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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 1998)
^J22 iSS8:Senf- _ litO! % chalk ii so they do on closet sp: to have my: ny stuff he our over;: Battalion imon Page 13 • Wednesday, September 2, 1998 tly there art > for the F: Inch is a dr otified at th inter, nen are liv id 82 are 1: nditioned >n. men are Kv lounges,; nodular hal rerassigume :hael “Hoy dent, said, umber won cause no sh, d,' Haughe iunduings lanine cloning likely to raise ethical concerns, difficult questions zrge funding, eccentric style suggests possible identity of project's wealthy sponsor > 3/t- JX« ~tie Battalion report ed last Wednesday that a group of A&M archers has embarked t project to attempt to ;e aldog owned by a millionaire, aking a cue from Presi- t Clinton’s adept press STEWART lagement, the re- PATTON Chers declined to m—ma—mmmm iracterize the millionaire beyond it is contained in the statement.” fsing a little Aggie ingenuity, and a e wild guess, this columnist discov- 1 the likely identity of the man be- 1 wnat will undoubtedly be the est ptory about Texas researchers ling a dog named Missy to hit print century. n the following penetrating expose, I ght bp with H. Ross Perot, the eccen- Texas businessman, quack third-par- resipential candidate, and — now learn — dog lover, in hometown of arkana. itewart Pat- : Excuse me Perot, I’ve rd talk imd the :k-stops here exalrkana l you paid te Ags to clone r mutt. feMB loss Perot: Well :e, fella, looks like found me out. I guess have to talk to ya — as long as Courts' 'fiisa renova: □r August 2ft Court tl from Pa$ ;aid theonh tie dishwasT e replaced a: ng disposal ?e restaurans- national fixe ydillo” ust over 30 years ago in tures P<r Selma, Ala., a nd ' 01! ; up of protesters -e severely can cuif. den for daring ployees ry to claim nal Food \ it’s off the record. SP: Me and you and these four walls, Mr. Perot (wink). So how did you get the idea of cloning little Missy? RP: Well now, that’s an easy ques tion so I’ll give you an easy answer: I took the issue to the vot ers. I let them know that Missy doesn’t want to have a puppy; she’s not concerned with pup pies. To Missy, the idea of makin’ ? puppies would be more stu pid than “Spice Girls the sitcom” on the WB. But as you can see by this pie chart here, a full 57 percent of the homes in Texarkana are in favor of Missy re producing. Now ... SP: ... Excuse me, Mr. Perot, point of methodology: in C Ji that poll, did you count double-wides twice? RP: Not an issue young man; Texarkana is all double-wides. SP: Fair enough. RP: Now, I am fully aware that my little Missy here has been spayed, so she can’t have pup pies in the natural all-American dog gie way. It would be like trying to have a baby by getting nine women pregnant for one month — it’ll never happen.So I told the researchers to just sit down and solve this thing. Let’s have us a good ole town- hall meeting and ham- ** mer this issue out. See, your big-city politicians would just dismiss the situa tion as too big to handle, but I attacked it head on. In an hour and a half we had the solution. SP: Yes, Mr. Perot, you talked about the “sit down, drink some sweet tea and handle the problem” approach a lot dur ing your campaign. Although it worked in this situation, do you really think it would work for, say, balancing the na tional budget? RP: An hour tops. SP: Help for the plummeting Asian stock markets? RP: Forty-five minutes easy! SP: The Monica Lewinsky matter? RP: I’d be finished in thirty seconds! SP: Interesting. RP: (Perot suddenly becomes very agi tated and quickly stands up.) Just everyone wait a minute here. I’ve decided ^ that Mis sy will not partici pate in the cloning proce dure! She’s out of the project, for the good of the voters, of course. ^ SP: Mr. Perot, I’m con fused! When I first arrived, you were happier than the day they lowered the height limit at Disneyland, and now you say you want to take Missy out of the project? RP: I just got wind that thanks to the passage of NAFTA, some of the DNA work involved in this project will be han dled south of the bor der, depriving Amer ican workers ^ of jobs! SP: Oh yeah,the “big suck ing sound” you dis cussed in your campaign. Isn’t it true, though, that your own Al liance Airport has benefited finan cially form NAFTA after you fought so hard against its passage? 05 RP: (With religions zeal) The voters have spoken again! Missy is back in the project! You can see by the lat est three-dimensional box graph that the voters definitely do want Missy to clone a puppy; I removed her as a candidate only because of inaccurate information. SP: In other words, you’re saying the chart you have now is cooler than the previous chart, with more colors and neater shapes? RP: Exactly son! Say, you ever consid ered starting a Reform Party chapter in your hometown? With that question I promptly ex cused myself and quickly beat a path back to civilization. A&M’s research into canine cloning will undoubtedly intensify debate over the ethics of the procedure and once again raise the question of whether hu mans should “play God.” Although the true identity of Missy’s wealthy owner may never be discov ered, one thing is clear: any one who throws enough money at the right people can have whatever he wants, despite the possible moral conse quences. The wicked stepchild of the American Dream is alive and well (and pos sibly has big ears and a senile running-mate). Illustration by Mike Puentes ' Brad Graeber/Tiik Battalion Stewart Patton is a senior sociology major. American freedoms reate nation of ironies :ostume tl urant. ployees of" i western we ir civil rights. Fhe small band reedom fight- led by Dr. Mar- CALEB MCDANIEL Luther King, Jr., were march- Hephanl to Birmingham when a posse ml coats, 'tate troopers stopped the tli Man In nonstrators and ordered them ’s hours ofo[ disband. to J'ISP'i 11 r* 16 '^archers refused. The apers attacked. , Despite their message of love funding! peace, the protesters were , eted by the clenched fists of ht UnO^tality and hate. j e , fust over 30 days have passed AH r Ai: :e a ver y different group of pro- aner Key ■ ers assem ^i ec j on a i awn j n vi- spen •, , Tx. This bunch was cut more ' !(l c g.-m the same cloth as the Selma 1( ' SI propers. They disguised them- ie Texas ^ es i piu owcaseSj sheets and § r0LJ P , < the ugliness of racism. They f the rel| 6 l “' ached prejudice and hawked vays a ma i r hatred to passers-by. ipt to ma e But the state troopers in this Bible, sal . ry did not act like the ones in D-Austin. 1 They stood nearby, shield- students i ' rancorous ra lly from inter- mce. Despite their message of ^e and hostility, these protesters re kept under the protective of the law. , Ac! The rally in Vidor appeared but ^ cai ;fly on the smudged radar pTmecop^en of the national conscious- s earlier this summer, but one ticular photograph of the event erves special attention from , national conscience. TFRATP [n Jul y> !° ca ! newspapers fea- p ?d a snapshot of the scene in BY BgA^or on the day of the rally. In the Pikground of the photo, grown in'[ I9M n dressed up in bedspreads * NL i Y0r ed their signs and shook their NS FtJR A 3 _ Ant j j n foreground, a \S0NABLt . :e f r o 0 p er stood at strict atten- ESSIONAL uu* dressed in riot gear, protect- : R0M FdSf ^' the Klansmen behind him. 693'72^" r he startling thing about the L HarVEYI® ture was this: the state trooper s black. iFhat picture said a thousand ds. t would take much more than ousand words just to summa- _ r ar1 ? what that state trooper must L2^-r^^e been thinking when the clicked. ”is eyes, fixed unflinchingly on duty to be done, did not be- his anger. Maybe he was using all of his centration to forget that 10 ds away stood 10 people who jed him without even knowing name. Or maybe it just took all of his strength to keep his back turned to them. I would pay more than a penny for his thoughts. It would take a thousand thou sand words to say how much that picture expresses about the coun try we live in. Only here would an African-American be called upon to stand guard for white suprema cists. Only in America. Now, some people would point to Selma and Vidor and say that we have come a long way towards racial reconciliation in this coun try. The state troopers in Selma used violence, they might say. The rally in Vidor remained peaceful. They call it progress. They may be right, but they should see that photo. I wonder what that nameless trooper would say about progress. I only know what I would say: we may be on the other side of Selma, but there are many bridges left to cross. We must pray earnestly that someday, and soon, such photos will not appear on our July newsstands. America is a riddle, a very iron ic riddle. It is frightening to live in a world where grown men still harbor such hot hatred. But it is even stranger to live in a country where their rallies can be guarded by the objects of their hate. The Founding Fathers, of course, would say that strange ness comes with the deal. If you want free speech, you have to take the bad speech, too. I would show the Founding Fa thers that photo. It would not prove anything by argument, but it says volumes to the heart. It will stay with me a long time. And to say much more would weaken the power of that picture, the terrible tension that seethed in its images, the stark contrast of the hater and the hated, the steely eyes of the trooper and the hood ed eyes of the Klansmen. Forgive me. I have come back from the summer months as melodramatic as ever. But that picture tells me that America is sort of like a melodra ma. There are bad guys, and there are good guys. America is more complicated, of course. Right and wrong is black and white, but the bad guy doesn’t always wear black, and the good guy doesn’t always wear white. And because we believe in the heroic, we do not always throw popcorn at the villains and boo them off the stage. Sometimes we give them po lice protection. Caleb McDaniel is a sophomore history major. Parents share blame for recent school violence Primary caregivers must accept responsibility for children cc li ELIZABETH STRAIT 'respect you.” Those are the three words that all .people yearn to hear, no matter what their age, social rank or cultural background may be. That is exactly the reason school children are gunning each other down in schools across America, only these kids have been misinformed mmmmmmmmmmm about what respect is and how to go about gaining it. It is up to the parents of these young peo ple to convey to them what respect is, and the message is not getting across. When a child guns down a group of his classmates, there should be legal ramifica tions for his parents. When a child shows total disregard for human life, some essential elements must have been missing from that child’s upbringing. A child should be taught respect is not something that is achieved through force. Respect is earned. Generally, respect is a two-way street. In order to receive respect, you must give it. Children are so desperate for something or someone to look up to and show them how to be respected and admired they will grab onto any image they perceive as “cool” and run with it. Today, thanks to television, children are never short of images of gun-touting bad guys nobody messes with. If television serves as a child’s primary source of imagery — and most of the time it does — then violent and disrespectful be havior is inevitable. The ultimate cliche is to say our fast- paced society doesn’t allow parents to spend the time they need to with their children. Many parents are so focused on trying to deal with the pressures and issues that suffocate vO N WvWCcEK V» them in their own lives that they cease to notice when their children are falling through the cracks. Growing up is not an easy thing to do, and sometimes a young person just needs someone who has already been there to re mind them that they can make it through. There is no better person to fill that role than their parents. Parents can prevent a lot of pain and suffering if they would simply take the time to watch for and follow up on any abnormal behavior exhibited by their children. There are often signals that some thing is going wrong with young peo ple. Parents need to watch for these signals and follow up on them. Parents can start by asking their children simple questions about how their day went. Parents also need to get to know who their children’s friends are and what they are doing. When a child does exhibit behavior that is not typical, contact a profession al for help. Making parents partially responsi ble for the violent actions of their chil dren would offer more incentive for adults to pay attention to what is going on with their children. The parents of a child who commits murder should be expected to compensate society in some way. They should have to donate their time to helping improve the lives of children who may not have a parental figure. A cycle of disrespect has begun in our na tion and parents can begin to take steps to turn things around at home. Parents have to show children what it means to be a respectable individual and how important it is to respect others. The best way to accomplish this goal is for par ents to have enough respect for their chil dren to keep up with what is going on in their lives. ■WERE CONFUSED. WHAtS' THIS WORD‘'DOWN" YOU KEEP USINGS. ArLWOOTTUTM^ Elizabeth Strait is a junior journalism major. MAIL CALL Women not meant to be worshiped In response to the Sept. 1 column: I was offended by Andrew Ba- ley’s portrayal of women. He may believe that viewing women as a gift from God is harmless and his chivalry is appreciated, but the sad reality is this kind of objectification causes many serious social ills. I do not consider myself a gift from God to men to be put upon a pedestal and denied the opportuni ty to fulfill my potential. Viewing women as objects to be coddled not only prevents anyone from re specting or understanding women, it contributes to other forms of ob jectification such as rape. Thank you for the favor, Andrew, but I would rather take my own chances on the Titanic than have to rely on your paternalism. Amy Hinze Class of ’01
