The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 13, Ed. 1 Friday, December 9, 1988 Page: 2 of 16
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2 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1988 THE RICE THRESHER
Opinion
The more things change...
The Christmas story once again peals out upon a happy little
stereophonic, filtertip world of parking tickets, bluebooks, and dexe-
drine.
The booming carols in glittering, teeming department stores
remind us of the joyous message—that we can shelve our books for
bottles and speed over turnpikes to share a few precious days with our
families, old friends, and perhaps lavishing what remains of ourselves
and our wallets on a special someone.
Strange that the humble birth of a baby in an obscure village of the
Near East a couple of thousand years ago should so disrupt the
pattern of the Good Life that even the New York Stock Exchange
pauses for the day.
Odd that church bells in Brussels, Boston, Buenos Aires, and
Biloxi ring out to commemorate the coming of a child who would
never know the intricacies of economic warfare and foreign policy,
much less the diplomacy of cocktail party etiquette.
Funny that angels and shepherds should share top billing with
Peyton Place, missiles, and sensational murders.
More unusual still are the moments amid tinsel and eggnog when
we realize that the celebrated infant of a far-off time and place was a
living symbol of all the love and humanity that man can ever hope to
know.
The above editorial was written in 1959 by Thresher associate editor
Bill Delaney and has run in the Thresher most years since.
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Death penalty not revenge but self-defense for society
To the editors:
Convincing me to arm myself with a
candle and participate in a march is a
task roughly equivalent to
persuading a child to consume lima
beans. However, it was not very hard
to convince me to join the Take Back
The Night March, sponsored by the
Rice Women's Alliance. 1 do not
speak for that group, but in view of
the criticism I am about to generate,
I hope that 1 can count on its support.
Every ten seconds,an unprovoked
assault occurs in the United States.
One in five Americans will be
personally assaulted in the next
twelve months. One in three women
will be sexually assaulted before
they reach the age of sixty.
Therefore, there is no doubt that we
need an order of magnitude more
lighting on this campus. And that is
not the half of it. We probably need
more campus police officers. The
whole country needs more police
officers, in fact And those officers
need better pay to reflect the guts
required to risk their lives daily,
facing down the maniacs we have in
our streets. And still there is more.
We must purge our justice system of
the left-wing judges who believe that
harsh potty-training justifies first-
degree murder.
That's right, I'm one of those people
who believe that we have a sorry
excuse for a justice system. I
strongly advocate the death-penalty,
and I think we need a great deal more
of it Before you attack me, consider
some observations. It is a naffenal
obscenity that murderers and cold-
blooded rapists receive shelter and
three meals a day, while whole
families, the majority of whom have
never killed or even hurt a fellow
human being, are starving in the
streets of America It is a very sick
joke that we as a society are more
concerned for the welfare of those
whom we are, in some sense, killing.
You see, I do have a social
conscience, I just have different
priorities than all you bleeding-heart
criminal-sympathizers.
As a taxpayer (I have been one
since my first job in high-school,
thank you very much), I-am proud
that some small portion of my efforts
may have gone to assist the less-
fortunate of this country. I am
insulted and outraged that the
efforts of any decent taxpayer
should go to support the lives of
monsters (unworthy of the term
'men") who might just as easily have
killed anyone on this campus. Next
time they may.
Violent crime is an emotional issue.
Therefore, an emotional argument is
admissible. The true story I am
about to relate is in incredibly poor
taste, but I make no apology because
it is essential to my point. My source
is the December 2 edition of the
Neurock against excessive dogmatism
To the editors:
I am not at all surprised at the
desperation of Mr. Sheldon Filger's
response (Dec. 2) to my column of
October 14. I am what Mr. Filger
fears most—an objective Jew. His
panicked mudslinging only reveals a
dangerous shortage of knowledge
regarding American affairs in the
Middle East Setting aside Mr.
Filger's gratuitous invective, I will
discuss the facts.
Mr. Filger points out that the U.S.
has exported more arms to the Arab
world than to Israel. There is a
measure of truth to this; however,
Mr. Filger ignores the fact that
America more than makes up the
difference by underwriting Israeli
design and production of similar
weapons. This is the case with the
new Jericho missile defense system
and the now-defunct Lavi fighter
plane. Despite Mr. Filger's
considerable bluster, the case of the
AWACS is dissimilar: the airborne
radar system is of less strategic value
to Israel, due to limited airspace for
maneuvering. Considering the
distances involoved, ground radar
quite frankly is just as effective,
cheaper, and cannot crash into the
ocean.
Certainly it is possible to be
strongly pro-Israeli and anti-Arab.
Indeed, this is the effective policy of
Mr. Filger and those like him, in
AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation
League. But to anyone who has spent
time studying and living in the
Middle East (as I have), it is plain that
American interests can pervade far
beyond such a one-sided stereotype.
When strategic defense and natural
resource considerations are taken
into account, it becomes illogical and
counterproductive for the U.S. to
favor Israel over the Arab nations. In
short, we have much more to gain
from both the Arabs and the Jews
than from the Jews by themselves.
Mr. Filger is off-base when he
asserts that American Jews have not
opposed arms sales to the Arabs. I
was a co-founder and president of
Rice Hillel; in this capacity I came
into contact with AIPAC, and
attended its policy conference in
1985. AIPAC was at that time
concerned with the prevention of
F-16 sales to Jordan. As students,
we were asked to sign and distribute
postcards addressed to President
Reagan and key Congressional
leaders, opposing the sale as a threat
to Israel. legitimate Jordanian
defense interests (such as defense
against a much stronger Syria) were
ignored. The same scenario has
taken place with regard to arms sales
to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Mr. Filger manages to grasp one
point: I do have a vendetta. It is a
crusade against excessive
dogmatism and shortsightedness in
American foreign affairs. Had
Congress gone ahead with the arms
sales, Persian Gulf nations might
have been better able to defend
themselves, instead of relying on
U.S. help. The tragedies of the USS
Stark and the Iranian jetliner are
direct results of failures in American
foreign policy, largely stemming
from biased lobbying by pro-Israel
groups.Unfortunately, congress-
men are susceptible to threats of
bloc voting by Jewish voters.
It is characteristic of Mr. Filger's
attitude that he shrieks of my
"dizziness" and "absurdities." He is
well-versed in American foreign
affairs and strategic policy (I hope),
and yet he insists upon clinging to
outmoded idealistic dogma.
People like Mr. Filger keep the U.S.
from pursuing its best interests in
the Middle East. American
credibility rests on a clear and
objective view of the facts, not on
shrouded Zionistic mysticism.
Mitch Neurock
Jones '89, Rotary Scholar,
Jerusalem 1987-88
Chronicle.
On September 10, at 4 a.m., a polite,
well-groomed,seemingly
responsible man gained entrance to
the apartment of Ms. Pat Parsons,
under the pretense of needing a
drink of water. Armed with a knife,
he said to Ms. Parsons, "Actually,
what I had in mind was some sex."
After completing the rape, evil-
incarnate said, "Well, we ought to get
started." He proceeded to bash her
head with a hammer using heavy,
full-arm blows. The victim remained
conscious throughout the ordeal.
Listen to her own words: "I could feel
my skull breaking." Contemplate
that before you self-righteously talk
of compassion for killers. A few
minutes later, he came back to bash
the other side of her head, 35 times in
all. He came back again, and began
slicing her throat Listen once more.
"When he got to my trachea he hit it
five or six times because it didn't cut
as easily as the rest of it." When this
obscene excuse for a person got
through, heannounced, "Thatought
to do it."
You should be outraged and
nauseated. L certainly was. True to
form, however, our so-called justice
system sentenced Michael O'Neal
Johnson to 60 years in prison.
Actually, that means five years, with
weekend passes to visit all of Ms.
Parson's neighbors. Within ten
years, Johnson will certainly be back
in action, and the next time he
announces, "That ought to do it," he
won't be wrong. More frighteningly,
there are many murderers in our
country that make Johnson look like
a Peace Corps volunteer, (e.g.,
Theodore Robert Bundy)
I am sick and tired of the nonsense
that so-called social injustice
generates crime. Mr. Bundy, one of
the most brutal mass-murderers in
recent years, was from the so-called
middle class. Good and evil are not
superstitious or out-dated concepts.
Some men, if they may be called
such, are purely and simply, evil.
They deserve execution. We don't
need more prisons, we need more
gas-chambers and electric-chairs. If
sentences were just, there would be
no over-crowding in our prisons. If
we spent less money on inmates,
who make no contribution to society
and constitute a drain, we could
spend the money we save on
rectifying the social problems upon
which violent crime is falsely
blamed. The only reason you could
be opposed to trying is that deep
inside, you know that I am right
Before exposing myself to abuse, I
must discredit the myth that capital
punishment has anything to do with
"revenge." Whether or not society
should seek revenge is another
issue, which I am not prepared to
discuss. Revenge is an 'eye for an
eye.' That means punishment equal
to the crime. Any ten-year-old can tell
you that what we fear most in dying is
not death itself, but the pain that we
may experience in the process of
dying. What mode of death could be
more horrible, humiliating, and
painful that having your life,
consciousness, and very will beaten,
cut, torn, and smashed out of your
body? In contrast to the demeaning,
lingering death granted to the
majority of rape/murder victims,
death in a gas-chamber is absurdly
merciful. By all rrran.s attack my
position, but not witMhe fiction that
the death-penalty is vengeful. It is
self-defense.
Ronald Dixson, WRC '89
Nancy Jenkins, WRC '89
(who by virtue of womanhood,
is at least 15% more likely to be
vicitimized than myself.)
Campus elections perennial problem
To the editors:
Ellen Rein pointed to a problem
that has plagued the Student
Association forycars. (77iresher, 12-2-
88) Almost every Election
Committee within recent memory
has suffered contested elections.
Invariably, some college election
chairmen think of standard SA
election procedures as "someone
else's rules" and apply their own
college's regulations to campus-
wide elections. This creates a lack of
uniformity and leads to the
contested elections.
Ellen stated that "[SA Election
Committee] meetings should be run
more formally to better maintain
both order and fair results." I agree
and encourage SA Secretary Lisa
Thompson to work as closely with
her Election Committee as possible.
Regular meetings will enable the
Election Committee to agree on all
the rules. Inspection of the polls by
Lisa will guarantee that the colleges
are Uniformly enforcing the Election
Code. Not that she can't trust her
own Election Committee; she has to.
But the election chairmen are, after
all, only human, and a word or two
will help prevent violations before
they occur.
The rules exist to provide a uniform
environment for all candidates and
initiatives. When a college election
chairman makes exceptions to give
one candidate a "fair chance," he
denys that chance to all the others.
Some argue that the preferential
ballot is too difficult to count It's not,
but if it's counted incorrectly, it may
affect the outcome of an election.
That's why last year's Election
Committee, with the approval of the
Senate, codified a Procedure for
Counting Preferential Ballots. The
rules are very easy to follow, and, in
any case, allow the SA Secretary to
arbitrate any dispute on the spot.
If all ballots are counted correctly,
the preferential ballot is the easiest
and most democratic method
(except for an open forum) of
resolving an election. Without this
uniformity, the preferential ballot
will become another political tool.
Adam Carr
SA Secretary
and Election Chairman, '87-'88
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McGarrity, Patrick & Sendek, Joel. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 13, Ed. 1 Friday, December 9, 1988, newspaper, December 9, 1988; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245709/m1/2/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.