The Rattler (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 7, Ed. 1 Wednesday, January 20, 1988 Page: 2 of 6
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January 20, 1988/The Rattler/Page 2
Editorials
Care enough to work for peace
The Rattler
f
The Brain vs. the mind
a
Letter to the Editor
Community awareness helps the hungry
Dear Editor:
5
i
— Miscellaneous
by John Shinai
Staff Writer
God bless you!
Lois Pridgen
639.01
166.75
165.75
99.00
F
just bad luck, and after we die that’s
it? I think Shirley MacClain would
scoff at that, and I am not sure if she
is even Christian!
The point of this naysaying is that
Restak missed the point, and so did
Descartes and a pantheon of other
thinkers. Consider the analogy of
heaven. If heaven is a place, or loca-
tion, then what part of our physical
body goes there? Maybe we will one
day arrive and see millions of pineal
glands floating around with little
wings.
L
H. Paul LeBlanc
Columnist
Auction
Soup & Bread Luncheon
Global Village Banquet
Triathalon
$244.11
133.24
75.83
40.04
30.10
23.88
16.73
15.72
11.51
___.73
591.89
116.15
Penny Drive:
— Lambda Chi
— Kappa Sigma
— Delta Epsilon Sigma
— Beta Sigma Phi
— Sigma Phi Epsilon
— Chi Phi
— Alpha Sigma Tau
— TR Hall
— DO Hall
— Political Science Club
($53.00 came in from the Auction after the
dispursements had been made to the agencies,
and will be used for added donations in the
Spring 1988 Semester)
$1725.55 will be divided between the follow-
ing: Catholic Relief Services, The Food Pantry
for AIDS Patients, The Mexico Kindergarten
Project, The Inner City Development, Inc.,
The San Antonio Refugee Aid Project, of
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center.
i
Editor - Ken Stein
Managing Editor - Katie Kineen
News Editor - John DeMoor
Editorial Editor - Debbie Sanpayo
Features Editor - Annette Sepulveda
Sports Editor - Elvin Hayes, Jr.
Photo Editor - David Mayorga
Technical Editor - Colleen Klein
Chief Copy-Editor - Andrew Toscano
Campus Events Editor - Don Neilsen
Photographer - Scott Hermosa
Advertising Department - Jake Martinez, Ricardo Compean
Production Manager - John Pawlowski
Advisor - Diane Abdo Noll
Letters to the Editor may be submitted Monday thru Friday, 1:00 to
5:00 p.m., in the Rattler office upstairs in the University Center.
The Editorial Policy is:
Letters need not be signed but they must have initials and must be ac-
companied by a phone number for verification.
Letters will be subject to editing at the discretion of the Editor.
Letters will be subject to editing at the discretion of the Editor.
Letters are due one week prior to the publications dates as stated in the
Editor’s column.
Names and phone numbers will be kept confidential unless otherwise
stated.
Letters to the Editor do not represent the opinions of the Rattler.
I
I
I
I
1987 HUNGER AWARENESS WEEK
REPORT 1987
Over Christmas vacations or the
short inverval between the spring
semester and the summer semester
seems to be the only time I am able to
read books purely for enjoyment.
This past summer was no exception,
so I found myself reading the book
The Brain by Richard Restak, M.D.,
which was based on the series on
public television. The book was
thoroughly enjoyable and insightful.
However, I thought it was a curious
twist when Restak decided to dabble
with metaphysical questions such as
Is the mind independent of the brain?
When I was a child, I believed that
Heaven was somewhere up in the
skies. Certainly the Bible supported
this belief with the stories of the pro-
phets and Jesus ascending into the
skies. As I got older, there came the
assumption that heaven was in our
minds. I thought it quite strange that
when I died I would live inside my
head. But sooner or later I came to
understand that heaven was not a
place at all.
So, considering the brain versus
mind question, it seems we run into
the same types of difficulties. Restak
states that through the centuries there
has been a dualistic split between the
mind and the brain. It seems the lack
of understanding about the functions
of the brain and its physical nature
contributed to the belief that the
brain was slave to the mind. This idea
came to a sort of flowering with Rene
Descartes’ conclusion that the brain
(physical) was connected to the mind
(spiritual) through the pineal gland.
Restak rightly asserts that the idea
is foolishness. Yet, he seeks to solve
the dilemma by asserting that the
brain and the mind are one and the
same, that there is no distinction bet-
ween the two, and that the term mind
is just a useful metaphor for the func-
tion of the brain. Is that like saying
that heaven is just a useful metaphor
for the afterlife, which is used for the
purpose of granting a justification for
the pain innocent people suffer on
this earth by claiming they will live
again after they die? Are we then
prepared to accept that suffering is
The assumption is that two
physical realities cannot exist in the
same place and have the same func-
tion at the same time. Enlightened,
one can see that the difficulty comes
when one considers the mind or the
soul as something physical. Our
limited understanding cannot grasp
the reality of something that does not
occupy the space/time continuum. In
other words, the mind is not physical.
There is no dilemma in the mind ver-
sus brain question. So, unask the
question.
Just as good cannot exist without
evil and vice versa because they are
relative judgements of quality, that
is, a relationship is automatically set
up by virtue of their definitions, the
brain cannot exist without the mind.
There is another book entitled Life
After Life in which a medical doctor
examines the claims of patients who
have been pronounced clinically dead
but come back to life. These patients
claim that they could see themselves
lying on the bed from a position
above the bed, and outside their
bodies. If the mind was simply a
metaphor for the functions of the
brain, then this experience could not
occur. This arises from the belief that
when the brain is functionally dead,
consciousness ceases. If these are just
instances of wishful thinking by the
patients that come back, then how
does one explain the incredible
similarities in the stories of hundreds
of patients, stories which have been
documented?
The argument is thus that the brain
and mind are not the same thing. The
brain and the mind are interrelated
and interdependent but nonetheless
distinct.
will read it and pass it on. Those who
took VCR tapes on the Grape
Boycott, please pass those around as
well. Keep us informed of which
groups are viewing this Grape
Boycott VCR tape.
Let Campus Ministry know if you
have decided to boycott the eating
and purchasing of table grapes which
are poisoned with pesticides. We
hope the entire St. Mary’s Communi-
ty can do this little “something” to
put pressure on the grape growers to
stop using these pesticides — known
to be causing cancer and birth
defects.
I hope to see you continue your
generosity however you can during
Respect Life Week, February 10-16,
1988. Campus Ministry is open to
suggestions for recipients of our fund
raising efforts.
promoting peace. The story of pro-
tester Brian Wilson suggests that old
methods of social protest may not on-
ly be impractical and fruitless, but
their results can also be tragic and ab-
surd. Wilson is a man whose legs were
severed last summer when he refused
to remove himself from the path of
an oncoming train headed for a naval
weapons yard. The three men
operating the train have undergone
treatment for psychiatric problems
and this week sued Wilson for inten-
tionally causing them emotional
distress.
Needless to say, these are tough
times for any cause that smacks of
overt altruism. Although Newsweek
has already eulogized the “Greedy
Eighties,” the latest Astin Survey of
college freshmen reveals that seventy-
five percent of the class of ’91 said
they came to “get rich quickly.” A
superflous amount of “Aids” —
Band-Aid, Farm-Aid, Live-Aid —
has made philanthropy seem passe.
And yet, in a time when Judge
Wapner -and Ed Meese are the
numbers one and two men, respec-
tively, of the American justice
system, perhaps it’s time that pro-
ponents of peace also try a novel ap-
proach. If you have any ideas on how
to promote understanding of relevant
issues on this campus, show up in
Reinbolt 206 at 1:30 p.m. next
Wednesday. If you couldn’t care less
about other people, stay at home and
read your finance book.
Last Wednesday an embryonic stu-
dent group held its first meeting in a
second-floor Reinbolt classroom that
was packed with empty chairs. The
President’s Peace Commission, an
entity probably unknown to most St.
Mary’s students, conducted what
might be better-called an informal
gathering of a mere handful of
students.
The people who did show came for
a variety of reasons. A couple tranfer
students were attracted by the word
“peace” and came out of curiousity.
Others who had been previously in-
volved in similar groups at this school
came out of a personal commitment.
In between was a range of students
with different motives and diverse
political views.
Many people may wonder just
what a peace group here at St. Mary’s
will do. Will they stage sit-ins and
marches? Perhaps kidnap a few key
administrative personnel? Although
some of these methods are practiced
worldwide in the name of peace, the
St. Mary’s group will not likely en-
dorse any action that would give the
campus police reason to beef up
security around the Marianist
Residence.
Just as the tactics of warfare have
become more sophisticated in the past
twenty years, so must the methods of
This is a letter to the St. Mary’s
Community.
I want to thank the faculty,
students and staff who participated in
Hunger Awareness Week to make it
the success that it was.
As you know, Campus Ministry’s
Social Services Committee, which
coordinates' this event, approached
the entire campus asking for its in-
volvement in dealing with hunger and
its related issues. I was very pleased at
the response and hope more people
will take Archbishop Oscar Romero’s
advice: “All of us can do
something.”
Besides raising approximately
$1700 for the designated groups, we
noticed consciousness-raising at the
Global Village Banquet, as well as
among those who heard Sr. Jean
Durel speak on the needs of refugees.
We hope those who picked up in-
formation in the University Center,
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St. Mary's University (San Antonio, Tex.). The Rattler (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 7, Ed. 1 Wednesday, January 20, 1988, newspaper, January 20, 1988; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1523061/m1/2/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting St. Mary's University Louis J. Blume Library.