The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, November 8, 1996 Page: 4 of 16
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PAT ON THE BACK
... to Crosby High School student Ryan Lintelman as he was
recently named a Commended Student in the 1997 National Merit
Scholarship Program. Way to go!
FEEDBACK: To comment on this page, call the Newsroom, 422-8302.
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The Bay town Sun is published Monday through Friday and Sunday at
1301 Memorial Drive in Baytown.
Gaiy Dobbs David Eldridge
Editor and Publisher Managing Editor
Cedar Bayou critical
to economic future
This newspaper reported Thursday that the respected American Demo-
graphics magazine has ranked Chambers County as the second best mar-
ket in the nation for manufacturing workers. Obviously, with much of
the eastern portion of Baytown situated inside Chambers County, that’s great
news for the area economy.
Chambers County is considered one of the hottest manufacturing markets in
the U.S. because of such industrial residents as Sawpipes Inc., the Chevron
Cedar Bayou Plant, which straddles the line between Harris and Chambers
counties, the Exxon Plastics Plant and Bayer, which is planning a $1 billion
expansion project.
Many of these operations — but especially the Bayer expansion plans — are
dependent upon a navigable Cedar Bayou. The waterway, which has suffered in
recent years as federal funds for maintenance have dried up, must be cleared out
and maintained if the rosy economic projections for Chambers County have any
chance of coming true. Bayer, for example, may nix its expansion if officials are
not assured the waterway will be maintained.
Baytown and Chambers County need someone in Washington to take the ini-
tiative and make Cedar Bayou a priority.
That’s the kind of issue that ought be discussed by the congressional candi-
dates jockeying for position in the upcoming December runoffs. We hope Nick
Lampson and Steve Stockman, the two candidates vying to represent District 9,
which covers Cedar Bayou, are listening.
Today in history
Today is Friday, Nov. 8, the 313th day of 1996. There are 53 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov: 8,1923, Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt at seizing power with a
failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the “Beer-Hall Putsch.”
On this date:
In 1889, Montana became the 41st state.
In 1892, former President Grover Cleveland defeated incumbent Benjamin Har-
rison, becoming the first (and, to date, only) chief executive to win non-consecutive
terms to the White House.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Norman Lloyd is 82. Actress June Havoc is 80. Actor-
director Gene Saks is 75. Heart surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard is 74. Actress
Esther Rolle is 74. Playboy Enterprises chairman and chief executive Christie
Heftier is 44. Actress Alfie Woodard is 43. Singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones is
42. Singer-actor Leif Garrett is 35. Actress Courtney Thome-Smith is 28.
— The Associated Press
---—
Thought for today:
“Man is bom to live, not to prepare for life.”
—Boris Pasternak, Russian author (1890-1960).
Bible verse:
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.
—Phillipians 1:3
A constitutional case against boxing
In a cunent policy statement, the
American Medical Association
“encourages the elimination of both
amateur and professional boxing, a
sport in which the primary objective is
to inflict injury” — particularly “chron-
ic brain damage.” For years, Dr. George
Lundberg of the AMA has been writing
articles under the standing title: “Box-
ing should be banned in civilized coun-
tries.”
For nearly 10 years in Boston, I
broadcast boxing bouts — sometimes
doing blow-by-blow and sometimes
color between rounds. I saw a young,
extraordinarily graceful boxer who
seemed choreographed. His name was
Cassius Clay. And I remember such
equally swift and precise combatants as
Sugar Ray Robinson and Willie Pep.
They were boxers, not brutal
machines like the latter-day Mike
Tyson.
Most of the bouts I broadcast, howev-
er, were between club fighters — pro-
fessionals who could put on a good
often bloody show for the fans but
would never make the big time.
I especially remember two of them.
Young and eager at first, they looked,
over time, as if they were throwing
punches on an assembly line. They kept
taking a lot of each other’s punches,
more each year.
By the time I left ringside to go to
New York to cover jazz, the speech of
those once ardent young men had also
slowed. And they were not alone among
the veteran gladiators who, by then,
were in times zones of their own.
One of the last bouts I broadcast was
between two fighters who had clob-
bered each other so hard in the early
rounds that, neither being able to deliver
a knockout blow, they more or less
clung to each other. The disgusted
crowd, cheated of the chance to see one
of them fall unconscious, mockingly
started to sing, “I’ll Always Be in Love
With You” — in waltz time.
Watching the deprived sports fans, a
venerable sportswriter said to me,
“Once you leave this place, kid, you’ll
never go to see another boxing bout.”
He was right. I don’t go to the fights.
I don’t watch them on television.
Friends of mine —journalists, lawyers,
nearly all of them men — make festive
evenings of boxing events. They too are
disappointed if all that happens is
bloodless boxing with nobody on the
canvas with his lights out.
Daniel Komstein, a lawyer and box-
ing fan, writes in the New York Law • ■
Journal: “Maybe there is something less
than satisfying for a big fight to be
decided by a disqualification rather than
a knockout or a TKO. Without some
form of knockout, there is no catharsis
[for the fans].”
I have heard defenders of the death
penalty claim that each execution cre-
ates a catharsis in the surrounding com-
munity. Why not then, televise execu-
tions — with Don King, Mike Tyson’s
mentor and promoter, deciding which
“dead man walking” merits prime time?
There would then be a national catharsis
from this entertainment.
Don King wasn’t around when I, in
Boston, would visit dressing rooms
before a bout to pick up some stories to
use between rounds. My partner, a
senior sports announcer at the radio sta-
tion, warned me not to name on the air
some of the portly men with cigars
backstage who seemingly owned the
fighters. “They don’t like publicity,” he
said, “and for good reason.” They didn’t
like me either, just for being there. Most
of them, I expect, are gone now, but —
sportswriters tell me — others like them
have taken their place.
Occasionally I do see reports con-
cerning boxing on news shows. For
instance, the increasing number of pro-
fessional bouts between women.
And Patti Davis — daughter of for-
mer broadcaster Ronald Reagan — has
written a screenplay about women box-
ers. “They’re not oddities,” she told the
New York Post. “They’re athletes, and
can be good looking.”
Not for long. As Dr. George Lund-
berg of the AMA notes, the chronic
brain damage that is eventually suffered
by boxers “who have had many fights
... results from repetitive subconcussive
blows over multiple training sessions
and matches ... A major purpose of a
sports event is to win. When the surest
way to win is by damaging the oppo-
nent’s brain, and this becomes standard
procedure, the sport is morally wrong.”
And constitutionally wrong. Boxing is
licensed by the states, and the Eighth
Amendment in the Bill of Rights for-
bids the infliction of “cruel and unusual
punishment.” Battering an opponent
into unconsciousness and worse, is not
a sport. Not in a civilized country.
The defensive rationale for profes-
sional boxing is that it allows young-
sters at the bottom of society to get a
chance at fame and fortune. That works
for some, but most of those I’ve seen
wind up with chump change and a
funny look.
Nat Hentoff is a syndicated columnist
with the Newspaper Enterprise Associa-
tion.
Wonderful sight
There are many things about the
Goose Creek school district that
are wonderful. At times, we don’t
see those things because they are
clouded by the challenges that face
all school districts on a daily basis.
I had the chance to see a wonderful
sight recently.
I was one of several Goose
Creek employees who pitched in to
help when the new Ashbel Smith
opened its doors to students Oct.
16. What I saw were ear-4o-ear
smiles and faces full of awe and
pride as parents and their children
stepped into that beautiful school
building for the first time.
The ‘shopping center’ class-
rooms, the ‘parking lot’ play-
ground and the portable buildings
have ‘housed’ Ashbel Smith for the
past few years. Yet, student
achievement did not decline in that
setting; it increased. Why?
Because stability and the 'sense
of school’ were provided by the
remarkably resilient and hard
working staff of Ashbel Smith. It is
no wonder the first thing parents
and students asked me as they
came in the door was ‘Where is the
teacher?’
I was proud that day for the fam-
ilies who now have a brand new
school in their neighborhood, for
the community who supported the
construction of the school, and for
the teachers who endured the last
few years and never lost sight of
their mission.
—Marcy Brack,
Baytown
Speed limit problems
I have lived in Baytown since
1975, and have seen many changes
in this city. Most of those changes I
have accepted and agreed with, but
one change lately is ludicrous is
what the Traffic Commission
has done with the Highway 146
(Loop 201) feeder speed limit.
Before Highway 146 was
opened, Loop 201 speed limit
was 50 mph. Now the speed
limit is 35 mph. The feeder road
is three lanes each way — this
takes the cake!
There are narrow, poor-condi-
tion, two-lane streets in Baytown
with a speed limit of 40 mph.
How can the Traffic Commis-
sion (or whomever) restrict the
Highway 146 feeder road to 35
mph with the majority of the
streets in Baytown at 40 mph?
It seems that the city of Bay-
town either had a surplus of 35
mph signs, or the Baytown
Police Department heeded a new
area to prey on tax-paying citi-
zens for exceeding a speed limit
that is just not justified.
We live in a fast-paced society.
Hurry here and hurry there. It
would seem that Baytown would
attempt to catch up to other
cities in our area.
The people who work in Bay-
town would more likely reside
here if Baytown would not keep
its mind closed to moderniza-
tion.
...'.Tl
Also, I cannot accept that Bay-
town would give a new street the
full name of a person instead of
just that person’s last name.
Is this the city of Baytown, or
the city of Emmett O. Hutto?
I am sure Mr. Hutto con-
tributed to Baytown in some
way, but this type of memorial is
too much.
This type of exhibited behav-
ior is one reason why Baytown
will never keep its best people
here.
Just look at Clear Lake if you
want confirmation.
— Martin E. Cooper
Baytown
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Dobbs, Gary. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, November 8, 1996, newspaper, November 8, 1996; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1176428/m1/4/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.