y • October 29,
>E
I from Page 1
s the most consisid
•actice," Cass said,H
mature player mi
nk he's playedai
*1 this season!
,vas capable of."
legan this seas
a the ITA NationalQi
pionship in
ivas ousted in the
qualifying by the
>ma State Univei
acek,3-6,6-3, W.
said the tournam
nging experience.
ry hard," Krauseij patiently, I stalked the hall^j
lyoutsideThe Battalion of-
i good playerandii; eThursday afternoon.
For fear
of messing
np my uni
form, I re
fused to
step out
into tire
rain. 1
needed to
pick up
laundry,
leather
Resents
11
toblems
lolumnist
here were nots
Ihink that shows
t’s college tennis.’
also played in
Fall Classic 1 :
g Arkansas
-5, 7-5, and Char!
fOU 6-4,6-1, befa
i match to Efell
ice University, 6-1,1
; final day.
es play, thedinu
sophomore BrentS ian Goodwin
get mea
sured for
boots and
do sundry
matches, outlat arEnglish major
nd losing to MaiK:|
ire of 8-5.
college eligibilitia |things, but still I did not
-said he would Ik foot outside,
onal tennis. pdering my helplessness, it
100 percent stirtlred to me that, despite all our
'For the next five\s«ssive technological accom-
t to stay in theliilnents, we are still very much
i play alter my caJ mercy of nature,
if I don’t end uppia |d we just sit idly by when we
return to Southil |be doing more,
ars of work." L-many floods have kept
Krause hasalejis feoff the roads and ruined
turning profession L s 0 f chose foolish enough
icult life becauseju Lp t f a f e ?
aii awfully goodta scan f]y to the moon, make
, u ' in f’’ hat run on natural gas or
a ot °f ,a ^ en, ^“fr sunlight, play competitive
isoriandlllirtt iagainst t . ac 4, olhe ,. in the
\l erorno e, ^playgioLind of the [ncernet,
„ etwe can’t seem to design a
id he does not wi , . b
nis career beyond(d r iai , n ' ,
liis motivation topis et0 those P eo P le see on
lis love of the spoil ' T eVery C ° Upl f °/ years ,
ve to play tennis,' ;e house got flooded, especial-
“1 love to fiit thebi ones w f 10 f' ve i n middle
ain reason 1 carats oodplain and passed on get-
vas going to con® ^ proper insurance,
education, Iwi dthen, for the most part, .
it at the unimsil srain. Sure, it’s wet and can
nutes of my horn! four day for a while, but it
order to expose®' he ground and then, in-
i)Jy, drains away,
the other hand, take light-
fin a way, it’s the opposite of
|t's over very quickly, but its re-
are potentially longer-lasting,
(her than setting up big
hi rods as diversions, we’re
doing too terribly much to
lit in check.
id contrary to popular be-
ightning can strike the
iplace twice,
len there are the terms
iche,” “snowstorm” and
tenn/s.
rselves during
)ur style of playf*
he guys to r ,
with their style®'
dictate the
heir opponent
:m
es then finish^
up in Fort Word)®;
ruthwest
tips, Nov. 8-11.®
nd runners-up
eight regions coffl'
ie single match®
:e to nationalsi f :
n the year.
s
j from Page 1
ekend the Aggi
to Corpus Chri
; in the Pre-Big
rnament.
i he is
use the
ped this fall.
been workingoi
s in practice," Cas tard.” How many tragic acci-
hope they startt® fshave we heard about caused
hose a little hi® Ithingmore than snow?
ed on ways to pit h a fighter note, how many
itches, the wayj s h ave people been
ed-in somewhere and un
to leave?
it this is Texas, and many
lehere haven’t ever seen
'■But cold-weather blues
ceover the roads here (es-
lly bridges), freeze and
our water pipes, and,
t of all, force us to wear big,
uncomfortable clothing,
ican heat our homes, our
nd even our hands (with
neat little chemical doo-
, but our vehicles still go
ting out of control during the
r. Great priorities,
aybe someone should
up with a tire-sized ver-
n , of those aforementioned
rom Page 7 warmers ,
on the teampjj ®dng near the Gulf Coast, I
1 almost be expected to
some T-shirts or even tat-
^ roudly proclaiming‘T sur-
is certainly (kid hurricane ‘Place-a-name-
- - f
>s said. “
or in the classro®'-
he reacts to
ure exists
oas handled it"® :
lost significantasj
s his positive
md practice,
s one of the most
” Tori said. “
you’re going to IT
to the court
mythingtobeatr
to focus on
aid. “We don't?
)ther.”
ng full effort in pj
-hes —andavoii
’’Tropical storms sent my
lyhome early from summer
to Galveston so many times
count.
anted, the havoc wreaked by
icane Alicia made my back-
a much more interesting
to play. It also sent a tree
an the other guff lln g int0 m Y neighbor’s roof.
• 1 • . 1 lUlfll (P CQl i t i »-/-vr-v 1
Isewhere in the world, tropi-
’’ori’s positive J 1 ' orms destroy entire towns,
irry them thro®? till hundreds. Our best re-
es matches, se thus far is to batten the
make mistakes/; tes and pray to God.
ankly, even wild animals can
into their holes and cower,
eed to be a little more proac-
ere.And anyone who was
e game on Saturday knows
sucSS crap from the
her. First it’s overcast, then
badlucr 11 "^ L U , nny ; then it,s mining-
back to sunny.
Imittedly, the solution to this
already-existent domed sta
id does not let
way.
gressive, compel®
aid. "He has his oil® h. We just don’t have one here.
goes out and getsi®
fiat’s the problem: We could
ore to fight the negative ef-
of weather. We just don’t.
The Battalion
Page 9
Tuesday • October 29, 1996
Voters should say ‘yes’ to banning elections
T his election year, we should try something new — not
voting. Some Americans have been doing it for years,
and good for them. They know how the system works.
This isn’t just some crackpot protest idea. No, let the
protest voters vote for Ross Perot.
The people who don’t vote actually
are endorsing the system. It’s a mes
sage to those in power: We know we
can’t effect change, so you decide
who will rule.
Actually, it isn’t quite that grim. We
have polls that decide who will win
the elections well before the first TYies-
day in November. Just as we trust polls
to decide the best team in Division 1A
college football, we should trust polls
with who will be leader of the free
world. The two-party system already
provides a sort of playoff, so that issue is moot.
Allowing polls to decide is also another way we can priva
tize a governmental function, which should endear it to Re
publicans. And the vast numbers of people who are polled
makes it highly representative of the general population,
which will win Democratic support. It’s hard to imagine that
in a group of 1,000 or so voters, not even one will represent
each individual’s views.
As time goes by, we could even streamline the process.
Figure in the several types of voters — conservative, liberal,
Republican, Democrat — make sure to have one person
from each category and level of extreme, and we could get
the sample size down to 20 people — tops. That would save
hundreds of dollars and probably be just as accurate as let
ting millions and millions of American vote.
By eliminating the voting process, we would save time,
energy and, considering how thick ballots have become, lots
and lots of paper. Probably enough to spare a few trees that
could be used for toilet paper.
This proposed system does sound a little like communist
Russia, but, to be fair, the Politburo really did a hell of a good
job. We boast about a peaceful exchange of power, but it
could never compare to the communist system. All the polit
ical posturing was kept behind closed doors, sparing the
public from the negative campaigning that we endure in
America. When a leader was no longer considered fit to
serve, his name slowly disappeared from the newspapers,
replaced by the
new leader’s
name. The
people
never
even
had to
worry
about
voting, giving
them more time
to focus on their
families and possi
ble escape to the West
ern world.
It would
be nice to
avoid the
division and
bitterness
that comes
with election
years. As long
as people keep
voting, we’re
doomed. But if
we stop voting,
maybe we’ll stop
holding elections
and just base de
cisions on the
handy polls that
tell us how to
vote anyway.
One thing
will have to
change, though.
Most media don’t cover
enough polls, giving more attention to “informative” pieces
about “issues.” Don’t the media know that we don’t want to
bother with making up our minds objectively? We really just
want to see how everyone else is planning to vote. So more
poll coverage is necessary.
Historically, some may argue that a few elections have
been too close to trust to the polls. In 1960, John F. Kennedy
defeated Richard Nixon by less than one vote per precinct.
But the president doesn’t affect our daily life, so we’re safe
even when the margin is a small one. After all, things
wouldn’t have been that different if Nixon had won.
So this year, remember — by not voting, we can cast the
most important vote of all: The vote against the silly little
thing we call democracy.
Editor in Chief
Michael Landauer
Senior journalism major
Hollywood glamorizes heroin use
I t is produced through
the exploitation of
cheap labor and the
corruption of foreign
governments. In the
United States, it is
pumped a milliliter at a
time into blood that too
often spills onto our in
ner-city streets. But for
some reason, the enter
tainment industry is de
termined to romanticize
the poison called heroin.
The latest delivery of death-
in-pretty-packaging is the re
cently imported film Trainspot
ting, which has enjoyed
commercial and critical success
on both sides of the Atlantic.
Trainspotting chronicles the
misadventures of a group of young
Scottish addicts who dance, drink
and quote James Bond movies.
They roll along from fix to fix, hav
ing witty, intelligent conversations
about Scottish politics and the
meaning of life.
Their addictions are little more
than nuisances. When one of the
characters loses a dose of heroin
in the filthiest toilet in Scotland,
the audience is expected to laugh
as we see him literally dive into
the sludge to retrieve his fix.
The film contrasts the slight sting
of addiction with the orgasmic rush
the drug provides.
Heroin causes few problems
for the characters, and whatever
hardships do arise are washed
away in the euphoria that one
more syringe delivers.
In what is perhaps the most dis
turbing scene of the movie, one of
the female members of the group
discovers her baby dead in its crib,
a victim of criminal neglect. The
friends sit in horror for only a
moment, then shoot
up to quell their con
sciences.
The film has only
one truly honest de
piction of the pain
heroin can cause. One
of the characters who
began the movie clean
and sober is intro
duced to heroin by his
friends. He becomes
infected with HIV and
dies of AIDS alone in
an empty flat. However, he is a
peripheral character and his
death is barely a ripple in the flow
of the movie’s plot.
The ending has the friends be
coming heroin dealers. In the final
scene, the smiling narrator walks
into the camera, still healthy, still
addicted and a good deal richer as
the Iggy Pop song “Lust for Life”
plays in the background. He’s
moving on to bigger and better
scores, and his final monologue is
reminiscent of last year’s Pepsi ad
campaign; at any moment you ex
pect to hear him say, “Be young,
have fun, shoot heroin.”
Trainspotting furthers a trend in
moviemaking that
shaped Quentin
Tarantino’s Pulp
Fiction. John Tra
volta cruised the
streets of Los An
geles in a glorious
heroin-induced
haze, and we
laughed as Uma
Thurman’s cadav
erous form was
resurrected by
frantic junkies
wielding an adrenaline syringe.
Travolta’s Vincent Vega visited
the home of the neighborhood
pusher, who reminded him (and
us) that “... heroin is back in a big
f—king way.” And that is so scary
because the truth about heroin
hangs over this country like a dark
cloud, as the drug maims and kills
addicts and young dealers alike.
The faces of the addicts seen
during a visit to a Houston metho-
done program hold more truth
than the entire Miramax film li
brary. Young pregnant women,
prostitutes, and emaciated home
less people suffer while Hollywood
personalities are paid millions to
fake addiction and mold stories of
characters whose lives are full of
the adventure and glamour that
real heroin bleeds from its victims.
While so many misguided
Americans — including our former
surgeon general — argue for drug
legalization, we ridicule those who
cry out against the popularization
that drugs like heroin are enjoying.
Bob Dole was right to attack an
entertainment industry that exer
cises so litde self-control and al
most no fidelity to the truth about
this country’s drug problem.
I have sat in a theaters watch
ing movies like Trainspotting and
Pulp Fiction in
the presence of
other people’s
children. The
kids sit with
blank faces as
they watch
movies that
make drug use
seem cool.
And I hope
they grow to rec
ognize the films
for what they are: a
skewed glorification of a false kind
of cool — a terminal cool — that
for so many ends in death.
Columnist
Jeremy Valdez
Senior chemical
engineering major
The truth about
heroin hangs over
this country like a
dark cloud, as the
drug maims and kills
addicts and young
dealers alike.
Cadets continue to
spur hazing debate
Regarding Jason Husselman’s Oct.
28 Mail Call, “Double standard ap
plied to Corps’’:
I would like to know how Hussel-
man defines hazing. I fail to see how
he can proclaim that wearing fish
spurs causes either mental or physi
cal anguish.
Maybe he should ask my father
(Class of ’66 who wore his spin s in in
’62) about the damage it did to him.
I’m sorry to tell you that he all but
helped me make mine. Not to men
tion all the good bull stories and
memories he told me about wearing
his spurs. I apologize for the fact that
it angers you the way the fish in the
Corps are treated, but I promise you
could not find one fish on campus
that will ever throw the spurs away
because of the pain and suffering
they caused.
Oh, and by the way, not to rub it
in, but they will wear them again
this week since we lost. Take that up
with the football team — I’m sure
they’d like to hear from you.
Jeremy Bartlett
Class of’98
Personalizing story
can change views
Regarding Heather Pace’s Oct. 24
column, “Decision’s ramifications go
beyond right & wrong”:
Pace states that because the
baby was not bom yet, then Cuellar
could not have killed it. However, af
ter an emergency Caesarean sec
tion, Zuniga lived for 43 hours. Even
if the baby wasn’t legally alive at the
time of the accident, it had been
bom by the time of death.
Regardless of the “legal” defini
tion of life, I would like to ask Pace
to put herself in Coronado’s shoes
for a minute. Coronado carried a
baby inside her womb for seven
and a half months. She planned
and cried and felt nervous because
this child’s life was her responsibili
ty. Her friends gave baby showers.
Coronado decided on a name ...
everything was going great.
Then some thug decided he
could drive after he had gotten
drunk. Coronado’s child will never
have the chance to experience
everything in life that we all take for
granted. This case should have
nothing to do with the abortion is
sue. This court decision differs from
the abortion dilemma because
Coronado did not make that deci
sion — Cuellar made it for her.
This baby was robbed of life by
Cuellar and he should have to pay
the penalty for his actions. Drunken
driving — yes. Manslaughter (or
childslaughter) — yes. Our legal sys
tem seems to have forgotten the
victims in too many situations. This
is a prime example. I sincerely hope
that this court decision does not get
overturned, since there is nothing
wrong with it.
Becky Morgan
Class of’98
Broad assumptions
judge incorrectly
Regarding Charlie Johanson’s
Oct. 24 Mail Call, “Homosexuality
has no place in world”:
Does Johanson know the mean
ing of the word “secular”? He has
presented his opinions as fact. If
homosexuality is the result of inse
curity or a broken home, Johanson
must know. He must have done
years of field work. Although Johan
son is a person, I think we shouldn’t
grant equal rights to anyone who
has the capacity to make such
broad assumptions.
Johanson’s solution of not granti
ng universal civil rights does not go
far enough. In Johanson’s world,
people who are sterile are equally
useless to man’s “secular” purpose.
People who choose a career over
family are also guilty of perverting
man’s “secular” mission. Maybe all
these people should just move to
France. No, France is not far
enough. Perhaps Johanson would
like to consider a “final solution”? I
hear these can be very effective.
Anne-Elizabeth Thorne
Class of’97
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