Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 20, 1980)
■Ml and Vernon Smith, wifi,1 senior Towards next yJ charge while other pld veloping. Now, Britton, liltJ senior, is trying to get;,;i A&M — with a degree.i' nalism major, but tie 1, enough journalism c ate on time. And when he’s! pro career, if he g, wants to be sports a Retired engineering prof busy building and delivering clocks * i r*n wnnrl to tree, Ransdell said. T / Jr % DREDS PMENT: f DEALS yol ck r-i REG. 300” SALE 199°o mm XlHT Randall and the first Mistakes.’ clock he ever built ‘The one with all the Staff photo by Janet Golub By CAROL THOMAS Campus Reporter A healthy pink complexion, boyish grin and a full head of white hair reveal that life is is still going strong for Cliff Ransdell. The 70-year-old former assistant dean of engineering, who has been retired for three years, goes to the second floor of the Zachry Engineer- ing Building on Mondays and Wednesdays to advise engineering students on their courses. And in his spare time he builds grandfather clocks. Ransdell said he has always been interested in building things. “When I was a young fellow I designed and built houses, churches and furni ture,” Ransdell said. Ransdell built his first grandfather clock, which he has in his home, ab out 15 years ago. “I guess I d always wanted a grandfather clock, Rans dell said. Since that time Ransdell has built about 15 to 20 clocks for people. Ransdell said his first step is to visit the home of the people who want the clock built. At the home he looks over the furniture and tries to build a clock to match. “In addition to seeing their furniture, I find out where they want the clock, so 111 know what kind to build, Ransdell said. After deciding what kind of clock to build, Ransdell said he orders the wood from wherever he can get it and orders the internal parts for the clock from Germany. Ransdell said he uses cherry, wal nut, mahogony and oak for his clocks. The wood comes by the board foot — a foot long and wide and one inch thick. He said he always uses more wood than he needs. You use a lot of good wood trying to match the grain” Ransdell said. To build the clocks, Ransdell cuts out the pieces, matches the grain and then sands down the wood. He said he likes to put tung oil on the wood to make the grain stand out. “It seals the wood so moisture won’t get in, Ransdell said. When Ransdell glues the pieces of wood together, he also inserts screws in the joints to ensure they hold together. “I think you could drop a clock off the top of a house and it would still stand together, if it didn’t have the works in it,” Ransdell said. Constructing the inner parts of the clock doesn’t take any time, Ransdell said. “The main thing is working accu rately in putting the pieces of wood together,” Ransdell said. Ransdell said one of the main reasons he enjoys building clocks is his interest in wood. I appreciate immensely pretty woods,” Ransdell said. Ransdell said he likes to build his clocks out of woods that have unusual • patterns of the annular rings in them. “The fancy grains come from the crotch, the burl and the base of the tree," Ransdell said. The crotch is the place between the limb and the trunk; and the burl is the knot which sticks out on the trunk. Ransdell also said he likes to make each clock different. “What I try to do is to something on every clock that’s unique,” Ransdell said. One way he does this is to build a painting constructed of different woods into the clock. To construct the picture, Ransdell uses difierent shades of veneer, which is a very thin piece of wood. Ransdell says he cuts the veneer into jig-saw pieces that will fit the picture. For every clock, Ransdell said he carves pieces of wood to create the mouse running up the clock. After finishing the clock, which usually takes a month, Ransdell said he delivers it himself. For future, Ransdell said he plans to continue building the clocks and working for the school. I think its important to keep being productive while you’re alive, Ransdell said. The Battalion Vol. 73 No. 24 Pages in 3 Sections Thursday, March 20, 1980 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 .G. 375° SALE J change of heart United Press International WASHINGTON — Reversing a long- bid position, Russian dissident Andrei rv O /\ Kharov now says he is willing to leave the L/OU b viet Union if permitted by the Kremlin. -••'•'^aSEaSSl I Word of the Soviet academician’s change ! rf heart was revealed today by friends of ■j iarov in t he United States. The report itfas confirmed by a member of the Com- piission on Security and Cooperation in t (Europe, a congressional-executive panel. 1 IfThere appears little likelihood, however, A ffiet President Leonid Brezhnev soon Kid allow “the father of the Soviet H- ibomb” to leave his internal exile at Gorky in the Soviet Union. ■“He has been associated with the De- ^ fense Ministry for a long time,’’ said a spokesman for the Soviet Embassy. That Kid be ample grounds for denying him an exit visa. ” clDiplomatic sources said a New York City Hbyer currently is exploring the possibility of persuading Soviet authorities to let Sakharov emigrate. pfhere does not appear to be any direct ^ J U.S. government involvement at this time. D) IEER * i iH 99 630° 79 j There was no immediate comment State Department sources. Sakharov’s friends have been increasing ly concerned about the outspoken scien tist’s well-being after he was arrested and forced into internal exile after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan last December. In Gorky, a city closed, to foreigners, Sakharov has been cut off from direct con tacts with Western correspondents and kept under close observation. His friends fear exile will effectively si lence Sakharov even though he has J 113 / 1 ' aged to maintain some contacts. The Washington Post published an exclusive interview with him earlier this month. Sakharov, a member of the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences, was one of the prime scientists who worked on the Soviet hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s. Since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslo vakia in 1968, Sakharov has aired his dis senting political views publicly and incur red the wrath of the Soviet leadership that has tolerated him with increasing impati- SEN Teachers to vote ^oratories PEMCOR. INC. on bargaining C9945 ’X9” r5° 95 United Press International AUSTIN, Texas — Teacher represen tatives from across Texas convene in Fort Worth Friday to vote on a legislative ^program that could radically alter the politics of public education in Texas. ; ‘ Frustrated over the repeated failure of moves to raise salaries to levels paid in Mother states, the teachers are expected to approve a legislative program calling for collective bargaining rights for the first time in the 100-year history of the Texas State Teachers Association. |; Before the 1,500 convention delegates leave for home Saturday, they are also fexpected to vote on a proposed increase in dues from $52 to $78 a year that will [finance a more aggressive lobbying effort and more activist role for the organization that represents 114,000 educators across the state. I “There is real frustration on the part of fteachers,” said Cecile Russell, an Amaril lo teacher currently serving as TSTA president. “Over the last 10 years we ve Ipeen our salaries erode. We’ve been cal- ||led upon to work harder for less. And gpve’re getting a lot of public criticism — Especially from the right. | She said teachers are becoming more ■Assertive as a result. Although teachers Ksed to believe that if they just saw to §1 their classrooms, issues such as salaries BNvould be taken care of, Russell said ■teachers now realize politicians “play a lip iervice game” about raising teacher pay. “Over 50 percent of our teachers are at the poverty level of income, she said. “It’s a disgrace. Under the 1979 legisla tion a teacher with eight years of experi- , ence or less makes so little her children ■qualify for a free or reduced price lunch. | The teacher’s new militancy is re flected in the makeup of the teacher orga nization. ‘We used to be a company union,’ she jsaid. “We were a rurally-dominated, administrator-dominated organization. TSTA rules were changed in 1974, however, to give teachers a voice in run ning the organization in direct proportion to their numbers. “Our convention last year was the first time we had a convention where 96 per cent of the people there were classroom teachers,” Russell said. “That convention voted to endorse the principle of collec tive bargaining for teachers.” The proposed statute to be presented at the Fort Worth convention is part of a four-part legislative program teacher groups hope to push in 1981. Teachers are seeking higher pay, job security and state-financed hospitaliza tion insurance in addition to right to nego tiate with local school districts as a group. Conservative business groups such as the Texas Association of Taxpayers already are decrying the teacher propos als as a “threat of unionization and warn ing their constituents that TSTA plans to make collective bargaining “its top legis lative priority.” . “I think the collective bargaining thing is being blown out of proportion,” Russell said. “I really feel there’s not a teacher in this state who would like to strike. Teachers even discussing the possibil ity of striking, however, is a major change from prior years, when the educators dif fidently asked legislators to pass laws au thorizing “professional consultations ab out salary and other issues between teacher representatives and local school boards. Russell said collective bargaining is essential for teachers to have a role in key decisions that affect education of stu dents. “Teachers have no say in decisions ab out class size, materials and curriculum,’ she said. “What we have right now is a one-way system with the administrators deciding what the students need instead of the teacher.” - — Jogging buddies Lunch hour runners jogging around Kyle Field s -h-' " ^^veTsi^f puhhc^eTevisrn track got some extra company from these young touring ^exas AOcrvi umver / / ladies. The youngsters were part of a group of Bryan station, KAM . Staff photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. GOP leadership foresees battle over oil profits tax United Press International WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans said Wednesday they have found_ more opposition than expected to the $227.7 bil lion oil windfall profits tax and vowed a tough fight as the Senate took up the mas sive measure. “There’s more opposition to it than I thought,” Senate Republican leader Ho ward Baker told reporters minutes before the Senate began work on the bill. “A lot of us are concerned about what was dropped out in conference. We are going to talk a lot about it,” Baker said. He referred to the billions of dollars in business energy tax credits that were cut by House and Senate negotiators who shaped the current compromise from the different windfall bills passed earlier by the two chambers. “If you are asking if there is going to be a filibuster, I don t know, Baker said. But if you are asking if this is going to pass in a day or two, certainly not. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla., was ex pected to spearhead the Republican oppo sition to the bill, along with Democrats from oil producing states. But Senate Democratic leader Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., said he was unaware of any growing opposition to the windfall profits bill, and said its final passage was only a matter of time. Byrd said he was trying “to reach a time agreement on the windfall profits tax so we can set a date for a vote. I’m working toward that end.” Earlier this week Byrd said, I hope we can finish it this week or set a date for a vote.” Republicans were expected to make se rious efforts to get the oil tax killed. But the bill, which makes available $136 billion for future tax cuts and is considered the center- piece of President Carter’s energy prog ram, is expected to pass eventually. It was passed 302-107 in the House last week with substantial Republican support. The bill also earmarks about $57 billion to help poor people pay their fuel bills. Only $34 billion would be used for energy and transportation programs. It also provides small savers a $4.3 billion tax break by exempting from the federal income tax $200 in combined interest and dividends for individuals and $400 for mar ried couples filing jointly. An aide to Bellmon, who wants more tax breaks for independent producers, said it “might be a little too harsh” to say Bellmon planned a filibuster. But he said critics “will have a lot to say about the bill. There won t be an effort to cut anybody off very early. ” Bellmon wants at least the first 1,000 barrels of oil sold each day by independent oil producers exempted from the tax. He would prefer a total exemption. Carter asked Congress last April to enact a windfall profits tax to capture for public use some of the $1 trillion Treasury officials estimate oil companies will make this de cade from Carter s decision to let the price of domestic oil gradually rise to world levels by phasing out federal controls. But he wanted the revenues used entire ly for energy-related purposes, including development of alternative fuel sources, construction of urban mass transit systems, and help for poor people hit by rising fuel bills. Sadat, Begin to meet with Carter again United Press International WASHINGTON — President Carter will meet separately with Israeli and Egyp tian leaders next month to prod them on the sensitive issue of Palestinian self-rule and work toward “a comprehensive peace for the Middle East.” U.S. Middle East mediator Sol Linowitz will fly to Middle East this weekend to work out the exact dates for visits by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and take part in Pales tinian autonomy talks. In late April or early May, a White House official said. King Hussein of Jordan who did not accept the Camp David accords, also will visit Washington. A White House statement said, “The purpose of the (Sadat-Begin) meetings will be to review the progress and pace of auto- mony negotiations for the West Bank and Gaza,” but one top aide said the meetings are even “more ambitious. “We want to see how we can go beyond autonomy to a comprehensive peace,’ he said. Officials said the only progress in the talks so far has been to identify the main issues still to be resolved, including the rights of Arabs in Jerusalem to vote in the elections; the election process and the pow ers and responsibilities that will be handed over to Palestinians by the Israelis. Budget cuts may wound job program United Press International . WASHINGTON — Operators of CE3A public service job programs throughout the country would have to cut nearly 46,000 jobs by October under new budget-cutting proposals suggested on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Among at least $2 billion in cuts prop osed by House Budget Committee Chair man Robert Giaimo, beyond those Presi dent Carter already wants to make, was a $500 million cut in Title 6 of the Compre hensive Employment and Training Act (GETA) job program. This would reduce the level of jobs dur ing fiscal year 1981, which begins Oct. 1, from 200,000 — the present authorized level, which Carter had proposed to con tinue— to 150,000. Congressional staff sources said this could be done by limiting new applicants, so that the number of job holders would decline as individuals finish their periods of employment. This was the biggest cut in the area ot employment proposed by Giaimo. Others were: — Delay in starting the administration s single largest initiative in its January budget, a $2 billion, two-year addition to existing youth training programs that would concentrate on job training and basic- education in local schools for disadvantaged youth. The saving is only $150 million in the 1981 budget, since most of the program would not have begun by then anyway. A major start is expected in the school year beginning in the fall of 1982. — A saving of $240 million by eliminat ing the Young Adult Conservation Corps, a small existing program, in which about 60,000 youngsters a year — not limited to needy ones — receive job experience on public lands.