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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 2002)
E BATTALi me Opinion ) ards agi' •n ihe natkf The Battalion Page I3A • Monday, September 2, 2002 ie season ur j the tux sun,; ; Icxasii oblems of m vc led io cair des pr ion. ft up Texas i s carries cor ist a sting) V sacked sixtri ‘ f exasi ertd' Media guide was half wrong A dd another page to the Texas A&M-Texas Tech football rivalry. The 2002 Texas A&M pleased w ■ offensive ar like to kxit j ’ave up stalled in the ks. dropped;* ives. s uh file siTt imms said w Ithoul . ; Martin w :d Thursdi : i and wattil , bal for the lasKs S<inano. Tc ork Yankee ;an hecorat ith 40 horar; • uses. In p I league 'v<nners, mX to join ’ * » and Rode :rs to accon® ninues to r» ankees tnri urmI 's Yli" 5 homers rt unday. Smoltz. T r came 1 saves, mu. ^ en s big If- ® figures if\ NL mark tr Hoffma >sa. Sidelins I ie past wed star still of reach 500. irget abort g for then 8 mint. Afe-1 loss lo Awp ie World Se win more Ip RICHARD BRAY Football Media Guide inspired controversy two weeks ago by including an excerpt from 12th Man Magazine which “awarded” Lubbock the title of worst atmosphere. The single-paragraph explanation pointed to the Red Raiders' behavior following their victory over A&M at last season's game in Lubbock. Following Texas Tech’s victory, its fans rushed onto the field and tore down the goal post. They then carried the goal post across the Field and attempted to push it into a crowd of A&M fans. The offending passage in the A&M media guide said, “the Texas Tech fans were even uglier than the barren stretch of dirt some West Texans call a city ... the Red Raiders, even in victory, looked like classless clowns.” While A&M certainly didn’t display any class in making such a statement in its media guide and did the right thing in issuing an apology, the statements would have been legitimate coming from any other source. After all, it’s difficult for even the most devoted Texas Tech fans to approve of the actions that took place in the aftermath of last year’s game. While media guides are not known to have the high jour nalistic standards of neutrality, negative comments about opponents are traditionally considered out of bounds. Although A&M Sports Information Director Alan Cannon publicly apologized for the passage and said the insults were a mistake which should have been caught prior to publication, the incident lowered A&M's respectability and created nation al headlines on ESPN as well as in newspapers across the country. However, just because A&M was wrong in publishing the statements does not mean the statements were wrong. Texas Tech fans embarrassed themselves and the rest of the Big 12 Conference last year. W'hile tearing down goal posts occasion ally happens following college football games, such behavior is dangerous and unacceptable. The danger heightened when Red Raider fans chose to shove the goal posts, which must be at least 30 feet tall in accordance with NCAA rules, into a group of Texas A&M fans. The worst part of the media guide’s statement was the damage the passage did to A&M’s reputation. Allowing the excerpt to slip into the pages of A&M’s media guide displays a lack of professionalism which embarrasses the entire A&M community. Just as the A&M football team represents the University, so do the publications which operate under A&M's label. A&M’s reputation was damaged nationally through the negligence of the individuals responsible for edit ing the content of A&M’s media guide. The dangerous behavior displayed by Texas Tech's fans far surpasses the unprofessional passage in the media guide, and while the A&M media guide is not the place for such criti cism, Texas Tech fans deserve to be chastised for such ridicu lous conduct. While A&M should not have been the one to say it. Lubbock and its fans deserve every bit of criticism they receive. Richard Bray is a senior journalism major. ner. go full 45 )k back"(ft' "Now tlu ball weW re ce MAIL CALL clowns'" was somewhat offen sive. The more I thought of it, the more I put my friends email into perspective. At the end of his email it said even though there was an altercation last year after the football game in Lubbock, the fact that A&M has decided to do this gives new meaning to the phrase "Texas Trash". To outsiders, the State of Texas is just that... a state. As a native Texan, I take pride in all things that are "Texas" ... even A&M. I wish you the best of luck with your sea son, and I look forward to when we can beat you at your home this year. Billy Almaguer Tech fan reacts to A&M media guide I am not to shocked to see the bitterness from your loss to Texas Tech last year in football still remains. I am, however, concerned with how you choose to display your anger. I support the Big 12. With that comes support for the Bears, Longhorns and even the Aggies. I graduated from Texas Tech and I love my school. I currently live in Florida and I support all of the Big 12 schools when I can. I received an email from a friend of mine including a link to ESPN.com. This link titled "A&M media guide calls Tech fans 'classless Just burning money National Forest Service lost much-needed millions BRIEANNE PORTER I n recent months, the public has grown wary of companies coming clean about accounting errors and misplaced money. So far, all of these com panies have been in the corporate world. That is, until now. The United States Forest Service recently discovered it misplaced 215 mil lion dollars for wild fire management from the 2(XX) fiscal year. The United States is currently experiencing the worst wildfire season it has had in recent years, which has claimed the lives of 20 firefighters. While it is admirable for the Forest Service to admit its mistake, it does not clear the agency from accountability for this year’s wild fires. While careless or menacing people started some of the largest fires this sea son, it does not make the Forest Service less responsible for how large these fires became. The Forest Service should have been able to help control these fires with the missing resources back in the year 2000. but now the firefighters and forest rangers have to control these fires without the resources they need and deserve. Eric Lynch, a policy expert for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, asked the Associated Press, “How in the world does an agency lose hundreds of million of dollars so des perately needed to help extinguish fires in the West? In a record-spending fire season, it is vital that the Forest Service be held accountable as to how it spends taxpayer money.” ANGEL1QUE FORD • THE BATTALION The Forest Service has a notorious record when it comes to accounting errors. According to an article in The New York Times, the Forest Service has failed eight of the last 10 Inspector General audits, which analyze the orga nization's accounting practices. In a time when the public is used to hearing about accounting errors in the private sector, it is another matter to have a vital federal agency with just as many accounting mistakes. The Forest Service not only protects national forests, it pro tects the public from out-of-control wildfires that destroy homes and endan ger lives. In the same Times article. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said, “The windfall from the accounting error would do little to reverse the financial strain the agency is experiencing because of the severe fire season.” It isn’t necessarily true that the fire season may not have been so critical if the misplaced money had been available in 2000 to put wildfire man agement systems in place. The recovered money is additional money that can be spent this year to fight the fires. Eric Lynch, in a New York Times article, said, “the mis placed millions could have been spent to reduce fire risk long before this year's fires rav aged the West.” The Forest Service must be held accountable for its errors and the sys tem must be fixed so these errors do not occur again. The government needs to overhaul the Forest Service's accounting department, not just because of this recent error, but because of the decade of poor performance on the Inspector General’s audits. It is unacceptable for the public’s money to be misplaced and mis used, especially in a mat ter as important as con trolling wildfires. These accounting errors have put countless lives at risk, and errors such as this cannot occur again. It is not easy to say what might have happened if the money was used in the year 2000 to manage wild fires, but it is easy to imagine what should have been prevented. It is American citizens' money being mis placed and it is citizens' lives that could have been saved. Brieanne Porter is a senior political science major. Radio personalities went too far Show aired couple having sex in St. Patrick’s Cathedral O n Aug. 22, Anthony Cumia and Greg “Opie” Hughes, hosts of the “Opie and Anthony” show, were fired by WNEW-FM in New York and JENELLE WILSON Infinity Broadcasting due to an on- air stunt the week before. The incident, which desecrated a New York City church on one of the Catholic faith's holiest days, caused an uproar of protest and publicity that rightly ended in the “shock jock” duo losing their jobs. The stunt that got them fired occurred on Aug. 15. It was the third of a series called “Sex for Sam.” According to Reuters News Service, six couples were given a list of 54 “dangerous” locations where they could have sex in New York City. The locations were allocated a certain amount of points, and the couple who had the most points at the end of the contest won. The prize for the “Sex for Sam III” contest was a trip to the Sam Adams/VHl World-Class Summer Jam. A church was worth 25 points in the contest. Rockefeller Center was worth 30, and, according to Fox News, a participat ing couple could earn up to 100 points if they had sex on-air with a firefighter or police officer. A Virginia couple, Loretta Lynn Harper, 35, and Brian Florence, 37, chose St. Patrick's Cathedral as one of their “dan gerous” places. The couple was in a vestibule near the church's 50th Street entrance and within view of the worshippers when an usher con fronted them. Their defense lawyer, Melissa Fritz, contends the couple was not actually having sex, but, according to court papers, Florence had “exposed private parts” and Harper was naked from the waist down. St. Patrick's Cathedral is considered the center of Catholic life in the United States according to the Archdiocese of New York’s web site. The cathedral opened in 1879 and is visited by an esti mated three million people per year. At the time of the incident, at least 20 congregants and tourists were in the church, observing the Feast of the Assumption, which celebrates the Virgin Mary's death and assumption into heaven. Harper and Florence were arrested for public lewdness and obscenity and have a court date set for October 2. Paul Mercuric, the show’s producer, who was describing the event on- air via a cellular phone, was arrested as well. Opie and Anthony's show was suspended on Monday, August 19 and canceled on Aug. 22 after the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) announced its plans to investigate the matter. The station could still lose its license if the FCC finds it broke federal indecency laws. This isn't the first time Opie and Anthony have been fired. According to Foundry Music's Opie and Anthony web site, they were hired in 1995 by WAAF-FM in Boston and started their infamous “Whip ‘Em Out Wednesdays,” or WOW cam paign, which encourages women to flash any man who possesses a WOW sticker. On April 1, 1998, they announced that the mayor of Boston, Tom Menino, had been killed in a car accident, which was a lie, and were terminated. They were hired by the struggling WNEW-FM shortly after, and last year they received a $30 million syndication contract. According to Allen Wastler of CNN Money, the show had regular features such as “The Lesbian Couch” and “Homeless Shopping Spree” and was full of “ethnic slurs, homophobia and misogyny.” Opie and Anthony promoted the “Voyeur Bus,” which was made mostly of glass and drove naked women around Manhattan. Three stunts that occurred between November 2000 and January 2001, resulted in Infinity being fined $21,000 earlier this year by the FCC. Unfortunately, Opie and Anthony, like other shock jocks who cross the line, will likely return. According to the New York Daily News, in 1982, Howard Stem was fired for mocking the deaths of 78 people killed on Flight 90 when it crashed into the Potomac River in Washington D.C. and later made jokes about the Columbine High School shooting. “The Greaseman” Doug Tract was fired for a racial slur after the dragging death of James Bryd, Jr., in Jasper, Texas. In Tampa, Todd Clem, also known as “Bubba the Love Sponge,” supervised the on-air castration and slaughter of a wild boar. These shock jocks are still working and are more popular than ever. Opie and Anthony were giving their audience exactly what it wanted. However, once they encouraged listeners to desecrate a place of worship simply for ratings, they went too far and deserved to be fired. In order to prevent such garbage from fur ther polluting our radio, listeners need to be more discerning in who they listen to. After all, the radio stations won’t rehire Opie and Anthony if no one listens to them. jenelle Wilson is a junior political science major.
