e Battalion Opinion or Castro’n esidents and pi® rk olive green brace to his friend nit Hugo Chavez, other leaders were e dinner with Castr a Spanish monarck onquered in 1511 Carlos and Queen i tour through the milt by the Spanisk lestone streets, the ng from the iron-go.] e the King." ned away a groupor s and T-shirts - i baseball cap - arrived at Havana the king and qui z, 57, as she waitedfc overnment Palaceotl ays once ruled ft listorian Eusebio Let lilt more than 200yea er arrived. • try it out, Juan Carl; showcuis re-win ima, 61, hadbeci despite dissatisiai ire to improveUfc economy, former Soviet e iis campaignwar Symonei f 'es e ? a nonenko irty chief would® et-eratEE Kucij yesteii Ukrain,.§]'’ not vo® Comirr becauii discr Sr:5 in the; 4 cordinB fax ne Them now /a|| ______ Usk - Ukraine if Soviet economic c\\i thing many doubt he 0 do. > has pledged to contin ‘forms and a pro lolicy, and has promis n future for Ukraine. shall concentrate on 1 of the principal forei ections: European an ic integration,” rys Tarasiuk said yesti china detailed few! ares to improve do® luring his campaign. King himself as agiur nian independent# cracy. Page 15 ‘Tuesday, November 16, 1999 Scare tactics should not be used to teach teen-agers responsibility U sing scare tactics seems to be the most pop ular way of con vincing teen agers not to engage in illegal activities. The DEAD program, a DWI-prevention pro gram whose name stands for Drinking and Driving Ends All Dreams, is the most recent exam ple of trying to scare teenagers into behaving properly. A program recently implement ed at A&M Consolidated High School used teaching methods such as a staged drunken-driving acci dent and a person dressed as the Grim Reaper roaming the hallways. Using scare tactics to convince teen-agers to be good will never be effective. By the time most teen agers reach high school, they are well on their way to becoming adults. Therefore, they should be granted enough respect to be spo ken to logically about such sub jects as drinking and illicit drug use, instead of emotionally scar ring them with graphic examples. The festivities began on the morning of Nov. 4, when a two- vehicle collision was staged in front of A&M Consolidated. Emergency personnel pulled the front seat passenger from the car — her face covered in fake blood. Then, firefighters used the Jaws of Life to remove the other three passengers, who looked bloody and pretended to be unconscious. Next, a police officer began pulling beer cans from the other vehicle, the driver of which seemed to be intoxicated. The drunken driver was taken to a mock jail, while a seemingly deceased passenger was loaded into a body bag. To remind students of the high number of people who die of al cohol-related accidents, the Grim Reaper wandered around the high school campus for the rest of the day. He stopped into a classroom every 15 minutes to claim anoth er “victim.” The 30 victims had gray makeup applied to their faces and were dubbed the “liv ing dead.” The morbidity of the DEAD acronym seems a little too appropriate. Teen-agers are exposed to ex treme violence every day. It is an accepted part of movies, video games, musical lyrics and even prime-time programming. Vio lence is accepted as something that happens — to other people. No matter how grotesque the staged car crash was, it will not widely change this frame of mind. The only people sure to take displays like the DEAD one to heart are those who have already lost friends and loved ones to so cially unacceptable activities such as drunken driving. But these people already know first-hand what the DEAD pro gram —- and others like it —- are attempting to teach. These people do not need to be subjected to bloody, violent dis plays like the one at A&M Consoli dated to help them remember drinking and driving is unsafe. One would think today’s educa tors would be intuitive enough to realize that methods that have not worked in the past probably will not work now. And by emphasiz ing scare tactics, they are failing to address more pressing problems. Alcohol is the No. 1 drug prob lem among young people, accord ing to the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). In addition, according to the U.S. surgeon general, more than half of all high school students drink alcoholic beverages. But the most disturbing statis tic is that 2.6 million teen-agers do not know that a person can die from an alcohol overdose. Apparently, educators have been too busy proving to students that dying in an alcohol-related ac cident is horrible, to tell them ex actly what the dangers of alcohol consumption really are. Instead of treating high-school students as children who can be frightened into not doing some thing, teen-agers should be granted the respect most of them deserve. High school students generally are intelligent enough to be pre sented with the honest facts on a given subject, and to make their own decisions. There will be changes only when students are taught with respect. Jessica Crutcher is a sophomore journalism major. elievers avoid criticism at any cost hallenging a be lief system is a tricky thing, be- few people r how others will when one cross- ? line between Ssm and offen- ess. Add in the Everyone has dif- ■fit beliefs, as well Wferent levels of those beliefs, and ||/orld gets even more complicated. ese complications are simply prod- ts of the nature of beliefs. They are ihly personal, and people can feel ’eatened when what they believe to itnio is made fun of or contested — be to those who would ridicule a ly-held belief, religious or not. But wmg ethnocentrism and personal jefs to get in the way of constructive [ticism may eventually be more de- |tive than the criticism itself. Blind n anything can only lead to the de oration of rational thought. •Tht world is filled with examples of pie or ideas meant to challenge be- systems, but the most recent, lebrity-ridden one is Dogma, a Kevin lith (writer and director of Clerks and Using Amy) film. In it. Smith overtly ■ues and reprimands Catholicism, ■ll as other products of organized igions, such as televangelism. And fgh his film never challenges the ex- nce of God himself — or herself, as ^ case may be — this cinematic satire .faith and religion has sent pulses ris- jg wherever movie theaters are located. One can easily understand why gtholics, and many other Christians, so upset. Smith’s Dogma is hardly ther’s “95 Theses,” but it does get in nty of shots before the credits roll. Unfortunately, that is all people seem see n the film — a collection of sly cs and crude remarks about a firmly- renched doctrine. Whether or not the iis good, many people are discount- itk primary, and perhaps necessary. criticism because'of a vulgarly-worded screenplay and a cast of evangelically- unfriendly characters. It is the typical re action to a controversial film, but these reactions are counter-productive. People may criticize and rant in their own homes, but publicly, it seems de fenders of the same beliefs must keep an undivided front against the menace of non-believers. And religious matters are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to pushing people to the edge of tolerance. Blind faith can only lead to the deterioration of rational thought. Texas A&M students should under stand this give-and-take of beliefs better than anyone else. The University has plenty of traditions that feel the sting of criticism every year. Ask a Bonfire red- pot how he feels about The Battalion and notice how ordinary people might turn into belligerent defenders of tradi tion when threatened by other ideas. Bonfire may not be as important to people as their religious alignments are, but as far as A&M goes, whether one is for or against Bonfire can make a neu tral Aggie feel as though they are in the middle of A&M’s very own holy war come Nov. 25. Another sensitive subject is the quali ty of education at A&M. Observe how people react to comments about A&M’s superiority, or lack thereof, academically speaking. Even conservative A&M stu dents will react with some type of of fense when their education is being ridiculed. And as badly as Aggies will re act to a fellow student who criticizes A&M, reactions are even worse when non-Aggies put in their two cents. It could be that Aggies are so worried about appearing inferior that they over compensate with righteous indignation when anything derogatory about A&M is announced or admitted. However, if everyone ignores A&M’s academic blemishes, they will never go away. Of course, people almost always will de fend something they are a part of, and that is a big part of A&M’s draw — “Ag gie for life” is not just a bumper sticker phrase; it is a mentality. Nothing is wrong with defending a belief or show ing Aggie pride well after one’s gradua tion, but there is something wrong with hating others with different beliefs, or from different schools, as it may be. It is wrong to disregard something because one might not like it. When someone believes in some thing, to what ends is a person allowed to defend that belief? What types of measures, if any, are acceptable when one feels challenged? Or is belief fluid, capable of change and expansion? No one knows the answer to any of these questions for sure — beliefs are not structured enough to have certainty when it comes to questions about them. But what everyone knows is that a little constructive criticism never hurt anyone. Catholics, Bonfire supporters and every other type of group are allowed to protest when they feel their beliefs are being maligned. But if they only were to step back and take satire and criticism for what they really are — a documented recogni tion of obstacles in the execution of a belief, or beliefs — then believers might better their faith or their practice. This does not mean they should inordinately change their beliefs to accommodate someone else’s. Rather, these criticisms might allow a belief to improve upon itself, instead of encouraging believers to strike out blind ly against those challenging them. Beverly Mireles is a junior microbiology major. NteUjcKMcl't 1 T ~r-r rr.rntG ZV«r