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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1998)
Battalion O pinion Page 15 ‘Thursday, Septembers, 1998 iAot«»PAS ticket option offers Aggies taste of culture women .1 tor years the summer il now, hour is the lap, on nnufacturers ednesduys it e form of e'ii w inkies, on 1 liere, cttii^ ;ends. Nortfi d tears. and this sea ‘ pdfs prove it is high expertssr: f 0 r culture. >uld possib lis semester egg fromiir. ae first time, e wall - )pera and i embno jrming Arts Society of the "i embryo isr I growing, th ill have not U-486. oth- some type of balance to the er” side of adolescence. However, since field trips are rarer in college and since Mom and Dad are not here to encour age students to partake in a little culture, there is now a way to counter the lack of civilization so often enjoyed by Aggies. For many students, the CORRIB CAULEY hours la lorial Student Center of- I the student season tickets m fee to all students upon tration. I DA sad: pe new option offers stu- :'5 perce: s an exciting and conve- - of taking t new way to enjoy the per- linglarts. he option, which is added to 's ents’ fees during registration vs students to purchase tick- i advance and guarantees i tickets to the selected per- Aiiancp of their choice, illjlhe fee option costs $140 and ides students with six ?t vouchers they may re- n for tickets to the OPAS armances throughout /earl Students are al- ?d to use up to two of e six vouchers on any le performance, he new option not only rs students entertain- / it, but provides them i the dosage of culture es pial for the less-than-civi- Ei college student. |£i high school, field trips to symphony, art museums and cultural institutions were ““ ned to make sure there was acking e Dow iSESi thought of sitting through an opera is about as appealing as having teeth pulled, but the ex posure and experience often prove unforgettable. In past seasons, OPAS has been responsible for bringing in several world-class productions, including the national tour of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and the Broadway productions of “Crazy for You” and “Cats”. This season promises to be another outstand ing year for OPAS with twelve different perfor mances including “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” the St. Petersburg State Symphony Or chestra, the Russian National Ballet’s per formance of “The Sleep ing Beauty,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” the NYC Opera National Company’s per formance of “Madama Butterfly” and the sea son finale performance of “Les Miserables.” The performing arts provide some thing for everyone — inspiration for the dreamer, a unique dating expe rience for couples, an excuse for girls to wear something more than the usual t-shirt and shorts and a reason for guys to finally do their laundry. It was once said that if a man could not be moved by music, he had no soul at all. The up coming OPAS performances are sure to enlighten, inspire, enter tain and move. Theater and opera are not just for pansies anymore. So for the guy living by the stereotype that men have no culture, a date to “Les Miserables” is sure to bring about compromise — if you go with her to the show, next weekend she will let you go fishing, right? The new student option fee offers a new convenient way for students to enjoy the season’s OPAS productions. But whether Aggies purchased the new ticket option during reg istration or they choose purchase tickets individually throughout the season, students should defi nitely take advantage of the many incredible performances coming to A&M. It is not often that one has the opportunity to see Broadway plays and Russian ballets, and OPAS has brought them straight to the A&M campus. Culture 101 is not a college course, and unless students take advantage of options like the OPAS student season tickets, they will not make the most of the col lege experience. It is important to balance cul ture with studying, class and the rest of college life in order to ulti mately have “class.” Carrie Canley is a senior journalism major. EDITORIAL have a lonj j to a 12-ye; Battalion Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect 1 views of the editorials board members. They not necessarily reflect the opinions of other ttalion staff members, the Texas A&M student dy, regents, administration, faculty or staff, lumns, guest columns, cartoons and letters ex- ?ss the opinions of the authors. Editorials Board MANDY CATER Editor in Chief AARON MEIER ■ Managing-Editor ■ DAVE JOHNSTON Opinion Editor Political scandals remove focus from important world affairs ^ Motor Madness diversity Drive construction shows >or planning and disregard for students LEN Students returning to Texas M each year can always count a few certainties. Classes will igger, fees will increase, fresh- n will be walking aimlessly >und campus with maps and ne seemingly unnecessary con- action will cause more tdaches than it is worth. This year’s obvious example is construction on University Dri- one of the most highly trafficked jjbets in the Bryan-College Station f a. It is one of only four true ac- s streets to campus, and thanks )oor planning by the City of Col- e Station, it is virtually closed. Tearing up University Drive in gust seemed a bad plan from get-go. Students were already ginning to mill back from sum- r breaks, and summer school dents were still trying to get to ss. If the city was going to tear a major road, it should have rted as early in the summer as ;sible, before the massive return students. If the city planners re doing their jobs, the con- jction would have been slated the week after the spring se- ster classes were completed. The real question, though, is y all the construction was nec- ary in the first place. University ve was not a street in serious dis- air; it was in fairly good shape, ertainly did not require the mas- overhaul currently underway. The current chaos that is Uni versity Drive is a problem on more levels than just poor planning, though. First and foremost it is a traffic nightmare. As if traffic near the University was not bad enough, the major access road is limited to one-way traffic to and from cam pus. Second, the construction is a dangerous situation. With cars backing up and getting stuck in in tersections during light changes, the situation is begging for an automo bile pile-up or worse — not to men tion that pedestrians attempting to cross these jumbled crosswalks are literally racing for their lives. The city never should have be gun such a massive undertaking anywhere near the time of fall classes. No date should have been scheduled which might have pos sibly, with any complications, con tinued to the start of this semester. The University is welcoming one of its largest freshman classes, not to mention the tens of thousands of students who already called A&M home, and the city is making a mess even messier. The city often chooses to forget that students are in fact residents of this community, and makes this at titude clear with decisions such as closing Munson Street earlier this summer. The catastrophe on Uni versity has only further indicated the city’s complete disregard of the student residents of College Station. O ver the past six years the American people have been treated to the newest and hottest soap opera in the history of man—the American Presidency. The Clinton Presidency has brought scandal after scandal to the American people, and they have, for the most part, refused to take <-411 a wav notice. Not until the Monica Lewin- sky matter brought the American people into the president’s most private quarters did they begin to take notice and exception. Americans have become too comfortable and ob sessed with their bank accounts. Things are pretty good from a financial standpoint, so the president has been in good graces with the American people. This is what Political Scientists refer to as a pock- etbook presidency. The thing that the here-and-now, immediate grat ification society does not understand is that deci sions made long before Bill Clinton became the pres ident are primarily responsible for the American economy’s current level of comfort and stability. If something does not deal with sex or immorality then Americans are just not interested. There are is sues that present cause for much greater concern than that the Jones/Lewinsky scandals. America needs to get its act together and come to the realization that matters of national security have been missed by this society of relatively poorly in formed people. The American people have heard little blurbs about Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Dick Morris and several other facets of the Clinton presidency and for the most part they have exhibited apathy. Americans cannot continue to ignore issues awaiting ther attention simply because there is no tantalizing hook phrase or racy subject matter. Does anyone still think the American way of life is a provocative concept worth worrying about? Today, Americans as a people, are confronted by threats from all sides of the globe and they choose to sit in awe of the president’s sexual appetite and pen chant for non-truths. America is being passive about our own contin ued dominance in the world and it does not take long for catastrophe to strike. As a society, Americans are hunted and plagued by terrorists and defiant zealots in the Middle East. The lobby of an American-owned hotel franchise in Teheran, Iran boasts a brass placard in the lobby de manding “Death to America” to all that enter, and mock American flags are burned in the streets of several nations on a daily basis. The financial markets in Asia are teetering on the brink of disaster and our president is accused of al lowing the sale of technology to the largest remain ing communist force on the planet. In addition, in the international arena, Russian President Boris Yeltsin is about to lose control to a communist regime. Surely that situation coupled with the failing Russian economy will have ramifica tions here at home. America, naturally, is on the outs with the waiting-in-the-wings communist party. Is there another Cold War around the corner? Americans do not know much about that propo sition, but they know who testified before the Grand Jury in the Clinton matter yesterday. They do not care about issues abroad and they do nothing to change the focus of debate in the country because somebody somewhere is having sex and that is a hell of a lot more fun and interesting to lis ten to than debating the finer points of presidential ethics and national security. The concerns about the president’s personal life are warranted, but not at the expense of giving the bank to the robbers. To a large degree Americans have become a soci ety captivated by junk. Hot, steamy, explicit — that is all they seem to want. America needs to get its head back in the prover bial game and spend some time worrying about na tional security and global standing. Hopefully, it will not take a financial revolution and the threat of con tinued international conflict to magically re-priori- tize America. Len Callaway is a senior journalism major. Photo Illustration by Brandon Bollom/Thk Battalion MANISHA PAREKH Textbook prices soar R oss Perot was half right; there is a huge sucking sound coming from near Mexi co, but it is not the sound of American jobs going south — it _ B __ ii __ iiiiiiiiii _ ii _ is the sound from Texas A&M students’ wallets after buying textbooks. With courses requiring fancy new books each semester, the av erage student can spend anywhere from $200 to $600 on books for the semester. That money could easily pay for a lot of parking tickets. In stead, the money goes into the ever-growing cash cow known as college bookstores. One bookstore’s advertisements claim that it has “a tradition of Ag gies helping Aggies.” As many stu dents can attest to after leaving this establishment, and the other fine bookstores, it seems more like “a tradition of Aggies robbing Aggies.” But many bookstores try to — forgive the pun — pass the buck and blame the publishers for the insane textbook prices. According to a pamphlet put out by Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, 67 per cent of the book price goes to the publisher, nine percent to the au thor and 2.5 percent to shipping. But where does the other 21.5 per cent go? That is correct — to the bookstore (or university). Barnes & Nobles tries to smooth things over by writing, “though textbooks are expensive, they are a good value.” Maybe from the book store end. But there is more. “But faculty members also know that even though they are expensive, the textbooks you study are an im portant part of your education, and what you learn from them will stay with you for a long time.” It is reas suring to know that all A&M engi neering majors will still always re member that the Romans washed their togas with urine. Please, do not begin to believe that book buy back will ease the pain; it only makes the students feel more like suckers. There are are many “small print” type things about book buy back. First, there is no guarantee that the textbook will actually be bought back. With new editions coming out faster than you can say “overnight billionaires,” many stu dents find their $100 books are worth nothing in the span of sever al months. Often, professors, hav ing been wooed by a certain pub lisher, will decide to use a different textbook the next year. And while the students are stuck with an in vestment that is worth absolutely nothing, professors are treated to a new book, free of charge. The second problem comes when a bookstore does “buy” the book back. Many bookstores post signs claiming they offer the most money for used textbooks. It is a lovely statement that means very little once students realize buy back is simply a euphemism for “taking college students for every penny they are worth.” Of course, that statement could be a little harsh. After all, you can enjoy a wonderful spread at McDonald’s with the textbook buy-back money. Perhaps if students stopped simply complaining and started doing something about this situa tion, things might change. So, here is the proposal: call and e-mail your professors, your faculty advisers and the adminis tration about the textbook situa tion. Let them know that enough is enough. Talk to your Student Senate representative and maybe the Student Senate can, for once, do something that actually bene fits the Student Body. It would certainly be quite an achievement if Student Body Pres ident Laurie Nickel actually man aged to get the impotent student government to do something be sides passing toothless resolutions and creating more committees. If nothing else, student gov ernment could sponsor a kind of “book swap or sale” at which students can sell their old books to other students for a reason able price. There is no telling when this massive scam will finally end. But for the sake of students’ pocket- books, it needs to end soon. Manisha Parekh is a junior psy chology and journalism major.