Slouch
by Jim Earle
A/<H/ 5-79
“You see, when a beer advertises that it contains no nit-
rosamines that may cause cancer, this is not to say that
drinking beer will protect you against cancer. Are you fol
lowing me?”
Opinion
Students really invited
Administrators are serious about the invitation printed
below.
Two years ago, when Dr. Miller became president, a
similar concert and reception was held.
Not many students attended, but those who did were able
to meet and talk briefly with the new president, other top
administrators and the regents.
In a school of 31,000 students, there are few chances to
see the chancellor when he’s not officially doing something.
But Thursday he’s officially meeting students.
On behalf of
Texas A&M University
President and Mrs. Jarvis E. Miller
invite you to a
concert and reception
honoring
Chancellor and Mrs. Frank W. R. Hubert
on
Thursday, November 8, 1979
Concert, seven thirty o'clock in the evening
Rudder Auditorium
Reception, following, from nine until eleven o'clock
Room 224, Memorial Student Center
the small society
by Brickman
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The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
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MEMBER
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Congress
Editor Liz Newlin
Managing Editor Andy Williams
Asst. Managing Editor Dillard Stone j
News Editors Karen Cornelison
and Michelle Burrowes
Sports Editor Sean Petty
City Editor Roy Bragg
Campus Editor Keith Taylor !
Focus Editors Beth Calhoun and
Doug Graham
Staff Writers Meril Edwards, Nancy
Andersen, Louie Arthur, Richard Oliver,
Mark Patterson, Carolyn Blosser, Kurt
Allen, Debbie Nelson, Rhonda Watters
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Photographers Lynn Blanco, Sam
Stroder, Ken Herrera
Cartoonist Doug Graham ,
Opinions expressed in The Battalion are
those of the editor or of the ivriter of the
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Editorial policy is determined by the editor.
Viewpoint
cai
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Monday
November 5, 1979
Analysis
Metal detector manufacturer profit!
from Australia’s modern gold rush
n
By JOHN SHAW
International Writers Service
SYDNEY — People around the world
are currently paying record prices for gold.
But here in Australia, the boom has
sparked a massive rush to prospect for the
precious metal.
With the summer season in this hemi
sphere just starting, many families are
planning to spend their vacations in quest
of gold rather than fishing or surfing. Num
bers are already digging on weekends at
sites only a few hours from the major cities.
A factor in the rush is the Australian
unemployment rate of 7 percent, the high
est in a generation. This has prompted
droves of jobless workers to take to the hills
in search of gold.
Australian mining companies, also in
fected by the fever, are now processing
low-grade ores that were formerly ne
glected as too expensive to handle. As a
result, gold shares are soaring on stock ex
changes here.
Like other gold booms in the past, this
one may soon bust. At the moment,
though, the dream of hitting bonanzas has
captured the public imagination, and some
Australians have actually struck it rich.
Within recent months, for example, one
young couple has found $33,000 worth of
gold digging in the desert near the tiny
town of Cue, in the western part of the
continent. The population of the town, 300
in normal times, has doubled since the dis
covery.
The biggest single strike so far has been a
nugget valued at $110,000, found at a place
called Hill End, in New South Wales. It
was near there that the first Australian gold
rush began more than a century ago.
Perhaps the oddest discovery has been
that of a family that, during a weekend
picnic, picked up a chunk of quartz contain
ing $11,000 worth of gold.
The biggest beneficiary of the boom here
has been an Arizona-based company.
Bounty Hunter, Inc., which is selling metal
detectors to Australians as fast as the
gadgets can be shipped across the Pacific.
The detectors, which resemble those
used by the military to spot mines, are
powered by batteries and sell for prices
ranging from $100 to $700. They have
transformed prospecting from an amateur
to a professional activity.
Instead of panning the sand of stream
beds, for instance, those in search of gold
now tackle huge heaps of “mullock, ” the
discarded earth and rock thrown aside at
abandoned mines. Prospectors can also
cover large areas rapidly with their elec
tronic devices.
Ralph Goodwin, the Australian importer
of the metal detectors, is so confident that
the gold rush will last that he has urged the
American manufacturer to expand its pro
duction.
Australia, like California, very much
owes its existence to gold, which was first
discovered here in commercial quantities
in 1851. The man who pioneered the effort,
Edward Hargraves, was an English-born
prospector who had failed to strike pay dirt
in California during the famous gold rush
there a couple of years earlier.
In the decade after Hargraves made his
pile, the population of Australian trebled to
one million, many of the immigrants arriv
ing with pick and shovel in hopes of getting
rich quick.
Big mining firms moved in during the
years that followed. One of their mines,
located near the remote western town of
Kalgoorlie, was managed fora
young American engineer by(
Herbert Hoover.
Though the early gold feve
Australians never quite gave up
for the precious metal. Those
old gold fields like Ballarat am
have long spent their weekem
ing, or panning for nnggetsin
I he new detectors, some of
sensitive enough to spotadime-
of gold buried a f(X)t deep, have
duced modern technology to
lieen a primitive art.
Predictably, the newspap
chronicle gold finds the waytl
sweepstake winners. Sou,
suggested, a bit facetiously, thattl
ployment problem might he solve
ing the jobless gold detectorsral
welfare compensation.
The glitter of gold for Austn
fade, as it has before. In the i
however, it is captivating thisi
much as it is the rest of them
By
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There art
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Dick West
Q and A’s inform curious consm
what is inflationary and what isn\
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Recent develop
ments on the economic front seem to have
left some consumers confused as to what is
inflationary and what is deflationary.
Perhaps the following atecism will help
raighten out their thinking:
Q. Are record-high oil prices inflationary
r deflationary?
A. Oil price increases are viewed by most
economists as a prime contributor to infla
tion.
Q. Well, if oil price increases are infla
tionary and the administration is trying to
curtail inflation, why did President Carter
decontrol oil prices, thus permitting them
to go higher?
A. If oil prices go high enough, they will
eventually become deflationary. The
theory is that people will have to spend all
of their money on gasoline, thus causing
the rest of the economy to deflate.
Q. What about record-high interest
rates?
A. Interest rate increases are considered
deflationary.
Q. You seem to be saying that when the
oil companies gouge us it is inflationary,
but when the banks stick it to us it is de
fationary. What’s the difference?
A. Banks do not loan their own money.
In effect, they lease money from depositors
and sub-let it to borrowers. Technically,
therefore, interest is another form of rent.
Q. But aren’t rent increases inflationary?
A. Not as a rule. Usually, wk
inreases reach the inflationary lei
landlords convert the property!
dominiums.
Q. H ow do wage increases figuitj
A. Wage increases that exceetf
guidelines are regarded as inflatioi
Q. What about the guidelinei]
selves?
A. Since the wage-price guidelia
had no apparent impact on thei
they are neither inflationary nori
nary. They are merely flationary.
Letters
Cyclists fight back: ‘Objective rider
worried he is an endangered species
Editor:
The way things are going, the next time
Silver Taps are played, John Q. Bike rider
will be among the list of the deceased.
There is a growing faction on campus (i.e.
edgy pedestrians) that would like to add
Shwinus Bikus to the extinct species list.
Being a non partisan, objective bike
rider myself I thought I would lend a little
perspective to this growing concern (that
ranks right up with the Great MSG Grass
Debate).
I am saddened by the days of old when I
could ride my bike with “wild abandon” on
campus. It was exhilarating to match man
and machine against split second timing
and to make instant judgment calls. The
excitement of barrelling down unmerci
fully on scrambling, screaming coeds. The
sense of power I got when I would see my
next victim cringe in terror. The insane
pleasure I would ... Ulp! Where was I?
Oh yes. I’m just a non-partisan, con
cerned, objective bike rider who would like
to lend a little perspective to this issue.
I have never hit a pedestrian, but a few
have thrown themselves under my' bicycle.
I suspect that since it is harder to throw
oneself off of Rudder Tower, more and
more students are throwing themselves
under the nearest high speed bicycle.
Poor, misguided chaps, but I feel I am help
ing society by putting them out of their
misery. They have such sweet smiles on
their faces.
Anyway, bikers need only to use a little
caution and temperance and the problem
will be drastically reduced. I found that if I
anticipate for what’s up ahead I have no
difficulty. Especially crowded areas or
blind comers should be approached with
decreased speed and a wary eye. Keeping
hands on the brakes at tricky spots will bail
you out of difficult situations.
This campus is very large and I m not
ready to give up my bicycle, yet. I for one
will not become another casualty statistic,
so I drive defensively.
— Mark Singleton
Use warning bells
Editor:
In the light of several recent attacks on all
bicyclists printed in your paper, I would
like to rebut. Firstly, nobody to date has
been killed in a bike-bike, or bike-pedes
trian accident. Cars kill people, and we’ve
had plenty of that in College Station. Usual
bike-related injuries include cuts and
scrapes and occasional broken bones ... like
pinkies. Nothing major, I’m sure.
We are not out to bit pedestrians, in fact
many of us try very hard to avoid it. I use a
bell, or a yell to warn a clot of people to
move one foot to either side, because I am
not armored and can be hurt just as easily as
they can. I do not consider myself respon
sible for those who refuse to look where
they’re going and walk suddenly in front of
me, nor for those who deliberately look at
me and then block the way.
Many off-campus students need their
bikes to get to class. Yet, when they get
here, they find street bike lanes frequently
blocked by inconsiderate clods who try and
squeeze in a parking place where there is
none. Also, tried to walk from Kleburg to
Zachry lately? It can’t be done in less than
15 minutes. Don’t suggest the shuttle-bus
for either situation — the joke shows.
The only thing to do is to bike, frequently
on sidewalks. Perhaps these should be
marked off into bike-ped routes, so that
collisions could be minimized? Or peds
could simply acknowledge the presence of
gas-saving bikes and watch out for them at
intersections on campus?
If we must have a rule, make all bikers
carry a hom or bell, and peds obey it.
— John S. Snowden, ’79
— Margaret M. Galiano, ’81
busy ramps without having to
people.
There are also those people wl)
look for cars when crossing a stif
expect bicycles to stop or go aroundL
It is much easier for a person to slow]
step than it is to stop a bicycle, esp
the rain.
I think the solution is not poinS
gers, but rather, everyone givingii
and l>eing more considerate ofoth
— Loretta
$4 gas tax ludkn
Use consideration
Editor:
There are always going to be traffic prob
lems when people, whether they ate walk
ing, driving or bicycling, act as if they have
exclusive rights to the campus.
Cyclists are not the only inconsiderate
people on campus. There are those people
who walk down the ramps that are for
wheelchairs and bicycles when they could
easily step over a curb. It is hard enough for
all the bicycles to get up and down certain
Editor:
J.K. Galbraith’s ideaofa$4-5tax«
gallon of gas is ludicrous. Whatourtf
needs is decontrol of oil and
prices. Naturally the price of gas will
and then the American people can waf
R. H. Reviere suggested.
However, this tax is another exai
ultra-liberals who only want to taxi
out of Americans. Reviere errs
belief that taxes will ultimately soli]
gas dependence.
Only if we increase production!
U.S., will our problems be allevialsj
this tax does is fatten up the goven
bloated bureaucracy and encoun
flaming liberals to spend more for girt
welfare programs.
— Richard Leoml