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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1996)
October UJ! tract ’£ folks say it's!« iut that’s vt s of the market And if anybi ieve Spurrier! 7-13-1 in hit s head coach t more victories raves as thenii The Battalion :> opularity of cigars smokin’ competition if ill Clinton said he didn’t inhale. He must have been smoking a cigar — Columnist schoolhisto; st like the rest of society. re, Florida has In I in the SECen 12, tl championship, working on a Despite the recent anti-tobac co industry movement, those tobac co-wrapped, tobacco- stuffed phal lic symbols have some how re mained lal football,” Foi COOl '. f u * gnize that Thei People thlIlk cl S ars can 1 hurt ensatedfairly! f 0 ! 1 ® s ; nce the sm °. ke isn ; t 1 in ' tract also has ira M. Of course puffing still r to stay at Floniii ^ throat aiu ton ^ ue andll P re year 2000,her ^ ^ ancer ’ but } { 18 c , onsid - sd safe because it doesn t use lung cancer. Inhaling cigarettes causes ng cancer. Cigarettes are the Florida’s 62-241i the Fiesta Boul February, a r urned down; n contract to cw Buccaneers,a | arcus Goodyear AMfcJMf Hg . , fenior English major trtion for his sent - ssmmmEmm x 5550,000 ink’ ielder, rocity. They create those rddy-looking lungs that nurs- show in middle school. / u C '^Nobody seems to realize that a 'OriCI oGfldj jarette is just a little cigar. Just Orioten** ytthe word. Our society is hed Ihe series lk t0 condemn the cigarette „ amoc in,| cause it doesn t have tire lustor- S “legacy of the cigar. ; t n ow deci ‘The cigar phenomenon began Fielder onlyasl Shakespeare’s contempo- latoon him ini y, Sir Francis Drake, first gular starting! tttght them from the Americas. Martinez; orsp ake introduced the smoky fad ween Fielderi court, and soon everybody was rr y t ingit. Even Queen Elizabeth ng Torre’s dilei eked down a stogie through lips has a smaller! (edwith an inch of makeup. With the Queen’s approval, the if he is considaiibecame an institution, n the NL city,I Two centuries later, Sigmund was,“Possibly lud explored the sexual conno- mped intoYanii ions of the long, cylindrical e second straif ig. Cigars were an overcom ments. And,! nation for a man’s castration s were negati! oety. "It is all about sex,” he thought hisfl dd say between puffs on his i .j re sex organ. iy proved Stfi^jfhroughout history rich and rerful men have smoked cigars, play in theSf® Idy Roosevelt did it. FDR did it. tston Churchill smoked an esti- ted 600,000 cigars in his lifetime, and Kennedy purchased 1,000 Cuban cigars the day before slap ping the small Caribbean island with a trade embargo. Even God smoked cigars — or at least George Burns did when he played God. Cigars have had a strong pres ence in American heritage, but they are far from obsolete. Today, the average Joe can in dulge in an occasional cigar. Humidors (elaborate cigar rooms that maintain optimum tobacco preservation) are pop ping up all over in College Station liquor stores. The Burton Creek Pub, a bona fide sports bar, just installed a humidor. James Dietrich, a manager at Burton Creek, explained that “cig ars are getting more popular. They are definitely an ‘in’ thing.” And they are popular with a wide range of people — from college freshmen to retirees. Most of the fancy stogies aren’t cheap, yet even middle- class people are spending the extra five to six dollars for a more satisfying smoke. Wait a minute! Hello! Who said anything about smoking? Smoking is what Joe Camel and the Marl boro Man do. It’s what silenced the silent generation. People don’t smoke cigars. If a person isn’t inhaling, then it isn’t smoking. With all the pro-cigar media, such assumptions seem only natural. Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor and fitness guru to the White House, smokes cigars with zeal. Jack Nicholson chews on the tubes of tobacco in massively popular movies like A Few Good Men. Even the Material Girl has been seen with a long, smoldering cigar grasped firmly in her fingers. This summer’s blockbuster, In dependence Day, showed the ca maraderie of a good cigar. It’s pa triotic. It’s something an African-American fighter pilot can share with a Jewish genius. One would think cigars are bringing the world together as they cut across social barriers. But cigars don’t seem to do anything bad. Just look at George Burns. He didn’t inhale, and he al most lived forever. Bill Clinton didn’t inhale, and he will proba bly be re-elected president. The whole country might not be inhaling, but cigar puffing is lending new life to a questionable tobacco industry. Page 13 Thursday • October 1 7, 1 996 Lack of scholarships keeps minorities away W e pride our selves on at tending a world-class university, yet the naive attitude on this campus reveals that we are far from that. A couple of weeks ago, I was saddened — but not surprised — by the fact that a mere half of the accepted minori ties enrolled this year. I heard comments from students expressing surprise at these statistics. My answer to their puzzlement can be summed up in one word: Hopwood! We are starting to see the effects of this horrible ruling, and it is time to wake up and real ize that if minorities are not given scholarships to Texas A&M, they probably won’t come. If you are an Aggie for whom coming to Texas A&M was both ex pected and traditional, it would be hard for you to fathom why anyone accepted to this university would not break his neck to enroll. But the choice is not obvious for minorities. They cannot possibly come from a long line of Aggies because the school didn’t allow people of color in the door (or even on the porch) for most of his tory. They haven’t been taken to football games since they were knee high, and probably haven’t set foot on the campus. Now, consider a top African- American high school senior who applies to Texas A&M, a few Ivy Leagues and the like. The student likes Texas A&M, but has read and heard about the ultra conservative atmosphere and is concerned about feeling out of place here. The person receives scholarship letters in the mail. Good schools offer to waive his out-of-state tuition and give him $20,000. Texas A&M offers a friendly howdy and no money. Would that student even give our school a chance? Don’t think too hard on that one. The mone tary incentive is not there to help persuade the student to give it a try. If this appears crude, think back to your se nior year. Scholarships were king, and they played a large role in school considerations. Money is indeed an object, especially when you don’t have an Aggie family legacy to uphold. ' Sure, top minority candidates ! are able to get some scholarship assistance. However, when I learned that Texas A&M was offer ing me an award for minority can didates, it played a large role in my decision to come to Texas A&M. Doubts I had about the University were lessened because I thought that it was positive that the A&M was backing up its commitment to . diversity with greenbacks. I didn’t sit and cry, “I only got ! this scholarship because I am black!” My credentials were so tight that I could have competed ' with anyone, and I did receive ! another scholarship from this school that was not just restrict ed to minorities. Instead, when I sat down and narrowed my college choices, A&M persevered. I came here, got involved and feel I could not have made a better choice for my education. But I can honestly say I don’t know if I would have given it a chance if not for those scholar ships. Think about it. Why would a top minority candidate come to this environment when he or she is receiving lucrative schol arships from similarly or better- ranked schools? Until the big boys at this Uni versity start backing up their re cruiting efforts, task forces, workshops and talk forums with additional scholarship dollars to woo top candidates, the number of enrolled minorities will con tinue to take a nosedive. Columnist Aja Henderson Senior political science major g into pus is about ineering day, w to fix' 1 ’ jnched should be ^out it. - * Remember friends from the past Notice tiow Keomp Goope of Jfcfteir* poisitioiTfs;... Wltfiowt erv&tx & tr-ace ojt or* \ € £);<?■?£> THE www.t>€rgew. cc**'/ , >*w^uUe< LET’S SEE WHAT ELSE IS ON!.. (happens all the time. It happens to almost everyone. It’s probably hap pening to you even now: As you read s,you are growing farther apart from tteone you love. Before it’s too late, we should all take itime to say hello and keep old mdships alive. Trust to it: You’ve known some peo- iall your life. There is no real expia tion as to the ebb and flow of who a hang out with, since some of the Hie people have always been around, ujust grow apart. Mow you’ve gone and moved into the bigtime “tld of college. You’re leaving them behind. For some people, this is a good thing. Perhaps never found their niche in high school. Perhaps they only moved somewhere for their Hor or senior year, and have been biding their le until they could get a fresh, even start in col- >e. If so, that’s great. They can be whoever they want now and hand- 'k their friends. For some people, this is a bad thing. Some people ew just who they wanted to keep company with in | school, and coming to college really shook their “tld up. This was me. if I may trouble you with a personal example, I had Hie great friends in high school. I found my niche in “drama department, and we were like a family. I Ulove all those people. I still hang out with a lot of stn whenever I can. Unfortunately, Texas A&M doesn’t exactly draw s same crowd as drama. I was the only person from my class to come re. When I arrived three years ago, I basically had to start fresh. Looking for the same kind of close- knit group I’d been a part of in high school, I joined the Corps. This was a good move, though I still miss the people from high school from time to time, and never see most of them. And this is universal: As the years go by, people’s interests change. Some of those whom you considered to be your former brothers and sisters got in volved in things you don’t care for, or made some really bad decisions and became peo ple you’d rather not associate with. Some just move far away and e-mail becomes the only link (and it’s a great way to keep in touch with those people). Some are right around the corner, and you don’t know just what’s happening to your rela tionship. And that’s a shame, because the con nection you once had with them is still there, you’ve just forgotten. Whether it be they’ve found some new friend or (more likely) significant other that monopolizes their time or they (or you) are just terribly busy these days, there’s some perceived reason for your distance. Perceived only. Is half an hour really more time than you can spare to call someone you’ve known for years? Is your schedule really so busy you can’t fit in a movie or a meal with some one you once regarded as closer than family? Of course not. And now that you’re in college, it’s especially important to do. After all, people are graduating every semester. Stop, look around at what’s hap pening in your life, and get in touch. You’ll be glad you did. Columnist Bryan Goodwin Junior English major Midnight Mania an incredible success After the incredible success of Aggie Basketball Midnight Mania on Monday night, no one can ever convince us that there are not thousands of great basketball fans at Texas A&M. As we move into the new Big 12 Conference, the support of the student body, band, yell leaders, Aggie Angels, Aggie Gents and dance team will provide us with one of the top home court advan tages anywhere. Your enthusiasm at Midnight Mania proved that you can and will support Aggie basketball. Our players join us in offering our sincere thanks for making the event a success and giving us a tremendous boost as we begin fall practice. We hope to see you at all our home games this season. Tony Barone Men’s Basketball Coach Candi Harvey Women’s Basketball Coach Drug legalization makes good sense Regarding Mason Jackson’s Oct. 15 column, ‘“War on Drugs’ degenerates into nothing more than stupidity”: Kudos to Mason Jackson on his obviously well-researched study of the economic advantages to ending the War on Drugs. Not only did Jackson use reliable, in telligent sources, but he also fi nally managed to step outside the realm of morality and show peo ple the truth about the cost of maintaining an unnecessary war against mind and body-altering substances (like all pharmaceuti cals). The question of “morality” has long plagued the world and has consistently perpetuated dis asters in human history. During the Spanish Inquisition, if you were not a Christian, you were killed because you were immoral. Early this century, if a woman was allowed in the workplace, it was considered immoral. And even today, if someone chooses to expose his or her body to a drug, he or she is considered immoral. But just like the other cases in human history, decisions such as these should be left to that own person’s decision ... isn’t that what freedom is — the right to choose? Justin Vincent Class of ’98 Christian hypocrisy hurts homosexuals Regarding David BoIdt’s Oct. 16 column, "Homosexual cadets should stay in closet”: Boldt is absolutely correct on one issue; in reference to gay bashing is happening all over America, he says "It’s not right, but it happens.” The point prompts me to ask why then, he also tells us that gays in the Corps“have the right to be gay if they so choose.” Who, in their right mind, would choose to be homosexual? Who would choose to be beaten, hated, vilified, and terrorized, the way homosexuals are in“Christ- ian” America? Africans could have chosen to be white, and avoided being enslaved. Muslim Bosnians could have choosen to become Christian Serbs and avoided the resulting blood bath. Homosexuals (who, despite ho mophobes’ insistence to the con trary, are bom homosexual,) can choose to be “normal” and end the gay bashing. I sometimes wonder how I can still claim to be a member of the Church of Christ in good con science, knowing how hypocritical we “Christians” are, Christ in good conscience, knowing how hypocrit ical we “Christians” are,because all of the above events (except Masada) were or are instances of Christians killing or abusing either non-Chris tians or “inadequate” Christians. Choose to conform to our way or suffer the consequences. By carrying out our own judge ment on those who don’t fit our def initions, we even deny God the right to his Day of Judgement. Eric W. Trekell Class of’91 Beutel focuses on blocking, not aiding I went to Beutel when my thumb was in excruciating pain. After a nurse took my vital signs and asked me about my thumb, everything began to fall apart. After sifting through my file, a nurse came back in and ask me about certain shots. I told her that I had received those shots in last two years. The nurse told me that I needed to get those records (copies of them) to them by the end of the semester. I told that it would be difficult because I am married with a family and that the records are in different locations, but she did not care at all. Before she left, she told me I could be blocked after she learned I was graduating in May. The only other time that I will go back now is to turn in those records. So that they will allow me to graduate. Anthony Semien Class of’95 The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words or fewer and include the author’s name, class, and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Let ters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-1111 Campus Mail: 1111 Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: Batt@tamvml.tamu.edu For more details on letter policy, please call 845-3313 and direct your question to the opinion editor.