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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.
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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.