:ket’r
lytol
j e Battalion
O
PINION
Page 13 • Wednesday, March 24, 1999
>allasi
disputes 1 !^
' with Cor
I (AP) -TTie
cket” Ismailliij
)rts the free-agr j
to
ICl ^
re working !o
’e have not sip-
do not exp«::
weekend,” J-
ssociated Pres:
Tview.
nd at least oiKi
oiled Tuesday!?
;t ruck, but Mu.;
re premature,
ooys spokespt !
ight that no q
scheduled,
oast three seas
for Carolina aid
it at the Pantei
son. He alsoq
w home inCha'
/hetherCaroli;
ire, Mulasaid:
h the Panther: i
her club Isnu
ik with.
/n to Carolina a
alking toward;
Dallas." Mulai
STANC
/College Stai
arcos and wi
t
Businesse
ny where 1
cs or Fees)
Don’t
quit your day job...
Celebrities should not branch out into areas
they lack talent, save themselves embarrassment
David
LEE
ROBERT HYNECEK/Tiif. Battalion
B aseball buffs everywhere
know the San Diego
Padres will face an uphill
battle in defending their Na
tional League championship
this upcoming baseball season.
Free agency and budget cuts
have decimated the team’s ros
ter during the off-season, with
ace pitcher Kevin Brown being
the most noteworthy departure.
So what does team management do to com
pensate for the lost talent? Naturally, they sign a
big name, someone who can come in and and
shore up fan confidence.
However, 37-year-old country music superstar
Garth Brooks is not the savior Padres’ fans have
been praying for during the off-season.
Prior to spring training this year he has never
played an inning of major league baseball in his
life .
What in the world could possibly justify his
place on the Padres’ spring training roster?
Other than a cheap ploy to get the public’s at
tention, nothing. The bottom line is unless
Brooks can hit over .250 or can hurl a wicked
split-finger pitch, he has no business being on a
major league baseball diamond as a player.
Unfortunately, he is following in the footsteps
of many celebrities before him who have at
tempted to branch out and become multi-faceted
entertainers.
The problem is the majority of these celebri
ties have little or no legitimate talent for their
new career, relying instead on fame gained from
their other career to force their way into a sec
ond field.
Unless these celebrities have actual talent to
justify branching out, they should stop insulting
the public and stick to what they are good at.
The Padres’ signing of Brooks is an obvious
public relations ploy. Realistically, he has ab
solutely no chance of making the major league
roster.
Rolling Stone magazine prominently dis
played an anonymous Padres batting coach’s
comment that, “The only way [Brooks] could
have gotten an extra-base hit was if the ball
bounced off his helmet.”
The odds of Brooks replacing future Hall of
Famer Tony Gwynn in the starting lineup do not
look very likely after this stunning vote of confi
dence.
Yes, it is heart-warming to a certain extent
that Brooks gets to live out his childhood dream
of playing major league baseball.
Celebrities often claim this as the primary mo
tivation for attempting another career i.e.
Michael Jordan in baseball, Pamela Lee in mo
tion pictures and Shaquille O’Neal in rap music.
Anyone remember the rave reviews for Barb
Wire? Know anyone who owns a Shaq rap
record? It is painfully obvious that these celebri
ties use their fame in their primary profession as
leverage in getting an opportunity to try out a
new career and realize their dream.
In Brooks case, he used his fame as a country
music performer to garner a spot on the Padres’
spring training roster.
Any notion of them having actual talent in
their new career is overshadowed by momentum
built from their other career.
Besides, it is commonplace for these celebri
ties to give up after they realize their dream of
success will not come true.
Jordan eventually went back to winning
championships in the NBA, Lee went back to the
pages of Playboy and O’Neal went back to main
taining his pathetic free-throw percentage.
Brooks will obviously go back to his music ca
reer.
Granted, every now and then, a celebrity pos
sess the necessary talent and has success in mul
tiple careers. However, for every Barbra
Streisand, there are dozens of Jenny McCarthys.
For every Arnold Schwarzeneggar, there are
hundreds of Hulk Hogans. For every Jerry Sein
feld, there are thousands of Jeff Foxworthys.
Hopefully, Brooks will realize this before re
turning to Padres’ spring training. Besides, it is
not like he can never set foot on a major league
baseball field ever again and be the center of at
tention. Two words: national anthem.
David Lee is a sophomore
general studies major.
reacher’s words of love mask message, doctrine of intolerance
Manisha
PAREKH
ture holds. - tolerance. It is
the answer a i ive an( j we n j n
. iMmerica and it is
’ ,or tvvcnl ; H aring the country
grounds fore! iart whether re ii_
ing, programitfpus, cultural or
on and othei cial, intolerance
visit with oik 'ntinually rears its
;ly head and keeps
dghbors from un-
Open House , rstanc jj n g
lay, April toil 1 working together and helping each
.m. - 1 p.m' her.
pany Headquif And intolerance is currently paying a
IHster - Housi'sit to the Texas A&M campus in the
m. of preacher Tom Short,
me and goe short’s semesterly visit is
□u are unable rrounded by a cloud of controversy,
ic to: ith many groups coming to his defense
id applauding his efforts, while other
oups protest in opposition.
Kie circus atmosphere permeates the
ealin front of Lawrence Sullivan Ross’
itue and many students gather around
tort to watch the heated arguments be-
een him and the audience.
Itj would be easy to dismiss Short as a
te-man entertainment troupe. But to do
t ^vould be look past the suffering and
n that his kind of demagoguery has
tight to the world.
It would be easy to dismiss Short as
Inorant, illogical man, but to do that
would be to ignore the threat that his
breed of intolerance poses to everyone.
It would be the same as accepting his
hate, his bigotry and his intolerance as
your own.
For Short, and those like him, is dan
gerous. He masks a message of hate and
persecution in the gauze of religious sal
vation. He takes a doctrine of love and
healing and turns into one of divisiveness
and discrimination.
On the surface, he may claim to
preach love and repentance, but when
his facade is viewed in the light of his ac
tual words, the house of cards begin to
fall to the ground, revealing a man who
hates everything that is not like him.
Short preaches about what is right and
what is wrong. On his Website, he has
written, “Our problem is not that we
judge too much but that we blindly fol
low the crowd while making far too few
judgments on what (and who) is right
and wrong. ”
Apparently, anyone who is not like
Short is wrong and is going to hell. On
the Outreach Judaism Website, David
Myers posted a letter highlighting Short’s
fall 1996 visit to A&M.
“[He] told one student that, because
she is Jewish, she is going to ‘burn in
hell.’ He told another Jewish students
that ‘Hitler did not go far enough,”’ My
ers wrote.
This does not sound like a doctrine of
love. It sounds like a doctrine of hate and
intolerance — the same kind that lead to
the deaths of over 6 million Jews during
the Holocaust.
What would happen if a follower of
Short took his words to heart? Who
would pay the price for Short’s intoler
ance? Everyone, because the hate does
not stop there.
Based upon an article Short posted on
his Website, Short also does not support
multiculturalism because it leads to im
morality.
Furthermore, Short warns Christians,
via his Website, not to take certain class
es from non-Christians.
“Be warned,” Short wrote, “Be careful
from whom you learn. Do not sit in the
seat of a scoffer or you will be dam
aged!!!
“I am not saying that you should
check out your engineering professor’s
religion before you take his class ... But
there are certainly many classes in which
[it] does [play a big part]: Philosophy,
psychology, history, humanities, litera
ture, logic, natural sciences, sociology,
and, of course, Bible as literature courses
to name a few ... Avoid these classes if
you can.”
Basically, anyone who learns from a
non-Christian endangers himself or her
self. Were this philosophy taken to the
highest level, many of the most brilliant
minds at the University and the world
would never be heard of by Christians.
This country would not have the ex
change of free ideas upon which it was
built. Tolerance would be a meaningless
word. The mere fact that a person is of a
different religion makes him or her dan
gerous.
Rev. Kathleen Ellis of the Unitarian Fel
lowship said Short’s message is harmful.
“tom short preaches intolerance and
hatred instead of the basic Christian mes
sage of love,” she said. “God teaches per
fect love. The two great commandments
are to love God and to love our neigh
bors. I believe that God expects us to love
one another, not to condemn anyone.
God will be our ultimate judge.
“He’s very intolerant towards Jews
and hateful to those who don’t follow his
beliefs,” Ellis said. “That is very harmful.
God taught us to love one another. We all
live together and we may believe differ
ent things, but we need to respect each
other. ”
Short defends himself by writing that
he is tolerant; he is message is merely
misunderstood. “Disagree with a politi
cally correct position and you are a ‘hate-
monger,’ ” he wrote.
No, one is called a hatemonger when
he regularly preaches in support of anti
semitism, bigotry and intolerance. One is
called a hatemonger when he quoted as
saying“Hitler did not got far enough.”
Is this God’s message to man? Hate
and intolerance? Chances are, most the
ologians would not agree.
By masking hate in a thin cloud of re
ligion, Short has found a way to divide
students, breed racism and anti-semitism
and keep the University from healing old
wounds and embracing diversity.
The only way to counter this strong
message of hate is with an equally strong
message of love and acceptance. Stu
dents, regardless of religious feelings and
backgrounds, must come together and
voice the opinion that this type of hatred
and divisiveness has no place on the
A&M campus. Students must realize that
even the sweetest words can mask the
cruelest of intentions.
To borrow a sentence from Short,
“With a multitude of lies and deception
flooding our culture, we who have the
truth must know it, live it and share it
with others.”
The truth is Short’s message of intoler
ance is intolerable.
Manisha Parekh is a junior psychology
and journalism major.
me /'■"■"v rder in the
W ■If If Court.”
V—✓ The once-
/ered legal system
lividualsl«f‘ s c ° un 'y h f
en reduced to hav-
e Staff, j about as much
)n at the stige and valor as
erican legal troubles symptoms of lawyers’ greed, deceptions
Demond
REID
: positions urt cases to sleazy m
all. vyers to absurd decisions, it is appar-
t that Lady Justice is not only blind
t also deaf, dumb and stupid.
' The only problem that stems from
ving a system where anybody can sue
' anything is that anybody can sue for
ything. Frivolous lawsuits have the
jal system more backed up than the
m’s room toilets at an all-you-can-eat
i ane and bran muffin coffee shop.
A Princeton Music Professor is now
ing Smashing Pumpkins because ap-
6-4242 rently the music at one of their 1997
concerts was too loud. Suing a rock
band for playing their music too loud is
about as stupid as suing McDonalds for
serving coffee too hot. By its nature
rock music is supposed to be loud.
Even if the professor thought that
Smashing Pumpkins was some sort of
sadistic agricultural troop and not a
rock band, the assortment of Buick-
sized speakers and bazillion watt ampli
fiers should have been some sort of in
dication that they were not just going to
be whistling Dixie.
If the allowing of frivolous lawsuits
was not enough to take the shine off the
gold ring that is the judicial system,
sleazy lawyers certainly have put a
huge finger print on it. No longer do
lawyers work to serve the interest of
justice.
Now they only work to fatten the
pockets of their Armani suits, keep up
the payments on their solid gold Lexus-
es and wall paper their summer man
sions with twenty-dollar bills.
Consequently, with the hefty billing
hours lawyers pile up, justice is now for
sale. The legal system could not be any
more pimped if Supafly was Chief Jus
tice of the Supreme Court.
At one time being a lawyer was one
of the most honorable professions a
person could pursue. Now being a
lawyer is about as honorable as being
the “whore of the month” at Happy
Harry’s House of Half Dollar Hookers.
Granted there are still lawyers out
there who thrive to thwart injustice and
fight for the rights of the little man. But
those types of lawyers number fewer
than Vanilla Ice fans.
The lawyers in question are the
sleazy defense lawyers who would de
fend Hitler if he paid a high enough re
tainer.
Moreover, the unscrupulous lawyers
are the ones who would defend a per
son whom they know in their heart of
hearts is guilty as sin. These are the
lawyers who defend purely evil individ
uals by painting hypothetical scenarios
more vivid than an LSD flashback and
more implausible than a Stephen King
novel plot.
Besides the 12 marble brains who sat
in the jury box, no one else believed
that the entire LAPD conspired to frame
O.J. Simpson. They are just not that
smart or that organized. The LAPD
could not devise a plan to handle crowd
control at a Clippers game, let alone de
vise a conspiracy plot that would make
Oliver Stone jealous.
The so called “rules of evidence” use
to protect the rights of people certainly
failed the people in this case. How
much more proof did they need to con
vict that man? The prosecution had the
blood, the shoe print and the glove. It
took less evidence to prove evolution.
If the David Copperfield-like magic
tricks lawyers pulled off weren’t bad
enough, the judges in this system leave
a lot to be desired.
For example, in Pennsylvania two
hundred forty pounds of cocaine was
disallowed as evidence in a drug case
because the trooper who found it
stopped the suspects’ car for failure to
display a front license plate.
Then the case was thrown out be
cause, legally, Pennsylvania only re
quires a rear plate. What type of asinine
decision was that? That judgment is al
most as bad as calling the Holyfield-
Lewis fight a draw.
American faith in the legal system is
disappearing faster than a plate of dou
ble stuff Oreos in front of Ricki Lake.
The only way to bring back that faith is
if the justice system concentrated more
on bringing justice than following the
system.
Demond Reid is a sophomore
journalism major.