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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1996)
The Battalion ay • April 11,1)) THURSDAY April 11, 1996 Opinion Page 1 3 mes, it inning of her. olayed at the q front of a crowi irpowered theBj h-ranked Ladyi of the year, n innings, alloi no one and strj ng her 13th w she had wony erall season rsn hot bat in the j in all three oli ith two hits atl ring two imii stealing abase m the plate ini itcher Mark l-for-2 with tb sweep moved li son while Sfi 'all. etum to action i ’ace new Big I2i three-game sera ins with a doiii the Aggie Softli 1 2:00 p.m. vill be played i: 2r drop l rout r 2 in a deem 2-64 thisym one shot, leavii hort of becoiii ayer with 2,(1 >cks. His 3.1 jame is the hid verage. VER (82) Money, bombs tear apart family unity E verybody hates a tattletale. Espe cially when it’s your brother. Following you around. Taking notes on all the bad stuff you do. And then dutifully reporting it to your parents, your uncle with “The Belt,” or the FBI. Ted Kaczynski has his problems with tattletales too. The poor fellow has not only been accused of being the dastardly Unabomber, but his own brother is backing up the claim. Now Kaczynski has been jailed, and a grand jury has been summoned to try to determine whether he should go on trial for the Unabomber’s more than 89,274,634 bombings. The loners are always the first to be suspected. Kaczymski has been living on his own for a while in a secluded cabin deep in Montana’s bowels, reading the pa per and formulating theories about the evils of modem technology. And this makes him the Unabomber? The answer lies in the FBI’s $1 million reward for information leading to the cap ture of the Unabomber — a reward which Kaczynski’s brother David will receive if Ted is convicted of the Unabomber’s crimes. Through his attorney, Anthony Bisceglie, David said he knew nothing of the reward. But this is pathetically suspicious. The Unabomber has been in the news a long time; David should’ve assumed that there was a pretty substantial reward. To say that he just didn’t know about it is a gross and flat-out possible lie. Not only has David Kaczymski informed the FBI of his suspicions, but — even worse — he has told their mother, who said that “if he were (the Unabomber), then he had to be stopped.” Apparently, the financial benefit has even convinced Ted’s mother to join the witch hunt. But despite the landslide against Kaczynski, the reported evidence is flim sy. In his writings they have found simi lar words and phrases as those contained in his manifesto. Many of the same words have been misspelled. Even the paper is the same — a moderately obscure Egyptian fiber bought in a Trenton, N.J., lingerie shop. It is ridiculous to say this is anything more than a coincidence. Ted is being shafted by his brother’s greed and the authorities are buying it all. It is an egregious mis carriage of justice. This whole great big tattletelling thing is of personal interest to me. When one is accustomed to doing harm less, illicit little activities, it’s a real an noyance to have somebody scrutinizing your every move. I, for instance, have recently becoT’ e fond of leaving three-week old hs^’ r - er pizza slices under Texas A' M Un versity Fbresident Ray Bowen s desk. Harmless, right? Well, apart from tL smell, pretty harmless. But there is a little reward out for my capture. Sev eral of my friends are the nosy, can- do, “I want to supplement my bank account no matter what the cost to my friends” type, and — rather than announce their suspicions to me — have e-mailed U.N. Secre tary General Boutros Boutros- Ghali telling him what I’m doing. All for the reward money. Luckily, he doesn’t care about the shenanigans that happen at this university, so I figure I’m pretty safe. Nobody will ever fig ure out that I’m the culprit un less i accidentally announce it in my column. Uh. Well, at least I’m an only child. If I had a brother, I’d really be in trouble. And if my brother were like David Kaczynski, he would have sent a letter to the Uni versity Police De partment and squealed on me. Family and friends are sup posed to help us through difficult times, not make them more difficult by spying on everything we do and dutifully reporting it to the police or the FBI. When there’s no one else to turn to, our family should always be there. But I’m sure that $1 million reward just beckoned to the family, and I won’t be surprised — if poor Ted actually is the Unabomber — if his family mysteri ously disappears on a plush cruise ship bound for the Cayman Islands after he’s arrested. I’m sure this whole thing hasn’t been hard on his family at all. They definitely don’t need to be congratulated or praised for turning in their kin. In fact, that reward money ought to go to poor Ted himself for all the anguish this has put him through. To his family, he’s just another source of income. People ought to realize that Ted is the victim in this case — not the family. The family’s get ting out of this painlessly and scot-free. Well — apart from the shock, the em barrassment, the stares and the newspa per stories. All that stuff. Actually, it could be kind of hard for family members to be forced to turn in a relative. But I bet a million dollars makes up for it. Makes me glad I don’t have a brother. Shannon Halbrook is a sophomore English and journalism major Shannon Halbrook Columnist 0-0 12, Amaya! vent 3-7 2-21 3-10 0-0 6, Me 3 8, Anthony!' en 4-10 67( 5 0-0 4, life! Scott 2-6 2-21 0-2 3. Totals9 ONIO(105) i 0-0 6, Perdtit* obinson 2-4!' 6-11 2-4 14, ft Negro 6-lll 0 14, Peru 6-8 1-2 11 Rivers 3-5!' 7, Williams! 10 2-2 l! Alexander! 0-0 6, H« rera 3-7!' 6, Andersi )tals 43-82 It! 1 12 22-82 7 33 22 -105 rials—Vancou (S 2-3, Martini -2, Scott l' 1 B.Edwards O' , Murdock 0- nan Antonio5'! 2-2, Person 2- , Elliott O'! ■4). Fouled oel mds—Vancou 1 * .6), San Antoi n 11). Assist 15 (Wilkins? 27 (Johnson) -Vancouver t ; 21. s—San AntoJ nse. A—17,2* leedsl" in town. 6-5007 the month, »*«• % pted. ons. \ re formulateti brmance Apathy engulfs global events ,t is true: one can change nothing with apathy. It follows then that one cannot complain about a given situation if he or she does nothing to bring about an alternative result. Apa thetic people simply go about proclaiming things as a shame or a travesty, or (at worst) they disregard the situation entirely. One usually reacts when a sit uation affects him or her directly or when it occurs within proximi ty. An example of the former would be when a gathering of Texas A&M students marched on campus to protest the recent rul ing concerning affirmative action by the 5th Circuit Court of Ap peals in New Orleans. An exam ple of the latter would be that whole Toby Boenig-Aggie Fish Aides hazing hullabaloo or (my personal favorite) the single- ver sus double-strap backpacking episode of 1994. The farther the news occurs from Aggieland, the more apa thetic the student body tends to become. I have heard on more than one occasion questions along the lines of, “Sure, that Bosnia ordeal is pretty sad, but what can we do about it?” Likewise, the rapid destruction of Brazilian rain forest, North Korea’s mili tary advance into the Demilita rized Zone and the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa (an activist who protested the drilling of oil by the Shell Corpo ration in an eco logically fragile area) by Nigeria’s military govern ment are more or less met with apathy. The problems occurring in Bosnia, Brazil, Korea and Nige ria do not readily affect us, how ever. So one could justify apathy and not be terribly scrutinized by peers. Or can they? Some may argue that when a perilous situation occurs abroad, the American people should be come concerned only when it af fects the lives of Americans; oth ers say Texans need only to con cern themselves when a situa tion affects the lives of Texans. They might say that situations (such as those in Bosnia, Korea, Brazil, Nigeria) are best left up to the governments of the coun tries in which they occur, the people there or God. The world is just too big a place, and to con cern ourselves with events that are occurring halfway across it would be fruitless and futile. Granted, the world is a big place, but we must also ac knowledge that space and time are gradually converging. No longer does it take us days to get from point A to point B if the two points are thousands of miles apart. We see right here on our campus through the World Wide Web, Internet Re lay Chat and electronic mail that we can share information with people in distant lands with a simple keystroke. People and events are much closer to home than we think. Still, we may be powerless to directly help those troubled per sons, but we must utilize inter national news as a learning tool instead of passing it off as “bad,” "terrible,” or “a shame” as we have been doing. The situation in Bosnia should relay to Ameri cans that assimilation into a popular culture does not always work; it should make one think twice when one advocates creat ing an “American culture” and disregarding the Latin, African, European, Asian, and Indian cultures that comprise it. The destruction of the Amazon rain forest should make Americans aware that the destruction of the environment to keep people in work or to promote progress does not progress mankind at all. Americans should use interna tional news to better understand domestic situations, but as it stands right now, we do not. Meeting any situation — whether it occurs in America or abroad — with apathy means that one is apathetic to the health and wel fare of Americans.. H.L. Baxter is a junior geography major Mail Oll CHEM 107 does not Homosexuals can replace 101 /102 be Christians, too Contrary to a story in the March 26 issue of The Battal ion, Chemistry 107 (the new freshman chemistry course for engineering students) is not a substitute for Chemistry 101 and 102. This is a special course created only for certain engineering students who plan to take no additional chemistry courses. It contains some mate rial from both courses but is not simply a compression of these courses. There is a signif icant amount of material taught in Chemistry 101 and 102 that is not taught in Chem istry 107. Therefore, any stu dent who plans to take chem istry courses beyond general chemistry must complete Chemistry 102/112 or 104/114 before registering for these courses. This includes students who take Chemistry 107. These students should not attempt to take a shortcut by registering for Chemistry 107. This will not work, and they will be dropped from registration in subsequent chemistry courses. John Hogg Chemistry adviser Writer of lynching letter should relax This is in reference to the “Lynching is no laughing mat ter” letter on April 9. How in sensitive! How can Lore A. Guilmartin forget about the deaths of hundreds if not thou sands of Cattle Rustling Ameri cans and Bank Robbing Ameri cans in past history? Did you even stop to realize that cattle rustling is still a hangable of fense in Texas? The Battalion warned you before you even read the “But- talion” that everything inside is a joke. April Fool’s Day is just that — a joke. Life is too short to spend your days wringing your hands over a comment about a lynching, so lighten up. Bradley Frye Class of ’97 I would like to express my appreciation for the article in The Battalion on April 8 con cerning Gay Awareness Week; however, a portion of it con cerned me. I understand and support the need to allow alter nate views and perspectives on all issues, yet the reference to the student who used his Chris tian faith as justification for a stance against those who are gay only reinforces the incor rect notion that being gay and Christian are incompatible. I am both gay and Christ ian. I will not tell Mr. Bauer- schlag that he is wrong. He has the right to his faith. Yet if there is anything that I would like to make heterosex uals aware of this week, it is that too many Christians use their faith as a cover for hate, and other Christians fall prey to ignorance and unwittingly perpetuate suffering. Bauerschlag and many Chris tians are more of the latter than the former. Being gay is not a choice. It is no more a choice for me than it is for Mr. Bauer- schlag’s heterosexual behav ior. My behavior is dictated by my goals to make my part of this world a little bit better place for everyone. Open your minds and hearts. See us as we really are — as our Creator made us— and not as many religious dog mas portray us. Jeff Anderson Graduate student The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will print as many as space al lows. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, class, and phone number. We reserve the right to edit letters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed McDon ald. A valid student ID is required. Letters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-1111 Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: Batt@tamvm1.tamu.edu Bosnia requires U.S. help I f you are a typical college student, then the only foreign affairs that are of interest are whether import ed beer prices are going up. In understanding this ap athy, this column is designed to be the Aggie Foreign Af fairs supplement. Unless you have been liv ing under a rock, you know that we currently have troops in Bosnia. The idea behind our involvement in the area is that it takes a larger benevolent country to step in and stop the blood shed and atrocities that have become the norm in that part of the world for the last several years. So far, a good idea. What would you think, however, if I were to tell you that one of our UN partners was about to pull out of the peacekeeping effort because the premier of the country in question wanted to win an election in a few months? Shocked? Possibly. Annoyed? Very likely. Suicidal? Well, let’s not go too far. What would you say if I told you that the leader re sponsible for such blatant po litical scheming is our very own President Clinton? Clinton sent our troops into Bosnia with a fanfare. America was taking her rightful place as the world’s superpower by stepping in and galvanizing the world into stopping the horror and degradation. Clinton’s popularity rose; everyone was happy. Now, however, Clinton has decided that having troops die on foreign soil dur ing an election year is bad bull. Or at least that it might lose the election for him. Nevermind that the origi nal stated goal for the peace keeping effort was to bring a lasting peace to the area, a goal totally unattainable without America’s support. Nevermind that the rest of the UN coalition will probably fall apart without America’s pocket book and military strength. Nevermind that this is the world’s last chance to truly stabilize the region. Great mistrust and hatred will surely follow our depar ture because of the violent slaughter that will surely ensue when the bad guys re alize the cat just just left the house, for good. The truly amazing thing about Clinton withdrawing our troops is that he expects the American public to hail him as a hero for bringing our troops home in a blatant political stunt. Is the Amer ican public that stupid? I hope not. Not only will Clinton to tally destroy peace in Bosnia, not only will he make the world suspicious of American willpower and determination, but he will forever tarnish America as a wishy-washy country gov erned by people with no backbone and whose only guide to running our great country is the latest poll. America must stay in Bosnia. True, our men will die, but we are fighting for what is right. We are fight ing to make sure that the next time a nutcase decides to murder innocent babies and children he will think twice, knowing that America is watching him. Mr. Clinton, I know you will probably not change your mind now. But if you win another term in the White House, I hope you hear in your sleep the screams of the innocent peo ple who you left to die. Kieran Watson is a sophomore finance major