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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 1998)
chinesday • March 25, 1998 Opinion didr ngtai gnes Bute toy story idays playthings fail to promote creativity, imagination in kids Mickey Saloma columnist A ttention Hasbro, Mattel, Fisher-Price and other toy company executives, the future of the world is in your hands. It is a startling experience going to toy stores or through the aisles of the toy depart ments at retail stores. The times have definitely changed. Kids have traded such 80s relics as My Little Pony and He-man for something called Gigapets and Goosebump toys. This transaction has endangered our very future. The evolution of toys through the ages has prob ably not caused as much alarm as has the increas ing popularity of radio, television and the Internet. Yet, the argument must be made in order to ensure the minds of the next generation are as creative and as enriched as they can possibly be. A couple hundred years ago, imagination and creativity flowed causing such prominent periods in history as the Renaissance, the Baroque period and the Gilded Age. The people of these pre-electronic times found inspiration and stimulation through conversa tions, experiences and other social interactions. These events and others led to such timeless clas sics by people like Shakespeare, Van Gogh and Beethoven. Because of the increased levels of technology, our society will most likely never produce such bril liant and influential artistic figures, however the toy industry can preserve the little artistic possibilities in the future by challenging kids to use their minds and more importantly use their imaginations. The toys of today have our children headed into another Dark Age. The possibility of the first generation of the new millennium to be ar tistically and maybe even culturally challenged is very much a possibility. When most current A&M students were growing up, toys were simple, basic and sometimes they served as a tool for learning. The days of the Speak and Spell and Mr. Professor have come and gone only to be replaced by video games. Today’s kids’ main toy revolves around video games such as Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation. Video games serve as an excellent tool to help build hand-eye coordination, however they do nothing for the imagination. As a child, the current generation grew up with the Atari. This video game system did wonders for our imagination. Atari’s Tennis game consisted of two different colored rectangles on either end of the screen, and you used the paddle to move your rectangles in front of the not too round ball. In today’s standard tennis game, you can see individual strands of real professional players’ hair as they hit the ball with your choice of top-spin, back-spin or no spin. The imagination developed by pretending your rectangle to be John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors or Ivan Lendl has been replaced by the real players. Recently Barbie’s physical dimensions have been changed. Maybe the old Barbie was caus ing girls to become anorexic or worse yet, maybe Barbie is the reason we are all concerned about our physical appearance. Well, I have never wanted to look like Barbie or Ken for that matter. If Barbie has a nice body... more power to her. The perfect body is something sought for a long time now. Nobody has ever accused Michelangelo of lowering the self-esteem of men through his masterpiece sculpture of David. Toys no longer give children the freedom to use their minds. Teddy Ruxpin started it all by telling the story of an adventure with a map to find a hidden treasure. Kids should read them selves or have a parent read to them not some bear with moving lips. A child’s imagination is a terrible thing to go un developed. Kids should be deprived of their over priced video games and given Legos, Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. The toys of yesteryear allowed us to build cas tles, cars and cities. In our minds, they became real, and with our hands we constructed them to fit our dimensions. Toy companies everywhere, give a child a chance to build their imagination to their dimen sions by making the toys simpler. You’ll be doing us all a favor. Mickey Saloma is a senior journalism major. l.O ATE OF THE UNION i30' owering legal blood-alcohol limit does not solve problem ^ rastic 1 moves are * being made mbat the ice of drunk ig. The United s Senate is ng favorably bill that would a national U-alcohol con- it .08 percent. Jfby state refus- lf|pD pass this bill j§| d receive a cut in their highway luting. . finking and driving is a terrible epi- c. However making a lower BAG is oing to solve the problem by itself, dea is that a lower BAG will lower the her of fatalities that result from drink- nd driving. runk driving is national epidemic, Joe Schumacher columnist however states are hardly in need of Fed eral intervention. Perhaps if drunk dri ving laws were more stringently en forced, the government would not feel the need to intervene. The .08 BAG runs the risk of punishing responsible drinkers. By this new standard, a 120-pound woman who has had two six-ounce glass es of wine within two hours would be con sidered legally intoxicated. Additionally, the supporters of this bill feel that an average-sized man would have to have four to five drinks in one hour to reach a .08 BAG. While this is suspect, it should noted for a person to have four or five drinks in an hour, they must drink every 15 to 20 minutes, probably indicating they are not a social drinker, and may very well have a problem. One of the states that has already adopted this national standard in North Carolina. The state has a vigorous pro gram to deter drunk driving to go along with the state’s lower blood-alcohol lev el. Cars can be impounded on the spot for repeat offenders and those driving on suspended licenses. Since 1993, over 22,000 checkpoints have been set up and over 35,000 people have been charged with a DUI. Alcohol re lated deaths leveled off in 1995. However, they increased in 1996 by 17 percent, when 460 fatalities were reported. Most people who drink and drive are going to do so no matter what the legal blood-alcohol level is. According to the National Highway Traffic Association, the average BAG of fatally injured drivers is .18 percent, with more than 80 percent of these drivers have a BAG of. 14 percent. Many drunk drivers are also repeat of fenders — still driving after previously being convicted or even after having their licenses revoked. People are not afraid to be stopped for drunk driving, it is not looked upon as a hassle— not a serious offense. Deaths related to drunk driving are treated in pretty much the same manner. Too many times, a drunk driver who has killed someone has his case pleaded down to involuntary manslaughter. If this is is their first felony offense, a drunk driver may spend some time in jail, attend coun seling for their problem and receive com munity service. Drunk driving is not an involuntary ac tion. Nobody made them drink irresponsi bly. Nobody made them get behind the wheel of a vehicle. Several alternatives ex ist to drinking and driving. The punishment for killing somebody while drinking and driving should be a stiffer than involuntary manslaughter. People who get behind the wheel know they are running the risk of murdering somebody. This should be considered pre meditated. The drunk driver thought about his possible actions of recourse and instead decided to drive. Perhaps if people were afraid of the repercussions of drinking and driving, that might actually deter alcohol related deaths. A .08 percent BAG is not a clear cut so lution. It will only punish the already law- abiding, and will probably have no effect by itself. It will have no bearing on those who already disregard current BAG standards. Additionally this does not target the real problem of higher BAG drivers. The new level has the potential to overload the court systems. Perhaps the real solution is harsher punishments to go with an already rea sonable BAG level. Joe Schumacher is a junior journalism major. •*> MAIL CALL ^satisfaction more /^Tble in other nations May I begin by dispelling any ru- rs of racism that might result in onse to this letter? A close nd of mine with whom I grew up 20 ideed black. ' Thank you Len Callaway. I ap- ly ud your March 12 column con ning the foolishness of reverse crimination. an, Dne particular shred of informa- <e 0 lyou offered cauglit my eye. The Dose Kwame Nkrumah wrote, en- iraging all youth of African descent the “brothas” and sisters of Latino cent to, “stay strong while in the hells of this beast we call Amerikkka!!!” Allow me to enlighten those of us who subscribe to these sentiments so prone toward the contempt and the dissatis faction of our country. Two years ago I crossed the Thai border for a brief stay in the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Laos, a reclusive third world country in south-east Asia yoked with the bur den of Communism. At the beginning of this year, all of these people I had come to know, nearly 20, were cast into prison fac ing persecution in the form of tor ture, brainwashing, a “spiritual cleansing” if you will. All prosecu tion is based on the premises that the Christian religion is simply illegal. Anyone heard of such a thing hap pening around here lately? Perhaps those of us who find it so painful here in the hells of the Amerikkkan beast would like to take a vacation to a more tolerant part of the world? I hear Algeria is quite nice this time of year, so long as you manage to keep your head. Maybe a caning in Singapore would go well with your re cently decapitated body. If that tongue piercing has become infected, you may want to travel to one of the middle-eastern nations which I am sure will gladly remove your tongue free of charge in exchange for any dis paraging remarks about their country (Too bad your head was already sev ered in Algeria). You must forgive my sour disposi tion. I really shouldn’t get in a rage over such trivial things as patriotism. After all, it is your First Amendment right to cry like a child about the intol erance of the most tolerant nation on the face of the planet. You are free to abuse the freedom our ancestors fought to preserve, but don’t you ever forget men died for your right to insult their life and dishonor their grave. Todd Grijfith Class of’98 The Battalion encourages letters to the ed itor. 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 letters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed Mc Donald 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 77843-1111 ~rV\\$ WAY. 1 ,