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
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talker
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Coi
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lill attempts suit
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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