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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 1978)
Battali on Ronnie is cornin’ Wednesday, October 18, 1978 College Station, Texas • Ronald Reagan is one of the • Now researchers think alcohol speakers approved for this year’s — among other things — causes SCONA. For other speakers, cancer. See page 10 for the sob- see page 7. ering report. News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 away eekeii talker ' event leo. Coi eond lill attempts suit o fight energy act ar r -S) United Press International AUSTIN — Attorney General John Hill trying to arrange a meeting this week ith the attorneys general of Louisiana id Oklahoma to discuss a joint suit chal- iging major provisions of the new fed- al energy act. Hill, the Democratic nominee for gov- nor in the Nov. 7 election, Tuesday said exas would file suit even if the other ; Pifl ^-producing states to not participate and irhaps would file an individual suit lould Oklahoma and Louisiana join. "Frankly I hope we can proceed to- ther, because it will be a very expensive lit,” Hill said. 1 pi3 Hill said he hoped the meeting with the tomeys general could be held Thursday Dallas, Houston or Austin. The Texas attorney general said he opes to file the suit in federal court by ext week, but conceded there is little rospect for any legal decision on the case efore he leaves office at the end of the l”) PizzJ RS 'his sign on the Langford Architecture Center, hung in the fall of 1977, [oiced an opinion about the building. A year later, other students, aduate students and faculty are complaining about the building — om inadequate air-conditioning to not enough privacy. Today’s article the first of a two-part series. The second half will appear in Thursday’s Battalion photo ear. T doubt we can accomplish much more uring my term of office other than align- ig the parties and defining the issues,” said. ill said he has been considering such etion for the past 18 months but Bill Cle ments, his Republican opponent in the governor’s race, accused Hill of announc ing the possible suit as a campaign tactic. Hill plans to challenge the constitution ality of a provision of the new law that gives the federal government authority to regulate the price of natural gas produced and sold within Texas. “We have never had federal supervision of the pricing of products grown or pro duced and sold solely within the state and I think that should be ruled on at the Su preme Court level,” Hill told a news con ference Tuesday. “There is some uniqueness to the Texas claim that other states do not have,” he said, noting Texas had retained title to its public lands when it entered the union. One of the areas Hill expects to challenge is whether prices of natural gas produced from public lands and sold within Texas can be regulated by the federal govern ment. Oklahoma Gov. David Boren first suggested the prospect of a joint suit by the three states. Boren said he had talked with Gov. Dolph Briscoe and Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards concerning the fed eral energy bill and said the three major gas producing states probably will join in filing the suit. Staff, students say center is $5. 9 million problem Editor’s note: some of the professors and students quoted in this story remain anonymous because they asked to be. They felt their careers would be in jeopardy in their names were used. This is the first of a two-part story, the second part will appear in Thursday’s Battalion. By MARILYN FAULKENBERRY Battalion Staff Texas A&M University’s $6.9 million Langford Architecture Center has prob lems. The center’s $5.9 million main building leaks, is noisy and has cracks appearing at its joints. It affords privacy only to staff members and the air conditioning system has not worked properly since the building was completed two years ago. The building was designed to be energy-efficient: The windows may be opened to a cooling breeze created by the building’s design; skylights let in light and let warm air rise out. Dean of Architecture Raymond D. Reed says the building’s design creates a high pressure area on the south side and a low pressure area on the north side, so that when the windows are opened a draft passes through the building. Architects in the department say the de sign works. They know. During the first few months the building was used in the summer of 1977, the air conditioning was not work ing, so the natural ventilation was used. David G. Woodcock, architecture de partment head, describes the building as “livable, but not too pleasant in this cli mate.” Windows in the building are exposed to the winter sun but not the summer sun, to aid in heating and cooling, Reed says. The building can be used “in normal daylight hours” without any additional lighting, Reed says, but students disagree. Jerry Reesby, a senior in landscape ar chitecture, expressed views similar to those given by all students interviewed. She says it would be possible to work di rectly under the windows, but not farther in, where it is difficult to see for detail drawing. “You’d go blind,” she says. But the energy designs are not in use professor says. Another professor says, “You have to put a^finger in one ear to talk on the phone. It is impossible to concentrate or to be heard in the larger classrooms when two teachers are conducting class.” The Board of Regents allocated $100,000 at their September meeting for carpet and other materials to help reduce the noise level. Architecture faculty and staff members say they anticipated the acoustical problem and made suggestions to the board when they saw preliminary sketches several years ago. The board chose not to act on the problems at that time, they say. “We like to have them (these designs) in case we ever need them, in case energy ever has to be curtailed during certain times of the year,” Reed says. The building is composed of concrete pannels that give it strength and design. Reed says it was constructed like “a giant erector set,” with a crane lifting the pan nels piece by piece. The interior of the building is an open design, with undergraduate workshops and faculty offices open to the center. Acoustics in the building are a major prob lem because the interior is made of the same pre-cast concrete blocks as the ex terior. Without any materials to absorb the sound, “it literally bounces around,” one Howard L. Vestal, University vice- president for business affairs, says the budget was “short” when the building was erected. He says the board did not want to spend money for acoustics until they knew it was necessary. Students say they had to “beg” for parti tions to divide the largest workshops so they could concentrate. They say the par titions have helped, but say they think it is unfair that graduate students are allowed more partitions and therefore more pri vacy. Dean Reed refers to this design as the “open concept.” “It is beneficial because students can look around and observe other disciplines and learn from each other,” he says. He also says the unfinished interior that ex poses the pillars and joints of the building is educational. Students can look around and see the basic structure of a building, he says. Some students say they like the “hard architecture” style of the building, but they say they are “too busy to look around and learn.” Other students say they do learn - in reverse. “We learn what not to do,” one student The open design of the building also creates a privacy problem, professors say. Faculty offices are open to the center of the building and faculty members are not allowed to hang drapes or shades of any type,, one professor says. One professor has created a jungle of plants and artwork to create some privacy in his office. says. “You never find anyone in his office be cause there is no way to work in them,” a professor says. “It’s like being in a gold fish bowl.” Despite this “open concept,” graduate students are in the more secluded west end of the building and are allowed more partitions in their work than under graduates. Staff members, also at that end of the building, have private offices sepa rated from the rest of the building by glass and doors. One architecture professor says, “This building was designed like a Paris fashion - to follow a fad.” He says it was not de signed around people or for their use. Two sides of African controversy meet unexpec on campus By LYLE LOVETT Battalion Reporter A South African exile advocating over throw of his country’s current political sys tem had an unscheduled confrontation with a member of that political system Tuesday after a Speech in Rudder Tower. The exile. Dr. Denis Brutus, was scheduled by the MSG Great Issues com mittee to speak. Gerrie De Jong, a member of the South African Parliament, was in College Station visiting his two daughters, who attend Texas A&M Uni versity. De Jong later said that it was purely coincidental that he was in town the same day Brutus was to speak. In his speech, Brutus said that the 87 percent black majority in South Africa is being oppressed by a small white politcal regime and that the United States could help rememdy the situation by its non support of American industry in South Af- Brutus said the regime derives much of its power from the 539 American corpora tions operating in South Africa. Through their economic support, he said, the re gime is able to continue enforcing the “network of laws which surrounds the black from birth to death,” which he cites as the reason for continued white control. He said restrictions imposed on black South Africans prevent them from exercis ing human rights: holding elective office, voting, joining trade unions or going on strike. In a question-and-answer session after the speech, De Jong said that much of what Brutus said was inaccurate. Brutus left South Africa in 1966. De Jong said that progress has been made for black human rights in South Africa since that time. De Jong said “coloreds” and Indians are now permitted to join labor unions. By 1979, he said, they will have the right to hold office and to vote. He defined “col ored,” as westernized or civilized blacks, in contrast to the uneducated, uncivilized tribal blacks. De Jong said 70 percent of the South African population is still considered to be tribal black, and as a result will not receive representation under the new law. During his speech, Brutus said that if the situation in South Africa is to change, it will change under the impact of protest, pressure and expression of concern by in dividuals. “It will be the people of this country,” he said, “who will huo turn the policy around. I don’t think that is going to hap pen until they understand what is happen ing in South Africa — until they are in formed, not only of the realities of the situation there, but of the degree to which institutions in this country are accomplices in the exploitation and oppression in South Africa.” Brutus was once a South African politi cal prisoner, held on Robben’s Island, sometimes called Devil’s Island, where he said he was forced to reduce a pile of rock to gravel every day. Before leaving the country, he had to sign a document requir ing his return to prison if he re-entered South Africa. He has since served as director of the World Campaign for Release of South Af rican Political Prisoners. And as president of the South African Non-racial Olympic Committee, he was largely responsible for South Africa’s exclusion from the 1972 Olympics due to South African racial policies. Brutus is now professor of Afro- American literature at Northwestern Uni versity near Chicago and is trying to make Americans aware of the South African policital situation. Detailing treatment of non-whites in his country, he said South African blacks are permitted neither elective office nor vot ing, and it is illegal for a black to belong to a registered trade union. They can, how ever, belong to an unregistered trade union, which he said has no status in South African law and does the members no good. A black laborer can be imprisoned for going on strike or even talking about strik ing, he said; if a black is found to be un employed, he is forced to leave the city. Another criminal offense for which non-whites can be sent to prison is failure to produce a “book of life,” he said; it con tains one’s computer number and must be produced upon demand. He said South African law also provides that cities are to be “white by night” — all blacks must be off the streets by 9 p.m. Brutus said that since the 1906 begin ning of the Union of South Africa, conflicts between whites and blacks have escalated. The latest problems has been going on since 1967 and will continue until blacks finally win. “So when we talk of a war of liberation,” he said, “this is not civil rights, not people sitting in a Woolworth’s cafeteria. This is not even people struggling for the right to vote. This is a struggle of people for the seizure of power — a struggle for the achievement of majority rule.” He said during his speech that the exist ing government can delay but not prevent the eventual seizure of power by the coun try’s black majority. “It can be most seriously delayed, and that delay will entail so much more hardship and destruction and death — on both sides — that if there is one thing that we would ask the American people it would be to help us to insure that that conflict is as brief as possible and involves a minimum of hardship, death and de struction. That is our message to you. That is our appeal. “Because,” he said, “this country, perhaps more than any other in the world, can make a significant contribution either way. You can either make our struggle longer and harder and bloodier or you can make it short and crisp and clean and ulti mately just. “And we would, you know, like to see the United States on the side of justice and this time on the winning side. Maybe this time you’ll pick a winner. It would be a nice change.” De Jong, a member of the party in op position to the current government, called for evolution without revolution and charged Brutus with inciting revolution. De Jong said that progress with regard to black human rights will come but it will come slowly. “The mistakes of our grandfathers can’t be wiped out overnight,” he said. “I’ve seen more racial hatred right here in Texas than at home.” Brutus, ending the presentation, said, “People have already died and are dying now. More are willing to do so if the end is to achieve a society where we can run our own lives.” One-alarm fire burns local home A one-alarm fire gutted the home of a north Bryan resident Tuesday evening. No one was injured. Capt. Marvin Jeske of the Bryan Fire Department said late Tuesday that the small, one-bedroom house at 3607 W. 28th St. was reported ablaze at 5:49 p.m. The fire was brought under control about 15 minutes later. Immediate reports indicated that the owner of the house, Dorothy Adams, was not inside when the fire started. Jeske said preliminary investiga tion showed the cause to have been an electric heater. No account of ac tual losses has yet been made. Pressure, positive action keys to success, woman editor says By DIANE BLAKE Battalion Staff Women must take positive action if they are ever to be taken seriously by the news media, an editor of a Houston feminist newspaper said Tuesday. Janice Blue, editor of Houston Break through, discussed the portrayal of women in the media in a speech sponsored by Phi Delta Gamma, a women’s professional honorary society. Blue said women must continue pressuring newspapers to give women’s news the front-page coverage it deserves. The editor said she started the news paper in Houston three years ago for many reasons, but I found there were two obvious ones: one was the Houston Post and the other was the Houston Chronicle. She said that lack of coverage of wo men’s news was also the reason news papers such as Big Mama Rag in Denver, Off Our Backs in Washington, D.C., and Majority Report in New York were started. “Some progress has been make in the last 10 years, but it has only been superfi cial,” Blue said. News is still being “ghet toized” in women’s sections, euphemisti cally called Style, Lifestyle, Today and Focus, she said. She quoted a lifestyle writer as saying .the women’s sections are the “dumping ground for anything the male editors con sider a women’s story. So we get all the serious news stories about the ERA, rape law changes, back-pay lawsuits and so forth back among the girdle ads instead of on page one or two or three, where they belong.” “The whole problem that we’ve had has been getting women into section one,” Blue said. “I frankly don’t know how we can get a good image of ourselves as people in the community by what we read in the news papers,” she said. Blue said that the adjectives used to de scribe women in news stories are demean ing. Women are referred to as a “divorced mother of three” or a “petite housewife.” The editor read an excerpt from the Austin American-Statesman describing Barbara Jordan as “that chunky forceful black from Houston’s fifth ward.” Needed: one dictionary (Please turn to page 3.) Don’t “pak” on Joe Routt Boulevard between Wofford Cain Hall and the Memorial Student Center where this curb sign in painted. The student Who does Will probably Still get a “tickeit.” Battalion photo by Martha Hollida