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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 28, 2000)
OPINION Friday, April 28, 2000 THE BATTALION Page 13 umpi re you hav ing trouble telling your Bnificant other ; 0u have been see- his best friend ‘ [on ihe side? Jaybe you gave your roommate's bin more than a Vfcanipus tour for Parent's Weekend? Did you go to South Padre for spring leak and catch more than some sun? If [so. lake heart, help may be on the way. MSC Icons is brine- JSAN REDDING Tm Ik Amanda Perez oa Delta's theme SENIORS JRE YOUR CLAM | JR NEW E-MAIL AH | FORWARPtNCADOe: 8 COLLEGE E-MAIL AK IR NEW E-MAIL ADO® lectronics Eog^neet PosiW lei in Sugar Land, TX is loosi Elect'-cal Engineetffijoiflt'i m the entire product toe building oilfield-ielatediei control systems, its: 5 in Electronics/Electritai ing. engineering backgroum) control theory, and sote aent) :e with real time data acipi ing the MTV show “Loveline” to Ag- gieland. For those who are not familiar with the show, “Loveline” is hosted by a virtual have and have-not of adult maturity in Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky. A third host, Catherine Mc Cord is also there to provide a female perspective and smug glances at Carol la. Carolla you may recognize from his stellar performance on Comedy Cen tral’s “The Man Show” or from 1-800- Collect commercials - TV’s equivalent of wearing a "1 have no talent” sign. The program, which gives MTV’s viewers a break from all those videos the station plays, will be rolling out the dirty jokes and a little bit of sexual knowledge on the A&M campus this Saturday. Fortunately for the show and A&M, “Loveline” does a fine job of balancing humor with seriousness, and in the process helps its audience. In every day life, many aspects of love, sex and relationships are often banished to the proverbial sexual clos et. People ty pically do not want to strike up conversations about Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI’s) or what it is like to not be able to tell anybody about their sexual orientation. It is im portant that people dealing with serious issues like these are not silenced out of fear or embarrassment, and “Love line” ofters an open, honest forum for dealing with these Pv problems. 1|\ Further, all too often, |||i people who do seek out f \ help for their sexual woes are given bad, or simply wrong, advice. Dr. Drew, McCord and occasionally MAIL CALL Carolla, offer a great source for honest, straight-forward and, most important ly, accurate information about all things sexual. The show does a good job at giving its callers and audience worthwhile answers and helps dispel many misconceptions people have about their predicament. While the show may be helpful for its standard viewers, Aggies in particu lar will benefit from the show’s one- night gig at A&M. In College Station, the sexual gag order seems to be in ef fect stronger than at many other places. A&M both benefits and is hindered by its conservative atmosphere, and some of those hindrances come up when talking about sex. For example, A&M students who are experiencing difficul ty coming to terms with their sexual identity may feel all alone in a place where “No Fags” shirts are worn on campus and mock gay weddings arc decried as satanic rituals. Presumed heterosexuality is almost a tradition at A&M. But in reality' there is a variety of sexual attitudes, beliefs and practices amongst the student body. Bringing “Loveline” to A&M might also bring attending Aggies awareness of this diversity. Students hear about the Aggie Family all the time — hopefully this weekend the family will get to hear from the transgendered cousin they never knew they had. Programs like “Loveline” expose their listeners to sexual view points other than their own — something that benefits everybody, especially those fearful of alternative lifestyles. As far as preventing and learning about sexually related medical prob lems, “Loveline” can help A&M stu dents in that subject too. College Sta tion may be known for its conservatism, but that restrained atti tude does not always hold up between the sheets. STI’s do get caught and students will have ques tions about w hat to do. Dr. Drew and maybe even Carolla can give these Aggies the ad vice and information they are looking for. Finally, “Love line” in G. Rollie, as it does on MTV, will offer a place for those who do not have other eager ears to turn to. Many col lege students have had their heart broken and felt de pressed, but for some it is worse than others. For Aggies who have been playing The Cure’s “Letter to Elise” non-stop since Feb ruary, “Loveline” of fers a great alternative to the prerecord ed tapes the Student Counseling Center phoneline offers. Even if this heart-bro ken Aggie does not get a word in with Dr. Drew and Carolla, perhaps some other Poe-reading Aggie will, and oth ers who feel as the same will under stand they are not alone. MTV’s “Loveline” coming to the MSC is a great opportunity for Aggies to leam about themselves and about their fellow students. Public forums on sexual topics are invaluable ways to open a listener’s mind to ways of think ing outside their own. Those who are not bothered by sex ual problems should attend the program and listen to and be exposed to the situ ations and sentiments of others. RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion And if you are one of those stu dents who has a problem to ask of the show’s hosts, here is one last word of advice: Pay attention to the blonde guy with wire-rim glasses and try to ignore the curly haired foul-mouth sitting be side him. Eric Dickens is a junior English major. iftwaie skills (C/ChW amwori: and corranumtiw ar Coop experience BJCJil time employmentisnw* s to: larger Drive TX 77478 :hristie®slfa.com Student defends Evans library renovations lr response to Summer Hicks’ April 28 folumn. — id )ut the VaJui ur Diplom: id take a tion on Us! As a student who has attended A&M for ive years and been employed at Evans Li- Tary, I feel there are issues in Hick's col- Imnthat must be addressed. First, I have seen the library improve leaps and bounds since I have attend- A&M. I believe that in Hicks’ desire to we her point, she has lent herself to ex- eme exaggeration and unfair manipula- on of observed library conditions. Also, Hicks can hardly fault student work 's for not being able to "offer much assis- ince beyond their section." I know few peo- lewho would be willing to memorize the ewey Decimal system and keep up with the mhanging configuration of a library un construction for minimum wage. Anyone can look at something and say ix it!" In the future it would be nice to an column contain some suggestions istead of just criticism. ler 1 iee I personally had no opinion on this Iraq issue until I went to one of the meetings the Students for Peace sponsored. The speaker was well informed, had data, and had visited Iraq on several oc casions. The Students for Peace are not pro- Hussein, there pro-human rights. The people of Iraq should not all have to suf fer from a dictator or our need for oil. It seems Passwaters’ research entailed reading the evening news or listening to our government's stance. We can all agree that Hussein is a dic tator, but as far as the history of warfare goes, never has cutting off a country from resources and rest of the world made the citizens in that country turn against its leaders. If anything it gives them extra support. Maybe Passwaters should have gone to one of the events the Students for Peace held before he insulted the group and its president. Chris Langford Class of ’00 Metallica MP3 lawsuit a futile action Lisa L. Johnson Class of '99 nomotes different view M rd «m t d ip Student organization r job and your* show us your dipl I and we’ll waive our first apartmentl eive a 3 day/ 2 kage with over8( response to Mark Passwaters’ April 26 olumn. It didn't surprise me that someone [Quid take a potshot at one of the few roups on this campus raising awareness ing, a weekend geo 1 b °utthe injustices in our world. Students □king for fine night out downto* ! aseball stadium, a?* lise, it can >r Peace are trying to give us a different iew on the Iraq Sanctions other than the ne promoted by our mass media. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Let ters must be 300 words or less and include the au thor’s name, class and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submit ted in person at 013 Reed McDonald with a valid stu dent 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 T wo weeks ago, the band Metallica filed a federal lawsuit against Napster Inc., a Cal ifornia based company that creates soft ware for searching and downloading MP3s. In addition, Metallica tried to be the hero of the day by bringing a suit against the University of Southern California (USC), Yale University and Indiana University, saying the schools en couraged users to illegally trade the band’s music. Yale was dropped from the suit last Thursday. The suit is the music industry’s attempt to protect itself from the rising threat of MP3 tech nology. MP3s are compressed digital files that allow users to upload and download music easi ly. Organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America, which brought a suit against MP3.com in January, are seeing the rise of MP3 trading as an attack on their profits. While copyrighting is vital to protect artists’ works, Metallica’s lawsuit is just another one of the music industry’s vain efforts to handle the problems the Internet presents.. There are just way too many obstacles in volved with stopping Internet music piracy. Au thorities have to deal with lawbreakers based outside of the United States. Sure, there are a few high-profile sites out there that can be pun ished, but how are you going to control the mil lions of small-time violators who trade via per sonal Websites, FTP servers and email? Unless authorities want to spend the time and money to arrest a couple million people, policing Metallica's lawsuit is just another one of the music industry's vain efforts to handle the problems the Internet presents. music on the Internet is like trying to stop people from speeding. You might manage to pull some one over here and there, but an occasional fine is not going to keep anyone’s foot off the gas. It’s sad but true. Trying to cut the head off the chicken by su ing organizations that provide Internet service. such as USC and Indiana, is impractical. Providers have too many users to be expected to control exactly what their customers decide to do with their Internet service. So if you cannot stop the problem, adapt and deal with it. Software such as Napster, Gnutella and Scour are not the easiest applications to use. Finding the song you want still requires work, so it is more convenient to go buy the CD. The industry can take advantage of this by finding a way to make music easily available and providing software for users who pay to down load each song, but who cannot store the music on their hard drives. In addition, many lower-profile bands already profit from MP3 technology as it helps to get their music out into the mainstream. The music industry can continue to encourage that in order to help more bands succeed in the business. By finding ways to adapt to this new technol ogy, the music industry can turn the page on its useless attempt to stop the rise of MP3s and in stead it can profit by them. Staff editorial from The Daily Collegian at Pennsylvania State University. ures 15 apartment 1 can accommodate •rice range. Weatef utes from Dow* 1 Woodlands, and ViEW POiNTS ‘Multi-Millionaire’ wife after money T here must be something seriously wrong with Rick Rockwell, the spurned bride-groom from Fox’s (unin tentional) comedic program, “Who Wants to Marry a Multi- Millionaire?” Darva Conger, his lawfully wedded wife, refused to hold his hand, much less take her clothes off for him. Darva is willing to take her clothes off for an audience of millions in Playboy. Maybe he did not pay her enough. One thing that the events following “Millionaire” have certainly shown is that Darva is certainly “available” if the price is right. It would be cruel to call Conger, a supposed “war vet eran” (note: serving in the mil itary while a war is going on 10,000 miles away does not make you a veteran) a gold digging tramp. Perhaps this should simply be called a great example of capitalism. Conger has been handed a silver platter opportunity to make money. Since she can not take the silver platter and sell it, she has every right to take advantage of her new found fame and make millions of dollars. So what if she makes a sham out of the insti tution of marriage and makes a complete idiot out herself on national TV? It is all good when the checks roll in. Now Hugh Hefner has come forth with the biggest check of all, so Conger is go ing to lose her clothes fast as she can. Smile for the cam eras, Darva, and show the na tion how far someone can go when they have no self re spect or class. Rest assured that you will be remembered for a long time to come, though the mention of your name will probably be fol lowed by roars of laughter. Rockwell can also be sure that he will be remembered as well, as the guy whose wife would bare all for the world, but would not touch him. Somehow, it is doubtful that this will help him pick up the ladies at the bar. “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” How about, “Who Wants to Look Like an Idiot?” — Mark Passwaters Who wants to be a racist? R egis Philbin, long regard ed by some as a sign of the coming Apocalypse, almost had to name his show, “Who Wants to be a Rich White Guy?”. After 82 shows and 192 contestants, Steven Clark made (dubious) history as the first African-American man to be on the show. Additionally, only 26 contestants (13 per cent) have been women. The problem was traced to the telephone selection process, where minorities and women simply are not qualify ing. The telephone cannot de termine skin color, being a sound-based system, but it is obviously barring the advance ment of certain groups. There are two schools of though about this. The first is the “Regis equals racist” camp. They believe the ques tions are inherently biased against minorities. The other is the “White men equal trivia buffs” camp. They believe white men have enough free time to learn useless facts. Some have also suggested minorities and women have too much dignity to appear on the show. The selection process, either because it is inherently racist or because minorities and women just are not trivia buffs, does not lead to an equal result. Minorities and women are not allowed an equal opportu nity to compete in the actual game show. Therefore, the se lection process is fatally flawed. Scrap it and move on. “Who Wants to be a Mil lionaire” needs to radically re format its selection process. The show’s current ap proach of tweaking the system to try to affect change is naive and futile. This is not a “tune- up” problem. The car is to talled, get a new one. To do anything else is to acknowl edge and accept a slightly-less prejudicial selection process. Even though Philbin and his show are not overt racists, accepting accidental discrimi nation. once discovered, is tragic. The lily-white selection pool should not be the final answer to the question of who wants to be a millionaire. — Chris Huffines