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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 27, 1978)
Viewpoint The Battalion Tuesday Texas A&M University June 27, 1978 The right decision Rule No. 1 for Texas A&M administrative personnel: All decisions are final until they’re changed. That rule applies right now to the new University policy on building more dormitories on campus. Since 1975 University officials had stalwartly main tained that never again would Texas A&M go into hock to build another dorm. But the University System board of regents’ decided earlier this month to spend $25,000 on a feasibility study for a new 500-bed dormitory, for all purposes erasing old policy. It’s about time. , University officials had shied away from building more dorms before be cause there were just too many unknowns involved. Would the University’s enrollment continue to increase? Would those additional people want to live in a dorm? Would Texas A&M be stuck with a multi-million dollar white elephant as more than one other Texas university has if those first two unknowns didn’t materialize? Those were legitimate concerns then. But any doubts about enrollment and demand for dorm rooms have been resolved, especially as far as female students are concerned. The first day that reservations for girls dorm rooms for this fall became available, every one of the 600-plus openings was filled. And for every girl that got a room, there were three others who did not. For many of those girls, getting a dorm room was the only way they could attend Texas A&M, whether for reason of parental or economic limitations. Many of them won’t be here this fall. That sounded like a bum deal to the regents. It sounded like even more of a bum deal when they heard it from well-to-do former students and Univer sity supporters—especially those who were hopping-mad that their daughters couldn’t get an Texas A&M dorm room for love or money. Several of the regents have admitted they get more telephone calls from parents trying to get their daughter into a dorm than for any other matter related to Texas A&M. The study which the regents approved this month will include far more than just the dorm’s “feasibility.” When completed, the study will include much of the detailed planning and design work necessary for the dorm so the University will need only a final okay from the regents to begin construction. That’s unless some unforeseen problem develops, of course. But Univer sity business officials don’t expect any such problems. The University administration made the right decision in waiting until it became certain we wouldn’t be stuck with a “white elephant. ” The adminis tration likewise was right to go ahead with plans for another dorm when it became obvious that dorm is needed. Sometimes you can be right, change your mind, and still be right. L.R.L. Just numbers The East-West negotiations looking toward a mutual reduction of armed forces in Central Europe have been going on more years than we like to remember — and with precious little result. Any sign of progress is, under standably, welcomed. Until now, the major hangup in the negotiations has been the Soviet insistence that each side should make equal troop reductions. Since the Communist forces are numerically superior to those on the Western side, this formula would have perpetuated a Soviet advantage, and was clearly unacceptable. The new proposal marks the first time that the Russians have departed from this position, and it was welcomed on the Western side in that light. Unfortunately, however, the Soviet Union insists that Warsaw Pact ground forces currently total only 805,000, whereas Western intelligence experts put the number at more than 950,000. This means that, if the NATO figures are right, the Russians really have not offered a concession at all. By playing games with the numbers, they are still trying to minimize the extent of their own force reductions, to maintain a quantitative superiority. Dallas Morning News Politics a branch of mathematics By DAVID S. BRODER ATLANTA, GA.—From ancient times, the philosophers have argued whether politics is an art or a science. In some re spects, it is neither, but rather a branch of applied mathematics. Last week’s meeting here of the nation’s mayors explains why. The notable thing about the 46th annual gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors was the severity of the disagree ments which it revealed among the men and women who run our major cities, especially over the question of how their share of the federal-aid pie should be sliced. THERE IS NOTHING NEW about the variety of interests represented in the con ference, which includes mayors from all cities over 30,000 in population. Depend ing upon their age, their size, their region and their economic health, these cities have very different stakes in the distribu tion formulas for the billions of dollars Washington distributes to mayors’ offices each year. But never before in the history of the cities lobbying arm have those mayors come as close to breaking up over the question of distribution formulas. Only some urgent backstage meetings avoided that pitfall, which could have crippled the major push to enact President Carter’s urban programs. Three sets of numbers.explain why this was such a crisis year for the organization and the urban interests it represents. First, there is 13—the famous California Proposition 13. It pinches off funds for city services in the largest state and puts all governments across the country on notice that they must discipline their own taxing and spending—or else. SECOND, BECAUSE of Proposition 13, there is greater pressure on both Car ter and the Democratic Congress to curb the most rapidly growing areas of the fed eral budget. As it happens, one of those areas has been federal aid to state and local governments. As Wayne F. Anderson, executive director of the Advisory Com mission in Intergovernmental Relations, pointed out, that sum has increased from $7 billion to $80 billion in the past two decades, with much of the increase just in the last few years. So long as the federal-aid pie was ex panding rapidly, mayors were competitive—but not really homicidal— about the size of their slice. But with Pro position 13 signaling a slowdown in the overall growth, the battle for a bigger share gets tougher. And that is where the third piece of mathematics enters. For most of its life, the mayors’ conference has been domi nated by its big-city members. With such media stars as New York’s John Lindsay and such muscular politicians as Chicago’s Richard Daley, the big-city mayors made themselves a major force in the 1960s. But that generation of mayors has gone to political banishment or the great beyond. The leadership of the conference has passed into the hands of mayors from smaller, growing cities who do not have the same interests or problems as the mayors of the old, declining cities. THE NEW CHAIRMAN of the organi zation is William H. McNichols of Den ver, a rapidly growing Western city. His successor is slated to be Richard Carver of Peoria, a Republican who in 1980 is aiming to run against Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III, D-Ill., a principal architect of the New York City loan legislation. As Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, another of the emerging leaders of the group, said: “There’s a shift of power tak ing place.... Ever since the New York City bailout, the big city mayors have quieted down, and you see the mayors of the smaller cities, the Sunbelt cities, saying more about their right to share in federal programs.” Many of the mayors of those smaller and more prosperous cities are opposed to the kind of tight “targeting” of federal urban aid to areas in serious trouble as Carter has proposed. It was their opposition which almost brought an open split in the confer ence’s ranks. In the end, it was compro mised — or papered over — for this year, year. BUT THE CLEAR SIGNAL is that the big cities, which have been the great engine of liberal domestic programs, are losing their clout, even in the mayors or ganization they once dominated. Once again, the reason lies in the num bers. The big cities’ share of the national population is decreasing rapidly, while that of the middle-sized cities rises. Be tween 1950 and 1970, the portion of the population residing in cities of 250,000 to 500,000 rose from 31 to 36 percent. By contrast, the Census Bureau esti mates that in the first half of this decade alone, Cleveland and St. Louis lost 15 per cent of their citizens; Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Detroit, 12 percent each; Chicago, 8 percent; Philadelphia, 7 percent; and New York City, 5 percent. The future course of national politics— to say nothing of the distribution of federal funds—is written in those numbers, as the meeting here last week demonstrated. (c) 1978, The Washington Post ‘Cheaper to inhale than to eat’ By DIANNE KLEIN United Press International MEXICO CITY — At about 35 cents a quart, inhaling industrial solvents is a “bargain high” to thousands of Mexican street kids — most of them under the age of 14. Children between the ages of 5 and 14 are addicted to the cheap and readily- available toxins more than any other age group, according to Dr. Federico Puente of the Mexican Center for the Study of Drug Addiction. “Many times it’s cheaper to inhale than it is to eat,” he said. In the short run, “sniffing” staves off hunger and relaxes the child. But after about three months of constant use, it can cause permanent damage to the brain, liver, kidneys and bone marrow. There are no statistics available on the Readers’ Forum Guest viewpoints, in addi tion to Letters to the Editor, are welcome. All pieces sub mitted to Readers’ forum should be: • Typed triple space • Limited to 60 characters per line • Limited to 100 lines V number of child addicts in Mexico today. Many have left their families to roam the streets of Mexico’s cities in search of their next hit. “These bands of children have no fixed address, they don’t go to school, they don’t have any secure source of income,” Dr. Mario Campu Zano of the Centers for Juvenile Integration a private, non-profit organization, said. However, most addicts still live with their families and are never treated — physically nor psychologically — for drug addiction, he said. In 1977, 138,000 persons under the age of 25 were treated for drug addiction in the 31 Juvenile Integration Centers through out the country. Twenty percent of these were addicted to industrial solvents, al though two years earlier the number of child addicts was estimated at 25,000 to 80,000 by representatives in the health field. But according to Dr. Campu Zano, the FEEM number of children addicted to solvents has grown considerably with Mexico’s de mographic explosion. Seven percent were diagnosed as heroin addicts, a group mostly concentrated in the northern part of the country near the U.S.-Mexican border. Sixty percent of the total number were males and 65 percent were unemployed. Toulene, used in mixing resins and adhesives, is the most common inhalant. Paint thinner, plastic cement, household cleaners and certain types of glue are also widely used. In Leon, Mexico’s shoe capi tal, the incidence of children addicted to leather adhesives is especially high. A study completed two years ago by a group of Mexico City psychologists charac terized child addicts as generally belong ing to poor families, with little or no formal education and with a fierce contempt for all authority and institutions. Without any steady income, they beg for food and money and often steal. The child addicts questioned in the study said they inhaled simply “because it feels good.” Most children had been de tained by police several times. “They let themselves be picked up when they feel like bathing or eating regu larly for a while, then they escape, ”Dr. Campu Zano said. The Centers for Juvenile Integration conceed that most efforts to control drug addiction among street-wise city children have failed precisely for this reason. Now, they say, they are formulating programs which emphasize “the social and psychological factors” which cause drug addiction. Not including alcohol, more Mexicans nationwide use marijuana than any other drug, according to Mexican health offi cials. Sedatives are second ranked, fol lowed by industrial solvents. To most Mexican addicts, they added, heroin is a “luxury” drug, and the inci dence of addiction is much higher in the United States and Europe. by Doug Graham Top of the News Local Contributions to A&M revealed Private contributions to Texas A&M University during May totaled $186,320, said Robert L. Walker, vice president for development. The Development Office has received $4,753,377 since the start of the academic year. Walker said. He noted that $115,103 of the May total is restricted to the center for Education and Research in Free Enterprise. The remainder went to various scholarship programs. Corporations provided $2,500. State Officials invited to tax meeting The chairman of a committee studying property tax reform Monday in Austin invited Gov. Dolph Briscoe and three other top state offi cials to meet with his panel Wednesday to present their tax relief recommendations. Rep. Dan Kubiak, D-Rockdale, issued the in vitations to Lt. Gov. William P. Hobby, Speaker Bill Clayton, Com ptroller Bob Bullock and Briscoe, who is considering calling a special session of the Legislature to deal with property tax relief. Striking farmworkers arrested Presidio County Sheriff's officers Monday arrested five members of the United Farmworkers Union on misdemeanor charges of obstruct ing traffic in a strike by melon and onion pickers against alleged poor working conditions and low pay in remote West Texas. The men were arraigned and jailed in lieu of $1,000 cash bail, UFW spokesman Peter Elikann said. The UFW claimed 150 workers — 100 of them Mexican aliens — walked off their jobs Monday complaining of lack of water and toilet facilities as the temperature climbed above 100 de grees. Nation Holiday driving deaths predicted Fifty-three persons will die during the July 4 weekend in traffic accidents, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin predicted Monday. “July 4th is traditionally one of our more dangerous driving periods, and I am hoping that all Texans will do their best to prevent accidents, said Col. Wilson E. Speir. He asked holiday drivers to use their headlights throughout the weekend to reminder others to drive safely. Anti-nuclear protesters leave site Demonstrators who Sunday staged the nation’s largest anti-nuclear protest streamed off the Seabrook, N.H., atomic power plant site Monday but said they did not know for certain whether all the dissi dents would leave peacefully. Some members of the Clamshell Al liance said they would be back soon in greater numbers to occupy the plant construction site and shut it down. Bishop sued for violating canon A group of 15 bishops has filed charges against a fellow bishop for participating in the consecration of dissident priests as bishops of the schismatic Anglican Church in North America, an Episcopal church spokesman said Monday in Washington. The charges, against Bishop Albert A. Chambers, Dennis, Mass., retired bishop of the diocese of Springfield, Ill., said Chambers violated the church constitution and canon (church law) in participating in the consecration service. If Chambers is tried and found guilty, he could be forbidden to perform any priestly acts. Agent sentenced for taking bribes Border Patrol Agent Alexander Trench, 55, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Monday in San Diego, Calif, for accepting bribes from illegal aliens crossing into the United States from Mexico. A federal prosecutor said Trench worked with eight major alien smugglers and may have allowed hundreds of aliens to cross illegally. Authorities said Trench, who had been a Border Patrol inspector fof eight years at the San Ysidro port of entry, let the illegal aliens through for $50 each. World Begin may have heart surgery The Beirut, Lebanon newspaper An Nahar reported Saturday that cardiologists treating Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin want him to undergo urgent heart surgery and believe he will live only weeks without it. In a report attributed simply to West European official sources, the newspaper said Begin has asked several of his cabinet ministers and his wife for their views on the proposed surgery. “The cabinet ministers are in favor but his wife is against the idea,” An Nahar said. “Begin is very ill and some of his doctors believe he will live only for a few weeks, An Nahar said. Vietnamese limit travel to China Vietnamese authorities have stopped taking applications from ethnic Chinese for travel to China after receiving 30,000 requests ina week, foreign travelers from southern Vietnam said Monday in Bangkok, Thailand. In a parallel move, officials have stepped up movement of former businessmen from Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, to virgin farming areas, the travelers said. The order to end applications for ethnic Chinese to take boats to China came last Thursday, just a week after special exit visa offices were opened June 15. is a s sity I “I there time “Nov amoi bette M: Stud 20-h than cour: is ac who ratio 12 ci It hous husb ahou for h Schc she j Al grad tend in a T1 then 9-mi nam flyin pilo “wal the thei: “I den but stub clas: 1:3C part unti A pari stuc h Weather Partly cloudy and hot today and tonight. High today mid upper 90s, low tonight upper 70s. High tomorrow upper 90s. Winds from the south-southeast at 15-20 mph, diminishing tonight. 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