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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 19, 1980)
THE E TUESDAY Ha razy hai Flann ' Teriy PF We We R< student < the 198( se worki i actual i 'es for th t p.m. M« ■QUEST Slouch by Jim Earle CONGRATULAT/OWS COACH METCALF ANO THE BASKETBALL ERS Opinion Spring is for the dogs I hate spring. Most people look forward to spring, but not me. To me, it’s a waste of time. I hate the weather. I actually like cold fronts. The cold weather gave me something to gripe about to my wife. I d rather have six months of weather that could freeze my wrists off than three months of baseball weather. I hate the way the people act. Everyone says love is in the air. Well, so is pollen, my friends. Everywhere I look, young lovers are walking across the campus sneezing on each other. How romantic. It’s also election time on campus. Ugly election signs will soon appear everywhere. I wish I had a can of gasoline and a book of matches. But, I think the thing that I hate the most about spring is the insane practice of bringing dogs on campus. Dogs have no business at Texas A&M University. Neither do a lot of the students, but at least they shoulder some of the financial burden of running the school. The dogs don’t even pay student service fees. It’s not that I don’t like dogs, but I like to think that this is a university and not an obedience school. If the dogs served some purpose, then it wouldn’t be so bad. But all I have ever seen dogs do on campus is sniff bicycles, leave surprises under trees and attract Frisbees. Nothing is more boring than watching a dog chase a thrown Frisbee across a lawn; if there is such a thing as a visual cliche, that’s it. —Roy Bragg the small society by Brickman The Battalion U S P S 045 360 LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor should not exeeed 300 words and are subject to being cut tit that length or less if longer Tin editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letttTs and docs not guarantee to publish any letter. Each letter tnust be signed, shou the address of the icritcr and lust a telephone number for Vitrification. Address correspondence to U'ttrrs to the E.ditor. Tht Battalion. Room 216. Reed McDonald Building. College Station. Texas 77H43. Represented nationally by National Educational Adver tising Services, Inc.. New York City. Chicago and Los Angeles. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday from ieptember through May except during exam and holidav >eriods and the summer, when it is published on Tuesda> hrough Thursday Mail subscriptions are SI6.75 per semester; $33.25 per school year; $35.(X) per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Address; The Battalion. Room 216. Reed Mcl>»nald Building. College Station. Texas 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusivelv to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. Second-Class postage paid at College Station. T.\ 77843. MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Associate Editor . . News Editor Asst. News Editor Copy Editor Sports Editor . . . . Focus Editor Roy Bragg .... Keith Taylor . . . Rusty Cawley Karen Cornelison . . . . Dillard Stone . Mike Burrichter . Rhonda Watters City Editor Louie Arthur Campus Editor Diane Blake Staff Writers Nancy Andersen, Tricia Brunhart,Angelique Copeland, Laura Cortez, Meril Edwards, Carol Hancock, Kathleen McElroy, Debbie Nelson, Richard Oliver, Tim Sager, Steve Sisney, Becky Swanson, Andy Williams Chief Photographer Lynn Blanco Photographers Lee Roy Leschper, Steve Clark, Ed Cunnius, Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the University administration or the Board of Regents. The Battalion is a non-profit, self- supporting enterprise operated by students as a university and community newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. Viewpoint Nii The Battalion Texas A&M University Wednesday March 19, 1980 for Connally, Baker candidacies doomed to failure in 1980 By DAVID S. BRODER The two Republicans who entered the 1980 presidential race with absolutely gilt- edged leadership credentials were elimin ated last week. Sen. Howard H. Baker, Jr. of Tennessee left the contest after falling to fourth place in Massachusetts and Ver mont, and former Gov. John B. Connally of Texas was finished off by the failure of his full-court-press effort in South Carolina. Does that say more about the process or the personalities involved? It surely says something about the pro cess that men as gifted and credentialed as Baker and Connally could be driven to the showers as early as they were. Like such Democrats in past years as Averell Harri- man, Ed Muskie and Scoop Jackson, Baker and Connally have learned that the qual ities that gave them prestige, influence and power over a long period of years in other arenas of politics would not necessarily earn them serious consideration in this kind of presidential selection system. One does not have to believe that either man should necessarily have been the Re publican nominee in order to assert that a process which weighs their acknowledged talents so lightly is itself suspect. Baker is the most principled and skillful Republican leader in the Senate since Robert Taft. Connally is the compleat (cq) politician — a compelling speaker, a smooth television performer, a tough back room operator. You have to wonder about a selection system that discards such qualities so easily. But if Baker and Connally are alike in being presidential hopes are as dissimilar as their backgrounds and approached to the contest. Baker is the lifelong Republican who, in 1973, took on the burden of judging the the incumbent Republican President s role in the greatest poilitical scandal of the cen tury. Connally is the lifelong Democrat who, in that same year, embraced Richard Nixon and the shaky Republican cause. Baker’s part in the Watergate hearings was that of the reasonable man, picking his way through an implausible, almost un thinkable situation. He won admiration in that role, and it colored his approach to the presidential race. In the campaign, as in the Watergate hearings. Baker presented himself as the somewhat detached, careful counselor, steady but not spectacular in the swirl of events. He would pause for a few seconds’ reflection before answering a question, and he always had time for a story. He thought last summer that his early- starting rivals might enjoy fleeting ro mances with the Republican voters would look for somebody with the comfortable, durable qualities he possessed. In that hope he was disappointed. Connally s mistakes was the product of his own bravado. For the 20 years I have known him, John Connally has never doubted he could sell anyone on anything. He thought that his party-switching would be seen as a matter of principle not oppor tunism, because that’s what he said it was. He thought his links with Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon wold be seen as assets, not liabilities, because that’s what he said they were. In all his life, John Connally had met very few people he couldn't persuade of what he was saying, whether they were jurors in a Washington courtroom or the captains of American industry . By ANGEL! Ca Monday was andidate posi •lections. The electior tudent gove fall Associa Iggies, yell le md the Grade ,, , , , , elections will His shock at the sales; unH) ff s w iH b< Republican voters was evesT Baker’s chagrin at those voter. Nine polling to his charm anc commonss students to In a historical sense, it mlMi candidacies that wereboniH sides of the Watergate espoS-jf foredoomed to failure in a piittB| no wish to relive that time -a But the collapse oljohnCc(;^W ■''l/"V paign says something else as. J. an enduring myth that corpjU km" pulls the strings in Aint-L J_ 4j J No one in modem times M ( money, the energy and them. .| corporate leaders to the eittvS-t' nalfy. By BE' And those powerful menp. j ' not only to elect their her hit of the but even to deliver Inin tlinlining to l ex the poor old l)n)keii-downRepBp orm ° t\ which they are suppose4b^P ow ^, oat stock and barrel tactions perf It sort of shakes your faith W the da’s and Tom Has den’s vie* I* AS commf America. In its first n ears, the sh (c) 19X0, The Washington! bidder Auditi We continuetomonik the situation \*ry closely, and, although I wld hesitA 1 believe tnaiL can safely say that were in one Kell of a mess .m. The show st lutterfly Me lusic by Osc “Show Boat len and won board the boat ph I Ca ttle em bryos being sold in U. K. By BRYAN SILCOK International Writers Service A unique auction took place not long ago at Reading, a town in southern England. Though bulls were as usual the main anim als on sale, breeders for the first time bid for extraordinary livestock — cattle in the form of microscopic frozen embryos. The marketing of these fetuses signalled a new achievement for Britain’s Agricultu ral Research Council, which has been pioneering the development of embryonic breeding. And it means that scientists may soon be turning out cattle from eggs fertil ized in the laboratory — just as they have already engineered the birth of a test tube baby. The transplant of embryos from one cow to another, a technique origninally tried as far back as a century ago, has now become routine. Roughly 10 days before coming into oes trus, or heat, a “donor’’ cow is injected with a fertility drug known as pregnant mare serum, which is similar to the drug some times used in cases of human infertility. Hormones in the serum will cause her to produce as many as 40 eggs, though about 10 is more usual. The cow is then inseminated artificially with semen from a prize bull. A week later, under a local anaesthetic, her uterus is flushed out to recover the fertilized eggs. The eggs are checked under a micro scope, and the healthy ones are each im planted in a different “host’ mother — an operation that requires only minor surgery. A small incision is made in the flank, the uterus is drawn toward the cut and the embryo shot into the animal at the right spot through a syringe. For the egg to take, the recipient mothers must be at the same stage of their oestrus cycle as the donor was. In due course, the “host” cow delivers a calf gene tically unrelated to her. The advantage of this innovation is that it enables an especially good cow to have dozens and, in theory, even hundreds of offspring— which permits a farmer to build up a first-rate herd faster than he could through natural methods. The Agricultural Research Council re cently took this technique a big step further by inventing a method for freezing the embryo. Stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees centigrade, the embryos can be kept for months and even years, thawed and used as if they were fresh. Frozen embryos are an exceptionally economic way to transport livestock, since they are far easier to fly from one part of the world to another. For instance, 50 cows in New Zealand were implanted not long ago with frozen embryos sent by air freight from Britain. The price is high. Companies charge ab out $800 per pregnancy, with no fee if the operation fails. But the cost is bound to decline as techniques are streamlined. A non-surgical method of implanting the fertilized eggs would make the exercise cheaper, and that is being studied. So would a higher pregnancy rate. Under pre sent conditions, some 75 percent of fresh embryos and about 50 percent of frozen ones work. The investment would pay high yields if a farmer knew beforehand whether he was getting a bull or a calf. Researchers are now trying to solve that problem by dividing embroys into two in test tubes, so that they can test one of the twins for sex characteris tics. Meanwhile, they are approaching the fertilization of eggs in testtufe| One of the major difficulties i'l tube f ertilization of eggs removr;! from the ovaries is to put themt l | maturation process that normal' [ side the body. This is the sameol confronts human test tube batel Scientists of the Agriculturalf] Council have already had some;' the limited test tube maturati I removed from a cow. They pro'l returning the partially matureeCi cially inseminated heifers,whict j ly produced calves. The next crucial step, 1 lization of eggs, will reVolutionElJ breeding industry. SlaughterW ready souce of cheap eggs, am careful selection could improve^ of animals. All this could he accomplishdl er, without the philosophicalaE;j discussions that attended the W first test tube child. Besides, is 5 ! know, cows cannot tell the dm (Silcock writes on science a gy for the London Sunday Time'! ish weekly newspaper n thotz By Doug Gu R] _, . CjONNA GO THAT alumnus VISA