Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 4, 1999)
TlieB e Battalion o PINION Page 15 ‘Thursday, November4, 1999 :amf URBULENT TIMES irplane manufacturer faces mounting criticisms for valuing bottom line over human lives oeing has had better fort nights. In the two weeks, the ttle-based aircraft nufacturer has suf- d the horror of ing one of its ties crash into the and the embar- VIARK PASS WATERS *IC SCHNEIDER In ment of being chastised by the fed- government for actions regarding ther of its aircrafts, n both cases, Boeing has wrongly al- ed lives to be lost in the pursuit of bottom line. .ast week. Congress revealed Boeing l released an internal report detailing I possibility 747 aircrafts might ex- >rode in flight. _^^Brhe problem stemmed from excess Jniversity lastnigRt j n 747’s air-conditioning units, tmes. Bjch sometimes ignite fumes from the ie Red Raiders Qain fuel tank. kland recordedawTlie report was completed in 1980, a and posted a.: oil 16 years before TWA Flight 800 r outside hitte de v up in flight, digs in the maicrMHowever, the report was not turned action again thi: wr to the National Transportation Safety Lincoln, Neb., ioard (NTSB) members until this June, iraska at 7p.m., 1 MBoeing claims the report focused on 'e Nov. 10 again; 1 ts military version of the 747, known e White Colisei .s the E-4B, and that Boeing had no ; Bson to assume the findings would re- , . ate to civilian versions. iLWORKb The NTSB and Congress disagreed, aying that if this memo had been made "" ' ' /"jjlblic earlier, changes might have been / / iY;7"Tv Bade that would have prevented the 7/, > >',," /,’ 1 A ( / "WA 800 passengers’ demise. i Just when it appeared things could ~ ’ tot get worse for Boeing — they did. ”''1' ■ Egypt Air Flight 990 from New York "s Schedule msortium 1 8:30, Monday 8, inMSCm. ext scmcsltt’sHwois irs about their eta. to Cairo plunged into the Atlantic Ocean early Sunday morning. The plane, a 767, came off the as sembly line immediately after a plane bought by Lauda Air in the mid-1980s. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Lau da Air plane crashed in Thailand in 1987 after one of its thrust reversers de ployed in flight. Thrust reversers are intended to slow a craft while landing. Aviation experts say the activation of one during flight would cause the plane to drop like a stone. Radar returns from the Egypt Air flight suggest a similar situation may have oc curred Sunday morning. In both Lauda Air and TWA 800 inci dents, Boeing attempted to deflect any possible blame. After the tragic TWA accident, Boeing publicly claimed there was no way a cata strophic malfunction could have de stroyed the plane. They suggested a bomb had been the cause of the explosion. When the Lauda Air 767 crashed 12 years ago, Boeing maintained the cause was pilot error. As a result, Boeing me chanics made only minor modifications to the thrust reverser. Boeing’s attempts to avoid blame do not make the company any different from any other large corporations. Fessing up to a mistake can cost them millions or even billions of dollars in business. However, when it comes to making airplanes safe, the situation is different. Some aviation experts feel Boeing was afraid that by admitting design flaws, it would cause its contracts to go to its primary rival, Airbus. If this is the major reason Boeing did not come clean with its findings. then the company is guilty not only of putting lives at risk but of short-sighted business practices. It is possible Boeing might lose some contracts to Airbus in the short term, but creating safer aircraft would probably help them quickly regain the confidence of prospective buyers. Boeing’s safety record is still very good,, and no airline has ever complained about aircraft defects not being repaired. Making planes safe in the first place is a vastly superior alternative to being sued for tens of millions of dollars when a plane goes down because of mechanical failure. Instead of biting the bullet a decade ago, before any of these planes had been involved in tragic accidents, Boeing now finds itself not only an easy target for liti gation but also may have lost the trust of potential buyers. It is never easy to accept responsibili ty when something has gone wrong, es- ROBERT HYNECEK/The Battalion pecially when a mistake leads to disas ter. Boeing did what many people do when they screw up — hide. Now it appears the company will be forced to face the music both publicly and financially for design flaws that could have been corrected a long time ago. It is a terri ble tragedy 700 people had to die for these mistakes to be repaired. Mark Passwaters is a senior electrical engineering major. (jltf&Lucfeicli lKTA. The eggs get fertilized ATTEP TIIEYRE removed trom the Models 1 IUND SOUND IN ALL AUDI! meless cannot aim state funds sponse to Beverly Mireles’ 2 column. Mireles makes an accurate int with her statement that fail- re is an option in the United fates. However, her “logic” MAIL CALL lteshowsiiii! Friday,sawt iroughout the rest of the column OW ON THURSDAY NIGHTS! H )W:; alter 11pm are onlyM 11 aWcU. WTY (R) 05 12:50 =ART (PG) 45 12:30 MA '(PSIS) l(R) :40 12:45 N (R) 10 12:55 OE (PG13) 9:55 12:20 IPG13) 9:35 12:00 three kins- While failure is an option in the —united States, it is not the respon- 12:00 2:25 «ST Stbility f or the citizens of New York doublejeo»‘ : ) fund this failure. The price of “opting to fail” is 545 Sl eing homeless. The fact that 0WS Dime people actually consider re- Warding failure is ridiculous. ii45 2:zws If a homeless person has the sixth5^20,000 to spend on a homeless —Reiter, perhaps they can afford 1:15 405 apartment. IP. the storvo^ Additionally, if the actual cost housing one homeless person mT&fi'Xttim $20,000, then the cost of fusing 80,000 homeless people $1.6 billion. This is a large sum : money to be handing out. This money is charity. It is not a insolation prize for failure, and it rTENTION: 3r > come with any strings the s r ^ aa/ snefactor, in this case New York vil 5 ity, wishes to attach, left out of the • If a homeless person opts to Get your FREEHil, then he opts to sleep on the <en at AR Photogf increte. If he opts to work, then sittings are also ^3 opts to sleep in a bed. The sit 1410 Texas Ave. 1 3-8183. Open 9-1 choice belongs to the individual. Mireles undermines a positive program that could actually help homeless people. To be fair, a large portion of the homeless did not have “the op tion of failure.” The number of homeless people with mental dis eases and physical disabilities is staggering. They should receive support from the state. However, those who “opt to fail” should not. Joe Schumacher Class of ’99 Sharing one’s faith shows true belief In response to Terrell Rabb’s Nov. 3 mail call. There is a problem with calling for religious tolerance: the nature of religion is that faith in one set of beliefs automatically makes all other religious beliefs flawed. A Christian cannot look at Jews, Muslims or Hindus and sim ply think, “They don’t believe what I do, but what they believe is prob ably right, too.” That type of thought makes for a weak faith, if it can still be called faith. Sharing one’s faith, illustrated in this case by Southern Baptists’ goal of converting Jews, is follow ing through with the doctrine of the church. In Matthew, Jesus dictates that Christians share the gospel throughout the world, and in fact, the earliest follow ers of Christ were Jewish con verts. This type of aggressive preaching is not new nor is it anywhere near the type of thought which European Jews were subjected to in the 1930s. No Southern Baptist has pro posed concentration camps where the only escape is profess ing the Christian faith. They just want to be sure everyone is ex posed to who Jesus Christ is and what Christianity is. Personally, I would not want to be part of a religion whose mem bers did not whole heartedly be lieve that their god is the only God. If you don’t believe that way, then what is the point of being part of the Church to begin with? Pete Chalfant 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 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: 1113, Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: battletters@hotmail.com Bryan trustees should not rush judgment on trimesters A f thfeJEry dt'pdur pparen ryan In- pahdent School Dis trict’s Board of Trustees does not have much faith in Bryan High School (BHS). Its skepticism is unfortunate, be cause it has more reason for opti mism than pessimism. Until recently the high school had languished in the lower ech elons of the state’s public-educa tion system. But over the past several years, BHS has proven itself to be one of the more administra tively progressive schools in Texas. Under the aegis of an en ergetic new principal and a hard working faculty, efforts at reform have wrought numerous changes for the better at BHS. As a result, for Abe first time in a long time, Bryan has avoid ed an appearance on the Texas Education Agency’s list of low- performing schools for several years in a row. By far the most important re cent innovation at BHS was the introduction of a trimester scheduling system in 1996. The new schedule replaced the traditional two-semester school year with trimesters, re ducing the number of classes per day while increasing the length of each individual class period. The system also presents unique scheduling advantages. One of its most attractive fea tures is that it allows students who do poorly in the first trimester to transfer into a differ ent class for the next two trimesters. However, according to a re port in the Nov. 2 issue of The Bryan-College Station Eagle, the trimester system is not fixing things quickly enough for some Bryan trustees. Board president David Stas- ny told The Eagle expectations for the success of the trimester system have not been complete ly realized. “My biggest disappointment is that the biggest problems we have with it seem to be fixable, but they haven’t been fixed and it’s not clear to us why,” he said. The Board of Trustees will meet Monday to discuss a re-eval- uation of the trimester system and possible action against it. But if the trustees are wise, they will not strike at the trimester system with knee-jerk impatience. The trustees’ complaints ap pear to be a classic case of anx-. ious bureaucrats wanting to rush judgment on relatively new poli cies. For if the trustees judge the trimester system now, they would be rushing. After all, the system has only been in place for three years, a short time span in the world of education. There has not yet been a graduating class at BHS that has followed the trimester system for four full years, so there is not even a sufficient data set with which to weigh the independent effects of the trimester plan on student performance. The prudent policy here is patience. The trustees’ impressions of the system can be based only on anecdotal and abbreviated evi dence because there has not been time for long-term statistical trends to establish themselves. More significantly, the trimester system has not been the only dramatic change BHS has had in recent years. On top of adjusting to a new principal, BHS has experimented with a variety of new teacher training programs. The high school also has combined its freshmen and up perclassman campuses into a newly renovated physical plant this year, a move which has meant wide-reaching reorgani zations for both administration and faculty. In the midst of so much change, BHS must be given time to settle into a regular routine. It would be short-sighted to expect the trimester system to be a mir acle cure when the patient is constantly evolving. What does seem clear from all available evidence is that an overwhelming majority of the BHS faculty supports the trimester system. Research done last spring by a group of Texas A&M undergraduates sur veyed more than a third of Bryan’s teachers, and the ensu ing report found an incredible consensus among faculty favor ing the trimester system. The most frequently praised feature of the new system was its longer class periods, which teachers said allow them to de velop more cooperative teaching strategies and accomplish more on any given day. Of the 57 teachers surveyed, 41 made comments about class length. An incredible 88 percent of those responding gave posi tive assessments of the trimester’s class-length changes, many noting that longer periods allow for a more relaxed work day, more time to incorporate in teractive teaching methods into their curricula and less time wasted on tedious class routines, such as taking attendance. Even if the trustees find them selves dissatisfied with certain aspects of the system, they must not underestimate the value of a satisfied faculty. Given more time, an enthu siastic group of teachers and administrators will be able to make perceptible improve ments at BHS. But if they in stead are shoved back into a system they seem glad to have escaped, the results for stu dents could be disastrous. The prudent policy here is pa tience. If the trimester system has not yet lived up to its promised glory, it should be giv en more time. The new policy undoubtedly has its kinks, as all young poli cies do. But the worst thing for BHS now would be yet another systemic change. Until trustees are sure the system truly is broken, a con clusion which would take at least another three years to reach, their efforts to overhaul it will only exacerbate any ex isting problems. At this critical juncture in its development, BHS needs trustees smart enough to give change a chance and courageous enough to stay the course. Caleb McDaniel is a junior history major.