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ccording to CNN.com. the
eators of the South African
ucational children’s show
el “women are often stigma-
zed about HIV.” By introduc-
ig this character the creators
mt taking chokvleel they are offering a good
n September of this year,
the South African version
of “Sesame Street,” called
hakalani Street,” will intro-
luce an HIV-positive character
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[ole model for viewers on how
Jo deal with the disease within
meir communities. Every day,
Ihildren’s friends on “Sesame
treet” teach new lessons to
lelp prepare young viewers
for adult life. For the small
children of South Africa, HIV
and AIDS is about to become
part of their first education.
Unfortunately, there are no
plans for a similar character to
be introduced in the United
States, but creators at “Sesame
Street Workshop” should look
into doing so.
“Takalani Sesame” is
aimed at children ages 3 to 7
years old, so messages deliv
ered by the new character will
be “appropriate ” said Joel
Schneider, vice president and
senior adviser to “Sesame
Street Workshop” in a
CNN.com online article. The
•show will not mention how
^disease is contracted but
wi// focus more on an HIV-
positive member whom every
one can interact with without
being afraid.
Approximately 4.7 million
iouth Africans — a one-in-
line ratio — are HIV-positive,
ccording to the U.S. State
Apartment. Forty percent of
vomen of childbearing age
we included in that statistic,
reating a fast growing num-
>er of children born with HIV.
This situation is terribly dev
iating and “Takalani
sesame” is a giant step
owards alleviating the prob-
em.
Education is the key to cur-
ng the AIDS epidemic in the
world today. It is an issue that
will not simply go away, espe
cially in South Africa. The
disease is part of everyday life
here. Children are affected by
and have to deal with this sad
fact. By creatively introducing
HIV and AIDS into children’s
hwes through friendly mup-
Pets, the reality of the disease
m ay not seem so scary.
The muppets are non-
threatening to children, so
controversial messages can be
Portrayed in a way to help
Opinion
The Battalion
Page 9* Thursday July
JAMIE DUFF
stimulate discussion amongst
parents and children. Further
information and ways of
teaching children more about
HIV and AIDS will be avail
able to parents for discussion
in the home.
According to the Center for
Disease Control (CDC), in the
United States there were 6,928
reported cases of AIDS in
children under five years of
age in June 2001. Like chil
dren in South Africa, these
kids have to deal with a fatal
disease and the cruelty of their
peers.
Parents are encouraged to
talk to their children at a
young age when morals and
beliefs are instilled in people’s
minds. If we start educating
children through things they
like and trust, such as
“Sesame Street” characters,
stereotypical beliefs and
myths associated with the lack
of knowledge about HIV and
AIDS can be corrected.
According to CNN.com,
Republican lawmakers do not
want to introduce an HIV-pos
itive muppet to the show. A
letter reportedly sent to PBS
president Pat Mitchell by five
members of the House com
mittee on energy and com
merce states that such a char
acter would be unwelcome on
American television. The law
makers reported the average
age of “Sesame Street” view
ers is 2 to 4 years old, too
young of an age to introduce
such a controversial topic.
There is still a large stigma
surrounding AIDS in South
Africa and the rest of the
world. The creation of an
HIV-positive character will
help provide educators with
resources to help combat the
disease. Children are said to
be the future, and we need to
teach them at a young age
when learning is imperative.
The CDC reported 40 million
people living with HIV and
AIDS in the world today, and
2.7 million under the age of
15. U.S. officials should take
this into consideration and
allow children to be educated
about AIDS at a young age
through the trusted and famil
iar characters on a longstand
ing, educational children’s
program such as “Sesame
Street.”
Jamie Duff is a senior
English major.
Wasteful Recreation
Traditions and Miramont golf courses excessive for Bryan
MAIL CALL
Guns in the cockpit
a necessity on flights
ln response to Jonathan
livens July 17 mail call:
t *- et 's say you are sitting on
f n a irplane about 10 rows
ac k from the cockpit.
u ddenly a group of terrorists
attack.
,^ e terrorists take care of
T 16 air marshal first. Not that
ar d to spot. Then they kill the
'ght attendants.
, The y then start breaking
0Wn the door to the cockpit
0W for the question.
'° u want the pilots in that
Coc kpit to have a gun?
According to Mr. Havens the
J^swer to this question would
e no, because they should
^ entra te on flying.
$ nat kind of person would
a V no. The terrorist are break-
8 mto the cockpit.
he Y have guns. Once they
Do
CHRISTY RUTH
I n hopes of making Bryan-College Station a better place to live,
the City of Bryan has teamed up with Texas A&M in a new proj
ect, the Traditions Golf Course. Now, Bryan businessman Don
Adams is following their lead and building another new golf course,
the Miramont.
While Traditions is coming along
slowly, still tied up with preparing the
utility infrastructure and other sorts of
bureaucratic procedures, the
Miramont is moving along swiftly,
with a 22-hole course and a 93,000
square foot clubhouse already in the
works. Both developments are seeking to attract vacationers and
new residents by offering a unique country club lifestyle.
While it might seem difficult to oppose a golf course, there are
problems with the Traditions course and Miramont the community
needs to realize.
Since the Traditions project is a municipal venture and a uni
versity venture, every taxpayer and A&M student is contributing to
turning the community into one giant country club.
Another problem to consider is the socioeconomic condition
of Bryan. Many residents of Bryan are paying taxes for a golf
course they will never use. Sure, if it attracts tourists it will help
the economy, but relying heavily on tourism dollars to recoup
expenses is a risky plan, especially since the project still has
quite a way to go before it will be ready to service visitors.
Bryan’s city council is still undergoing negotiations with
the Melrose Corporation, which is carrying out
construction of the Traditions course, and hotel
construction is being delayed by kinks that still'
need to be worked out with the course. Overall,-.^
this project is taking up a great deal of time and
money, and is bogged down in bureaucratic
processes.
Another factor overlooked when filling a communi- ^
ty with state-of-the-art golf courses is the impact the 1
projects have on the environment. When land is cleared
for a golf course, trees are cut down, sand is moved in,
water is added in, and the overall topography of the land
changes. These changes affect the entire ecosystem.
Plants that once grew in the golf course area will
not be there anymore, and the animals and insects that
survive on that land will be forced out. Once this hap
pens, the animals cannot come back and repopulate
unfamiliar territory. The wildlife population will be
completely out of sync with its natural balance.
Unfortunately, the City of Bryan and Texas A&M do not
consider these effects to be harmful enough to involve taxpayers in
the decision to construct a large golf course while another is already
in the making.
Their desire to bring upscale patrons to the community steps on
the toes of many people already living here. Certainly plenty of res
idents in Bryan and College Station like to golf and will use the
courses, but those who do not are being ignored.
It seems the city has decided current residents are not the kind
of people they want living there, so it will force them out by bring
ing in rich golfers.
LUKE CARNEVALE • THE BATTALION
Obviously, there are worse things a city can do than build a golf
course, but if the reasons for doing so are to attract tourists and
affluent families to visit and live here, it could be investing the nec
essary time and resources on better ventures.
Christy Ruth is a senior
journalism major.
Clean Power Act doomed to fail
get in there the pilots will be
dead and that means that
every person on the airplane
will, one way or the other, be
dead - and you do not want
those pilots to be able to
mount a last-ditch defense
effort with guns.
Know what? That U.S. Navy
F-l 6 on your wing has guns-
and those guns are going to
kill you if those terrorists can
not be stopped. Your only
chance is for the pilots to save
the day. But, you do not want
them armed.
Oh and by the way, the cur
rent bill passed by the U.S.
House (H.R. 4635) would pro
vide any pilot training, super
vision, and equipment neces
sary as well as provide bullets
that do not penetrate through
the airplane in case of acci
dental discharge.
Stephen Latimer
Class of 2002
(U-WIRE) HOUSTON — The Senate Environment and
Public Works committee recently approved an amendment to
the Clean Air Act by a 10-9 vote, a characteristically thin mar
gin for such sweeping, extreme legislation.
The Clean Power Act, authored and sponsored by the com
mittee chairman. Independent Senator James Jeffors of
Vermont, would impose the nation’s first controls on carbon
dioxide, to the tune of 25 percent of current levels. These car
bon dioxide controls are the bill’s centerpiece, though it would
also curb three other pollutants: sulfur dioxide (which causes
acid rain) by 95 percent, nitrous oxides by 85 percent, and mer
cury by 90 percent by 2008.
Max Baucus of Montana, a powerful Democratic dissenting
vote, rebuked Jeffords for lack of compromise and predicts the
costs of implementing these controls will be so high as to put
many coal fired power plants out of commission.
The mercury controls, for example, are impossible to meet.
Jefford’s plan would cut mercury emissions from 41 tons per
year to just five, and there would be no trading of emission per
mits to mitigate fluctuations in demand for the right to emit.
The electricity industry says current technology can decrease
mercury by about 40 percent, but not to the levels required by
this bill.
Coal constitutes half of the country’s electricity, primarily
because it is our cheapest energy source and its emissions have
gotten progressively cleaner during the past hundred years. The
Edison Electricity Institute points out existing control programs
for sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions “will reduce tons
of both emissions by half from their highest levels.”
If a bill such as Jefford’s damages such a large and crucial
portion of our energy producing capacity, then more expensive
means of energy will need to fill the void, such as natural gas.
California relies mostly on natural gas for electricity, and
that dependency is what helped create the California energy
crisis. It did not allow coal to provide a buffer from the
volatility of the natural gas market, and this volatility ham
mered California. The shock our electrical system would sus
tain in attempting to change half of energy capacity to a differ
ent source of fuel would only compound the volatility of gas
prices and drive them up even further.
As is the case of most environmental regulations, the poor
would suffer the most under this bill. The well off will be less
sensitive to price increases, while seniors receiving social secu
rity will experience even more pressure on their already small,
fixed income.
Jefford’s plan has all the trappings of the Kyoto protocol:
prohibitively large cost and GDP contraction, with little real
result on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmos
phere. A quarter of the nation’s emissions of carbon dioxide
from power plants are a small fraction of the total global emis
sions of the compound.
Cutting this amount will not delay a rise in global tempera
ture, due to the sheer amount that the rest of America and the
world emit. The developing world, namely China and India,
have refused to partake in any such emission reduction scheme.
While American industry struggles under the yoke of such
oppressive regulation, China and India will continue to increase
emissions, past current U.S. levels, making reductions in the
bill even more ineffective.
It is easy for Jeffords to sit atop his high platitudes and dic
tate how the rest of the busy nation should fuel itself.
Fortunately, the stark nature of Jefford’s legislation is perhaps
its best quality, for the tight caps and cost thereof are so unrea
sonable that this measure is assured not to garner any support
from Senators whose states actually have work to do.
Thomas Asma is a columnist
for the Daily Cougar.
Indecent proposal by church educator
(U-WIRE) MURFREES
BORO, Tenn. — Last month,
42-year-old Todd Warren, a
Sunday school teacher in
Minnesota, pleaded guilty to a
misdemeanor charge of inde
cent exposure after counseling
a 16-year-old boy to repress his
desire to masturbate by writing,
“What Would Jesus Do?” on
his penis.
Yikes.
Masturbation, along with
anger, selfishness and other
“sinful” emotions most religions
claim pave the road to hell, is
normal, healthy behavior. If the
teenager had confessed that he
excuses himself to the bathroom
at least five times during family
dinner to milk his marmot, per
haps he would be justified in
seeking religious help. But see
ing the son of God’s name
adorning his penis is going to
do way more psychological
damage than over-indulging on
self-stimulation ever could.
Once again, those four little
words have proven to be noth
ing more than a Christian
mechanism to induce guilt for
being human.
If anything, self-love is a
positive alternative to sex
before marriage. If masturba
tion is a sin and fornication is a
sin, what is one to do with
years of pent-up sexual energy?
Why would an all-knowing,
loving God design a species so
inefficiently? The only logical
conclusion, then, is that per
sonal sexuality is a fabulous
part of our design that should
be embraced.
Either way, Warren deserves
to lose his counseling privi
leges. The point of being a
youth counselor should be to
encourage young people to
think for themselves, not to
claim that a natural human
instinct makes baby Jesus cry.
Amber Bryant is a columnist
for the Sidelines.