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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 1999)
he Battalion O PINION Page 7 • Friday, February 5, 1999 —Depressed by the printing press Thic rate tJXbm QS ad). This rates: get an addition led to end too. \Aodern books embarrassing, repetitive T he conventional wis- 1 dom has it that read ing is somehow bet- r tlan television. Reading is seen as a de- ^ anding but rewarding type mental exercise while tele- sion is regarded as nothing ore than mind cancer. T1 is viewpoint is a highly eali/.ed view of literature 1 PETS tabby kitten. 4 ng ick & white neutM awed, house-tyc* Brendan GUY ach. 2*males i J tcessones a f e ^6-2524 )OMMATES at | s sa dly ou t of date in the modern world. The ' ctis modern American literature has become as and and shallow as the worst television pro- i snas’mo bm . r .' , ^ : r To be fair, the decline and fall of American lit- at|re can largely be blamed on television (and .1 in :• >pilar culture as a whole). The last 25 years have seen the publishing in- Preterably ♦ 1 No Deposit ,2bath. SpnrtQ. )5-7020. isjtry come under heavy attack due to the prolif- ation of television, movies, popular music and r en computers. Faced with a society that had entertainment op- ms other than reading, the various publishing _jmpanies desperately sought a new weapon to -T&ra iri- st:ore ^eir fading profits. Tlieir solution to this problem of disappearing maud was Dilbertesque in its ingenuity: They ;ck|pd to raise the price of books. With books now more expensive and so many ore distractions being readily available, the ily way to guarantee book sales was to appeal the lowest common denominator. The pub- ...ded a.»»P • , . , . , \ obo . ;hing companies soon zeroed in on what peo- e wanted and gave it to them — again and ;ain and again. Tqm Clancy, Michael Crichton, John Grisham id Stephen King would be called upon to write ,ommate'~^e same book every year. Self-help books, i. w/d. $2i2.5<yr 'lebrity autobiographies and Imbecile’s Guides Tying Shoelaces would cover the aisles of l a * ap - 2 “™, ’ery bookstore. all Enc ,;764'5'-- ; Irm 2balh boose as Call 764d’ii lew motxla Ixxne. es 8234)381. Uri S21250/n» n bedroom. E-mi -ryr Today, it appears new paperback books are r S^HwSe-it merally given a shelf life of about a month 695-0680 idieceive little advertising support. Even es- sERVICES bllhed authors find themselves under im- ense pressure to yield enormous profits or be ished aside and forgotten. Most publishing companies are content to fall ibte for you toborc ick upon their reliable blockbuster authors whose yn at The Party B 1 - S; >b com/invifatiorsW books are familiar to the American people and will sell on name recognition, regardless of quality. In other words, the publishing companies are behaving just like the movie and television industries. American literature has clearly been dumbed down. The same industry that once produced the works of such giants as Samuel Clemens, J.D. Salinger and John Steinbeck is now reduced to trying to provide intellectual enlightenment through Deepak Chopra and the collected poems of Jewel. In and of itself there is nothing wrong with this — the publishing companies can hard ly be blamed for doing what is necessary to in sure their own survival. And while their mass-produced books are not particularly enlightening or thought-provoking, they are usually entertaining which is what the public seems to want (even if this is the same men tality that leads to movies like Armageddon and television like “Friends” getting made). At any rate, if people are actually willing to buy these books, they deserve what they get. What makes this situation so annoying is not that liter ature has been taken over by mediocrity, but that so many people continue to deny that this has hap pened. Instead, these people hold an artificial rever ence for modern literature, giving authors like Danielle Steel and Robert Ludlum the respect that was earned by authors like William Shakespeare and Leo Tolstoy. Even today there are people who will actually claim they would rather read the worst book ever written than watch the best television show. If those people watched more television maybe they would realize that the “Simpsons” is more creative, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has a more riveting plot and “Dawson’s Creek” will do more to build your vocabulary than almost any book currently in print. Perhaps literature once deserved to be respect ed above all other forms of art and entertainment, but these days it is just another business. Enjoy it for what it is but do not expect more from it than from any other form of popular culture. Brendan Gdy is a senior political science and history major. GABRIEL RUENES/Thk Battalion TRAVEL IVER. ANGEL FIRE ® . sleeps 16. S125-&V-: ying addicts to get sterilized good way to reduce crack babies ongratulations, it is a three-pound, six-ounce baby with underdevel- jth Padre Island, TO' 9 ' is. Best Oceanlrort r anleedl! (800)9854 ?sed vital organs.” While no rp about spring teat udentadvantagecor ctor or nurse would announce - r' nec )ab V’ s b i rtb i n this exact way, rIGHT L0S1: s sat | scenario gets played out Meiqht warned: aCrOSS this na hon . Doctor recommendsoen a substance-exposed baby rate! Call 279-9899 boiTl According to the Department Demond REID i HertJs N^Fadws'Health, there have been approximately 800,000 mgy level. •Decrease bstance-exposed infants born every year since ntormaS U 69M786 9 5, and less than 20 percent of those babies go ^me with their mother. The other 80 percent have > a l petitions filed against the mother and are ced in foster care. wen pay youtc f statistics like this have caused the debate over a offer. Call now!! , . . , . , , , • , >w to stop the increasing number of drug-addicted bies in this country to sprout faster than a mari- fcna plant saturated with Miracle-Gro. i Big Brother has tried to combat this problem of ug-addicted babies by attacking the source, name- the drug trade. This is a nice try. The U.S. Govern- snt’s war on drugs has been a bigger flop than <J /KIN/ SPRAY IN Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. Acknowledging the government’s inability to do anything about the problem, Barbara Harris proposed a radical yet very good idea. Harris started the organization Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity (C.R.A.C.K), which offers drug addicts money to get sterilized. Given enough time, this organization will prove to be the magical sword that slays the beast of drug-exposed infants. This concept of paying drug addicts $200 to get sterilized is surprisingly good because it hinges on the simple fact that drug addicts need money. The state of California has been offering free tubal liga tions to drug addicts for quite a while, but when an addict is living crack pipe to crack pipe that offer means very little. Two hundred dollars to non-ad dicts means the equivalent of 40 grams of happiness to a crack head. The cost for taking care of abandoned drug ba bies falls onto the American taxpayer. Abandoned drug babies are coined “million dollar” babies be cause the medical cost for one leap frogs across the million dollar line. According to C.R.A.C.K. the typical drug addict has seven children. Now if the decision is between $7 million (a million dollars per baby) absorbed by the American taxpayer and a $200 nip and tuck, somebody call Dr. Cut ‘em Up and tell him to sharp en his scalpel. That choice is not exactly a Catch-22, now is it? The situation is like deciding to spend $5 on Janet Jackson’s CD or $50 on Latoya’s. Up to present,C.R.A.C.K. has had 37 paid steril ization clients. If it is assumed that each one of those clients was at risk to have just one baby, then C.R.A.C.K. has saved the taxpayers $37 million . Thirty-seven million. That is almost enough money for a special prosecutor to hound a president out of office for getting a little “congressional service” in the Oval Office. C.R.A.C.K. has taken the concept of the rights of the unborn to the next logical step. They are advo cating the rights of the unconceived. Every zygote should be given the right not to be conceived inside of a mother who will get them hooked on drugs in the womb. Face it, on the Grand Old Birth Defect Preference List being born addicted to crack ranks right below being born with only three fingers and right above being born with a foot growing out of your neck. As with any simple solution to a complex prob lem, C.R.A.C.K.’s approach has been met with some opposition. A main contention against the organiza tion’s method is the finality of it. The opponents of C.R.A.C.K believe the individ ual may one day turn their life around and should not be enticed to make long-term decisions while they are under the influence of the drug, since get ting mixed up in drugs was just a “bad decision” they made. No. Smoking crack is not a bad decision. Wearing a paisley shirt with plaid pants is a bad decision. In sulting Mike Tyson’s mother to his face is a bad deci sion. Smoking crack is insane. If a person decides to sell their reproductive rights for a $200 signing bonus, they do not deserve any playing time for the parental all-star team. In fact, they should not even be allowed to watch the game. C.R.A.C.K.’s solution is a better alternative to the game Uncle Sam wants drug addicts to play. Grant ed, drug addicts have rolled doubles for the third time, but rather than sending them directly to jail, C.R.A.C.K. allows them to pass Go, collect $200 and find a crack house somewhere on Baltic Ave. Demond Reid is a sophomore marketing major. Y TRUCK-F S American school systems need major changes 101 779-! liege Station . , . . ation as Housed^ weeping educational preforms are long over- '■✓due in America. Our ,lture and level of technol- y have made the current ucational system obsolete d have led to many criti- »ms of the system. One of the major criti- (;ms about the American v ucational system is that ALL ANT 199! Luke SAUGIER 00 RM /E YOUR I THE )KTAKEN does not adequately prepare students for eal life.” This would be an easy problem to :if “real life” were the same for all people; ifortunately it is not. The “real life” future liege students need to be prepared for is the fficulty of college courses. However, for the 70 percent of Americans ho end their formal education at high hool, real life includes the need to learn a ide that will support them and enable them retire comfortably. At best, it is difficult for one school to ac- I . , sL*-1 l_y w O L j 1 L 10 Ut x JL1.1 LA A L JL v_/ L LA 11 \Z O L^ x x LA LA 1 l LA Cl L^ — KING SEN mplish the task of preparing both groups for ^BOOK e wor ^. and the deteriorating social and lysjical environment of many high schools b* akes it truly impossible. E CENTER According to The Center For Education Re- sID ACADEf' 011 ’ American students rank in the bottom qiTTiMpc 'e of 21 industrial nations in mathematics bl 11 Nib- 1C | L c j ence . 25 percent of all 12th graders ored below what is considered basic ade- lacy in the reading portion of the National O-12'OO ANf» sessmem Educational Progress test. ftiFn TJ 16 brst ste P towards reforming America’s iaj-o 183 hclols is to establish a national educational riON. standard for material to be learned by the end of the eighth-grade year. This way, all students would be taught the same material and could be ranked fairly. A test would be given to de termine whether students have mastered the material. Upon passing the national test, students would be finished with their required school ing. Any student who fails the test would be required to attend special education classes until he or she could pass the test or was found to be incapable of passing. Students who pass the test would have three options. First, they could end their edu cation and immediately enter the work force, which would be discouraged by the same kind of “Stay In School” campaigns in use today. Another option would be to attend a voca tional school, which would cover the basic subjects now covered in high schools. The vo cational schools would also help students choose the trade they would like to work in af ter graduation and teach them the skills neces sary for that trade. A third option would be to take another test that would be significantly harder than the eighth-grade graduation test. Upon passing this test, students would be allowed to enroll in a college preparatory school. Currently, according to The Center For Edu cational Reform, one-quarter of all mathemat ics courses at public universities are remedial courses. The prep schools would cover more advanced material than is offered in most modern high schools in order to prepare stu dents for a college education and allow them to enter college without the need for the amount of remedial courses that is common today. Other areas of the school system would be affected as well. Attendance would be option al at the vocational and prep schools to make it clear to students that they are in class of their own freewill for the sole purpose of learning. All schools would be on a full-year system, under which students would have four, three- week breaks throughout the year. This would eliminate the “startup” and “shutdown” time that now exists before and after summer break. Some things would be the same; all high schools, junior high schools and elementary schools would be free and people of any age could attend any school. However, under this new system, education would be seen as a privilege, not a right. Dis cipline would be rigid and violent or illegal be havior would result in permanent expulsion. Through this system, America would con tinue to produce world-class leaders, scientists and artists. Perhaps equally importantly, it would continue to allow young people to ex plore their interests. Yes, this new system would not be fair to everyone. It would, however, be unfair to few er people than the system in use today since it would not try to fit every student into the same educational mold. Luke Saugier is a sophomore petroleum engineering major. MAIL CALL Students respond to abortion debate In response to Christina Barrow’s Feb. 1 opinion column. Knitting needles, Q-tips, Drano douches, drinking plant poison, coat hangers..all methods of ille gal abortions. The fate of the woman who uses these methods is much worse when the proce dure and much too often is death. Due to the Hyde amendment (which denies women federal Medicaid funding for abortions), parental consent laws, mandato ry waiting periods and lack of clinics performing abortions (84 percent of all counties offer no abortion services) illegal abor tions will occur. Is your friend, your girlfriend, your sister going to end up dead or physically scarred because she could not afford the time or money involved in a legal abortion? She’s less likely to because of organiza tions like Planned Parenthood. Jennifer Woodson Class of ‘01 In response to Manisha Parekh’s Feb. 1 opinion column. It is horrible that a few “pro life” supporters made the wrong decision and resorted to killing, but it is important to point out that all pro-choice people support killing. If abortion had been illegal, I am sure that one-third of our gen eration would not have been wiped out. It is not appropriate to place the responsibility of another woman’s pregnancy on the shoul ders of those who care about the children. The majority of pro-life sup porters are marked by compas sion and seek to preserve life. I know many mature pro-lifers who would provide a good home for an unwanted baby of any race, rather than having them burnt or mangled. Sara Gauthier Class of ’01 The Battalion encourages letters to the ed itor. Letters must be 300 words or less and in clude 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 Campus Mail: 1111 Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: batt@tamvml.tamu.edu