IBattalion
o PINION
Page 15 • Thursday, October 14, 1999
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UMB &
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here is a little
known, seldom-
visited Website
“Bonfire: Dumb
irt.” As the first
of the title hints
site contains infor-
on about how
fire is detrimental
environment.
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MARIANO
CASTILLO
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g family, ft
tders of
as dirt. Any validity the Website
have concerning environmental
esis voided by its rants about how
fire is an “archaic military” ritual
began when Texas A&M was “acad-
cally retarded.”
nstead of expressing its claims in a
vhose falli iessional manner, the page is tabloid
theDecea ler, filled with anti-Bonfire and, by
oliceofa mlt, anti-Aggie links.
ihe first assumption made on the
;eis that the 125,000 hours of work
Igo into Bonfire are wasted and
have been spent on academics in-
d of clearing a forest that may con-
endangered species. It goes on to
that A&M is the only public school
ely involved in the extinction
cess. The wording suggests Aggies’
ision at cut is to grab an ax, find a
:k of ocelots and go to town on them,
loes not even mention what endan-
id
gered species are supposedly being
robbed of their homes.
All of the trees cut for Bonfire are on
private property owned by people or
companies who need the land cleared
for a reason. This year a power plant
will be built on the cut site.
Bonfire workers are doing companies
a favor by clearing the land. In ex
change, Ags get to use what they cut in
the annual tradition of Bonfire.
The page also argues the logs burned
are a valuable resource that could be
used for more productive purposes,
which sounds like something to think
about — but wait. Instead of elaborating
on the idea, the site insinuates A&M’s
student body is influenced by local
yokels who brainwash the campus to
support the “stupidity” of Bonfire.
After calculating some questionable
monetary figures, including putting a
price tag on time that could have been
spent studying, the conclusion is
reached that it is a waste to see Bonfire
go up in ash and smoke considering the
effort put into cut.
But the 30,000-70,000 people who at
tend Bonfire each year obviously think it
is worth the work, especially the red,
brown and centerpole pots who partici
pate in Bonfire from construction to
cleanup. With a campus as large as A&M
Website mixes
environmental
concerns with
unfair biases
and a student body as diverse in opin
ion, it is nearly impossible to bring al
most everyone together for a night of Ag
gie spirit. Bonfire rises to the challenge
and accomplishes this feat. There is
nothing to be ashamed of about Bonfire.
To display its activism proudly, “Bon
fire: Dumb as Dirt” includes several let
ters sent by A&M biology professor
Hugh Wilson to government agencies,
such as the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), arguing that Bonfire’s
pollution should be ruled illegal under
the current air-pollution standards.
Although the Aggieland skies have
yet to blacken after 90 years of Bonfires,
1999 could be the year.
The EPA disagrees, though. In its re
sponse, which also is posted on the Web
site, the EPA explains that Bonfire does not
violate any laws or pollution standards.
To give the site some credit, though,
as poorly as it has been arranged, it
does raise important points about the
environment.
Even pro-Bonfire students agree with
this point, which is why thousands of
trees are planted each spring at Replant.
One might think supporters of this
Website would at least acknowledge Re
plant as a step in the right direction,
but the event is instead labeled a
“scam” — a fake tradition to appease
anti-Bonfire activists and keep the
headlines clean of any possible negative
images of the University.
There are many more misleading and
twisted facts on the site, but the page
should not be taken down.
Every group has a right to express it-
RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
self and its views. However, there
should be a law against communicating
information as manipulated as “Bonfire:
Dumb as Dirt.”
Mariano Castillo is a sophomore
international studies major.
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Hey, next to them,
A 'COMPASSIONATE
CONSERVATIVE"....
Is
truth about cats and dogs
tgff \ryan-College Station must control pet population
is more
P ()I|than just a
v "one-liner
Barker
used to
se out each
-Israel ice is
have a? >ht”
pales® isode for
;ts, i last few
rcomM cades — now Popeye wants
?red ti ; lu to know.
Popeye is a dachshund with
e, the- ilack coat, droopy ears and a
a Sep 1 * ce-me-home stare. Many of
i have 1 mother dogs at the Brazos
postp® limal Shelter (BAS) look just
not 4 e him and are products of the
he pfi- [controlled pet breeding al-
for re® ,ved by irresponsible owners
ho do not have their pets
; ted a]. ayec i or neutered,
for P The way to prevent these
ieli PUJ 'erwhelming numbers of
ised toj tmeless pets at shelters is
r what- y (he silver-haired Barker
igh P J is been telling people to do
d Tuet-' nce (hey have been old
ose toj lough to watch television: ed-
ne pP cate people to spay or neuter
leir pets. The only way to do
ils is to educate people by re-
jriso®; Hiring new pet owners to spay
n f r neuter their pets when they
i nef vrchase or adopt them,
ess. According to Pet Pride of
j-Shlo® ie W York, Inc., two uncon-
th e jolled breeding cats could be
isponsible for producing over
0 million cats in a 10-year pe-
od. This is why during the
leak of the kitten litter season
iv' ;
from late April to September,
pounds and shelters euthanize
unwanted and abandoned cats
at a rate of more than one per
minute.
“People don’t realize how
fast cats multiply,” BAS worker
Ashley Wesp said.
Pet overpopulation is a huge
problem in Texas and action
needs to be taken to prevent
owners from letting their pets
breed freely.
However, a compulsory
spaying or neutering law seems
far off in the distance with the
amount of overpopulation
awareness in the 10 surround
ing counties served by the BAS.
The cost of enforcing such a
law is more than the public is
willing to bear at the moment.
In the early ’90s in San Ma
teo, Calif., there was an attempt
at a law requiring any pet own
er who had not spayed or
neutered their pet to buy a
breeders license.
Eventually, the law was wa
tered down to the point where
it was hardly enforced, and ani
mal lovers in the town were
heartbroken. It takes a commu
nity to join together to solve
this kind of problem.
A survey conducted by
Texas A&M graduate students
a decade ago showed 86 per
cent of the local population
said they thought there was
no pet overpopulation prob
lem. This still seems to be the
overriding attitude in the com
munity, if the numbers of un
wanted pets in area shelters is
any evidence. Educating the
public is the first step in the
long process of cracking down
on pet overpopulation. BAS di
rector Kathy Bice is an advo
cate of education concerning
overpopulation.
“It is important to educate
the people about the overpop
ulation,” Bice said. “But it’s
more important to dwell on
the solutions than the day-to-
day tragedy. ”
By educating the public,
people can help treat the symp
toms of the problem, too.
On an average day at the
BAS, about 70 dogs and 50 cats
wait for adoption and about
one-third of these animals are
purebred, not unwanted mutts.
There is a $65 adoption fee,
which covers the animal’s shots
and spaying or neutering, a bar
gain when considering how
much it would cost to do the
same thing to puppies or kittens
through a veterinarian on an in
dividual basis. In some cases,
an application can be processed
in half an hour. For $65 and an
hour of time, one can take
home a grateful friend for life.
Talk about the price being
right. This might be the best
bargain in town.
Jeff Webb is a senior
journalism major.
Sierra Leone mimics most wars
in Africa: ignored by the West
L ike all
African
wars. Sierra
Leone’s brutal
conflict never got
the attention it
deserved. It did
not matter how
horrendous the
atrocities be
came, how many innocent civilians
were slaughtered or how many peo
ple were driven from their homes.
According to prime time media,
every African crisis is third-class.
Just as the descendants of enslaved
Africans had to sit at the back of
the bus in America, Africans today
have to take the back seat in the
world arena.
From genocide in Rwanda to
ethnic cleansing in Sudan and
famine-making war in Angola,
world leaders have stood by and
the international community has
been shamefully silent while
African conflicts kill millions of in
nocent civilians.
So it should come as no surprise
that the horrors of Sierra Leone’s
eight-year civil war struggled to
make even the back pages of the
newspapers, let alone television.
Now that a precarious peace has
been established in this dirt-poor,
but resource-rich, west African
country, war-scarred Sierra
Leoneans have come to understand
a bitter fact. The outside world,
which had the ability to stop the
suffering, did not care enough to do
so. The actions of world powers im
ply that they view the lives of poor
black-Africans as expendable.
But it does not have to be this
way. Americans should petition the
mainstream media into giving
African wars coverage commensu
rate to the misery they cause. Citi
zens must make clear to politicians
that they value the life of a black
skinned African child as much as
that of a white-skinned European.
The popular media seems to as
sume that the public is not interest
ed in Africa. But when did they
ever take a poll to determine the
common American’s concern for
the people of that great continent?
Media neglect of African wars is
unjustified. Americans cannot be
expected to express interest in Sier-.
ra Leone’s disaster if they never
even know it exists.
The unbelievable cruelty of Sier
ra Leone’s war is what stood out
most. Drugged-up rebels with no
clear agenda beyond obtaining
power waged a campaign of terror
on civilians regardless of their polit
ical positions. The rebels’ trade
mark was a horrifying spree of am
putations against terrified people of
all ages.
In one British Broadcasting Com
pany (BBC) Website article, a
young boy begged rebel attackers to
chop off his left hand instead of his
right — because he was right-hand
ed. The rebels heartlessly refused
his plea. Then they took the sev
ered right hand and chopped it in
two to make sure no doctor could
reattach it to his bludgeoned arm.
The BBC estimates that 10,000 peo
ple had their limbs hacked off.
But the amputations, which
have left so many Sierra Leonean’s
completely unable to care for them
selves and their families, is hardly
the worst of the crimes that were
committed. Even more terrible were
the massacres, mutilations, gang
rapes and use of child soldiers.
Human Rights Watch reported
rebels murdering pregnant women
and then cutting out their fetuses.
In one of its reports, an 8-year-old
boy who witnessed rebels slaugh
tering a family in the capital of Sier
ra Leone was interviewed.
“The people were screaming,
and the rebels cut their heads off,”
he said. “My heart was beating
just about out of my chest. I felt so
bad for these people. There were
even children.”
Another account by the U.S.
Committee for Refugees tells of a
woman, once beautiful, who was
gang-raped so many times she can
no longer control her bladder func
tions and has mental problems.
“Today, Kumba is a shadow of
herself, is an eyesore, urinating on
herself even when walking because
it comes without control,” her sister
told the Committee.
Although such details may be
unpleasant to hear, they need to be
told for the world to comprehend
the horror and degradation inflicted
upon Sierra Leone’s people.
The killings, atrocities and
refugee crisis in Sierra Leone’s war
were much worse than those in
Kosovo. Yet the world had only
several dozen unarmed U.N. ob
servers to offer Sierra Leone, in
contrast to the 50,000 NATO troops
Kosovo received.
Action should have been taken
to stop the butchery in Sierra
Leone. Now it is too late. The world
cannot return limbs to the mutilat
ed, dignity to the raped or the lives
of children back to their mourning
parents, but it can help the devas
tated country to maintain its peace
and rebuild. In the meantime, the
world must not repeat its mistake
of standing by while similar injus
tices and misery are heaped on
Africans in Sudan and Angola.
Caesar Ricci is a junior
plant and soil science major.
MAIL CALL
Allegations are
overexaggerated
The alleged assault that occurred
on the Bonfire field last week has been
the basis of much controversy.
To those of you that are "appalled”
that no charges were filed, please re
member that there are two sides to the
story, even though both sides were not
reported. I am not suggesting that the
Redpots are completely free of respon--
sibility, but the responsibility must be
shared, as there was mutual aggres
sion between the alleged victim and
the Redpots. In recent years, individu
als have taken any opportunity to criti
cize Bonfire and anything associated
with it. Whenever a complaint is made
regarding this time-honored tradition,
it is automatically assumed to be fac
tual, when for the most part it is over
exaggerated. Bonfire is meant to unite
all Aggies, not to divide them.
Jenna Doreck
Class of ’97
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor.
Letters must be 300 words or less and include
the author’s name, class and phone number.
The opinion editor reserves the right to edit let
ters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may
be submitted in person at 013 Reed McDonald
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: battletters@hotmail.com