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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 13, 1975)
Page 2 THE BATTALION THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1975 Liberty lacking at TAMU Editor: Apropos of your editorial, “Stop, Look, Listen,” March 5, Disraeli once described a university as “a place of light, of liberty, and of learning. ” Light and learning, wis dom and scholarship, are found here, in increasing abundance. But the liberty is lacking, as you suggest in your comments. It seems to me, further, that Texas A&M, with its strong em phasis on spirit and community, needs to recognize that any meaningful community — espe cially one devoted to enlightenment and learning — must have members who are free. Otherwise the sense of unity which results is only superfi cial, a product of forced action and controlled behavior. Uniformity is apparent in that kind of society, but unity is not. When Texas A&M is great enough as a university to be truly free, then we shall be very great indeed. Paul A. Parrish Asst. Prof, English Who paid? Editor: It is very confusing to me to hear all the different views on the sub ject, “Who Paid For the Memorial Student Center Lounge?” Frankly, I have yet to have a person convince me his opinion is the right one. That brings me to my question. Just exactly who did pay for the MSC lounge? Was it our increased building use fees? Was it the Alumni Association? Just who was it? I think the answer will settle a portion of the complaining that ap pears in this column, as well as in conversation on campus. Maybe this question will be ans wered by someone who can back his answer with facts. I hope the ap propriate person reads this and re sponds. Thank you. Chris Jochen Cost breakdowns for the new University Center, as outlined by W. C. Freeman, executive vice- president for administration, ap peared in the Nov. 14, 1974 and Jan. 30, 1975 editions of The Battal ion. The expense of the $26.5 million complex is not broken down as to separate areas. Thus it is not possi ble to determine exactly how much money was spent on the Student Lounge alone. A diagram detailing the fees used for construction and furnish ing of the center appears below. The student chunk of the pie will be paid in allotments of $465,000 annually through the year 2001 — Ed. Board ‘praised’ Editor: We were highly entertained when we read about the new Board of Director’s annex. We read how TAMU spent $765,000 decking it out expertly in antique motif. A spark of joy shown within us as we sat in our dorm room in Law Hall with the handsome mustard yellow paint peeling off the walls and the ants crawling around our sink. Our bunkbeds made splendid creaking noises as we moved with restless joy and read about this great thing that TAMU now possesses. We were extremely impressed by the $4,000 busts of Roman senators and the $2,000 statue of Kwan Yin. How appropriate for the board room! What would TAMU be with out them? But the most exciting news about this grandiose establishment was that it will be used at least five times a year. We hope it’s not worn out too soon. We are glad that the $765,000 was not used on such trivialities as re novating 50-year-old dorms such as Law or Puryear. We would hate to see this money used for something as insignificant as new eating facilities for the dorm students. Heaven forbid! We realize it is very important for the Board of Directors to be up to par with the “other universities and corporate headquarters” as quoted from Gen. A. R. Luedecke. TAMU continues to push ahead for the future with that great achievement so we would like to suggest some other improvements for the University. How about con tracting a famous artist to draw a replica of Mount Rushmore on the new water tower, or maybe we could buy a gold-lined dog house for Reveille with running dog bones We just want to commend the Board of Directors and say, “Keep up the good work.” Jamie DeWitt Tim Hale Z^.^-STUPEHT TJ\T\OH _ C- 1.6% foRtflER. STUDCNTS' -J ' OOK) ArpcM<> im Peters TOTAL OF $26.5 MILLION FOR UNIV. CENTER 25.8% $6.83 million Student Tuition and Building Use Fees 63% $16.7 million Permanent Available Funds (state monies) 9.4% $2.5 million Interest of Univ. Local Funds 1.8% $470,000 Former Students’ donations How they vote Records of incumbents By GERALD OLIVIER Two of the candidates in this April’s College Station City Council elections will be incumbents. This makes the job of discovering how they stand on the issues a little easier. A quick look at the voting records will tell us how each member of the present council would like voters to think he stands. To speed this process up, the fol lowing is a synopsis of how Larry Bravenec and Don Dale, the two incumbent candidates, have voted on several issues shaping up in the campaign. Zoning seems to be the major issue, in particu lar, the Harry Seaback request for apartment zoning behind Dominik Drive. Dale voted in favor of the Seaback request over the firece opposition of Dominik homeowners. In the dis cussion preceding the vote. Dale reiterated his belief that an individ ual should be free to use his land as he pleases. “If someone wanted to build apartments next door to me, I would not oppose it,” he said. Bravenec took the opposite stand. He sided with the residents and voted against the request. Bravenec cited citizen disapproval as his primary reason for his vote. In a group of commercial zoning requests picked at random from those considered by the council this past year, the results were: Dale voted for all 10 of the re quests. He has consistently stated his position that developers are what make the city grow. Bravenec voted for six of the re quests selected. He has not held any consistent stand on zoning in general, but contends he considers each case on its particular merits. In the area of apartment zoning, both men voted for all five of the requests chosen. The requests picked were not politically “hot” items. In general, a few vocal cit izens can and do sway Bravenec’s vote, but not Dale’s. Another big campaign issue will be the status of principal streets in the city. A proposal submitted by the Texas Highway Department to the council called for the extension and widening of several streets. Residents of the neighborhoods involved were vocal in their oppo sition of the extensions. Home- owners from Dominik, Munson, Glade and Timber streets con vinced the council to delete their streets from the plan. Dale and Bravenec voted with a unanimous council to include only roads designated as state highways in the improvement plans. Both councilmen showed their desire to avoid citizens’ wrath on this issue. In conclusion, Dale has shown a tendency to buckle only under se vere citizen pressure (like the Mun son Street screams). He has devel oped a more consistent pattern than Bravenec on zoning. He never challenges the developer’s request. Bravenec has been harder to pre dict. Almost any measure of citizen pressure will get his vote. When no pressure is evident, however, his votes are unpredictable. Cbe Battalion Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the university administration or the Board of Directors. The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting enterprise operated by students as a university and community newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. LETTERS POUCY Mail subscriptions are $5.00 per semester: $9.50 per school vear; $10.50 per tull year. All subscriptions subject to 5# sales tax. Advertising; rate furnished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room £17, Services Building, College Station, Texas 77843. The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in the paper and local news of spontaneous origin published herein. Right of reproduction of all other matter herein are also reserved. Second-Class postage paid at College Station, Texas. Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and are subject to being cut to that length or less if longer. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does not guaran tee to publish any letter. Each letter must be signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone number for verifica tion. ,, Address correspondence to Listen Up, The Battalion, Room 217, Services Building, College Station, Texas 77843. Editor Greg Moses Assistant Editor Will Anderson Managing Editor LaTonya Perrin Assistant Managing Editor Roxie Hearn Sports Editor Mike Bruton Photo Editor Glen Johnson City Editor Rod Speer News Editors Barbara West Douglas Winship Members of the Student Publications Board are: Jim Lindsey, chairman; Dr. Tom Adair, Dr. R. A. Albanese, Dr. H. E. Hierth, W. C. Harrison, Steve Eberhard, Don Hegi, and John Nash, Jr. Represented nationally by National Educational Advertising Services, Inc., New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. MEMBER The Associated Press, Texas Press Association The Battalion, a student newspaper at Texas A&M, is published in College Station, Texas, daily except Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and holiday periods, September through Klay, and once a week during summer school. Reporters.. .T.C. Gallucci, l Paul McGrath, Robert Cessna, Gerald Olivier, Rose Mary Traverse, Steve Gray, Judy Baggett, Alan Killingsworth, Sayeefiil Islam, Mary Jeanne Quebe, Cathryn Clement, Cindy Maciel, Jim Peters, Mark Schluter, Steve Ussery, B. Babji Singh, Don Middleton, Mike Kimmey, Jerry Geary, Chris Askew. Photographers Douglas Winship, David Kimmel, Gary Baldasari, Jack Holm, Chris Svatek, Steve Krauss, Kevin FotOrny, Tom Kayser, David McCarrolI. Columnists Bill Sheen, Mike Perrin, John Vanore, John Tim Cowden Artists and cartoonists Dr. James H. Earle, Nguyen Dziem, Brad Foster, Rodney Hammack, Tom Brents, Scott Morgan. Editor: No joke? You guys have really outdone yourselves this time. To think that winning the Southwest Conference did not merit the lead story on March 11 (No choke. Page 1) is ridiculous. The reasoning behind your refusal to admit that a basket ball game was indeed the happening on campus that weekend, was that it was sports. Come on now, Greg, take a peek outside your isolated little bubble and peruse the University you pur- and priorities bad on Batt port to serve. Your naivete as tounds me. Maybe sports is differ ent than news, but winning the SWC is indeed news and the idea that very little of your readership is concerned with sports is Hogwash! Name me an event the past year that has drawn over 5,000 people to TAMU. I can name you more than 12 and all are sports. In the champ ionships of 1964 and 1969 the entire front page of the Batt was about the title game and the headlines were in maroon ink. And even the Eagle, that paper you claim to be so much better than, ran the game story as Chalk one up for the the lead. Eagle. You claim that doing such is just Public Relations. That is, you and your inbred cohorts, LaTonya and Mike Perrin and Rod Speer. But was it not you who turned over the paper to a staff of PR rats the two days prior to the game so that you might take a couple days off? I think back with pain on the many times I defended the Batt. Yeah, I said, “Hell no, we’re not muckrakers!” But I take that back now; that’s all you and the Perrins >P' Ha! Sports couldn’t run leil story, huh. Well, Moses, mailt you better read your lead ston c Tuesday and Wednesday as welj stories given higher priority onlit front page and you’ll see they in sports but only muck. Sorry, Greg, but you don’tb an excuse this time. 1 regrell wasted two years working at fc Batt and claiming you forafrieiii For in your haste, you have slightft a championship basketball team®: humiliated a University. Tony Galluic I Ticket sales Bigger and better hassles devised By ALAN KILLINGSWORTH I heard an Aggie joke last football season when there was a possibility that A&M would win the Southwest Conference which went something like this: If the Aggies were No. 1 in the conference they -- wouldn’t know how many fingers to hold up during the chant. Well, at the last basketball game, when the team proved that A&M could win in a major conference sport, I didn’t see but one person holding up two fingers. I think he was trying to get the attention of the Coke boy. The only problem was that the Coke boy was holding up the "We re No. 1” sign. If I never compliment anyone the rest of the year in my column, I have to congratulate the basketball team on winning the SWC. So ends the longest four-year losing streak in the four years I’ve been here. Thanks. I needed that! So all eyes turn to football. Can it be done? Can the Aggies win the conference this year? Can they beat the hell out of Texas like I’ve heard them say for four years? Can we go to the Cotton Bowl (where?)? Most important, can I get tickets? It’s funny as hell that more Aggies worry about getting tickets than they do about winning in football. The lines in front of G. Rollie White look more like bread lines. Fresh men are running through campus yelling, “I’m on the 10 yard line! I made it!” By the end of senior day all the tickets to the out-of-town games are gone. Why don’t they do something? They are. The Student Senate is thinking ahead. A committee of the Senate has been looking into ways to end all the hassle which goes with acquiring a football ticket. With a little luck, we might see the change by next year. But then again, it might take the Senate that long to figure out what they’ve come up with. I have several plans which would work and at the same time be just about the funniest thing you ever saw. But no one ever wants to have fun anymore. Well, I’ll pour my little plans on you anyway. An Easter egg hunt! Now don’t start saying “Why didn’t I think of that?” Hide the tickets all over cam pus and let the students find the ones they want. Think of all the hiding places that we have. The construction, the University Cen ter, the Quack Shack (nobody would ever look in there) and Sbisa (hide it under the chicken fried gris- sle). With all the students looking under things, there’s no telling what little tidbits they might find. The Battalion has been doing it for more than a year and it’s very in teresting to see what comes out from under rocks. Be careful of mousetraps. Another plan would be to crop all the tickets out of an airplane and let them float over the campus. Don’t tell anybody when it’s gonna be done, just get the Air Craps to do it anytime. But no bias, boys. Drop a few on the civilian side as well. It would all be a matter of who is in the right place at the right time. The last proposal I have is tk “YOU’VE BEEN A GOOD plan. In this plan all the tickets^ given to the Administrationti divide amon$the students theyftd fit. If someone on scho pro gets* “A” on a test then the peoplet] front give him a ticket. Ifthesto dent hasn’t questioned any feet creases, he gets a 50 yard liner. If the student has done well int CONSTRUCTION EXTRAVl GANZA, he receives a ticket inth mail. All the student hastodoislt a good boy. You have it made.you are guaranteed a ticket every wed But don’t step out of line. Onefek move and you’re in the bleadien That plan does have its drawback The Battalion staff would watch a! the games from the end-zone. 'OH, WELL—TIME, SUPPOSE, TO TURN THE WHOLE THING OVER GRACEFULLY TO THE CIVILIANS . . APPLICATIONS FOR TOWN HALL ARE BEING TAKEN MARCH 10-14 in the STUDENT PROGRAMS OFFICE BILL S BARBER & STYLE SHOP Layer Cuts, Wash & Wear Cuts, Styling FOR MEN AND WOMEN INTRODUCING BEA AYALA Formerly of Wilson’s Walk-in or appointment 846-2228 215 University Atross from A&M Next to Campus Theater maigo’s la mode Amber, ♦manor east mall* Come To Diamond Country Sankey Park Diamond Salon 21 3 s. MAIN Engagement Rings THE HOUSTON A&M CLUB INVITES YOU TO 0UR WEEKLY MEETING AT 12 NOON ON MONDAY MARCH 17 - RICE HOTEL LUNCH WILL BE AVAILABLE