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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1998)
The Battalion Jfonday • March 9, 1998 r toe; ERSPECTIVES Social death idvances in technology diminishes thinkers, creates hermits a to.: Fridi ioma Quid’ a c 0 .: my computer jos-vHe to implode ies omorrow after- as -m, I do believe, af- ose:sobbing for a total tiec three minutes, I te'ht feel a strange ^' eto do a little jig of p!a ' in my underpants, n fact, I might a tranquil breeze serenity fanning iubl Voss columnist soul. 1 A/hj^? Because |)j[iinlne lurks a person who wants all com- ersko die a shameful and lurid death, ffesj America we are at a crossroads in existence as a culture, and we can ose between two directions. Jntlre left, rapidly developing technology. F 3n the right, books. - A/itliout hesitation, books would be my lice. Why? Because technology is satu- 5 ngiour lives to the point that have be- „Tie slothful, even a tad bit dimwitted. ^ lather than read the book ourselves, 90- lute rehashings of classics like Moby . A; and Great Expectations keep bursting ) pop-culture. Cndwledge is no longer sacred, ndped, anything we do know is only a tiled 30-second sound bite of the actu- vent, literary work or cultural myth, he problem lies within our increasing enBence on technology. Sure, the word :hnology” is ambiguous, even overly in- dve. 50, first off, let it be known that “tech- ogy ain't so bad. foul got your microwaves, your ATMs, l those little tags you put on your car so you don’t have to pay at the toll booth. Great. But, what happens when Ameri ca is so technologically advanced that we don’t have to leave our homes? Food, clothes, lovers, even children will just be mail-ordered or some sort of vicarious vir tual reality experience. Initially, Americans will become anti social hermits. Yep, no more Howdy weeks with ubiq uitous stickers, balloons and truck-loads of people screaming “the word.” (Wait — that may not be such a bad thing ...). Anyway, Americans will just stay locked away in their high-rise, 500 floor, space- conserving, energy-efficient apartments, with no reason to leave home, except for that occasional dash for a bottle of Pepto. Then, Americans will lose touch with nature. . Uh-huh, that’s right, where have all the flowers gone? Birds, trees, sunshine, grass will all be fil tered through ourTV/computer sets. No more romping in fields of buttercups or picnicking by the bay — this will all be available on the Virtual Reality Outdoor Home Companion. In the end, Americans will lose their imaginations. American reality will become uniform since all of our thinking will be done by inanimate objects named computers. Which brings us back to the beginning, all computers should die a lurid and shameful death. Hold on a minute there, sister, you might be thinking. Computers make our lives easier. Com puters make us more efficient. Computers make us more money. Computers make us smarter, etc., etc., until we’ve listed all of the trite and rather superficial reasons why we love computers. Yet, from the perspective of a non java-scripting, no-zip-drive-zipping neu rotic, this world is evolving into a massive technocracy. A technocracy wherein all economic re sources, and hence the entire social system, is governed by scientists and engineers, (which ain’t too shabby for most of the pop ulous at Texas A&M.) This would mean ubiquitous sci-fi cable channels and CBS’s world-wide coverage of The Nagano Programming Olympics—just the thought of skinny Lechner nerds in pink spandex is terribly frightening. In short, Lucifer is hiding in that little Intel chip in your computer. What could be more simple than convincing you not to think. Michelle Voss is a sophomore English major. rai DICE FROM THE CROWD iuack of contraceptive options must never be reality John Burton and Michael Schaub guest columnists Ralph ,) , Twant I to be oi J “ in ‘ Ol ble. I do ;rilla war- m i. I paint tij! face and /el at ht. You Vt know ver until Ere in a body bag.” ^id, Jan. 1992 T dead, 1 hurt in blast at Al ima abortion clinic” — yshington Post, Jan. 1998 Family planning clinics hed and bombed with Qple inside. An off-duty po- jfofe officer killed in a bomb l \t also left a clinic worker tided and maimed. f mage girls dead of infec- ns after resorting to illegal, :k-alley abortions. (Vhat exactly is “pro-life” iut that? Between 1977 and 1989 c0i ne, terrorists acting in the ne of “life” torched or nbed 77 women’s clinics in United States. In recent rs, clinic doctors and work- have been harassed, beaten, imed and even assassinated. e realize, of course, most H-albortion activists are peaceful, genuinely concerned people. However, the mislead ing and aggressive speech of these groups can incite violent action by paranoid and militant anti-choice factions. Planned Parenthood’s recent decision to expand services in Bryan drew significant protest from an anti-choice minority. It would be unfortunate for our community to become the site of domestic terrorism as a result of such inflamma tory rhetoric. And we cannot help but be concerned by the conspicuous silence of local religious leaders on the issue of terrorism direct ed at family planning clinics. A few years ago, the home and car of an influential Texas pro- choice advocate were shot full of holes, with the woman and her longtime companion in the house, the night before a national pro-choice rally in Washington. The gunmen were never caught. That pro-choice advo cate was Norma McCorvey — “Jane Roe” in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case. McCorvey, now an anti abortion advocate, made no mention of the attempt on her life in her speech at A&M last month. How quickly McCorvey has forgotten the violence that ac companies the “pro-life” movement. McCorvey’s speech, spon sored by Catholic Students As sociation, neglected to address such relevant issues as contra ception, age-appropriate sex education and the complex is sues facing America’s urban and rural poor. Indeed, few members of the audience (which seemed to be composed mostly of white, relatively affluent students) seemed to notice the obvious lack of pragmatic discussion by McCorvey In fact, we must wonder how McCorvey made such a dra matic change from reproduc tive rights pioneer to anti-abor tion poster child less than a year after she published her landmark pro-choice book I Am Roe, which earned her the title of “a feminist Joan of Arc” from the New York Times. McCorvey obviously stands to profit financially from her new anti-abortion book, Won by Love, and her videotape, Re versing Roe, both of which she has ostensibly released to gain money for her new effort, Roe No More Ministries. Whether McCorvey’s “con version” is due to exploitation by the anti-abortion move ment, to a sincere change of heart on the abortion issue, to her realization of lucrative deals to be made on “the other side of the fence,” or a combi nation of these, is unclear. What is clear, though, is her particularly malicious and ob noxious disparagement of Planned Parenthood, and orga nization whom she referred to as “Planned Death.” Planned Parenthood, which recently announced plans to expand its facilities to Biyan, has always been a favorite tar get of anti-abortion activists. But lost in the rhetoric of these misguided protesters is the fact that the vast majority of Planned Parenthood services are not even related to abortion. Unfortunately extremists represent Planned Parenthood as an “abortuary.” However, this does not reflect the diverse and important services Planned Parenthood offers. In 1996, five million women and men received reproductive health and educational services at Planned Parenthood’s nearly 900 clinics. These services include con traceptive instruction, HIV test ing, prenatal care, infertility counseling and literally thou sands of adoption referrals. In fact, through the provi sion of contraceptive services, it is estimated Planned Parent hood helps avert more than 235,000 abortions in the United States each year. The proposed clinic in Bryan will bring these valuable services to the Brazos Valley, where a diverse population — ranging from college students to working-class men and women — can utilize these vi tally important resources. Poll after poll has indicated up to 80 percent of Americans support a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion. We cannot allow a loud mi nority to rob the majority of a valuable community asset. And to those who would have women return to the dark ages of substandard prenatal health care, denial of safe con traceptive options and danger ous back-alley abortions, we say: never again. John Burton is a junio bioenvironmental science ma jor. Michael Schaub is a junio English majoi 'a I WfW MINERS'.! \Jsim pGHBSPD kids m ecc i^k MAIL CALL Free candidate publicity inappropriate in column I must have missed the an nouncement that the new name for the Opinion Page was the “Republi can Candidate Propaganda Forum”. Donny Ferguson once again used his column not to inform students and stimulate debate, but rather to es pouse his personal politics and adver tise for right-wing political candidates. While a column urging students to go out and vote would have been much more appropriate, Ferguson instead chose to campaign and cheer on his personal political heroes. One is left wondering whether these candidates paid Ferguson for this free public relations campaign. A column is supposed to present a well-informed argument that serves to educate readers on a subject. Ferguson instead misuses his column to advance his own ultra-conservative agenda and provide free advertising for right-wing political candidates and ideas. While it is certainly Ferguson’s right to produce columns on conservative ideas, it is simply inappropriate to use his opinion column to provide free ad vertising for political candidates. Jon Apgar Class of’99 The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author’s name, class, and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit let ters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-1 111 I 9 Vigor of Howdy Week crosses line H owdy Week has come and gone in its noisy little way And after this latest round of tradition- based atrocities, one would hope it is painfully clear that Howdy Ags! is a group of vapid, squalling children whose idea of self- importance is im posing A&M’s own version of political correctness on the general populace. Let me make it clear right off, I sup port the tradition of “Howdy!” I think it makes A&M a friendlier place, and it has been a great pick-me-up time and again. A&M would be a far" worse place than it is today if it were not for “Howdy!” and other fine traditions. Which makes it almost physically painful to see Howdy Ags! abusing stu dents’ patience and eventually destroy ing tradition, all in the name of tradition. Howdy Ags! has routinely verbally badgered students who do not want to wear their little stickers or have actually walked up and put the stickers on who students who have clearly refused to wear them. I have seen it happen many times and have heard of it many more. They have also paraded en masse around campus, bellowing “Howdy!” at students in what can only be described as an attempt to blast whatever small spirit remains in the common Aggie right out of them. In yet another blatant display of ma turity, Howdy Ags! also ran around cam pus waving “Howdy!” banners, acciden tally flag-whipping innocent bystanders left and right. And, of course, tire Howdy-- mobile. It just cries out: “Holy student organization gone wrong, Batman!” Unfortunately, the people who claim to hold up traditions including “soldier, statesman and knightly gentlemen” act like immature, high school sophomores ■ on a regular basis. Those Aggies who fall under the cate gory of “two-percenter” will never begin ^ saying “Flowdy” if, in their minds, it means having to act like those wackos - from Howdy Ags! They would rather let the tradition die, and they do outnumber Howdy Ags! by a very large margin. The problem is that here at A&M it has become avant-garde to ruthlessly advocate tradition, even at the expense of other Aggies or common sense. A&M has developed ultra-conservatives that masquerade as normal people and make ! G. Gordon Liddy look like a moderate. This is not a political term. This ultra-conservativism means these students are resisting current change and trying to reverse recent changes. These ultra-conservatives move for “the good old days” with more furor than the Ku Klux Klan of the 1870s. This can be seen everywhere from “it’s, always been this way” profanity on Bon fire pots to the traditional and damaging, polishing of Sully. These students, who have embraced this ultra-conservatism, are embracing this philosophy for one reason. They feel they need an organization like Howdy Ags! to identify with and give their lives purpose. Howdy Ags! provides students with a place to belong, something to define who they are and what they stand for. It gives them something to fight for and someone to fight against. Kind of like the Nazi party, but without the goose stepping. Or the helmets. Or the war mongering and genocide. The members of the ultra-conservative groups like Howdy Ags! are using their as sociation with these groups to set them selves apart because they need a group like Howdy Ags! to make them feel adequate, not because they truly believe in the meth-' ods Howdy Ags! uses to promote tradition. They need the group, and will do anything ‘ to stay in their “non- conformist” group, even if it means violendy conforming to what the group believes. Meanwhile, as was said before, their activities are destroy ing the tradition they hold so dear. This pathetic mind game is being supported by our student fees. Frankly, I do not want to be even partially respon sible for subsidizing the self-disillusion ment of my fellow Aggies. The ends do not justify the means. It is time for Howdy Ags! to find a way to restore tradi tion that does not undercut the very heart of Aggieland. Chris Huffines columnist Chris Huffines is a sophomore speech communications major. 1