The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 69, No. 47, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 21, 1985 Page: 2 of 8
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The North Texas Dally
Commentary
Editorials
Street lights overdue
By the end of this week, four long-overdue street lights
should be installed at reaident parking lot 32, at the comer
of Avenue A and Maple Street.
It’s unfortunate that a woman had to be raped there
before the administration saw fit to allocate funds to
light a dirt parking lot that is heavily shrouded by trees.
A petite 19-year-old woman into her second year of
study at NT was grabbed from behind by a 6-foot,
200-pound man, pushed between two parked cars and
raped after she had parked her car in lot P-32 just after
midnight August 29.
Too frightened and ashamed to notify authorities
right away, the woman waited until Oct. 31 to make
her report.
Last week, a 21-year-old Hong Kong student had her
purse snatched as she crossed the lot on her way home
from work at Willis Library. Though not as violent, the
recent robbery is as much a felony as the rape was. And
both occured on the same unlighted lot.
Campus police and other law enforcement authorities
agree that lighting plays an important role in deterring
crime. Since the high-mass lights have been installed
across inner campus, the crime rate at NT has declined.
Why, then, did administrators ignore the potential for
problems that could arise on such a secluded, dirt,
unlighted parking lot near Kerr and Kendall halls?
The lot was used during the spring semester of 1984
for overflow from the Kerr parking lot. When the parking
system was changed to divide east and west resident
parking, rather than individual dorms, officials cordoned
off the lot and acknowledged it as legitimate, though
unpaved, parking.
For a year now, many students have resorted to parking
in P-32 late at night because all of the close spaces are
taken. Many single women see it as too much of an
inconvenience to drive by the SuUivant Visitor Center
or stop at an emergency phone to call for an escort from
their parked car to their residence. NT Police offer these
services, but they should be considered as extras; the
campus should start out being secure.
Tree clusters also pose security problems at other
unlighted parking lots: P-23 at Avenue B and Eagle Drive,
and P-27, between Maple and Highland streets near the
Colisseum. Authorities are trying to decide what types
of lighting would be sufficient at these lots.
In the aftermath of the two felonies on P-32, police
have been instructed to step up patrols in the area late at
night. Women are being encouraged to use the escort
service and cautioned to become more familiar with their
surroundings before getting out of their parked cars.
These precautions are good to take in any situation,
but it is frustrating to think that one woman’s life may
not have been shattered and another woman’s purse may
not have been snatched if only administrators had had
the foresight to light the lot.
Page 2 Thursday, November 21,1985
Scattered ideas converge
Safer than the city
It is somewhat comforting to know that college camp-
uses are safer than the cities they are found in. While
the crime rate in Texas had a 10 percent increase during
the first six months of 1985 compared with the first six
months of 1984, Texas colleges and universities had a
decrease of 1 percent.
Cities in Texas are growing, and the growth brings
more people and more crime. Many of the people
migrating to Texas are those age 17 to 25, an age of
higher crime activity. Those people may come looking
for jobs, become disheartened and tum to crime.
Another factor in Texas’ boost in crime may be
budgetary problems. Oil and gas revenue are declining,
and those were the mainstays of the Texas economy.
State officials are looking for ways to save money, and
law enforcement agencies were among the things experi-
encing a cutback. The Legislature said law enforcement
agencies could not add personnel unless a court ordered
them to do so.
Crime is going up in the United States, Texas and
Denton. Denton saw a 20.4 percent increase in crime,
and Denton police think that trend will continue. Denton
is a high-growth area, and an increase in crime can be
expected.
But at NT, crime has decreased by 24 percent in three
years. It has seen a steady decrease in crime while its
enrollment has seen a steady increase. The fact that NT
is a commuter school probably has something to do with
the lower crime rate. Commuters increase the student
population during the day, but lower it during night.
And fewer students means less crime.
But there are other, more important reasons for the
decrease in crime. The public service officer program
and new high-mast lighting are some of the main reasons
for the drop.
Public service officers perform tasks that don’t require
extensive law enforcement training, such as providing
escorts and working in the information booth. Their
existence puts more officers in the public eye, a move
that police believe deters crime.
High-mast lighting also provides a crucial role in
deterring crime. After high-mast lights were installed
during the 1980-81 school year, the crime rate began
falling. Good lighting is the reason most campuses gave
for a decreasing crime rate. Criminals are less likely to
commit crimes in well-lighted areas, they say.
Emergency phones are also given some credit for the
decreasing crime. The phones give quick access to the
police so they may respond in a quicker, more efficient
manner to disturbances and crimes.
All campuses said they operate using preventative,
not reactionary, law enforcement.
The NT Police Department has been thinking along
those lines, and it has paid off. The department’s
farsightedness in starting the public service officer
program, installing high-mast lighting and installing
emergency phones has helped make the campus a safer
place to be.
T eft-handed children face years of
L-icutting with green-handled scissors.
It’s observations like this that enter
my mind frequently. The kind of things
you might think about while stopped
at a red light or jogging or cleaning
the aquarium. Some are humorous, some
are thoughtful, some arc sad. Perhaps
you know what I mean when I say . . .
No one notices a janitor until he
doesn’t do his job . . . Every convicted
murderer is somebody’s son or daughter
. . . Television is the reason kids don’t
read as much as they should . . . The
more I type, the worse my handwriting
gets . . . Why do people think pregnant
women want to eat pickles and ice
cream? . . . The moral majority is neith-
er .. . There are always more empty
seats in statistics class after the first exam
. . . When was the last time you wrote
your grandmother? . . . Oxymorons:
metal wood, one-way mirror ... A
game show host is the best job you can
get without a college degree . . . Why
is an 8-iron called a niblick? . . . You
know you’ve reached VIP status when
newpapers have your obituary prepared
with only the date to fill in . . . When
you’re a sports writer, everyone wants
to talk sports . . . Nothing is worse for
the family unit than for the father to be
a car salesman ... Is there another
word for Thesaurus? ... If you could
find an industrial use for dead crickets,
you’d be a millionaire . . . golf is a
four-hour game . . . Men who smoke
Pepper
Hastings
marijuana are not sterile . . . Why is a
sanitary landfill sanitary? . . . Baseball
is structured boredom . . . Pressure is
self-inflicted.
And by the way . . .
The best way to make old people
smile is to show them a baby or a puppy
... Is there anyone who has never eaten
at a McDonalds? ... I never saw E.T.
. . . Why are pay phone numbers un-
listed? . . . Why do math books always
give answers to odd numbered questions
. . . Professional quarterbacks have the
most demanding job in sport. . . There
is no substitute for a good, personal
interview . . . Beer in plastic cups
doesn’t taste as good as beer in a glass
. . . What is the Slippery Rock College
mascot? . . . What ever happened to
mood rings? . . . When dogs yawn, they
are nervous . . . What is it like to teach
an 8 a.m. freshman English class? . . .
What kind of people major in math?
. . . Find a word that rhymes with
"orange” . . . Not all used car salese-
men wear plaid jackets . . . Everyone
remembers his first round of golf . . .
There is at least one person alive who
really knows who shot John Kennedy
. . . What would Fidel Castro look like
in a coat and tie? . . . Journalism profs
must buy red pens by the trainload . . .
I know five people named Steve Davis
. . . Why do old men carry their spare
coins in a oval-shaped rubber coin
holder? . . . Everybody in the world
has a mother and a father . . . The word
usage is useless. Why not use? . . . Did
George Washington really chop down
that cherry tree? . . . Sad but true, there
is no longer such a thing as penny candy
. . . Buzzwords: Administrative Leave,
Core Curriculum, User Friendly . . .
Nothing is better than a loyal wife/girl-
friend . . . The worst job in the world
might be summer photographer for The
Daily . . . Nobody gives a damn about
American Flag etiquette these days . . .
Real copyediting pencils don’t need
erasers . . . Typewriters are obsolete
as chisles and stone ... My first grade
teacher’s name was Mrs. Shockney . . .
Cigarette smoke always drifts from an
ashtray in the direction of the non-
smoker, no matter which direction the
air conditioning is blowing . . . Auto
liability insurance premiums do not,
repeat, do not magically reduce on your
25th birthday . . . Perry Mason always
won . . . Hitler should have never in-
vaded the Soviet Union . . . People in
a laundromat all have one thing in
common: None of them have a washing
machine that works ... If cats could
tum door handles, they would not need
humans . . .
Renegade
T Tumphrev. the humpback whale who seemed
11 to want to make the United States his
home, turned up in the Pacific Ocean last week
and claimed that he had been drugged with fresh
water and forced to swim up the Sacramento
River.
Humphrey, it turns out, is a Soviet whale.
On what was a routine going-south-for-the-winter
pilgrimage in the Pacific, Humphrey took a left
at San Francisco and headed upstream. Humph-
rey was assumed to be an American whale,
traveling from the icy cold of Alaska down to
the warmer environs of Hawaii.
BUT AS IT turns out, Humphrey started
from the Bering Sea, up Soviet Union way.
He dropped out of sight somewhere along the
coast of northern California and resurfaced in
the arms of U.S. officials.
Humphrey's arrival was hailed as the greatest
breakthrough in whaledom since Nanu the killer
whale jumped through the flaming hoop at Sea
World. Humphrey was a whale of a catch.
Humphrey was credited with exposing the
whales' use of “whale dust” to track the
marine mammal relates whale of a tale
movement of Sea World and other marine
amusement park officials, a ploy to show that
his whale brain had something of value to offer
U.S. officials.
Then, suddenly, Humphrey turns up outside
U.S. territorial waters, publicly claiming that
he was no true defector, that he was whale-
napped from the waters of the Pacific, drugged
with fresh water and slipped into the United
States, then “tortured” by Californians.
This inopportune reversal comes just before
the Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev summit.
Reagan had wanted to emphasize all the Soviet
outrages, including the continued Soviet killing
of whales and the mass distribution of the
“Women of the Soviet Union” calendar in the
United States.
SO IT SEEMS logical that Humphrey was
simply a Soviet plant, that his appearance in
San Francisco Bay was merely the equivalent
of a Trojan whale. His escape made U.S.
officials look like blubbering fools.
That theory holds water, considering the
timing and the string of coincidences lately.
Russell Roe
Besides Humphrey, there were some other fishy
stories. There was the other whale that wandered
into San Francisco Bay but then promptly headed
back out. And there was the Ukrainian dolphin
that leaped into the Mississippi in a burst for
freedom, requested a date with Flipper and then
did not defect after learning Flipper had died
in a freak accident involving fishing personality
Jimmy Houston.
The whole Humphrey episode smelled a little
fishy — or, since a whale is a mammal — it
smelled like a rat. Humphrey’s "escape,” which
left his bodyguards all wet, is suspect. The
whale’s keepers had taken him to a seaside
restaurant in San Francisco — swimming dis-
tance to the saline comfort of the Pacific.
HUMPHREY, munching on some plankton,
reportedly asked his companions, “What would
you do if I swam out? Would you harpoon
me?”
“No, of course not,” one escort said. “We
don’t treat whales that way.” Humphrey then
persuaded his companions to catch the Mel
Tormc show at the Frisco Hilton. When his
keepers went to call for reservations, Humphrey
swam into the briny bliss of the Pacific. Humph-
rey played the whale to the United States’ Jonah,
taking the U.S. in his proverbial mouth and
letting it go only after it was properly humbled.
There is, however, the more mundane but
plausible theory that Humphrey was confused
from the outset and simply changed his mind.
He had asked for discretion, but found that his
tale-telling and adventures had been splashily
covered by the press. What with T-shirts bearing
his name and Wayne Newton threatening some
kind of benefit concert, what choice did he have
but to leave?
MAYBE HE HAD simply taken a wrong
tum at San Francisco and ended up halfway to
nowhere, er, Sacramento, that is. He got disil-
lusioned with the California lifestyle and changed
his mind. His heart never was in San Francisco.
OR MAYBE HE remembered what hap-
pened to families of whale defectors — they
are made to star in a low-budget movie with
Richard Harris — and didn’t want to put his
family through such rigor. He shuddered when
he thought back on how Orca the killer whale
was panned by critics even after getting top
billing over Harris in that marine motion pic-
ture.
But the questions remain: Did the United
States blunder its handling of Humphrey? Could
Humphrey have gained damaging information
about the United Slates during his stay here?
Could he have just taken a wrong tum on his
way to the Madonna wedding farther down the
coast?
The most plausible explanation of Humph-
rey’s departure is offered by vacationing Herbert
Lando: Humphrey the Soviet whale had a
passion for Western tastes but simply couldn’t
find a pair of blue jeans that fit.
The North Texas Dally
69th Year
North Texas State University Demon, Texas
Southwestern Journalism Congress
Member of the
assoc tareo
coueoate
ru*'s’' £P
PACEMAKER 6 TIMES
ALL-AMERICAN 77 TIMES
RUSSELL ROE, editor
SHAWNA QUINLAN, advertising manager
Stefan! Qammage, managing editor
HoMen Lewis, managing edHor
John VaNenkamp, adNorMe editor
Donald Marlin, eddonais editor
Beth Oueruel. news editor
Roy Millar, news editor
Metises Mahan, photographer
Cartene Starr, photographer
Robert Slone, photographer
Chris Babcock, cartoonist
Craig Thompson, cartoonist
Jet Ray. cartoonist
Marc he ne Hudson, news editor
Chana Vowell, entertainment editor
Leona Allen, entertainment writer
Ken Currin, sports editor
Pepper Hastings, sports writer
Joey Richards, sports writer
Monty Montgomery, sports writer
Amber Smith, staff writer
Marc McDonald, staff writer
Tony Ortega, staff writer
Bill Douthart, photographer
David Howard, cartoonist
Richard Calooy, cartoonist
Randy Keelin, cartoonist
Joseph Hernandez, illustrator
Olga Pundyk, ad representative
Jennifer Wunderlich.
ad representative
Kelly Marshall, ad representative
Sam Guyton, ad representative
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The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 69, No. 47, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 21, 1985, newspaper, November 21, 1985; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth723483/m1/2/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.