The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 12, Ed. 1, Wednesday, September 30, 1992 Page: 2 of 6
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Opinion
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Optimist
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Michael O'Connor Editor in Chief
Dean Hamby Managing News Editor
Jennifer Reynolds Opinion Page Editor
Dr. Charles Marler Faculty Adviser
Editorial Board
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:-fkelth Alowino Brian Belt John Carroll Xiaodong Fol Bobby Gombort
Deana Hamby Bernadotta LeeMichaol O Connor
Jennifer Reynolds Holly Snead Sharla Stephens
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' .the Optimist Is a twlce-a-weok publication of the students of the Depart-
rnent of Journalism and Mass Communication of Abilene Christian Uni-
versity and serves as a journalism laboratory for the department's stu-
dents. Tho unsigned editorials aro the opinions of the students on the Optimist
Editorial Board and do not nocessarily reflect tho policies or views of the
University.
. The signed columns cartoons and letters to the editor aro tho opinions
of .their creators and do not necessarily reflect the views of tho Optimist
Editorial Board or the university administration.
jpjrgans donated help those in need
- 0
:;!We can save lives or give sight to the
:jbfifil without miracles.
r-About 22000 people in America are
:-jjing for organ transplants and this
rjlafciber is increasing. However the
.number of donated organs has held
stc&dy or even decreased in recent
.ears reports the journal ot the Amen-
:nfan Medical Association.
'?' .The success of transplant surgery in
'idxnl years reflects the irony of the
reportage situation. In fact advancement
;irfjj)cdical technology has enabled 75
percent of people with a new heart to
jeau tun lives live years alter transplan
tation.
..' 'Tlie Abilene Area Dialysis Center
SjIsq' reported an increase in the number
"of people who visit the center for kid-
ney dialysis treatment.
Some of these Texans will surely die
if they cannot find compatible kidneys
Tor transplantations.
Also organ donation is worth-
- while because it helps to advance medi
Writer gives reasons for national
debt and offers solutions
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the edito-
rial last week which claimed that just
about anyone could do a better job with
the national economy than Congress.
Now I am no great fan of the current
Congress but I must disagree with the
editorial's assertion that fixing the
'national debt is no more difficult than
refusing to use my Visa card to buy say
& really keen automated celery juicer.
First of all we must realize where the
Country is as a whole. The current
"recovery" from the 1990-91 recession
already ranks as the longest period of
sustained economic weakness this
country has encountered since the Great
Depression. The foreign trade deficit
was a hefty $17.8 billion dollars last
quarter. Unemployment is floating
around 7.6 percent but according to last
week's 77m? the Economic Policy
Institute says 40 percent of the Ameri-
can labor force is either underemployed
or has been unemployed so long they
.-.have been taken out of the statistics.
.: 1 lit addition to these troublesome num-
bers consider some other distractions
' the end of the Cold War for exam-
"ple. This is a good thing right? We can
Love arid generosity greatest gift to
I cannot forget her eyes: helpless sad
angry and desperate. But I don't know
.her name or where she came from.
. I met Her last Christmas when I visited
' 'my friend in Dallas.
. On a rainy night I was watching TV in
-. the living room when I heard someone
knock at the door. Thinking it must be a
visiting friend I answered it.
' She stood at the door raindrops wetting
her hair and soaking her thin coat She
asked me to let her in and wanted to talk
to me. First I hesitated then agreed.
She stepped in and brought a chilling
air with her In a good light I found she
was very young maybe a teen-ager. She
was skinny; her face was pale; and black
was around her eyes
: She tried to hide tier shivering as she
told me she was looking for someone I
cal technology. For example scientists
arc on the verge of a medical break-
through for schizophrenia and
Alzheimer's disease; however more
brains must be donated so studies can
be completed.
Thousands of desperate men women
and children are waiting for transplants
to free them from dialysis machines to
enable them to see or to help them
recover from a crippling physical injury.
We have the ability to rescue them
after our deaths if we donate our usable
organs.
The choice is ours. We can either per-
mit our bodies to deteriorate after we
die or enable our organs to save many
lives.
Donating organs is easy; by signing
the back of your driver's license or a
donor's card you can effectively give
permission to allow your body to save
lives.
Organ donation makes miracles hap-
pen. c:
now close down the missile factories
and use the money we formerly spent
on bombs for more important things.
Things like unemployment checks for
all the people who used to work in
bomb factories and other military relat-
ed industries.
Unfortunaly the accounting system
used by Congress is much like account-
ing done by average Americans. We
live in a "give it to me now" society of
credit abusers. Our government is no
different. Fact is when politicians cut
programs in order to save money and
avoid deficits Americans hurt.
This "recovery" is likely to be a long
hard road. Economics say our genera-
tion will probably be the first in Ameri-
can history to attain less economically
than our parents.The national debt is not
the problem so much as it is the symp-
tom of a much larger economic ailment.
Congress does need to reduce spend-
ing... and find jobs for displaced work-
ers etc.
As for me I'm giving up celery juice.
Christopher J. McKinney
Senior telecommunications major
Kansas City Kans.
didn't know. Then she said she hud
nowhere to go and needed a place to stay
until morning. I had no idea what I could
do so 1 called out my friend to solve the
problem.
As soon as my friend showed up he
shouted at her to leave at once. She slow-
ly moved back toward the door and
turned to me Her eyes were filled with a
complicated expression: expectations of
some kinds of help but deeply doubting
she could get any.
However I could make no decision in
my friend's house. My "I am sorry" shat-
tered her last piece of hope
She ran into the falling rain without an
umbrella and quickly disappeared in the
darkness of the cold winter night.
I really felt sorry because I was unable
to help her I didn't know how to deal
r- . n S? WlP & ' :'.'?v
! 4
Prayer revives frustrating weekend
Every weekend has a mind of its own.
No matter what guerrilla tactics you use
to try to make Saturday and Sunday the
funniest most rewarding and most pro-
ductive two days of your life the week-
end probably has a different plan.
My approach to every weekend is to
focus on accomplishing only two things:
doing whatever will bring the most joy
and getting rid of whatever is causing the
most stress. In other words I try to make
a fond memory and fix whatevcr's bug-
ging me.
That might mean sleeping 12 hours a
night and cleaning a frustratingly clut-
tered apartment or getting together with a
friend and finishing a dreaded project.
Just two things. But sometimes the
weekend won't let you do even one thing
you need to.
I worked for a while last weekend on a
10-spced to get it in decent working
order. After riding my one accomplish-
ment home Sunday night I was in my
apartment searching for a piece of paper
when a strange clicking noise arose fro.
Music tames the savage
Dooby dooby do.
An Illinois teacher has listened one
time too many to Frank Sinatra's famous
line from "Strangers in the Night."
Bruce Janu teaches social science in
Riverside 111. and when he assigns
detention to his students he wants them
to understand they arc being punished.
He won't let them talk. He won't let
them work on homework or read or any-
thing that could be construed as helpful to
the student.
Instead they have to listen to Sinatra
music for" ft half-hour.
The kids hate it. I confess that if I had
to listen Frank dooby dooby doing for
even five minutes the people from the
Stress Center at Hendrick would have to
come catch me after I ran from the room
screaming hysterically.
The only Sinatra song that would be
worse would be "My Way." If I never
again hear the crooner telling the world
he did it whatever it was his way I
could go to my grave a happy man.
My mother would probably enjoy
Jonu's punishment. She used to have 78s
of the grand old man.
For those of you who have never seen
78s or even record albums they are
V really felt sorry
because I was unable to
help her I dtdnt know
how to deal with the sit'
uatlon.'
Xiaodong
Fel
A Different View
with the situation.
Closing the door my friend told me the
girl was notorious in that district as a
drug addict she was ready to do every-
thing for dope. Thus it was dangerous to
lift u finger tq help that kind oTperson.
No one would like to aid the trouble-
'My one accomplish'
mant was a big blow-
out.' Keith
Alewinc
Piece of My Mind
behind me.
My eyes searched the room and stopped
on the back tire of the 10-spced just as the
tire exploded off of the rim rocketing
powdery debris toward me.
My one accomplishment was a big
bomb
The feeling of having wasted a week-
end is one of die most frustrating things a
person can experience. And it happens all
the time just go to the library on Sun-
day night. Ask the first person you see
"What are you doing herc7"
He or she will say "Well I'm just try
'Violators oftha dress
coda could bo punished
with repeated playing
of early Shirley Temple
music.'
Michael
O'Connor
Life On 2 Wheels
large usually black disks with grooves
that mast be played on a record player
a machine that makes the disk revolve
underneath a needle attached to a tone
arm.
You can still find some record players
in electronics stores but if you want to
see one that plays 78s I suggest you
moke a trip to tlte Museums of Abilene.
Janu's idea may not be all that original.
Patrick Swayze tortured Whoopi Gold-
berg with his rendition of "Henry the
Eighth" in the movie Ghost.
Still I'm considering Janu's form of
punishment for use at work and home.
Infractions at the Optimist office could
be dealt with by making the offender lis
needy and
causer in theft or more serious acts like
killing.
Considering that an addict is a potential
threat and less worthy of compassion per-
haps made me feel better at that time.
Long before I came here to the United
States I learned that this is a land domi-
nated by the "jungle law" Competitive-
ness not only decides whether an individ-
ual Is "to be or not to be" but a com-
painics' survival or bankruptcy People
who fail in the competition have to suffer.
Homelessness once a major existing
social problem seems merely a Christ-
mas topic now. In a chilling winter morn-
ing imagining a picture of a homeless
person lying on a bench covered with
snow flakes and if possible seeing Capl
tol Hill as a background can reach some
dramatic effects.
in aaaay I I
ing to catch up. Where did the weekend-
go?" j
Yes it's a frustrating feeling. I was
frustrated when my tire blew up that
was the one thing I actually had accom-
plished. That forced me to try to remember
something else 1 had done over the week-
end. It wasn't homework. It wasn't some
hot date. ;
It was a short prayer we had prayed vi
church Sunday. Because of my relation-
ship with Jesus Christ I was able to ask
God to make a friend's life easier to take.
You sometimes never know what kind
of effect prayers like that can have btH
you can always know that they're gotag
to accomplish somctteflg.
If you don't know what it's like to have
that kind of a sense of purpose and
accomplishment and you're constantly
getting frustrated at not being able to do
what you set out to it's time to ask some-
body about the Christian life.
You'll find blowouts arc easier to take
when you know what's really important
student
ten to an hour of Willie Nelson's nasal
renditions of old standards.
My kids would surely feel corrected
from being forced to listen to early Beat-
les.' Sergeant Pepper may be. a classic
but hearing "She loves you yeah yeah
yeah" is almost more punishment than
anyone deserves.
Or I could just try Swayzc's technique.
Of course the kids could exact revenge
with either Tony Bennett's rendition of "I
Left My Heart in San Francisco" or any-
thing by Guns n'Roscs.
But if they tried that I would just
counter with my personal favorite Leon
Redbone. The possibilities arc endless.
I just hope the administration doesn't
catch on to the technique.
Violators of the dress code could be
punished with repeated playings of early
Shirley Temple music.
The thought of anyone being forced to
listen to "The Good Ship Lollipop"
should be enough to keep those shorts as
long as they are supposed to be.
Or we could just force code criminals
to listen to that little tunc the tower plays
but leave it stuck on the part it plays at 15
to the hour.
That would be the ultimate punishment.
homeless
But in daily life it is a different story.
Of course America is a generous nation.
Every year billions of dollars flow Into
various foundations and social security
programs.
Almost everyone believes this is the
efficient way to help the needy. The
homeless should be wise enough to seek
and then get Institutionalized help. After
staying at ACU for a little while I
believe that perfect institution also has a
shortcoming: lack of personalized con-
tact. Love is just what we can give when we
act as an individual In the society. And
this is what I learned in this Christian
school. I know what I shall do nextimw
when I run intoa person need helemWill
never forget her eyes and will not regret
twice
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The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 12, Ed. 1, Wednesday, September 30, 1992, newspaper, September 30, 1992; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth96314/m1/2/: accessed July 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.