le Battalion
O
PINION
Page 13 • Thursday, April 22, 1999
ef Nroy.
ttnd da |
01 <e after:-1
ith a 299 i
st round.- *
r ‘J Bodem
>8 J 707,y
rs from Ten
5 =
her careei.
'od 13th #
u Becker'
229 ahi
'OUtoflUi
; w ere the,
n the topi:
nning on empty
ail campaign to boycott gasoline will not accomplish goal of lowering pump prices
Luke
SAUGIER
w
MICHAEL WAGENER/The Battalion
A n idea known as
“The Great Gas
Out” is being
spread in the form of a
chain e-mail. The un
known originator of
this e-mail is apparent
ly incensed because
over the last few
months gas prices have
risen steeply from their
two-decade low.
The e-mail originated in California
where gas prices have gone up more
steeply than in other parts of the country
due to several refinery accidents resulting
in loss of production. The purpose of the
message is to encourage people to strike
back at the “oil cartels” and send a mes
sage where it will be noticed — in the
pocketbook. To do this, people are sup
posed to refrain from buying gas on April
30.
According to the message, “only a few
million need to take part for it to make a
difference.” Unfortunately, the anger of
the writer of the e-mail and all the tools
who continue to forward it is misdirected.
Hurting the “oil cartels” is a bad idea.
The oil industry in the United States em
ploys more than 1.5 million people. Any
thing that hurts oil companies causes a
loss of jobs. While the drop in gas prices
may have seemed like a good thing, thou
sands of people in the oil field services in
dustry became unemployed when the oil
companies were forced to stop operations
such as exploration and drilling to keep
from losing money.
The only thing that would keep gas
prices low is a low crude oil price which
would maintain thousands of people in
a position of unemployment. The “Gas
Out” letter states that the “oil cartels”
have cut worldwide production by 2
million barrels per day (BOPD) to raise
gas prices. This is not true.
Although the Organization of the Pe
troleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)stat-
ed that they would cut oil production by
some 2.1 million BOPD, this was done to
raise the price of crude oil to a point
where oil companies could continue oper
ations without losing money.
Even if this were not the case, anger
over high gas prices is totally unjustified.
Americans pay approximately $1.15 per
gallon for gasoline. More than 40 cents of
this price is tax imposed by the govern
ment. Compared to this, the increase of a
few cents per gallon due to higher crude
prices is insignificant.
Crude oil is sold at the same price
everywhere in the world. Thus, one
would expect the price of gasoline to be
the same in all areas of the world, but this
is not the case; in Europe and Asia gaso
line costs between $3 and $4 per gallon.
Gas prices are high in these countries be
cause only the state-run oil company is al
lowed to operate there.
As a state-sanctioned monopoly, these
companies can set gas prices as high as
they want. Their gas prices do not fluctu
ate because the loss of a few cents per
gallon due to higher crude prices means
nothing to a company that is making over
$2 per gallon in profit. If the “Gas Out”
were to have a profound impact and put
the evil American oil cartels out of busi
ness, America would likely create its own
state oil company. Then our gas prices
would join the rest of the worlds prices in
the $3 to $4 range. But don’t lose any
sleep over this possibility because the
“Gas Out” is doomed to failure.
The success of “The Great Gas Out” re
lies on millions of people hearing about
and participating in the plan. Such partici
pation is unlikely. But assuming that
everyone in America participated accord
ing to the rules laid down in the letter.
which states people can “buy gas the day
before and the day after, but not on April
30”, it still would not work. It says noth
ing about not driving on the 30, so the
usual amount of gas would be used.
Then, everyone would refill their tank
the next day, buying the gas they did not
buy the day before. But what if all of
America did not drive on that day and
used no gasoline?
It still would not affect the oil compa
nies because the owner of the service sta
tion buys his gas from the oil company
once a week, so the service station own
ers would be affected, not the oil compa
nies.
But, assuming that the gas was bought
from the oil companies themselves, it still
would not work because, according to the
CEO of Equilon Corp., oil companies
make less than one penny per gallon of
gas sold at the pump.
And if, in spite of all this, “The Great
Gas Out” were to succeed in hurting the
oil companies profits for a day, the
spokesperson for Chevron says that com
panies would merely raise gas prices to
make up for the lost profits.
So “The Great Gas Out” will not ac
complish anything. What is truly amazing
is that there are enough uninformed peo
ple who have passed the e-mail along that
even major news networks such as ABC
are covering it.
According to the Gas Out Website there
is even a legislator in California who is
trying to pass a resolution to prevent all
state-owned vehicles from buying gas on
April 30. The people of America need to
realize that the major oil companies are
not the enemy, and even if they were,
there is not a whole lot anyone could do
to hurt them.
Luke Saugier is a sophomore petroleum
engineering major.
ame.
&M graduates need to stay in touch with
earns when faced with worldly pressures
MAIL CALL
Brandon
MULLEN
K'pring has finally ar-
^Bived, and that
nakea^■nieans a i ar g e n um-
vhttl 1 ' 0 f fellow Aggies are
lurch sparing for graduation
■eryh ad others are registering
• J P' r it the last time. The
i lass of ’99 along with
1 ame remnants of ’98, ’97
ee nd naaybe ’96, is prepar-
3 loaPig t 0 enter the real world
- the real world being anything outside of
ggieland.
. It may mean entering the work force, try-
—“Igto find a job in the work force or going to
raduate or professional school, but it defi-
itely means a change.
These Aggies will be faced with a new re-
ponsibilities and challenges, but they must
^member where they came from and how
tey got there. When fresh graduates begin to
tickle under the pressure of the outside
odd, they should remember the times and
ings that made them happy while they
mo at A&M.
With graduation comes a storm of reality
hat can drown the flame of early adulthood,
'his is expected, but care must be taken to
:eep the flame alive. While some of this en-
Tgy must be transferred to real life by leav-
ngfa few glowing embers, graduating seniors
:an make the transition much easier.
Too many people accept jobs right out of
college that they will not enjoy. And the
lense of financial security they find in their
cubicle keeps them from looking for a job
P'hey will enjoy.
C'i A commercial currently running on TV ex
presses this trend. The ad has a number of
elementary school children saying what they
want to be when they grow up. One says,
“1 want to work my way up to middle man
agement,” another “I want to file papers for
the rest of my life.” A young girl says “I want
to get paid less for the same job,” while a lit
tle boy says, “I want a brown nose.” The
commercial ends by telling the viewer to re
member what they wanted to be when they
were growing up.
But college graduates are pressured from
all sides to find the highest paying job right
out of college. Some students have parents
who do not want the money they spent on an
education to go to waste. Others have taken
out large loans to pay for their education and
have to pay those off.
Still others have worked their way through
school and are tired of living on a tight bud
get and want to have money in the bank.
And others have families that they need to
start providing for.
These reasons are all important and can
not be easily ignored. But one factor that can
be ignored is mass media. There are count
less commercials on television today that
stress the importance of saving and working
towards retirement.
While this is definitely important, people
should not be miserable in their 20s, to be
happy in their 50s. Because if someone
works hard all their life to retire and relax,
they may have forgotten how to relax.
Long hours and short weekends do not ex
actly calm the mind, and they can make peo
ple forget what is important in life.
So what are graduating seniors to do?
Should they skip graduation and hitch-hike
across America in search of their souls? No.
But they should make a list of everything that
made them happy while they were here in
Aggieland, and they should try to do one
thing off this list every week.
These activities do not have to be extrava
gant or extreme. It does not mean ditching
work in the middle of the week to go and
float down the Guadalupe River and then
bringing one’s boss a note from Scott and
White that says you were absent for medical
reasons.
The activity should be something simple.
It could be a picnic in the park, a pick-up
game of basketball or a round of golf. It
could mean a weekend barbecue with one’s
neighbors or a margarita.
And if the time or need arises, Aggies
should come back to A&M. They can visit
their dorm or fraternity house, go to the Dixie
Chicken or catch a baseball game. Any of
these things will take them back to a simpler
time in their life and keep them from losing
sight of what is important.
The responsibilities of the real world can
be overwhelming and must be dealt with,
but sometimes the best way to deal with
pressure is to get away from it. And most col
lege students know how to blow off stress.
They are able to find the easiest and cheapest
ways to have fun and forget about school.
Graduating seniors should remember to
regress to college life sometimes, and then
the real world should not seem so daunting
Brandon Mullen is a senior English
and history major.
First Amendment
should protect all
In response to Lisa Foox’s Apr.
20 opinion column.
I share Foox’s displeasure, dis
dain and distaste for hate speech
and the “works” of the “negation
ists.” What I do not share is the
contention that the first amend
ment be weakened in order to
stop bigoted statements.
Why did the framers of the
Constitution make the right to
free speech the First Amendment?
I expect that they believed that
the only way to ensure a democ
ratic and free society was to leave
all avenues of debate open. They
were terribly concerned about the
possibility of a “tyranny of the
majority” and by protecting
speech — all speech — they
hoped to lessen the chances of
just such a tyranny arising.
What the First Amendment re
ally does is protect unpopular
speech. Popular speech does not
need protection. It is the critical,
dissenting and different speech
that needs the protecting. If the
First Amendment is to work it
must apply to all speech equally.
Think of the most abhorrent
thing that somebody could say.
That is what must be protected,
for if not, then you might wake
up one day to discover that
overnight some majority of citi
zens got together and abridged
your freedom of speech. Only in
protecting all speech can the First
Amendment continue to be effec
tive.
This means that I can say, “t.u.
sucks,” or “President Clinton is a
baboon,” (my apologies to the the
readers that happen to be ba
boons) or “the trilateral commis
sion and the Vatican run the
world and staged the Holocaust”.
Some of those statements might
be funny, some offensive and
some outright lies, but I can still
say them.
Millions of voices were si
lenced in the holocaust, voices
that were not afforded the protec
tion of our Bill of Rights, the cor
nerstone of which is the First
Amendment. The possibility of
ugly and disturbing speech being
spoken under the first amend
ment is the price of freedom for
all of us, a price that I am willing
to pay — and remember, it is your
right to disagree with me, that is
guaranteed.
Dan Unger
Graduate Student
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: 113.1
Fax: (409) 845-2647
E-mail: batt@tamvml.tamu.edu
s Country needs to re-examine policies in light of Colorado shooting
Caleb
MCDANIEL
o it has come to
this. The recent
massacre at
^mlumbine High
^ftehool in Colorado
“fias added to an al
ready unendurably
fl*jiong list of tragedies
' ^ our nation’s
I; Bools in recent
feirs, leaving more
Jhan a dozen people dead and an entire
/pation wondering why.
If Irhe tales of terror coming from the
^jjifvivors of the attack are almost too
Jorrible to imagine — sadistic killers,
Siqtalirnatized victims, frantic parents,
.|loody classrooms. They are the stuff of
I rhorror films, but there they have become
the stuff of high schools.
■Something must be done, and the
Tf Problem can no longer be ignored. These
brutal acts of violence cannot be swept
under a rug of indifference anymore, and
they are no longer confined to certain
sections or populations in the country.
They have occurred in areas as di
verse as Colorado and Kentucky and
Arkansas, and they have been commit
ted by adolescents as young as 11-years-
old.
The problem is one of national pro
portions, and only a concerted national
effort will solve it. Americans cannot
wait until even one more child lies dead
in a school library. The time to act is
now.
First and foremost, it is high time to
rethink the Second Amendment and ad
mit that this country has a problem with
guns. There is absolutely no excuse for a
system of weapons laws so lax that
teenagers can walk into a high school
armed with military assault rifles or
shotguns and open fire on their class
mates.
Our children, for whatever reason, are
turning from fisticuffs to grenades and
pipe bombs. However our Founding Fa
thers intended us to interpret the right to
bear arms, the crisis we face is no longer
about forming militias or being able to
go hunting on the weekends. This is
about teenagers armed to the teeth.
Has the image of a gun-toting, pim
ply-faced adolescent become so com
monplace that we are insensitive to its
horrible implications? Growing up has
become more than emotionally confus
ing; it is becoming dangerous.
The common high school conflicts
between the in-crowd and the out-crowd
are not new to America, but one thing is
new — now the out-crowd knows how
to make pipe bombs, and some of them
are demonstrating a shocking propensity
to use them.
So even if the United States will never
revoke the right to own weapons, it must
regulate that right more strictly. More
rigorous licensing laws, background
checks and penalties are needed —
whatever it takes to keep a high school
dance from turning into a bloodbath.
There will be continued controversy over
gun control, but the debate needs to be
reinvented. The old arguments pale in
the face of the horrifying images at
places like Columbine High School. The
memory of the dead youths should now
be in the foreground of every discussion
on the subject.
Of course, this is not to suggest that
guns are the only cause of these kinds of
tragedies. The causes are much deeper.
They come from a society of parents who
are afraid to say “no” to their kids. They
come from a society of entertainers who
do not think twice about making a buck
off of bloodlust. They come from a society
of people who have forgotten about each
other in their concern for themselves.
President Clinton, who has been rather
short on good things to say in recent mem
ory, was exactly right in his public re
sponse to the events at Columbine. He is
right that we may never understand why
such tragedies occur, and he was right to
remind the nation of the words of the
apostle Paul — that on this earth, we only
see dimly, as in a mirror.
However, perhaps what is most fright
ening is that we are beginning to see
ourselves in the mirror more clearly, and
we do not like what we see. We see a so
ciety full of ghastly images and guilty
consciences, a world with murderous
teenagers and murdered refugees. How
foolish we would be if, after looking
hard at our ugliest reflections as a soci
ety, we walked away and did nothing to
change them.
Caleb McDaniel is a sophomore
history major.
y