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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 1979)
Tuesday, April 17, 1979 College Station, Texas Battalion News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 Grade expectations There may be help in ’82 for students who have a Dickens of a time making the grade the first time around. A new policy will allow students to use the best grade — if they retake a course — in figuring their GPRs. See page 5. Kapavik, Smith win runoff election By DILLARD STONE Battalion Staff Ronald J. Kapavik is Texas A&M Uni versity’s newly elected student body pres ident. Kapavik won Monday’s runoff with J. Wayne Morrison to determine who will lead Texas A&M’s student government in 1979-80. He won with 936 votes, 53 percent of the total, compared with Morrison’s 829 votes, 47 percent of the total. Only 1,765 students, less than 7 percent of Texas A&M’s student body, voted in the runoff election. “Oh my goodness, this is for real, isn’t it?” Kapavik said when contacted early this morning. “Seriously, the students had an adequate choice — either candidate could’ve done a good job,” he said. Kapavik said he would try to carry through with his philosophy of student government, a philosophy he tried to get across in his campaign: “To accomplish things that students need and to communicate for the stu dents.” Kapavik revelled in optimism and confi dence when asked about his plans for next year. “It’s a challenge — a challenge I’m ready for.” Kapavik will preside over the first meet ing of the new student senate on Wednes day night. At the meeting, the new senate will elect a speaker to preside over its af fairs in the coming year. Kapavik assumes office as soon as the election results are validated. Paul Bettencourt, vice president for rules and regulations, said it is unlikely the election results will be contested. Other student government and class of ficer seats were up for election in Monday’s runoff. Brad Smith defeated John Groce in the race for vice president of student services. Smith accumulated 854 votes to Groce’s 798; 1,652 votes were cast in the only vice president’s race up for election. Three seats on the Class of ’82 council were elected. Mike McCarley was elected president of the class, defeating Rick Kumpf. Richard Seger beat out Tracy Hammer for the vice presidential spot. Susan Pavlovsky defeated Sheryl Trask for the class social secretary seat. The only other class officer elected Monday was Kathy Rivera to the vice pres idency of the Class of ’81. Off campus senators elected in runoffs are Julie Smiley, Greg Marks, Debbie May, Mary Herring and Roger Mes- sersmith. Vicki Benton was elected veterinary school senator. RONALD J. KAPAVIK Student government officers had the votes tabulated by 9 p.m., relatively early. However, the results were not announced until after several recounts were made to ensure the validity of the results. River crests in Mississippi Uncle Sam's pound of flesh ^arge numbers of local residents made the annual rst-minute pilgrimage to the Post Office with the year’s income tax return Monday. Returns had to be mailed by midnight Monday to avoid a late filing penalty. Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. fouls - echnical 1 ayan says giving up land ay be needed for peace 's United Press International raeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan topay that Israel may have to give up occupied Golan Heights of Syria to h peace with Damascus. A senior istfer called for Dayan’s resignation, n Cairo, Egyptian President Anwar ■denounced his Arab opponents as nt and backward” and said they bing Israel a great service by refus- to negotiate with it and thus prolong- ; Israeli occupation of Arab land. Dayan was called in for consultations by aeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ssibly to clarify the statement about the >lan Heights, which Israel captured TO Syria in the 1967 Middle East war cl has occupied since. “There was never any sort of compari son between the Golan Heights and the Sinai which were part of Syrian and Egyp tian sovereignty and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” Dayan said. Dayan said earlier this month he sees peace with Syria as the next step in achiev ing an overall Middle East peace agree ment. Sadat, speaking at Cairo’s Ein Shams University, warned the Arabs against any attempt to harm Egypt, declaring this will not be tolerated. Sadat said Israel was founded on part of the British-mandate territory of Palestine in 1948 “but 30 years afterwards, and thanks to the Arab mentality which was generally ignorant and backward, Israel had occupied the whole of Palestines plus the Golan Heights and Sinai.” United Press International JACKSON, Miss.— The raging Pearl River, which forced more than 15,000 Jackson area residents from their homes Easter Sunday, moved toward a record crest of near 43 feet early Monday — the worst flood in the city’s history. The river, which rose only two-tenths of a foot in the past 12 hours, stood at 42.6 feet early Monday — more than 24 feet above the flood stage of 18 feet and well above the old mark of 37.5 feet set in 1902. It was expected to crest late Monday at between 42.6 and 42.8 feet. Four people drowned in a boating acci dent on the rain-bloated Tennessee River in northeast Mississippi Sunday afternoon, making a total of at least eight people who have drowned in state waters since the flooding was set off by torrential rains last week. Weather forecasters warned residents along the Pearl River south of Jackson to take precautions from the bloated stream, which meanders the length of the state be fore emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The National Weather Service, noting the river was falling in its upper regions, said the inflow of water into the giant Bar nett Reservoir northeast of the city should have peaked. Officials of the reservoir re duced the outflow of water during the night to reduce pressure on Jackson levees. Although the conditions appeared to have stabilized, residents were warned the river would remain critically high for sev eral days. Downriver, forecasters predicted rec ord flooding at Georgetown, Monticello and Columbia. Forecasters predicted a crest of 35 feet at Monticello Thursday or Friday. This would exceed the flood rec ord of 32.55 in April 1974. Columbia Mayor Robert Bourn placed the city in a state of emergency and or dered all residents to be prepared for one of the greatest floods in modern times. Floodwaters seeping under a railroad embankment inundated Jackson’s $48 mil lion water sewage plant Monday, but offi cials said all workers in the 18-month-old structure were rescued. Civil Defense workers and National Guardsmen had erected barricades to pro tect the plant from the floodwaters, but water burst through a track embankment of the Illnois Central Railroad and flooded the plant around 1 a.m. Spokesman Carroll Fulgham said the ci ty’s water would not be affected because a backup lagoon system for water treatment would be used. He said the sewage plant can be made operative again when the water recedes. Aftershocks hinder search for earthquake survivors an told an Israeli radio reporter the )lan Heights was sovereign territory like eSinai peninsula, which Israel will re- m to Egypt as part of the treaty with Clements planning to on mortgage interest hold line ceiling radio quoted a senior minister as Dayan should be told to resign. I comments to an Israeli radio re- lr te| came after similar statements to j ertbank settlers Sunday aroused con- sy in the govenment. United Press International AUSTIN — Gov. Bill Clements said Monday he would vetd any legislation in creasing the state’s interest ceiling on home mortgage loans, apparently killing attempts by savings and loan institutions in Texas to boost the maximum interest rate to 12 percent. meeting with settlers at Tomer, yan said if Syria proposes return of the in exchange for peace that Israel le faced with choosing to keep the Vithout peace or surrendering it as If a treaty. Clements also announced he has vetoed another bill that would have given rating bureaus of bus companies, railroads and truckers protections against antitrust suits. “After waiting several weeks to make my decision and after meeting with both sides, I still have heard no convincing ar guments for raising the mortgage interest rate ceiling, especially at a time when such a move would just continue to fuel infla tion,” the governor said. “This issue is a direct result of the na tional money crunch which is generally re ferred to as double-digit inflation and I would hope that the Carter administration will take drastic steps to halt the inflation ary spiral that we are in.” Clements said if Texas’s middle income housing requirement reaches a crisis situa tion in the future because of the state’s 10 percent interest ceiling on home mortgage loans, he would consider calling a special session of the Legislature to deal with the problem. “Certainly I have heard no cry from the people of Texas for higher interest rates, ” he said. “Savings and loan institutions are re porting record high profits, and it takes a certain amount of audacity on their part to come to the Legislature to ask for more money at a time when the average Texan is fighting to keep his head above water fi nancially.” He said many Texans cannot afford to buy homes because interest rates already are too high. The governor said he would support a limitation on the amount of Texans’ money savings and loan institutions could invest out of state, and a requirement for semi annual reports showing how much money savings and loan institutions are lending to out-of-state customers. United Press International HERCEG NOVI, Yugoslavia — A series of strong aftershocks Mondav rumbled through the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia and Albania, devastated by an earthquake that killed at least 235, injured nearly 1,000 and left thousands others homeless. The aftershocks, measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale, hampered efforts by re scue workers searching for survivors from the worst quake to hit Yugoslavia in 75 years. The Easter Sunday quake over a 100-mile swath of Yugoslavia and Albania killed 235 — 200 in Yugoslavia and 35 in Albania, and injured 930 others — 600 in Yugoslavia and 330 in Albania, according to official figures in both nations. Au thorities said the toll was expected to rise. Yugoslav President Tito was in the area of the quake when it hit. Initial reports from officials said no foreign tourists were among the dead. Rescue workers in Bar, where 50 were killed and 200 injured, pulled away steel and bricks in searching through the debris of the collapsed five-story Agava Hotel. But attempts to take the injured to hospitals and efforts to provide the 183,000 people affected by the quake with food, water and blankets were hampered by the series of aftershocks. In Herceg Novi, a resort village 30 miles south of Dubrovnik, 21,000 people spent the night wrapped in blankets out in the open while others were in cars. Volunteer teams began building tent cities and prefabricated houses to shelter the homeless. “The material damage here is enormous,” Mayor Djordje Radulovic told UPI. “I can’t begin to estimate the cost. ” The quake crumbled most older buildings along the seashore into dust. Four sections of the town’s shipyard collapsed into the sea. onsumer inactivity, ignorance allows rporation control — Ralph Nader By ANDY WILLIAMS Battalion Staff schools must develop people who Jtelligently as consumers, taxpayers fttizens, Ralph Nader told a group of °ut 700 at Texas A&M University [lay night. ier said that students have learned Ito “get by” on multiple choice tests, consequently, the United States has [ie a society satisfied with political cial inactivity. pdents have the best chance to re- to work for improvement, he said, use it is more difficult for people Id into jobs to stand up against people [power. rporations control the power in the d States, and people must learn how |eal with them intelligently, Nader But mass apathy is preventing that. ^ , j^-uve yourself make a list of 10 major ^biems in this country,” Nader chal- lenged his audience. “How are you affect ing them?” Corporations in particular need workers to speak out on the dangerous practices they see, Nader said. He said, for instance, information that caused recalls of cars was known to thousands of people, but only a handful — or one — would “stand tall” and report the defects. He envisioned a scene with a prospec tive employee and a corporation recruiting officer. “Try this,” he advised student pros pects. “Say to him, T insist on bringing my conscience to work with me every' day. Do you have any problems with that? ” The problem of inactivity, Nader said, is also one of ignorance. “How many of you know who Morris the Cat was?” he asked at one point. Virtually everyone in the auditorium had. “Now, how many of you have heard of Dr. Herbert York?” No hands went up. “Dr. Herbert York is the United States’s leading analyst of the arms race,” Nader said, going on to say that York is a univer sity professor who worked on the Manhat tan Project, the World War II effort that developed nuclear weaponry. “But he can’t stand a shake against Morris the Cat. “This, of course, demonstrates some thing about our communications system.” The cures that people do advocate for problems are often worse than the disease, he suggested. He cited the increased use of nuclear power as one example, though he said in that case, the existence of a disease is questionable. “There is no energy crisis. I’ve been looking for the energy crisis for years. There is no energy supply crisis so long as the sun exists.” But he said the country has been slow to act to develop solar power. A committee advising President Harry Truman in 1952 recommended its use be expanded. He said there are sufficient fossil fuels to allow development of solar power without using nuclear energy, which will leave the problem of storing radioactive waste prod ucts for 250,000 years. More than 50 percent of the United States’ energy is wasted, he said. He said inefficient systems result in “heating the heavens” rather than houses. He said people must learn to view products through the eyes of a consumer, not of the producer. An example of a great lack of this attitude is found in people’s views of their doctors and dentists, he said. Nader said many dentists are negligent in protecting the uninvolved parts of their patients’ bodies from potentially danger ous and unnecessary X-rays. “Next time your dentist says to you, ‘X-ray time,’ make sure you say to him, ‘Lead apron time.’” Consumer advocate Ralph Nader challenged about 800 in Rudder Au ditorium Monday night to be responsible for their government. Battalion photo bv Larrv Parker