The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 7, 1983 Page: 2 of 24
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Football: Hackerman's expensive plaything
Rice on a par with other Southwest Conference schools in
football? Wake up, President Hackerman. These are the '80s, the
decade of semi-professional collegiate sports. Spending $300,000
"within legal limits" while lowering academic standards won't
even put us close to the University of Texas.
President Hackerman seems to feel that by allowing people to
donate money directly to their favorite sport, football will get
more financial support. Which begs the question: Does football
deserve an increased emphasis?
Our "quality" football players already get full scholarships; they
don't need more money. Our stadium is a huge white elephant.
Few coaches refuse to come to Rice for salary reasons. Better
funded recruiting might encourage more of the people who
normally attend UT, Oklahoma and Georgia to come to Rice —
but, DO WE WANT THEM?
Consider the problems our Honor Council already has with
athletes. The "special courses" and "additional tutoring"
necessary to re-teach basic skills only serve to undermine Rice's
academic reputation. Better tutoring will not win games. To
become competitive, Rice will have to lower admissions standards
for athletes even further.
Quite simply, if a school wishes to play in the same athletic
ballpark as UT, it must also play in roughly the same academic
one. Yale, Princeton and Harvard haven't compromised their
academic program in pursuit of a Division I pipe dream.
Apparently Hackerman wants Rice to.
Of unions and the unfriendly skies
Continental Airlines Chairman Frank Lorenzo has seen the
airline of the future, and it isn't Continental. More than likely, the
future lies with People Express, with its low fares, basic service,
overlapping employee work responsibilities and low labor costs.
A portion of the Air Line Pilots Association membership has also
seen the future, blanched, and decided to strike.
The Continental strike, coming at a critical moment in
Continental's fate, can only have two outcomes if the striking
pilots have their way:
1. Continental gives in, continues generous salaries and work rules
dating from years of government regulation, slides further into
bankruptcy since it can't compete with airlines like People
Express, and the pilots lose their jobs.
2. The pilots continue their strike, accomplish their goal of
shutting down Continental, and lose their jobs.
Granted, Continental's management was stupid to give in to
labor's demands when it signed the initial contract that is giving it
a competitive disadvantage. The contract, however, was signed in
a much different time, a time when labor costs could be passed on
through the regulatory rate making mechanism. Continental lost
millions last year. If the Continental pilots really want the money
promised them, they will have to wait in line at the bankruptcy
court.
Continental's union members have every reason to be miffed at
the effect of competition on their personal pocketbooks. Instead
of striking, though, they should realize that their choice is not
between the average $81,000 they make a year and the $40,000
People Express pilots make. It is between the economically
competitive $40,000 salary and no job at all.
That Continental's unions refuse to accept, even
philosophically, the need for Continental to adopt work rules and
salaries more in line with its competition speaks ill of labor
unions. People Express has been flying for two years with full
FAA certification under the rules Continental's pilots claim are
"unsafe". Given the recent utter failure of the air traffic
controller's union tofcj$tort raises, one might have expected that
Continental's $80,000-a-year pilots would accept only one
Mercedes in their garage in the face of their airline's competitive
difficulties. Instead, they choose to bite the hand that is struggling
to feed them.
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VAULTING THE HEDGES by Mark Mitchell
JgiUSgiL
The Reagan Administration
must believe that a position
repeated frequently enough will
eventually be held in trust by the
public. Fortunately, that ignorant
state of affairs passed away in the
1960s. Yet our government insists
on replaying the 'Communist
infiltrator/Soviet puppet' record
through a third year in the hope of
gaining support for their shoddy
foreign policy towards Nicaragua.
A realistic assessment of the
1979 Sandinista revolution and its
aftermath can only serve to
convince one that the United
States is acting illogically, ineptly,
and with very little moral
conscience towards the Nicara-
guan government.
The most salient aspect of the
Nicaraguan revolution was and is
its popularity. It was a truly mass
uprising led by Sandinista
insurgents but composed of
Nicaraguan citizens which finally
ousted the barbaric Somoza
regime after decades of repression.
Although many feared the new
state would nationalize all the
means of production and
commerce, this has not been the
case. The economy is about 60
percent privately controlled. The
Sandinista government has neither
the financial nor administrative
means to increase its share.
The most reassuring aspect of
the Nicaraguan government is its
ability to bear criticism and
willingness to allow political
opposition, anti-Sandinista
sentiment and Western influences
to flourish. While it is true that the
government has closed down and
censored newspapers, arrests have
been few and in any case the papers
have repeatedly been allowed to
reopen.
Nicaragua's fervent Catholicism
is one key source of dissent; at least
one archbishop and several high-
ranking "church officials oppose
the Sandinistas. Legal political
parties exist as well as such
commercial groups as the Lions
and Rotary Clubs.
The government's crowning
achievement to date has been its
literacy campaign. Thousands of
students were recruited and sent to
the small villages and isolated
regions of Nicaragua. Setting up
make-shift classrooms and relying
heavily on villager cooperation
and participation, their purpose
was to educate not only the
children, but the general populace
as well in the basics of reading and
writing. Their efforts, in some
cases linked with a drive to
improve health services, were
largely successful. Estimates
ranging up to an 80 percent literacy
rate from a previous 20 percent
rate would put Nicaragua among
the most literate Latin American
countries.
While far from perfect in many
areas, the Sandinista government
has achieved astounding results for
such a young and besieged state
and holds great promise for the
future. Reagan, who sees the
trouble as coming "from outside
the area" in this textbook case of
homegrown revolution, has
responded by militarizing
Honduras and El Salvador and
waging an illegal war.
As in our last major military
involvement, the U.S. public may
play an important role in
determining our foreign policy.
Shall we back Reagan's repeated
attempts to "stand up to
Communism" (and risk our
national security, endanger
Central America's welfare, and
virtually throw Nicaragua into the
Soviet corner), or follow our
heads? No pasaran.
mpan / Christopher Ekren
w\ Ed"°r
UDCQUCD Todd A*Cornett
rKCOrDv Business Manager
Dave Collins, Paul Havlak News Editors
Ian Hersey Fine Arts Edit#
A1 Mathiowetz, Tony Soltero Sports Editors
Jeanne Cooper, Tom Morgan Senior Editors
Jay Grob Senior Editor
Robert P. Stoy Managing Editor
Mark Mitchell Associate Editor
John Krueger, Hal Wiedeman Back Page Editors
Jason Binford Advertising Manager
Chip Clay, Conrad Reining Photography Editors
Jay Grob Copy Editqr
Contributing Staff
Assistant Editors .Robert Adams (Fine Arts), Bob Terry (News), Steve
Mollenkamp (Sports)
Graphics Ian Hersey, Lynn Lytton
Contributing Editors A1 Eynon, Jonathan Berk
John Cunyus
News Staff Patty Cleary, David Friesenhahn, Scott
Snyder, Katherine Sugg, Rebecca Monroy,
Cheryl Smith, Scheleen Johnson, Brt>ck Wagner,
James Greenlee III, Melissa Durbin
Fine Arts Staff Harry Wade, Devorah Knaff,
Geoff Spradley, Michael Manson, Kathryn Tomasek,
Greg Holies, Theresa Brown, Carrie Blum,
Karin Murphy, Cheryl Smith
Sports Staff Sheri Rieke, Lisa Widner, John Lane,
Art Rabeau
Production Staff Jeanne Cooper, Robyn Klahr
Business Staff
Assistant Business Manager Susan Brown
Assistant Advertising Manager David Koralek
Circulation Jay Grob, Tom Morgan
Secretary Mark Benningfield
Subscriptions David Steffens
The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper at Rice University since 1916, is published
each Friday during the school year, except during examination periods and holidays, by the
students of Rice University. Editorial and business offices are located on the second floor of the
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®I983, The Rice Thresher All rights reserved.
The Rice Thresher, October 7, 1983, page 2
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Ekren, Christopher. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 7, 1983, newspaper, October 7, 1983; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245540/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.