Northg; ^reject has te in because rit between c: rthgate busine agers. ice things for L has been the JcDaniel said ;ed College Sc lue the uniqi e. see those k e said. (3 rviNl ■HBHBBHRHH ' acceleration' id the 2,400s: oe put on big uld requires mate. narket fort s hobbyists,;' a electric can| ested in con' rs. been showes! Auto Show X has entej : vehicle sho' l | of Texas in I uatn m£0 Student fees should not be increased drastically Toby Boenig Guest Columnist I know that everyone on this cam pus knows how much more we are probably going to be paying in fees and tuition next year. Proposed fee increases will cost students as much as an additional $400 each semester. These fee increases will definitely tug at a lot of pocketbooks. There will be a substantial number of stu dents who will need to look in other places for fi nancial assistance. Other places such as federal financial aid, right? Wrong. The U.S. Congress is proposing major cuts in Pell grants as well as Stafford loans. Many members of Congress have said these cuts will only cost college students pennies. That is absolutely wrong. Under the current system, a student can re ceive two separate types of subsidized loans while students are in school. The government pays the interest on subsidized loans while stu dents are in school. The student would not be responsible for pay ing the monthly interest payments while they , are in school. The U.S. Congress is considering eliminating the interest exemption on all Stafford loans. What will happen if this proposal pass es into law by our Congress? If they eliminate interest ex emption on all Stafford loans, it will cost students and families $13 billion over a period of five years. This seems like a little bit more than pennies. There is also a chance that Congress could decrease the funding for Pell grants. What does all of this mean? With the cost of our education increasing at a steady rate and the proposed cuts in our finan cial aid, it could mean many lost chances for young adults to attend college. I have gone on the record as being against the increase in our general use fee, but I still understand the administration’s position and their need to find additional funding. The sole reason that I am against the increase is because of the adverse effect it will have on our students. Having said that I understand the adminis tration’s situation, I, in no way, understand what our Congress is thinking. They have absolutely forgotten the impor tance of higher education. The U.S. Congress is failing to re alize the opportunities that a col lege education gives to many lower to lower-middle income students who either battle to get out of the inner city or rural America. At Texas A&M, many of us take for granted this opportu nity and forget about the great education we receive. We also often forget about the assistance we receive though grants, loans and scholarships. We are in danger of losing a major source of financial aid for many students. It is time we speak out against this blatant disregard of the importance of a college educa tion. It is time that you do something about it. Write to our Congressman who represents Bryan / College Station at: Congressman Jack Fields 2228 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Also write to the member of Congress from your hometown and encourage your family to do the same. Encourage you parents to write about how fi nancial aid is important to them and about what affects these cuts will have on families The sole reason that I am against the general use fee increase is be cause of the adverse effect it will have on our students. If you, as a student, think your education is important at all, please write to the member of Congress from your district. They are making major decisions that will affect millions and mil lions of students. They are making decisions that are affecting you. A&M Student Body President Toby Boenig is a senior agricultural developmettt major Americans obscure justice with thirst for security, retribution Mail Children must be taught abstinence I am responding to the June 28 column by Margaret Gordon titled, “Schools must teach chil dren about sex.” She presented the ever-pre sent and ever-wrong view that kids are going to have sex any way, so they should be taught about sex in school. She makes the statement that, “ ... today’s youth aren’t given enough credit,” which I know is true. However, she has the audacity to ask, “ ... how re alistic is abstinence?” I think that teaching sex edu cation in school can be appropri ate. However, we must teach kids what is right and true, not what is a lie. The simple fact is that Gor don has been hurt by friends “who have had abortions or gone in for AIDS testing.” So she blames the so-called “religious right.” I am truly sorry that Gordon and others have been hurt, but the simple fact is that “safe sex” — using condoms and other con traceptives — is a big lie. Gordon states that, “teaching our chil dren about sex, contraception and STDs ... will only help re duce the numbers (of teenage pregnancy and diseases).” That has been said for more than 20 years. It is and will re main wrong. This is so obvious, too. Just look at history. If you look at how our country is now, compared to how it was 35 years ago before contracep tives were available and some what reliable, you can see a huge difference. Yes, we have to teach chil dren about contraception and STDs. We have to teach them that condoms fail sometimes — even when used properly. We have to teach them that STDs kill. But most importantly, we must teach them the only an swer is abstinence. Therefore, the “safe sex” lie must not be taught. I have talked to many grade school and high school students about chastity and abstinence, and I can truly say that kids do agree with the values of absti nence a lot more than adults do. This is partially because of the fact that young children are not yet addicted to sex, as are many adults in our country. On the one hand, kids know that abstinence is right. But on the other hand, televi sion bombards them with bla tant promiscuous, sexual images and messages. So they are torn by what their conscience tells them and by what the other forces tell them. It is no wonder they are con fused. Kids do deserve much more credit than they receive. Please, all they need is some encouragement about absti nence. Thomas Ashour Graduate student IRA should stop playing politics Having visited both Dublin, Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland, I find it necessary to respond to Alex Walters’ June 28 column regarding strife in Ireland. While Walters does an excel lent job of pointing out historical reasons for the division of Ire land, it also is important to rec ognize the current reasons for this separation — democracy and economics. Given the option of voting to remain with the crown or join ing the Republic of Ireland, the six northern counties voted overwhelmingly to remain loyal to the crown and become Northern Ireland. Why did the vast majority of Irish citizens in these northern counties reject the idea of sever ing ties with the United King dom? The answer is simple: money. You see, those Irish who re side in the Republic of Ireland generally have a lower standard of living and are saddled in debt, unlike their northern brethren. In fact, with taxes in the Re public of Ireland in excess of 50 percent and no socialized higher education or health care, it is no wonder Northern Ireland refus es to give up its standard of liv ing merely to appease a radical group such as Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army. Finally, due to the economic conditions of the Republic of Ire land, there has been a mass exo dus of youth who can make a better living elsewhere. This migration, I might add, is larger than that spurred by the potato famine of the 1840s. Unfortunately, until Sinn Fein and the IRA stop playing politics and recognize the right of Northern Ireland citi zens to choose their own des tiny, as opposed to being bombed into submission, there will be no lasting peace on the emerald isle. Brian Bullard Graduate Student S usan Smith, a woman from South Caroli na, was arrested for allegedly push ing her car into a lake, sending her two children to a watery grave. A bomb explod ed in Oklahoma City on April 19, leveling the A. P. Murrah Federal Building. The bomb killed 167 people, including 17 children at a nearby day care center. Timothy McVeigh was arrested for the bombing. O.J. Simpson, pro football Hall of Famer, was put on trial for the murder of his ex-wife and an acquaintance. The trial has lasted over a year. Horror stories like these have flooded the media for the last year. Thanks to television, news papers and magazines, we have a front-row seat to witness the cruel circus of human depravity the American public has become. Every day, we can turn on the tube or check out the front page and see something that scares the tar out of us. But why doesn’t it cease to scare us? When we are bombarded day after day with reports of haunt ing acts of barbarism and men tal sickness, it only makes sense that we would build up a toler ance, like college students drink ing a kind of depraved brew. Our jaws drop when we hear that Mrs. X has done something horrible. It’s like we never learn that we shouldn’t be surprised by what our neighbors do. Maybe that’s because the American public seems to have such a knee-jerk reaction to sen- sationalistic stories. Frequently, we see a story like Susan Smith’s or O.J. Simp son’s, and we shudder and whis per, “Oh my God!” Then we hit the remote control button to find something that better suits our tastes. Denial seems to be the great American way of solving soci ety’s ills. We feel too flustered to correct something, so we sweep it under the rug and go on with our daily routine. After a while, we even seem to forget what horrible things we’ve seen, so the cycle can start anew. When a bomb was detonated in Oklahoma City two months ago, Americans were aghast at the carnage buried among the rubble. We all wanted someone’s head on a platter so we could hang the guilty and get on with our lives. We let the FBI lead us around by the nose, and it led us straight to Timo thy McVeigh. One week lat er, Time Maga zine plastered McVeigh’s pic ture on the cover with the title “The Face of Fear.” America found a scapegoat, a fall guy who made us feel better because he wasn’t like the kid next door. McVeigh became some paramilitary zealot, and America, convinced that McVeigh was a rare bird, found its security blanket again. Now McVeigh has told Newsweek in an interview that he didn’t do it. I hope he’s lying, because he probably won’t get a fair trial anywhere, regardless of whether he’s guilty. During the Simpson trial, the media bombarded us with infor mation about every plot twist, scene, verse and two-bit player in the tragic drama. It was rivet ing for the first month or so, while the shock of everything still held watchers and listeners. But what happened when the shock value ended? People be gan complaining that they had O.J. overkill. They blamed the media ad nauseum, complaining that cov erage of the O.J. trial was taking away from their “Days of Our Lives” time. Comments such as, “Just fry him, and get it over with,” and “Everyone knows he’s guilty, why have a trial?” were overheard frequently. Perhaps Simpson’s story touched a raw nerve in the American public, the fallen hero with the Achilles’ heel. Maybe we didn’t want to confront one of our greatest fears — that those we put on a pedestal can easily fall off — and found an easy ex cuse to get back to normalcy. It’s revolting that we pass judgment on someone for the sole purpose of reassuring our selves that our country is A-OK. In our quest to make our back yards feel safer, we’re willing to sacrifice others. It’s time America got its head out of the sand and developed a backbone. We need to stop believ ing life is a rose garden and every thing is hunky-dory. There are some sick bastards out there, the kind who would bomb a building in Oklahoma City or take the lives of two, young children. But what’s more disturbing, the sick people who commit these acts or the sick people who fail to deal with them? Wes Swift is a junior journalism major iigh near • lay M a high near* 8 apteroftheA^ Meteorologies The. eion Editorial Staff Jay Robbins, Editor in Chief Rob CLARK, Managing Editor STERLING Hayman, Opinion Editor GreTCHEN PERRENOT, City Editor Jody Holley, night news Editor Stacy Stanton, night news editor MICHAEL LANDAUER, Aggieufe Editor Nick GeORCANDIS, Sports Editor STEW Milne, Photo Editor Staff Members City Desk - Assistant Editor: Eleanor Colvin; Re porters: Katherine Arnold, Javier Hinojosa, Jill Saunders, Michael Simmons, Wes Swift & Tara Wilkinson Accielife Desk - Assistant Editor: Amy Collier Fea ture Writers: Elizabeth Garrett, Amy Collier & Libe Goad; Columnist: Amy Uptmor Sportswriters - David Winder 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 Craeber & George Nasr Photographers - Mike Friend, Roger Hsieh, Nick Rodnicki & Eddy Wylie Pace Designers - News: Kristin DeLuca; Sports: Robin Greathouse; Accielife: 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 News: The Battalion news department is managed by students at Texas A&M University in the Divi sion of Student Publications, a unit of the De partment of Journalism. 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