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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 1999)
• le attalion O PINION Page 5 • Wednesday, July 14, 1999 socct in official V Tuesday beat dni:8ven now, I am in some ways ind sang pin denial about the TV walk- anthem cftmt on me. t. I still have two months worth ceremcftble bills to pay, even though CommuSat time period 1 have not i Peng, ten been plugged in to my cable ao and «»■ Maybe someday — after ■e twelve-step rehab program, had lool Jpaps — 1 will bring myself to up final flnff the cable. But not yet. Not as a pniiJoon. rival wB 1 those earl y weeks of TV , nn0jJ Midrawal, 1 even staked out all jj-nnip; pe places in College Station I honed * ld 8° to § et a TV fix when k team i ame t0 ° kark to t ,ear - i t rl d watched my hometown team itetes rai “l| t ] ;ie Finals in laundro- S 10 El [ ie countri TV or not TV? (That is the question) Gabriel Ruenes/The Battalion Cutting back on television viewing can be beneficial for college students mats, restaurants and friends’ apartments. I have not stooped to stop ping by Circuit City and pre tending to browse through their —v color TV sec- yf ) tion. . But don’t / think I /1 haven’t f J thought about 1 \ it. \ So life \ without tele- \ vision has not bden entirely easy. But slowly and surely, the true value of TV-less liv ing is beginning to shine clear. There is a rainbow in the clouds. At the end of that rainbow, 1 have found myself working more productively than ever, accom plishing more in less amounts of time and actually getting to bed at sane hours of the night. I have actually picked up books that were not assigned for a class and (gasp) thumbed through them while eating din ner instead of plopping down to watch “Everybody Loves Ray mond” while robotically shovel ing mac and cheese into my mouth. Believe it or not, I have even contemplated exercise, although I am still motivating myself to start the illustrious jogging career that is surely in my immediate fu ture. After all the pacing and regret, the truth is that losing a television has not meant losing a trusted friend. I now realize the TV had been robbing me of time, energy and health all along. I am slowly reaching the point where I can say I am glad to see it go. To those naysayers who are now shaking their heads, those TV-faithful who have seen every “Seinfeld” episode twice, you are not alone in thinking life without TV is an unthinkable fate. According to Nielsen Me dia Research, 99 percent of Americans have a television j set — many have more than V one. g Adults spend over four hours a day with the tube. That means that in the §|j» five years it takes the illjL average young Aggie to get a degree, a col- Lvuj lege student will JgS[ watch 7,300 hours of JMfjjiy TV. Students will spend, on average, |||P§kN more time flipping ’SpP through channels than sitting in class. The truly depress- ing side of this statis tic is that most of those hours are not even spent watching a single program to its completion. According to research done by public station WGBH-TV in Boston, viewers who are in their late teens to early 20s change the channel an average of 41 times per hour. A little more math yields this incredible result: the average 5- year college student will change the channel 299,300 times during their stay at an institution of higher learning. So even if spending one hour with 41 channel changes a day may seem deceptively like a “break” from the routine of studying, 299,300 channel surfs add up. Reducing the amount of TV we watch can do students a world of good. It seems crazy, I know, but I have been to the frontlines of TV deprivation and back. It is not so bad. First of all, surely four hours a day of a student’s life can be spent with better things than “Change of Heart.” Secondly, excessive TV view ing has been linked in numerous studies to obesity and poor health. Dr. Lisa Hark of the Heart In formation Network said, “The more television you watch, the greater your chances are of be coming obese.” And because cholesterol levels increase as weight increases, watching lots of television can in crease the risk of heart disease. Hark said. In the formative years of young life, college students must espe cially guard against making their lifestyles too sedentary. TV can be habit-forming — in a bad way. Television, of course, is not necessarily the incarnation of ab solute evil. Having a TV can keep one con nected to the outside world, thanks to the abundance of talk ing heads on television news pro grams. And TV can provide a needed outlet for relaxation at the end of a long day. But losing a TV is not like los ing a limb. Every so often, actively pursu ing entertainment can be better than receiving it passively over the airwaves. Seize the day in stead of the remote. The dividends will be 7,300 hours of the free time we con stantly complain about not hav ing. Caleb McDaniel is a junior history major. welconsl ay, then t'f at y atWiUffl| hool breaks Mia h not needed 8 e , St f n response to Jeff re’ s so fmter's July 13 column. many i|J the risk of sound like a proponent of “good old days,” I eve Becker needs to link why he came to is A&M. n 1959, I was over- id when I was admit- to A&M because it s considered the 133-® ist difficult state uni- third rsity jn Texas and one aroloji jhg mos t difficult in to fee country. Believe me, as. Ve did not have pring breaks” or other i College things, but "fid have pride in be- part of a very spe- .... al group able to meet inkdl standards of A&M. ’ It is why most of us ed, 4 successful in our ca- lesceters. r. A We now have the ; spninefits of the hard ag rOrk we expended then, ing Insider that time to s arfthe best investment I iky. 6r made. Ilf you really believe ^cademic performance / increase, and the •e important benefit MAIL CALL will be the favorable psychological effects of giving students a break,” you are in the wrong place. Maybe you need to find a place that is more fun. Frank Lovato Class of ’62 Speeches to grads helpful In response to July 8 mail call. As a former student, I went through gradua tion when it was still at G. Rollie White. The ceremony itself, while long, was very im portant to me. The opportunity to cross the stage and shake Dr. Bowen’s hand is one of the most memorable moments of my college career. People say the speeches need to be shorter or fewer people need to speak, but as I remember it, the speak ers took up only a very small portion of the cer emony. A vast majority of the time spent in the cere mony was spent award ing degrees to gradu ates. Many schools today do not give graduates the opportunity to cross the stage. The school I went to for graduate school did not even call graduates’ names at the ceremony. I would discourage Texas A&M from head ing in this direction. Danny King Class of ’94 Prof explains annexation In response to Marc Grether’s July 8 column. Texas is one of about 16 states that allows annexation by a vote of the city council with no voter approval required. In states where an nexation requires a vote of the citizens being an nexed, there is almost no annexation. Why should someone living just outside the city, enjoying the bene fits of the city and using some city services, choose to pay for those services by voting for annexation? The voters in the cities of Bryan and Col lege Station pay 85 per cent of the Brazos County property tax. Only 15 percent is paid by rural residents. So because county residents are getting a free ride, paid for in large measure by city residents, why would they choose to join the city and pay their share of the cost of local gov ernment? They are mad be cause they do not want the free ride to end. The petition I would like to sign is one that would allow rural resi dents to pay for all the services they receive without help from city residents. Unfortunate ly, Texas law does not al low this. In short, if you want to end annexation in Bryan, you must amend the charter to require voter approval of all an nexations. Bryan is as big as it will ever get unless landowners and devel opers petition to be an nexed. Gary Halter Faculty Member effects of NAFTA on U.S. workers S ix years have passed since the U.S. Congress, against the will of 70 per cent of the American peo ple, passed the OWENS North Ameri- can Free Trade Agreement (NAF TA), establishing tariff-free com merce among the United States, Mexico and Canada. Republican and Democratic leaders embraced the treaty as the gateway to a panacea of in creased profits, greater regional stability and lower consumer prices. Admittedly, some have bene fited from the lower costs of pro duction provided by NAFTA. Corporations which have moved their plants to Mexico, where they can operate free of fair labor laws, minimum wage and pollution enforcement, have seen higher profits. Investors in these companies have also benefited as the stock market rose on the news of greater earnings. The only losers in this eco nomic game are those Americans who do not possess enough capi tal to benefit significantly from a bull market. Their only wish is to receive an honest day’s wages for an honest day’s work in a decent paying job so they can support their families. Manufacturing has historically been the source of the highest paying jobs for those without a college education. Therefore, the decline of American production means the decline of the Ameri can worker. NAFTA has resulted in the transfer of thousands of hard working American laborers from the steel mill to low-paying ser vice-oriented jobs, such as fast food or retail sales. Americans who once built automobiles are now selling those built by Mexi cans. For example. General Motors (CM) used to be the largest em ployer in the United States. Today, it is the largest employ er in Mexico, where it has built 50 plants in 20 years. In Juarez alone, there are 18 plants of Delphi Automotive, a CM subsidiary. El Paso is becom ing a glorified truck stop as Tex ans watch manufacturing jobs go south. This treaty was supposed to open Mexico to U.S. auto ex ports. NAFTA has been an un questionable failure in this re spect. In 1996, America shipped 46,000 cars to Mexico, and Mexi co shipped 550,000 cars to Amer ica. Mexico got this booming auto industry from Michigan, Ohio and Missouri. In the 1950s, “Engine Charlie” Wilson immortalized himself with the remark, “What’s good for America is good for General Motors, and vice versa.” What Engine Charlie said was true when he said it. However, GM’s four newest plants are go ing up in Argentina, Poland, Chi na and Thailand. "The promise of lower consumer prices through free trade is a myth/' As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, “GM’s days of building new plants in North America may be over.” Another interesting illustration is the history of Volkswagen. In its early days in the U.S. market shortly after World War II, the company benefited from a posi tive stereotype portraying its Ger man workers as meticulous per fectionists. Indeed, the VW Beetle was often of such high quality that its tight air seal would allow the car to float. As Germany moved to a more socialist economy, however, VW moved some of its plants to the United States to reduce labor costs. . Now, thanks to NAFTA, all new VW’s are built in Mexico. Volkswagen closed its last U.S. plant in the Mon Valley and moved production of its new Beetle into Mexico, where it will produce a minimum of 450,000 vehicles a year. Wages at Volkswagen’s plant in Puebla average $1.69 an hour, one-third of the U.S. minimum wage. The “people’s car” is now pro duced by some of the most ex ploited and underpaid workers in the world. Consumers also have not ben efited from the move of factories to Mexico. Again using the example of Volkswagen, it can be easily esti mated that the company is sav ing at least $10 per hour per worker in its Mexican plants. But Volkswagen’s prices have not been reduced accordingly. A new 1999 Volkswagen Jetta with no options lists for $15,345. The comparable Nissan Altima, built in Tennessee, lists for about the same price, but with 35 more horsepower and more storage space. Where have the savings reaped from the Mexican plants gone? They have been stolen from the wages of American au toworkers and hoarded into the pockets of shareholders. Any marketer can tell you that price is more a function of what the consumer is willing to pay than the cost of production. Thus, the promise of lower consumer prices through free trade is a myth. If all trade barriers are re moved between a Third-World economy like Mexico and a first- world country like the United States, first-world manufacturers will head south to the advantage of the lower wages, and the Third-World workers will head north to the advantage of the higher wages. Since the free-trade era began, 4,000 new factories have been built in northern Mexico, and 35 million immigrants have come into the United States — among them five million illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico. If that is prosperity, then America should have none of it. Truly, free trade is not free. Tom Owens is a senior chemical engineering major.