The Battalion )97 Inesday - June 11, 1997 Opinion low much is that doggy in the window? Hollywood film industry adds to animal shelter problems in United States lonly lam Itwo istwinter, Walt Disney Messed the nation with toother full-length fea- Im.This time it was a re- tofone of the company’s tlassics, 101 Dalmatians. s \ I Ms time the film had a Columnist [Ifect; hundreds of dalma- endedup in shelters lithe nation. The Disney ere H]anyshould have taken orts 3;social responsibility for |elfare of these dogs, itwinter, parents and lien alike delighted to see the on- uantics of the cute, little puppies, rnrse, McDonald’s also had to get leactand do the Happy Meal deal, pletewith tiny plastic puppies in £ (box. Not satisfied with any of the 1 Mandising knock-offs, kids hounded iparents for real dalmatians like win the film. Faced with the kind ientless whining only a motivated pear old can muster, thousands of mtsrelented and sought out the led puppies. Several weeks, or per- ,lmonths later when they finally real- ® n ltoat a nuisance an undisciplined ,i: nan can be, many of these puppies ct ’ Idthemselves on the streets or in an- shelters across the country. eDisney company is partially re- iiiible for the fate of these dogs. They ithat millions of kids would see the andwant a cute little puppy. They p ro 1 hew dalmatians are notoriously J istrangand difficult to train and con- rn Iberefore, Disney officials should [taken steps to prevent this tragedy. His situation is especially hard on Itowns. Many of these towns al- Ihave difficulty funding animal Iters, which unfortunately tend to be ugthe first things cut when the m « f i ~ i Robby Ray Senior speech communications major race, budget gets tight. These mi nuscule municipalities do not need the additional burden of abandoned puppies. The main problem is dalma tians do not make good pets, especially for families with small children. These families, however, comprise the heart of Disney’s target audience. The dogs are energetic and playful, requiring lots of attention and exercise. They also grow to be large animals, sometimes weighing more than 100 pounds, and they are physical and can play rough, enough to knock small children to the ground and hurt them. In addition, dalmatians are prone to health problems such as urinary tract infections and hearing difficulty - one in 12 are deaf. These problems are exacer bated by careless inbreeding by greedy breeders hoping to cash in on the suc cess of the film. Many reputable breed ers try to educate prospective buyers and discourage those who are unpre pared or might be unwilling to assume the huge responsibility of a dalmatian puppy. Others are more interested in money than the welfare of the dogs or the happiness of the owners. Disney cannot claim ignorance of this phenomenon because after the first re lease of the animated version of 101 Dal matians in 1969, the number of regis tered dalmatians in the country jumped from 1,785 to 2,291. After its re-release in 1991, the number jumped from 21,603 to 30,225. One could only assume that the trend would occur again. The Disney company should have changed the movie so that people would not have been so inclined to go get a cute little puppy which would grow into such a huge dog. Granted, 101 Labrador Retrievers ]ust doesn’t flow as well as a title, but this kind of editing change has been done before. If that wasn’t acceptable, a disclaimer could have been added or lines could have been written into the script to let people know about these difficulties. Since officials didn’t take this responsi bility seriously, they should help sup port the many animal shelters across the nation which have been inconve nienced by the film. This proposal is not as absurd as it may seem at first. There are currently several lawsuits working their way through our legal system in which peo ple claim that the tobacco companies are responsible for the consequences arising from the irresponsible use of their product. Just as RJR Nabisco never wanted people to get lung cancer, Disney never wanted to condemn hundreds or thou sands of dalmatians to an early death on the streets or abandon them in some under-budgeted animal shelter. Both companies and people need to assume responsibility for their actions and start placing blame where faults belong. Graphic: BradGidt: ot call ericans suffer property ownership woes e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that km endowed by their Creator icertain unalienable Rights, rs e| ®among these are Life, Liberty, 132 "iProperty. j.pn.j Is is what the Declaration of the*dependence nearly said. The orfijiittobe secure in one’s property call Appear in the Fourth and Fifth Jendments to the Constitution, iicethen, however, people’s rights con- lurse mingproperty have slowly diminished. 1132 stime for this travesty to stop. }.m. Once upon a time, a man’s home was the ,castle. Now the various levels of gov- |hort-iment can, and will, tell a property call met what he can build on his property, lathe can do on his property and enhehas to sell it. Imminent domain mold tradition. But today, things have He too far. Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times 7 ported that Herbert Tollefson’s pasture ’.■] tame a bog when road construct ion di- | ain ' Red rain water onto his land. When he attempted to dump wood ... «ps to get his tractor to the fields, the fstit Jnt y 01 'dered him to stop — his bog had JtjyLoniea wetland. With one-third of his Itted Columnist ■■Li f- : : Chris Brooks Senior physics major land protected, Tollefson had to stop farming. “Basically, we’ve been losing the use of our land, inch by inch,†he said, standing ankle-deep in his “wetland.†The Houston Chronicle re ported that St. Peter the Apos tle Catholic Church in Boerne, Texas, realized it needed more than 220 seats, so the church filed for a permit to construct a new building on its land. Church officials were told, however, that part of the property fell in the city’s historic preservation zone; they would not be allowed to replace their building with one that could hold their 2,000 member congregation. According to the Associated Press, Bernadine Suitum owns a piece of land near Lake Tahoe. She wanted to build a house on her property, but the Tahoe Re gional Planning Agency told her the land was a “stream environment zone†and all private building was banned. But Suitum has land development credit which could be used to enhance development rights to other property — how useful. A short trip through a newspaper or a news magazine is all that is required to find an example of the Environmental Protection Agency, declaring someone’s land sacred or, some level of government passing yet another regulation on the use of land. But there is light at the end of this tun nel. St. Peter’s has sued under the Religion Freedom Restoration Act, claiming the re striction on its building has affected free dom of worship. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. The Supreme Court also has ruled that Suitum has the right to sue for compensa tion for her unusable land. Eighteen states, including Texas, have adopted statutes requiring compensation to be paid when laws regulate private property to the extent that it is effectively “taken.†No one wants dirty water, extinction of animals or loss of our historical buildings. There would be no complaints about the government preventing a person from collecting barrels of toxic waste on his property. But when building a house be comes a crime, there is a problem. It is past time for the government to re alize that a person’s property should be his to do with as he or she sees fit. Government control should go no far ther than the White House lawn. Technology enforces language laziness John Lemons -* -«* <*■, Columnist, Electrical engineering graduate student NSteliidt^ I uonym, E-U-O-N-Y-M, Euonym.†With this word, (Rebecca Selfon, a 13-year- old girl from Brooklyn, N.Y., won the National Spelling Bee two weeks ago. Most students at Texas A&M University cannot spell “euonym†and do not know its definition. Fur thermore, it is unlikely that students will find “euonym†in their word processor’s spell checker. Today’s Aggies are part of the first generation of students to be raised on calculators and spell checkers. While these technologies can make learning easier for students, they’ve created some undesirable conse quences. The quick and poorly con sidered application of new innova tions within education has left many students inept of basic skills like spelling and arithmetic. But A&M’s students shouldn’t feel so bad about their lack of spelling skills. They are light years ahead of those in California public schools. The California educational system is in an uproar over the “whole language†system of learn ing reading and writing which is be ing taught to elementary students throughout the state. Opponents of the system claim it has left students unable to spell. The system has students leam to read and write by reading textbooks of children’s literature. The idea hopes students will expand their creativity and absorb the ability to read and write through reading sto ries. The written memorization of lists of words and Dick and Jane primers on which A&M students were raised are not part of the sys tem. In fact, when students misspell words, they aren’t necessarily dis couraged by their teacher because the emphasis is placed on develop ing their writing and creativity. After all, memorizing lists of spelling words is uninteresting to students; it stifles their creativity. Kenneth Goodman is a lead ing theorist in the “whole lan guage†movement. In his 1993 book, What’s Whole in Whole Language, Good man said, “Young writers simply can’t learn to write freely and productively if they’re always confined to words they know they can spell conventionally.†Unfortunately, no one will read a writer’s work if they are unable to spell correctly. The “whole language†system’s problem is that it doesn’t work. California has discovered many of its students are poor spellers. This became apparent when a group of 25 eighth graders from Middletown, CA. wrote letters to their local newspaper in response to van dalism occmring at their school. The letters were filled with misspellings, including mistakes like spelling “van dals†as “vanduls†and “vandales.†Aggies can attribute their problems with the written word to a dependency on the spell checkers included in their word processing programs. Brian Bleifeld, class of ’96, said spell checkers cause students to be sloppy in their writing. “If I didn’t know the spell checker was going to catch the errors, I would have gone back to change them,†Bleifeld said. But this snake oil for the infor mation age is not the catch-all many students assume it to be. For example, homonyms, words which sound alike but are spelled differ ently, slip past the careful eye of the spell checker, which could result in a sentence like —Those rotten Bat talion columnists right there columns so poorly, it makes me want to pull out my hare. Likewise, students are slaves to their calculators. This convenience, which allows students to avoid the drudgery of arithmetic, encourages students to merely plug numbers into their machines misunderstand ing needed mathematical concepts. “When you have a calculator, you’re just trying to chug out your answer,†Bleifeld said. “But when you have pencil and paper you can check your work.†Calculators and spell checkers can be a valuable asset, provided students do not become too depen dent on them. It is as if students are trying to escape the horror of then- elementary school years, when spelling and arithmetic meant long hours of boring work. While the prospect of returning to writing out lists of spelling words is scary, a world full individuals who are inca pable of spelling or doing arith metic is even more frightening. Students, throw off the chains of your oppressors. Don’t automati cally use a calculator or a spell checker. Hone those basic skills which every citizen needs. And remember, new innovations do not always mean instant im provement. As educators are dis covering, when the classroom is used as an experimental laboratory, it’s the students who get burned.