The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 04, 1999, Image 15

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    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.