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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 1997)
ober 8, Wednesday • October 8, 1997 O The Battalion 'PINION ^Members only Klbci/5 on belonging to organization categorizes some students as outsiders [he terms e said 4 s I look around cam- ^us, around /as madt jjg entire world for llxc hat matter, I see timas iow people all k' Rii Mii , 0 me together, or ttlemer :on a ea i ) i n t 0 groups tlu '' J ' Aith people similar u ould ' :o themselves. ' as „ ea d er 'm\ n d I can’t help .f f f t0 , e 'but wonder — who Hofwlia: J u ld the Skunk ldS . i ar: \p(' hang out with? suicide if" ' 1|( sin about the Skunk Ape. Mason |ackson columnist Let me begin by telling you a little bit to hopet|i|j t - s bjg anc j hairy, but it isn’t Miss A1 Sill) Will pit £ 11 „ i; i olence, 1 ociated abama. It smells like a mix of rotten eggs, moldy cheese and dung, but it isn’t an he has Fish Lot. I It avoids detection by living in muddy, a : abandoned alligator caves, but it isn’t -demon— Chert’s dignity, ving wel* j S j 0 t j ie shrink Ape is the Florida Ever- one 111 glades very own Bigfoot. At least that’s what some tourist-starved residents claim, panne™ g ut j et > s set all common sense '' at " and say that the Skunk Ape does exist. rom ‘furthermore, let’s say the Skunk Ape l0s ! tlll! made a few lucky guesses on the SAT and alienal: got into A&M. ■ Who would hang out with our Fight- —in’ Texas Aggie Bigfoot? Would Aggies • welcome him with open arms? What ICIMid of extracurricular activities would xOllldlfine him? |m|| | J Would he rush? No, he couldn’t afford I j the dues, Skunk Ape is on scholarship. mitselH j° in the Corps? No way. Lie’s seven feet tall, 300 pounds and covered j le . w with hair from head to toe. I’m six feet ountn •. ted refon> tandtoi of refom; ntasitlctc ; embittfit ppearstoi he chaosi tall, a buck sixty and couldn’t grow a beard if my life depended on it, but even I would have given a hell of a good fight before being scalped. Would he join the Catholic Students Association? No, I doubt that the miss ing link’s views on evolution would jive with creationism. So when somebody asks Skunk Ape what he is, who his crew is, what does he say? Who does he hang out with? Nobody! Then how does he know who he is? I mean, he walks the campus alone. Sure they accept him on Northgate, but that’s no accomplishment. He has no shirt telling what event he last took part in and who sponsored it. Skunk Ape is a loner. But what if Skunk Ape is happy and contented despite all of this? Perhaps even because of it. Maybe he grew to like solitude in all those years in the Everglades. Skunk Ape might be the naturally intro spective type — in touch with his inner monkey. But other people aren’t going to like such self-reliance. They may not want him in their group, but they want him in some group. Then they would know what they were dealing with. Because a freelance Bigfoot is a danger ous Bigfoot. At least that’s what we’ve been geneti cally conditioned to think. Herds are rarely seen as a threat, but predators usu ally travel alone. Yet I don’t think people have anything to fear from Skunk Ape, he just wants to get his degree (genetic engineering with a minor in animal psychology), make a few friends (but not so many as to force disin genuous behavior) and do whatever feels right in his gut. Sure it may be a little more difficult for him to get a job if most of his life experi ences didn’t come with a title or a mem bership card, but so be it. Life is a journey, and Skunk Ape is a traveling man. Mason Jackson is a senior marketing major. e years 1 >t import shunnedi arallffl romise Keepers’ overall [message mired by NOW P Donny Ferguson columnist m racticing moral puri ty, honoring and re specting women, combating racism and promoting love; to the Promise Keepers, it is a way of life. To the National Orga nization for Women, it is a deadly movement which must be stopped. The feminist fringe group, notorious for its divisive, ultra-radical agenda, vehemently protested the Christian organization’s Satur day prayer assembly in Washington, D.C. As the near-million participants formed a crowd four blocks wide and a mile and a half long to hear African-American, Native-Ameri- can, Asian and Hispanic ministers promote racial healing and family unity, they endured NOW’s mean-spirited assaults and a visit by the “Lesbian Avengers,” who pushed their way through the mass prayer telling Christians they, “are not welcome here.” Disgusted by a society in which men abuse their wives, abandon their children and de stroy their families, former Colorado Univer sity football coach Bill McCartney founded the organization in 1990 with just 72 mem bers, growing to 2.6 million in only seven years. Promise Keepers pledge to stay faithful to their wives, fight racism, build a stronger family and volunteer in their community, among other things. But if you believe NOW, Promise Keepers is actually a plot by the “religious right” to, as NOW president Patricia Ireland puts it, create an “authoritarian, religion-based government.” According to NOW, Promise Keepers is ac tually a racist, misogynist political movement ready to turn the United States into a patriar chal state. Congratulations NOW, you have surpassed the Republic of Texas as America’s most para noid, conspiratorial fringe group. Among NOW’s more dubious claims is the contention Promise Keepers secretly pro motes the subjugation of women (despite the fact Promise Keepers was founded to combat problems such as the improper treatment of women by men.) Relying on a twisted interpretation, NOW asserts when Promise Keepers urge their members to accept responsibility as head of the household, they are ordering men to take on a dictatorial role. In reality, Promise Keepers continually command men to treat their wives as equals and, as Promise Keeper speaker Tony Evans said, “treat the lady gently and lovingly.” They even go so far as to say that “men, not women are the problem,” a line which could have been taken straight from “Thelma and Louise.” Central to the Promise Keepers message is the equal and decent treatment of women, something deadly to a feminist organization which lives off sexual division and is proud to call a woman cheating on her husband with another woman their president. But NOW’s most crackpot theory is their belief Promise Keepers is actually a cleverly disguised political movement. Once again, they are about as accurate as the “Elvis is alive” crowd. The anti-Promise Keeper rabble claim the organization is a political movement because its founder has supported pro-family legisla tion in the past and the group has received some support from political activists. However, political activity has never been part of the organization’s activities. If Promise Keepers is a political movement, they should fire their director. Promise Keepers have never handed out voter guides, never passed out voter registra tion cards, never told members how to vote, never mentioned a candidate or piece of leg islation and refuses to let politicians speak at rallies. In fact, Saturday’s “sacred assembly” was originally scheduled for 1996, but was can celed after organizers agreed it would appear political. If NOW’s numbskulled logic were true, the North Zulch Quilting Club is really just a front for the conservative wing of the Republican Party because ol’ Bernice voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 (even though she only did it because LBJ dumped her in high school.) Obviously, Promise Keepers has nothing to do with politics and politics has never been a part of Promise Keepers. NOW fears the Promise Keepers because the organization represents America’s recommit ment to conservative family values. More concerned with preserving its ultra radical, pro-homosexual, pro-taxpayer funded abortion on demand agenda than it is about the equal treatment of women, NOW waged an anti-Christian hate campaign against the Promise Keepers in a pathetic effort to breath life into a dead feminist movement. Clinging to a handful of poorly grounded, intellectually transparent assumptions, NOW attempted to misrepresent the Promise Keep ers as a Nazi-like horde of racist, misogynist extremists, only to fail miserably. The near-million crowd of white, black, Latino, Asian and Native American men gath ered to peacefully pledge to renew their mar riages, honor their families, promote racial reconciliation and serve their communities. In effect, they exposed the National Orga nization for Women for what it really is, a crumbling fringe group more concerned about pushing a radical, divisive agenda down America’s throat than the rights and status of America’s women. After centuries of oppression, degradation and abuse, America’s women and families are finally being honored by a grassroots organi zation dedicated to promoting racial and gen der reconciliation. Too bad the National Organization for Women is too obsessed with political power and a fanatical agenda to stand up for Ameri ca’s families. Donny Ferguson is a junior political science major. Sexual myths miss focus of where beauty truly resides Joshua Hill columnist B igger is not bet ter in human sexu ality, and the cultural myth to the con trary pro duces a totally unnecessary, mass inferior ity complex. Since the subject of sex is hardly ever discussed out side the contexts of jokes and ads, the sexual ignorance of the public is staggering. Add to this ignorance many media sources that simultaneous ly elevate the importance of sex and emphasize the average per son’s sexual inadequacy, and the formula for inferiority is complete. The phrase “bigger is better” is now almost a requirement for ac tion films, and the number of ac tresses that look like the average woman can be counted on the fin gers of one hand. Let’s not forget the inventive ob scenity of the Big Johnson T-shirts. The big problem is that people are bombarded with these subtle (or not so subtle) messages all their lives with no one to tell them anything different. The result is that many people live their lives believing, con sciously or subconsciously, that they were born into this world so physically deficient that they can not perform human functions at the normal level. Therefore, many women ex haust themselves trying to stay 20 pounds underweight and are haunted by guilt when they can not meet their goals. The Wonderbra probably was not invented for comfort. As for men, many hide their “small” penises behind big egos and brash talk and worry about being able to satisfy their partners. The facts that dispel the myths are not difficult to find. According to a sex information site on the internet in connection with the Free Speech Online Blue Ribbon Campaign, the average pe nis length is about inches and the average girth about 4.8 inches. The overwhelming majority of men are between five and seven inches in length. Darlene Mininni, coordinator of the Sexual Health Education Pro gram of the UCLA Student Health Service, addressed the myth in a 1995 Daily Bruin SexTalk Column. “For men who have sex with women, it’s important to know that most of a woman’s sexual pleasure during sex comes from the clitoris (which is on the out side of her body) and the first two inches of the vagina. Therefore, unless a man’s erect penis is less than two inch es long, it should not cause a sexual problem.” There is no part of the female body that could hinder the sex function by its size or the lack thereof. The myth here is that a woman has to be buff, busty and leggy to stand a chance with any decent male. Buff, busty and leggy are re quirements for some males, but none of them decent. The tragic theme running through the myths of both sexes is that appearance is paramount. Many men are so hooked on appearances they will not use the public urinals for fear that their flaccid penises will not be up to size with the next man. “When penises are not erect they vary in size, but the erection is the great equalizer” Mininni said, “ ... most individuals, regard less of whether they had a penis size preference, were ultimately more concerned with the quality of the man attached to the penis than the penis itself.” The world of supermodels, not to mention the growing pornogra-! phy industry, inundate the women of America with an “ideal” they cannot reach. Both sexes are affected, regard less of their intellectual convic tions, because these sexual “ideals” bombard a fundamental physiological desire — to be at tractive to the opposite sex. These “ideals” are too wide spread to be destroyed on a world wide cultural basis, but people should not have to live in fear of not being sexually “normal.” If more people would develop their inside beauty and set their sights on the supermodel souls of the opposite sex, this culture of in feriority and fear would lose much of its power. Joshua Hill is a junior English major.