The Battalion
Monday • August 4, 1997
She wore an itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny...
Wss America Pageant promotes growing fascination with bellybuttons
D erhaps one of the most perplexing
theological questions ever pon-
Iwn i . dered is whether or not Adam and
pistalve had bellybuttons. After all, the orig-
al sinners were created, not born.
[heli hus, they would not need an umbili
ci oi js, the piece of flesh leftover from the
me all people spend attached to their
[others by an umbilical chord.
But, questioning the imponderable
Juestion of whether Eve had an innie or
| ar( ii : noutie is a fruitless exercise. A more
l 4ertinent fact is that all Americans have
ellybuttons. This year, the Miss Ameri-
aPageant has taken upon itself the job of prov-
31 igthis fact. The pageant recently announced it
et)l11 ill allow its contestants to bear their navels in all
h(a j ftheir glory by wearing bikinis in the event’s
’ tol ‘ vimsuit competition. The move, however, is a
leap attempt to boost ratings by appealing to
mericans fascination with navels.
Throughout its 77-year history, the pageant
rovided identical one-piece swimsuits to all
fits contestants for the swimsuit competi-
on. This year’s pageant is allowing its contes-
mts to emphasize their individuality in the
the dmsuit competition.
to Leonard Horn, the Miss America Organiza-
|19!U on’s CEO, said this year’s telecast will focus on
pg intestant’s individual traits and talents,
tyio “The swimsuit competition was the only ele-
lent in which we retained control over what
n ould and could not be worn,” Horn said, “but
ot anymore.” “If a contestant would wear a one-
ve iece swimsuit at home, then, by all means, she
tiould wear one here. The pageant isn’t about re-
•> frictions — it’s about choice, individuality and
J llowing 17 to 24-year-old women to be who they
' n eally are, stage or no stage.”
While promoting individuality is admirable,
® he Miss America pageants of the past seemed
lore about allowing 17 to 24-year-old women to
ieliving Barbie dolls than allowing them to be
fho they really are. The swimsuit competition
u ! laslong been accused of exploiting women by
Columnist
John Lemons
Electrical engineering
graduate student
treating them as sex objects. This move
certainly promotes the idea of Miss
America contestants being slabs of
meat, waiting to ogled by everyone who
watches the pageant.
The real motive behind this change in
philosophy is that Americans want to see
skin. This is the reason bikinis, once
scandalous bathing attire, are main
stream. It is also the reason the swimsuit
issue sells umpteen million subscriptions
of Sports Illustrated magazine a year.
Showing more skin on the Miss America
Pageant makes it more marketable.
Plus, Americans have a healthy fascination
with bellybuttons. As proof, just consider the
growing popularity of bellybutton piercing. Here
on campus, it is easy to spot young ladies at the
Student Recreational Center with a shiny piece of
jewelry protruding from their navels.
If Americans can find a good way to expose
themselves, they will. Fortunately, the United
States is on the cutting edge of piercing technolo
gy. It is possible to have every nook and cranny of
one’s body pierced for all to see if one is willing to
live with the pain. As of late, the most popular
nook to pierce is the navel.
Van Brauer works at Tattoo Consortium, which
offers tattooing and body piercing among its ser
vices. Brauer said Tattoo Consortium does 25 to
30 bellybutton piercings a week.
“The bellybutton has always been just kind of
there; it’s never been a pretty part of the body, it’s
always just been there,” Brauer said. “You put a
piece of shiny jewelry there, [and] it accents the
bellybutton; it makes it pretty.”
Indeed, bellybutton piercing is unorthodox,
rebellious and even a little tacky. The same was
once true about bikinis. Tastes, however, change.
Bikinis are now mainstream enough to make
their mark in that stronghold of Americana, the
Miss America Pageant.
Crowning Miss America is no small task. After
all, Miss America represents the ideal of Ameri
can womanhood. If Americans, however, are vain
[lit
tea
Hate-speech Internet sites
deserve their place on Web
B ooker T. Wash
ington once
said, “I shall nev-
erpermit myself to
stoop so low as to hate
any man.” This is a
wonderful sentiment,
and the world would
be a much better place
if everyone possessed
this attitude. Sadly, the
world is full of people
who hate other hu
man beings for some reason or
another— man can always find a
reason to hate. These hateful peo
ple have always tried to spread
their messages.
In the information age, it has
become easier than ever for bigots
to poison others — especially
young minds — with their hateful
speech. Many civic-minded
Americans want to stop this; they
want to outlaw hate sites on the
World Wide Web. As nice as the
idea sounds, it simply cannot be
allowed. If freedom of speech is to
mean anything in this country, the
bigots among us must be allowed
to preach their filth.
The Web is touted as the com
mon person’s printing press. Any
one can get a page on the Web, and
anyone can put whatever he or she
wants on that page. This has been
used to publish fictional works, sci
entific papers, meeting agendas
and paintings. It was only a matter
Columnist
Chris Brooks
Senior physics major
of time before people de
cided to put their propa
ganda out where anyone
with a Web browser and
too much time on his or
her hands could see it.
This allows children, and
other people with im
pressionable minds, to
be introduced to world
views that they easily
could have done without.
In 1969, the Supreme
Court of the United States ruled in
Brandenburg v. Ohio that advocat
ing violence against a group of peo
ple cannot be prohibited by law.
But Supreme Court decisions can
be overturned — and many would
like to see just that happen to this
one. However, the same idea that
was used in the Brandenburg deci
sion holds tme here: Freedom of
speech means freedom for every
one, and no matter how repulsive
or ignorant these Web sites are,
they must be allowed.
Saying that the government
should not outlaw hate sites on
the Web is not the end of the dis
cussion. The government has
never been good at stepping into
the private sector — Prohibition
and the price controls of the ’70s
are excellent examples — so
keeping government out of this
situation is only natural, even
without the Constitution. There
are things that people can do,
however, to combat this menace.
Floyd Cochran, a former mem
ber of the Aryan Nation, says
that Internet service providers
should voluntarily ban hate
speech sites from their servers.
This is a wonderful, private-sec
tor answer to a difficult situation.
If these providers do not seem
inclined to take this action, their
customers can “encourage” them
by using the power of the
almighty dollar and take their
business elsewhere.
The best answer might be to
simply let the hate sites stay
where they are. If a person who
is inclined to surf the Web runs
a search on some of the more
popular racial epithets, he or
she will find a few sites devot
ed to disparaging human be
ings based solely on their
physical characteristics.
This surfer will also find that
anti-racism Web pages outnum
ber the racist sites on those
same keywords. Because of this,
any young “skull full of mush”
who is inclined to read a hate
group’s collection of fictitious
reasons why some race is inferi
or will also find a barrage of rea
sons why the hate group in
question is wrong and populat
ed by the truly inferior.
The best way to deal with hate
sites on the Internet is not to si
lence them but to outshout them.
enough to believe beauty pageants expose the
best women have to offer, then navels may as
well be a criteria for true beauty.
The real dilemma now, is whether or not
Miss America should wear a bellybutton ring
with her bikini.
MS- ^C£>i\D
0* O
Graphic: Brad Graeber
Mail Call
Students should
respect PITS rules
In response to Christopher Fi-
gat’s July 30 Mail Call:
My fellow Aggies, once again
I see that some of us have a little
too much time on our hands.
In Figat states that PTTS
should “just try to give people a
bit of a break.” I for one am tired
of people crying to The Battal
ion about parking, how they
were wrongly ticketed and how
PTTS officers are mean people.
Well, boo hoo hoo. Figat
states that he once was ticket
ed, and that he “probably de
served it.” Well Chris, you either
did or didn’t deserve that ticket,
so don’t go off whining about
the competence level of PTTS.
Figat also wants PTTS officers
to “smile once in a while.” If I
worked for PTTS (which I don’t),
and people referred to me as a
parking Nazi, I would probably
walk around with a less than
pleased look on my face too.
Figat also said that the offi
cers should look the other way
when students park their cars
in front of a building for a cou
ple of minutes.
What do you think would
happen if you did that in down
town Houston? I don’t think that
the Houston Police Department
would just look the other way.
As far as PTTS not knowing
the whereabouts of Figat’s
girlfriend’s car, I also have
known someone that had his
vehicle towed; he was com
pletely in the wrong.
Somehow PTTS was able to
tell him where his truck was lo
cated. I would think that being
a product of Texas A&M Univer
sity* Figat would be a little more
mature about rules and regula
tions of a major university.
But I see that with a diploma,
common sense does not come
as a package deal.
William Morgan
Class of ’98
Kyle Field expansion
should be questioned
I never would have expected
money to be more important than
tradition at Texas A&M University,
but apparently it is.
Our mascot, Reveille, is more
than just a dog. She is the highest-
ranking member of the Corps of
Cadets, and upon her passing, re
ceives a full military burial in a lo
cation specially selected so that she
always can see the field, the Fight-
in’ Texas Aggie Football Team and
most importantly, the scoreboard.
I would expect this at a money
grubbing school such as the Uni
versity of Texas, where they have
turned their football games into
gigantic commercials, with the
feel of a rookie league baseball
game, all for the sake of the
almighty dollar.
Even at Notre Dame, its stadi
um expansion was designed to
preserve the view of one of its sa
cred football traditions, Touch
down Jesus.
If Notre Dame can do it, why
can’t A&M, with our top-notch en
gineering school? We can build a
“first class” facility and still pre
serve our traditions, but it is sim
ply a matter of where our heart is
.... money or A&M?
Randall Walton
Class of’96
Jennifer Hollingsworth
Class of'97
Aggies must show
i, not criticism
pride,
In response to Amy Turner and
Tonya Lee’s July 30 Mail Call:
If you were half as smart as
you think you are (therefore be
ing smarter than the two “half
brains” on this end), then you,
in your adept intelligence
would realize that our letter was
purely satirical.
To begin with, it was a re
sponse to an absurd Mail Call
letter written by two t-sips.
However, since you have com
pletely overlooked this fact, we
must point it out to you.
Do you honestly believe that
we are so near-sighted and
naive to believe that these two
t-sips represented the student
body of the University of Texas?
Give us a break.
Furthermore, do you really be
lieve that we think that no one
who has gone to UT has ever
served our country in the military?
Your logic just keeps getting
better and better. You must admit
the cheap shots at the football
team were pretty funny, especial
ly the one about the “clown suits.”
Seriously, we really do under
stand that “war extends outside
the bounds of school rivalry.”
If you would have examined
our letter a little bit closer, then
you would have seen that my un
cle died during the Pearl Harbor
sneak attack by the Japanese.
My uncle never went to
Texas A&M, UT or any other
university. He learned every
thing he knew from experience
and from his elders.
We were just making an al
lusion to the fact that A&M
honors its deceased mascots
with the same dignity shown to
dead soldiers.
You should be proud of this.
What other university can you
think of that has Silver Taps or
Muster to honor fallen students
and alumni?
We sure as hell can’t think of
any. We were attempting to belit
tle these two t-sips, not start a
major debate about school spirit.
Don’t you guys have anything
better to do than attack fellow Ag
gies? One would think that you
have studies to attend to, albeit we
appreciate your inept response.
Todd C. Dixon
Class of ’95
Ross M. Hinman
Class of’96
Crack, cocaine law
not just for minorities
In response to Mandy Cater’s July
31 column:
The notion that the enforce
ment of the current laws are
racially biased is incorrect. The
truth is that the enforcement of
crack cocaine possession laws *
(or any other, for that matter) are
economically biased.
If race were the only basis, then
laws directed at junk-bond trading
would also be invalid, solely be
cause a disproportionate number
of those convicted are (rich) white
males. The laws apply uniformly to
all citizens (in theory). I am in fa
vor of legalizing drug usage.
The elements of society who
need to indulge in drugs have al
ready imprisoned themselves
mentally, so why should we foot
the bill for their accommodations
in a physical prison?
Of course, I am in favor of
prosecuting them for any ancil
lary crimes committed related to
their usage (as we currently do for
alcohol). Legalization, I hope,
would reduce those ancillary
crimes associated with drug use
by driving the price down.
The current harsh laws have
had no significant effect on the
number of users. Those who want
to use (and abuse) drugs will con
tinue to do so regardless of legality.
Our jails are filled with people
whose only crime is the use of a
controlled substance. We need to
worry about incarcerating people
who are a danger to society, and
not just to themselves.
Bradley Peikert
Graduate Student