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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 23, 1979)
II The Battalion Viewpoint Texas A&M University^ Wednesday • May 23, 1979 Conserve now Yes Virginia, there is an energy shortage. Americans across the country still refuse to believe it though it is evi denced by rising gasoline prices and longer lines at service stations. Californians were the first to experience the crunch, bringing back memories of the long gasoline lines during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. “Unfair!” screamed California residents who demanded to know why the shortage was affecting their state so severely. The reason is simple. California demand for gasoline rose 7-and-a-half percent in the first four months this year over last year as compared to a less than two percent increase for the rest of the nation. This represents more than a five percent growth in California consumption as compared to the rest of the country. Yet they still demand more. Should more gasoline be allocated to California, it would have to be at the expense t>f the other states since there is a three percent shortage nationwide. Unfair, you say? You bet it is. Representatives from several major oil companies, including Texaco and Exxon, appeared before a Senate subcommittee Monday to discuss the present energy situation. They explained why their companies cannot meet an abnormally high demand for gasoline this summer. Refineries, they said, are expected to operate at the same level this summer as last summer. Their priority is to stockpile heating oil for next winter. They cannot be expected to stockpile the necessary amounts of winter heating oil and keep up with the increasing demand for gasoline. Californians must curtail their driving and limit their gas purchases to bring their demand in equilibrium with the rest of the country. The me generation” must come to an end if America is to squeak through this shortage with only a minimum of sacrifice. If they do not give the minimum voluntarily, more severe measures will be forced upon all of us. K.L.R. Army: drugs up the West German government recently has taken a more concerned view of the problem than it did even a year ago. All army drug abuse officers begin brief ings by saying that “the army’s biggest problem remains alcohol.” Gen. George S. Blanchard, commanding general of the U.S. Army, Europe, has instituted a pro gram to treat alcoholics, including senior officers and noncoms, and promises al coholics will be promoted if they go through treatment and stay dry after wards, although he has yet to sell his con cept to the rest of the army. Drug abuse rates greater attention be cause, unlike alcohol, drugs are illegal. The army in Europe increased its drug suppression staffs in November, enabling a stepup in the number of drug busts. One of the largest occurred early this year in the 3rd Division when Operation Snow White resulted in 92 soldier arrests and the seizure of $1.29 million worth of drugs. Of the soldiers, 22 received bad conduct discharges and 29 administrative discharges. A senior sergeant involved in the anti- drug campaign since it began in 1973 re ports: —He cannot recall an officer being caught using hard drugs. —He sees no correlation between drug use and race. —While most of the soldierusers of he roin turned up in the mid-70s were addicts who required detoxification, soldiers now being caught for heroin use generally are not addicts and do not require detoxifica tion. “Apparently now, they’ll use whatever is available at the moment,” the sergeant said. “They’ll use any kind of dope or pills, even go from an upper to a downer and vice versa, and mix it all with liquor. In fact, most of those now dying are being killed by a combination of alcohol and pills.” Volunteer work decreased By WELLINGTON LONG United Press International STUTTGART, West Germany — U.S. military officers, trying to get a handle on the army’s growing drug problem, de scribe the typical soldier-user as an aver age young American. Medical officers who have treated thousands draw this profile of the average American military drug user: A white, unmarried, male high school graduate, in the service for between one and three years, working in the job for which he was trained and now either a pri vate, private first class or corporal. The number of such American soldiers using both soft and hard drugs already is high. But army officers and senior sergeants assigned to bring the situation under control report a rising trend in hard drugs use during the past year. The statistics may be, and probably are, inadequate. For instance, surprise urinalysis of company size units among the 88,000 sol diers in the VII Corps headquartered in Stuttgart showed 3 percent take hard drugs. Opinion surveys among the same sol diers indicate that as many as 7 or 8 per cent may use hard drugs at least once a month while up to 40 percent may use soft drugs. “Most soldiers now using drugs in Europe either used or experimented with soft drugs in the United States before join ing the army,” says a veteran drug abuse officer. He attributes the recent rise in use to “increased availability of heroin in Europe.” The U.S. and West German govern ments are improving their cooperation in an attemmpt to suppress and interrupt the supply of hard drugs, most of which ap parently now comes to Western Europe from Turkey. American officers believe U&D2G. &]a\&>GoTRiaAG- Killer Bees not alone in Senate walkouts By BO Butta ie A&M C ■d took no ac iieeting on a he Middle rnpt to table |, attempt d learned tl •rence betv »s and the o he landsca ect by the Kg to beau campuses, public infoi 'istrict. * district p the fede l u gh grants 1 remaining pet he board hi the landscap k>1 campus b tes by Klatt/ itects. ie only bic B jhe Brazo keet Thursc gjeaker will sional sectioi By ROLAND LINDSEY UPI Capitol Reporter AUSTIN — Senate dean William T. Moore has been prevented from conduct ing Senate business since Friday because of a walkout by 12 liberal senators. In younger years, however, Moore was in another group that left the chamber. Moore can attest to the fact the five-day hideout by the dozen Texas senators known as “killer bees” is not the first time legislators have intentionally ducked out of House or Senate sessions to stop business, but this time the lawmakers have set a record for eluding authorities. The 12 have been missing since they failed to answer a Senate roll call Friday morning. A statewide search by the De partment of Public Safety and Texas Ran gers has failed to locate any of them, al- Junk mail lists go on and on though the DPS mistakenly seized the brother of one of the “killer bees” senators — Gene Jones, D-Houston — and flew him to Austin in a state-owned helicopter. Although legislative records of the early part of the century are vague, librarians at the Capitol say they have found nothing to rival the current absences. One of the legislative disappearing acts that is documented occurred in 1951 when 10 senators walked out on a session con sidering establishing the State Board of Control. They were gone less than an hour, how ever, before sergeants-at-arms located and returned two of the senators, allowing the bill to be passed. One of these who walked out was Moore, now the Senate dean and one of the 19 senators left to find non-legislative By DICK WEST United Press International WASHINGTON — Some time back, I wrote a piece about a citizen who received 276 pieces of unsolicited direct mail in six months — and forwarded it all to his con gressman. I now have at hand a letter from Foster Parents Plan, one of the 134 private or ganizations that posted the mail. It is con cerned that some people might have got ten the impression that it sells its mailing lists. “Foster Parents Plan has never nor will it ever divulge the names of its donors for any purpose whatsoever,” the letter says. In passing along this disclaimer, I might note that in some instances the names on an organization’s mailing list and the names of its donors are not necessarily the same. The postman frequently brings me fund - appeals from charitable or civic-minded organizations to which I have never made a contribution. How my name got on their mailing lists I cannot say with certainty. But coinciden- ways of filling their time because of the absence of the 12 liberals. Moore said Monday he had no specific recollection of the incident>J)ut added: “In 1951, at the age I was then, it’s very likely I had more important things to do.” He said a “call” also was issued during the 1967 session, and he was among those who had left. “In ’67 they came over to the Cam bridge Tower and got me out of bed. There wasn’t anybody hiding then, I just didn’t want to stay up all night and listen to a filibuster.” Jim Sanders, director of the Legislative Reference Library, said: “There are stories going around that about 1911 to 1920, there were 11 senators who went to either Mexico or Bandera, depending on who is tally, I began hearing from them a few years ago not long after I ordered two pairs of slacks from a mail order clothing outlet in New Jersey. It may be axiomatic in the direct mail business that a person who buys his pants through a magazine coupon is a good bet to respond favorably to postal fund-raising solicitations. I don’t know about that. Nor am I in any way implying that the pants people may have sold my name to the fund-raising outfits. The process by which names seem to spread from one mailing list to another has always been for me one of life’s deeper mysteries, comparable to the Bermuda Triangle and the way socks disappear in the washing machine. Since most direct mail nowadays is computerized, I have a theory that the name exchanging takes place inside data processing equipment. It probably is nothing uncommon for several direct mails to rent time on the same computer. In which case, several mailing lists might be stored on the same magnetic memory disc. telling the story, for two or this Hhe Tenth either kill a governors ‘*pp°ufa a. "aX liquor lull again deiHMldingO« A £ M ling the story.” ^ a ' 0 | Sanders said the story of the a® 1 " 6 „ ^ rt century hiding by senators Parks : peatedly, although the personsfl readily admit they heard it seooail hand. -m “We can’t find anything on;*: journals,” he said. Sanders said legislative recotcBL^ numerous occasions in theearhpiffi century in which one house ofthlk ture would not have a quorum p?# /y% Thursday or Fr day, and wouldaipt* # the weekend. But the records did not tn(iiljj s year’s police officers were sent searchi; luates could < missing lawmakers, he said. EL]^ Q f jj, kers, a Text „ iiHdst predi Remember from your scienctM. ccnt j^ a j )( how molecules in a magneticthat from one substance to another? 7 American ^ly theory that when computedjj ecreaS( ing lists are in close proximity,tl® c j ine was hop back and forth in much the! )n g college g io, J; , , , , un( ler 30 ye: Several people have pointed«« k workers that the Direct Mail Marketing^ tion maintains a service I non maintains a service tnrougn«*| may have one’s name removed WH o |^| ing lists. I would never do amlKg V J. that. • In this fast-changing world, dSKlB. provide a sense of continuity tWgT , comforting. ^^ ^ nr: Each day when the mail is deiwr ^ st ' the congressional press galleriesWr, 5 e y ea envelopes addressed to report®^ 1 U1K a ' changed jobs, retired or passeda*]^ , 15 years ago. iXd Z ,i It pleases me to think thatlo ced Real Est am gone I, too, will go on reeei mown by the gressional press releases. [inning Thur For some of us, junk mailbii§jirn establi shot at earthly immortality. Estate Re y, is designei fessionals the advanced Proposals suggest mandatory national service from youths By HENRY DAVID ROSSO United Press Internationa] WASHINGTON — Millions of Ameri cans every day are doing something for no thing — volunteer work for some cause they believe in. But there are some omin ous signs that volunteerism in the United States is on the wane. This has a number of people worried because a number of activities that Ameri cans take for granted — Red Cross disaster aid, for one — could not continue without a ready supply of volunteers. Because the problem of volunteer work for civilian causes happens to dovetail with shortfalls in recruiting for the all-volunteer armed forces the United States has sought to maintain since the end of the Vietnam War, it is getting attention in Washington. Two proposals have surfaced this year which would nudge the nation’s youth to dedicate themselves to a year or two of service in either civilian or military capac- ity. ^ The proposals have received praise from people who would not be affected. The criticism has come from those who would. Rep. Paul McCloskey, R-Calif, intro duced legislation to replace the Selective Service System with a National Service System. The bill would require every American, male and female, to register at age 17. At age 18, each would have three choices: volunteer work in a civilian activity for one year; active service in the military for two years; or active military duty for six months followed by five-and-a-half years reserve obligation. The young person who turned down these options would be subject to military draft until age 24. A study conducted by the Potomac In stitute proposed similar programs by which America’s youth would be engaged in some sort of voluntary service for a year. The Committee for the Study of Na tional Service last February announced a plan whereby at least 1 million young people would be employed on a volunteer basis either in a civilian or military capac ity. The committee, co-chaired by Harris Woffard, former president of Bryn Mawr College, and Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, president of Hunter College, said such existing programs as the Peace Corps would become part of national service. McCloskey’s proposal would give youths who chose two years of military service, four years of educational and training benefits. If the idea caught on, he says “there might be no need to have a draft.” “Congress doesn’t have the power to force people to do anything except serve in the military,” McCloskey said. “But the bill makes it possible to avoid military service. ” McCloskey’s office was the scene of a noisy demonstration in April by yoimg people protesting his legislation. McClos key, one of the first Republicans to pub licly oppose the Vietnam war, heard echoes of the chants of a decade earlier — “Hell, no, we won’t go.” The call to service is not new. Almost two decades ago President John F. Kennedy began the Peace Corps and in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson pro posed that the nation “search for new ways” through which “every young American will have the opportunity — and feel the obligation —- to give at least a few years of his or her life to the service of others in the nation and in the world.” Defense Secretary Robert McNamara suggested in 1966 that young Americans serve for two years in either a military or civilian capacity. Those not entering the military, he said, could serve in the Peace Corps or in “some other volunteer de velopment work at home or abroad.” But times changed between Kennedy’s Peace C°rps and the Johnson-McNamara call to youth to serve their country as vol unteers. Kennedy was assassinated and opposi tion to the war in Vietnam was growing. The situation did not improve with the as sassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy followed by Watergate. “The seventies began with a spirit far removed from ‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country, ”’ the national service report said. But th e report expressed optimism that the time may have come for another at tempt at national volunteer service. There presently are millions of people of all ages d°ing volunteer work. Depending on whom you ask, the number ranges from 20 millio* 1 to 55 million. ACTION, the parent organization of the Peace Cerps, lists 280,639 American vol unteers Serving in the Peace Corps and other org an i za tions such as VISTA (Volun teers In Service To America). But th e American Association of Fund Rising Councils said in its 1978 report that “Am er ica may be heading for the day not enough volunteers volunteer.” The AAFBC study said psychologists at tribute th e worry that volunteerism may be decliniug. to “a variety of factors” in cluding the “women’s movement, an in creased political militancy among the dis advantaged and a tendency to so-called self-absofPtion, which one behaviorist characterized as ‘enlightened selfishness. ’” TtTie AAFRU said the National Organiza tion for Women (NOW) has passed a reso lution stating that all unpaid volunteer work is “an unconscionable exploitation.” ACTION Director Sam Brown, who more than a decade ago organized demon strators against the Vietnam War, said in talks to student groups he finds “there are a lot of young people looking for a way to serve.” “I’m always being told, ‘Look back on the good old days of the war protests,”’ Brown said in an interview. But “we con sidered it a victory for volunteer service, if 40 or 50 people show up. The good old days were not really that good.” “We (ACTION) had some 200,000 in formation calls last year,” he said. “That’s a whole lot of folks.” Cynthia Wedel, national volunteer chairman for the American Red Cross, said the Red Cross has no trouble getting vol unteers per se but “we’re having trouble getting different kinds of volunteers.” “We used to depend on the middle- aged housewife, but that group is shrink ing fast because women are going to work,” she said. The slack is being taken up by arranging for employed people to do volunteer work: “Many people find their jobs routine and dull and love a chance to become more creative.” “Today’s young people are serious, con cerned and willing to work,” she said. “They know what’s going on and are aw fully willing to work . but they want to be in on the planning.” Brown put it another way. “I don’t believe young people are a problem to society, rather society is more a problem to the young,” he said. “We need to turn that around. We need to find a way that people can serve so they are real participants.” He said a draft should provide “an alter native,” what he called, “an option for people whose instincts, are different. ” Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, DMass., a former Peace Corps member, said his two years as a Peace Corps volunteer “had more influ ence over the course of my life than any other event. ” In a statement released with the committee report, Tsongas said “un doubtedly, the people served and the people who serve would mutually bene fit.” Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said the committee’s report should be made an issue of debate in schools throughout the nation, adding that he was having copies of the report distributed to schoo'J Michigan district. Vernon E. Jordan, president of| tional Urban League, said it “si evident to the nation as a whole 1 must provide increasing opporl our young people or else run th(| seeing their lives wasted.” Alan Beals, executive directorofl tional League of Cities, said tlie| was asking mayors throughout the * to initiate studies of the problem^ “Young people volunteeringlbrl| full-time service could make impact on some of our urgent url lems,” Beals said. 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