Slouch
by Jim Earle
“My letter home came back saying it was undeliverable, and
no forwarding address. Probably just a post office mistake,
but then maybe ”
Opinion
Damn the rain
Well, it looks like the game has been called for many
freshmen because of the rain.
Or maybe we should say. Deluge.
In typical B-CS fashion, monsoon season blew in to delay
Zachry’s construction crews from building Kyle Field.
And as the water accumulated, the chances for comple
tion foundered.
So now we have it: Some freshmen must watch the first
home football game on a TV screen in G. Rollie White
Coliseum.
Now, many of the old Ags paid hundreds for their tickets
(they are supplying most of the cash for the expansion), so
they deserve their seats.
It’s just that one of the best things about being an Ag is
standing with your compadres in the stadium “sawin’ varsi
ty’s horns off’ and all that other stuff.
We guess you freshmen have a right to feel bitter ... but
please ... don’t shake your fist at God ... deluges have a way
of starting again.
Creative computing
Our favorite word in yesterday’s Battalion was “betweealton. ” A close
second was “onlyavshnwr.”
But the staff can’t take credit for these two inventions.
Our computer did it. It decided not to read some holes punched on a
tape, threw in a few of its own, and gave birth to two new words.
Dozens of other new words were bom, but proofreaders and staff —
who prefer Webster’s words to our computer’s — found them and
figured out what humans intended to put there. A couple, however,
slipped through and were printed on the front page.
In one case, in announcing that new Aggieland yearbooks are here.
The Battalion computer coined the new term “betweealton.”
What we meant was the place to pick up ’79 yearbooks is Lounge C
between Walton and Schumacher residence halls.
We still can’t figure out the other case.
Only the computer knows.
And it doesn’t always tell mere humans.
the
small society
by Brickman
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Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
The Battalion
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Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Thursday
October 4, 1979
Broder
Voting in Florida called insanity;
resembles ‘political Bay of Pigs’
By DAVID S. BRODER
MIAMI — “I think,” said Alfredo
Duran, “this whole thing is getting out of
hand.”
Duran is something of an expert on
well-meaning projects gone awry. As a ref
ugee from Fidel Castro’s Cuba, he went
ashore with the Bay of Pigs brigade, and
spent two years in the prisons of his native
land after that fiasco.
Released in 1963 with others in the
brigade, he resumed his life in the United
States, and a dozen years later took over his
present job as the chairman of the Demo
cratic party in Florida.
Duran is a Democrat and he is also a
democrat — a man who believes that the
involvement of citizens in the decision
making of a political party is the life-breath
of the Republic.
With others in the “reform” wing of the
party, he set up a pre-presidential year
party convention in 1975, as a vehicle for
attracting new party workers and familiariz
ing them early with the records and views
of the people seeking the presidential
nomination.
Happily for Duran and his fellow-
activists, that 1975 convention provided
the occasion for Jimmy Carter to demon
strate that he had built a statewide organi
zation in Florida, fully capable of challenge
ing the man who had won the Florida pri
mary in 1972 — George Wallace. Carter’s
victory in the November, 1975, convention
straw vote helped raise the funds and
mobilize the support that gve him his deci
sive win over Wallace in the March, 1976,
Florida primary. The parlay was completed
when Carter became the first Democratic
nominee to carry Florida in 12 years.
But, Duran’s four-year-old brainchild
has turned into a monster. “We had ex
pected this to be just one more thing we
were doing to create enthusiasm in the
party process,” Duran said. “And now it
has become an extraordinary event, quite
beyond our control.”
Indeed it has. Draft-Kennedy forces, led
by two of Duran’s former colleagues, Mike
Abrams and Sergio Bendixen, began
mobilizing months ago to embarrass Carter
at the scene fo his 1975-76 victory, as a way
of pressuring Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
(D-Mass.) to run. Now that Kennedy is
leaning visible toward a candidacy, the
Kennedy forces nationally have deter
mined to make the Florida caucuses a show
of his strength — lest he be the one to be
embarrassed.
And the Carter backers have responded
in kind. The result is that both sides are
mobilizing dozens of imported organizers
and will spend at least $500,000 between
them in an attempt to dominate the Oct. 13
county caucuses, where about half the del
egates to the Nov. 16-18 state convention
will be elected. (The other half, consisting
of elected and party officials and their ap
pointees, are expected to be overwhelm
ingly for Carter, following the lead of Gov.
Bob Graham (D), Duran and most of the
others in the Democratic hierarchy.)
On both the Carter and Kennedy sides,
the Oct. 13 caucuses are being treated as
the first battleground of 1980 — even
though they have nothing to do with choos
ing delegates to the national convention
next August.
It is insanity, as Alfredo Duran under
stands perhaps better than anyone else.
Lest it be thought that Duran is denounc
ing his own creation because he fears a
Carter defeat, let the record show that his
prediction (which he may or may not re
gret) is that Carter will “win by a small
margin among the delegates chosen in the
three big counties down here — Dode,
Broward and Palm Beach — and will take at
least 55 percent of the delegates in the rest
of the state.”
The insanity is that the caucuses are
grossly distorted mechanisms for measur
ing candidate support across Florida.
There will be only one voting place in each
county. That means there will be an enor
mous premium for the side with the best
logistics. Nancy Abrams, a Carter or
ganizer here, claims triumphantly that, “I
have tied up every bus in DadeCoinili
the President). If the Kennedy people
to move their voters by bus, they’re
to have to rent them from the Panhaii
The voting system — prescribe^,
time when no one expected 10,
to be mobilized in Dade County alone
now predicted — would intimidate a,
but a fanatic.
The Dade ballot will list more
names — of Carter and Kennedy bad*
third-force “freedom of choice
group, and independents. The aspt
delegates will be listed alphabeticalk
not grouped as candidate slates. An
will have to mark at least 141 name;
not more than 188 names, in De
or the ballot will be thrown out. Inlm
imd Palm Beach counties, withllCu
delegates, repectively, the process*?
almost as harrowing.
No one is sure how long it willti
individual to get into the hall and\«t
how long it will take to count then
afterward.
It has all the earmarks of a politicals
Pigs. And Alfredo Duran, who survival
real Bay or Pigs, cannot be blamedfo;i
ing his head as he sees what is
(c) 1979, The Washington
Post Company
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T-Shirts
Complete
Russia probably glad summer Olympics are at hoif s
see viu
The way things have been going for the
Russians on the defection front lately, the
Kremlin is probably (counting itself doubly
blessed that the 1980 summer Olympic
games are to be held in the motherland
rather than in some alien but enticing
coutry where one, two or more of its ath
letic citizens might decide to follow the
recent examples of various dancers and ice
skaters and permanently miss the plane
home.
It’s bad enough from a propaganda
standpoint to abruptly cancel the visit of
the Moscow State Symphony to the United
States, as the Russians did the other day,
but of an ill-disguised fear that maybe the
second clarinetist, the third violinist or
perhaps even the entire brass section
would use the opportunity presented by
the trip to slip onto the fulltime payroll of
the Boston Pops. How much more
humiliating it would be if anxieties over
possible defections led to an entire Olym
pic team being told that there’s no place
like home, and that’s where you v
With the games in Moscow, theifj
count of the Soviet team at the end I
competition ought mercifully to agree^
the head count taken at the beginnif
A small thing, to be sure, butyoulj
your victories where you can find tlief
Los Angeles Times
Letters
Student body president urges all
to put up with construction hassles
Editor:
Aggies:
Construction projects — more steel,
more concrete, more crowding, fewer
parking spaces — seemingly is a trend at
A&M. Besides all that, construction areas
are always fenced off so were forced to walk
around the site, taking up more of our pre
cious time. We gripe about the fences, the
mud, and the detours, but rarely pay much
attention to the progress of the building
itself.
At least five or six major buildings have
been constructed since my freshman year.
Machinery and crews spent countless
hours on each one, but I wasn’t all that
concerned. We all know that Kyle Field is a
different story. It has been the center of
attention.
I’ve been watching anxiously anticipat
ing this football season when, as a senior, I
could see the fightin’ Aggie team winning
on the Astroturf. Well Ags, the U of H
game is quickly approaching, and no, the
stadium won’t be completed. However, we
still should be playing in Kyle Field, which
means more to our football team than most
of us know.
The stadium expansion has not
progressed as well as expected. The con
tractors set their goals for completion, and
have tried diligently to meet them. Hope
fully, more of the stadium will be finished
for our use during the upcoming home
games, but in the meantime Aggies, stu
dents and former students, will have to be
understanding of the situation at hand, and
sacrifice accordingly.
With approximately 19,000 student seats
available, we won’t all be on the track, but
as tickets are distributed on the seniority
basis, a sizable number of Freshmen will
likely have the option to either stand on the
track, watch the game closed circuit, or
receive a refund for their U of H game
coupon.
It’s obvious the stadium expansion has
the typical problems of any construction
project. There is no solution to the seating
problem that will please everyone, and I’m
convinced that we will not benefit from a
conflict over temporary seating arrange
ments in Kyle Field.
Being a member of the strong 12th Man
is just part of being a Texas Aggie, and I’m
confident that our selfish interests won’t
detract from the true purpose of the 12th
Man — backing the fightin’ Aggie team.
Gig ’Em. — Ronnie Kapavik
Student Body President
No U.S. leadership
leaders in congress concerning the 2,000-
3,000 Soviet troops in Cuba seriously
erodes my confidence in our country’s
leadership. It is sad to observe the seem
ingly bipartisan rush to capitalize on a'sen-
sational, yet obviously minor issue, in view
of the numerous critical problems facing
our nation today.
None of the many contenders for cham
pionship of this issue have even suggested
that the Soviet troops in Cuba in any way
endanger the security of this nation. Yet at
the same time these same members of
Congress hold this issue up as the sole rea
son for refusal to consider the Strategic
Arms Limitation Treaties. Regardless of
one’s opinion on passage of the SALT
treaties, it cannot be denied that their care
ful consideration is vital to our national
ence of Soviet troops in Cuba rani
linked to passage to the SALT treaties*!
it represents a new and hostile attito®
the part of the Soviet Union. Howfli|?
relatively small number of Soviet M 1
the duration of whose presence even*
CIA reportedly does not know, represei 11 )
significant new Soviet hostility?
It is sadly apparent that our ]
Congress have seized upon an artific
“red scare” issue in. order to duckt!u
responsibility to tackle the more (
decisions on issues critical to ourcounH?
interests and security. I hope the Araeif
public will not accept the contention^
2,000 troops in Cuba are more import
the balance of world power than theW
tion of nuclear weapons.
Editor:
The current uproar eminating from our
interests.
Senators Church,' Jackson, Baker and
others in Congress contend that the pres-
— Tim Ml \
Graduate Studt
Thotz
by Doug Grahm
Rt