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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 1982)
The Battalion telion% ’ Sobers fi- Serving the University community College Station, Texas Monday, October 11, 1982 Reagan to visit Dallas United Press International SANTA BARBARA — President Reagan, facing a barrage of criticism for an upsurge in unemployment, in tends to stress his “dramatic progress” in lowering interest rates and infla tion in the waning weeks of the con gressional campaign, aides indicate. After spending a relaxed weekend at his mountaintop ranch, Reagan flies to Dallas today for two political appearances in support of Republi can senatorial candidate Rep. James Collins, who has an uphill battle against incumbent Democrat Lloyd Bentsen. Afterwards Reagan will head back to Washington, where he will spend the rest of the week, highlighted by a nationally broadcast “progress re port” on the economy at 7:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday. White House spokesman Larry Speakes has labeled the address “non partisan,” but speaker Thomas O’Neill already has made a protest to all three major networks for giving Reagan time for what he calls “a pa tently political address for an elec tion.” NBC said it will air the address, but a spokesman for CBS said “no final decision” had been made although it was “likely” the network will carry the address. ABC said it was undecided. The harshest criticism for Reagan Sunday came from AFL-CIO Presi dent Lane Kirkland. “Never before in history have two crack-brained theories like supply- side economics and cultist monetar ism had a more extensive trial and been proved so wrong, to the great harm of so many people so quickly,” said Kirkland during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Chief of Staff James Baker said in a broadcast on ABC-TV Sunday that Reagan deplores the 10.1 percent un employment “and we’re going to do what we can to remedy that situation.” But, he added, “We’re making dra matic progress on two fronts — infla tion has been reduced by over 50 per cent, and interest rates are down by some 40 percent.” Baker also insisted that the 11.3 million people out of work would not be a dramatic election issue or “a watershed event” as far as the ballot ing on Nov. 2 is concerned. He said the administration does not believe it will be hurt badly be cause it had been anticipated for some time that the jobless rate would top 10 percent. Furthermore, he said that “the 99 to 100 million Americans who are em ployed are considerably better off than they were two years ago by reason of increased purchase power. “Their taxes are down and infla tion is down, and they’ve got more real take-home pay,” he added. Reagan’s political advisers and the GOP campaign committees were working out the final stages of the president’s participation in the cam paign. So far, only one other date has been set for the president to travel. He will fly to Peroria, Ill., Oct. 20 for an appearance in support of Rep. Bob Michel, the House Republican leader, and the following morning will fly to Omaha, Neb. Tense am staff photo by Octavio Garcia Smokey and The Fireman ;Smokey the Bear and Wayne Stack, a College Station fireman, were strolling through Post Oak Mall Friday as | part of a demonstration the College Station Fire I Department had for Fire Prevention Week. The demonstration included a display of a fire rescue unit with all its equipment used for first aid. Imprisoned leaders protest ban of Solidarity by Poland h ageCen- mtinues lerform- day at 8 depicts a well- neering o is de- \ptizei. :hem<i is wife, • adults, id $2.50 nforma- ter is at College imunity season, e year. Synagogue attack kills 1, wounds 34 United Press International ROME — Terrorists firing [machine guns and hurling hand gre nades attacked worshippers leaving Rome’s main synagogue Saturday, killing a 2-year-old boy and injuring 34 other people in the worst anti- Semitic attack in Italy since World War II. E An angry, wailing crowd of Jews, some waving bloodstained garments of the victims,, gathered after the attack at the synagogue on the Tiber River in the center of old Rome. Some ^assaulted reporters, accusing them of |fanning anti-Semitic feelings through pro-Palestinian articles, and shouted insults against Pope John Paul II and Italian President Sandro Pertini. ■[ The jews said meetings the pope and president held with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yas ser Arafat last month triggered the attack. Others accused the press of arousing anti-Semitism. Witnesses told officers the attack ers were “dark skinned,” a state police chief said. Police said the attackers |may or may not be Arabs, gf No one claimed responsibility for the attack, Italian officials said. B Witnesses said four or five attack- f^rs walked by the synagogue’s side entrance as 250 worshippers were leaving services marking the feast of the Simkhat Torah, a New Year holi day which includes a blessing of chil dren. The men sprayed worshippers with machine gunfire and witnesses said the attackers, who escaped in a waiting car, hurled at least five gre nades at the congregation but only two or three of them exploded. “The spectacle outside the synago gue was terrible,” said M&rco Zarfati, an Israeli doctor visiting Italy who was in the synagogue when the congrega tion was attacked. “Seven or eight people were lying on the ground, some in very serious condition. I tried to help the wound ed with what means I had available.” The pope sent a telegram conde mning the attack as “a manifestation of hate and blind violence.” Pertini called the attack “vile and ferocious,” leaders of Italy’s political parties and other officials expressed shock and Israel called for concerted interna tional action against terrorism. The PLO representative in Italy, Nemer Hammad, condemned the attack as “an aberrant manifestation of anti-Semitism against our Jewish brothers, guilty only of being Jews.” United Press International WARSAW, Poland — One day af ter banning the Solidarity union movement, Premier Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski told Parliament Saturday the government was ready to lift mar tial law and promised to release 500 to 700 political prisoners “soon.” “There is still a blind opposition in Poland inspired by the network of foreign subversive radio stations, ready to provoke bloodshed,” he said. “But we have not been entrenched in martial law. We maintain the inten tion of suspending or even lifting it,” Jaruzelski said. In a letter smuggled out of the internment camp of Bialoleka near Warsaw seven leading Solidarity offi cials said the outlawing of the union Friday was against international labor rules. In Santa Barbara, Calif, President Reagan said he was taking steps to suspend Poland’s most favored na tion trade status in retaliation for the banning of Solidarity, which had been suspended since martial law was in troduced Dec. 13. “According to the International Labor Organization a labor union can be disbanded by the members of the union but not by the state author ities,” the letter by the interned Soli darity officials said. They urged rank and file members not to join the new unions, which the government proposes to set up. ‘We are of the opinion that joining of the new unions would be tanta mount to supporting the outlawing of Solidarity,” said the seven, all mem bers of the union’s national commis sion. Jaruzelski addressed Parliament one day after members voted over whelmingly to outlaw the first inde pendent labor federation in the Soviet bloc. In his address, Jaruzelski said church-state relations were not “bad” and the authorities were ready to fin alize the date of Pope John Paul IPs visit to his homeland. He said the date of the papal visit could be set if Polish Archbishop Jozef Glemp would meet with him. Church sources said the meeting between Glemp and Jaruzelski had been scheduled to take place a week before Friday’s parliament session, but that Glemp refused to attend to protest the Communist Party’s plan to ban Solidarity. Jaruzelski expressed his sympathy to the rank and file members of Soli darity and the state-sponsored “branch” and “autonomous” unions also outlawed by Friday’s Parliament session. He stressed that new unions simul taneously created by the bill would be different from the old state- sponsored unions and Solidarity, which he called “an anti-socialist group.” Jaruzelski said the authorities had been guided by good intentions in their dealings with Solidarity • unci mucin camp ui oidiuicKd neai government proposes to set up. Church sources said the meeting Jaruzelski s Warsaw seven leading Solidarity offi- “We are of the opinion that joining between Glemp and Jaruzelski had been guided cials said the outlawing of the union Q f the new unions would be tanta- been scheduled to take place a week their dealings ‘Flat earther’ says Columbus proved the Earth is not round s:imof locrir' United Press International LANCASTER, Calif. — Charles Johnson insists he’s on the level; the world is “flat as a penny.” The 58-year-old president of the 2,000-member Flat Earth Society, whose membership boasts several “enlightened” airline pilots, spends each day of the year trying to prove the world is not round. And Columbus Day gives him an opportunity to point out the absurdi ty behind the popular notion of round-earthers. In fact, Christopher Columbus, whose day it is on the calendar today, is one of Johnson’s super-heroes. “Contrary to the history books,” Johnson said Sunday from his five- acre Mojave Desert ranch, “we claim Columbus proved the world flat. It’s a simple matter of logic. “At the time Columbus made his voyage everyone believed the world was a ball, except for Columbus. They were afraid they would fall off the edge of the earth because it was round, not flat. “Columbus is one of our heroes be cause he didn’t fall off — gravity wasn’t invented yet. There was no gravity in Columbus’ day. “Every public school in America says Columbus proved the world was a ball. But that notion comes from American writer Washington Irving, who actually originated the claim that Columbus proved the world is a ball.” And Irving’s claim shook up the scholarly world so badly, says John son, that Isaac Newton was forced to invent gravity to explain it. “Newton hatched the idea of grav ity to explain Irving’s round-earth claim.” Johnson was born and raised in Texas before his family moved to San Francisco and then 25 years later to the Southern California desert. In deed, from Johnson’s porch over looking the sun-scorched desert floor near Edwards Air Force Base, the world does appear flat. When pressed to explain just what, exactly, Columbus proved with his historic voyage, Johnson states: “He demonstrated simply that the seas are level. After all, we’ve always used the term sea level, right?” Johnson, who publishes the quar terly Flat Earth News, scoffs at round- earth detractors who point to Amer ican ventures into space ranging from the Moon landing to the Space Shut tle program. “The space program should be en ded,” he says. “The whole thing is a hoax. It is simply a case of everything that goes up eventually comes down. It doesn’t orbit. What we see on televi sion are pre-arranged movies made in studios.” But why would the United States perpetuate such a “myth?” “The space program keeps the myth alive that the world is round,” he said. “You must have a total lie, not a partial lie. In order to keep the hoax alive, they staged the moon landing, and of course we all know that was a lie and that it never happened. “Now they keep telling us the shut tle is orbiting the world, but it is just falling down. Again, what goes up, must come down.” inside Commandant optimistic about corps, Around town 4 Classified 8 National 6 Opinions 2 ■Sports 11 ^State 5 |Whafs up 7 forecast Today’s Forecast: High in the [low 80s, low in the upper 50s. Sixty percent chance of rain today. almanac Today is Monday, Oct. 11, the |284thday of 1982 with 81 to follow. The morning stars are Venus [and Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, [Jupiter and Saturn. Those born on this date are j under the sign of Libra. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was born Oct. 11, 1884. says enrollment will continue to grow by Robert McGlohon Battalion Staff Despite a slight enrollment drop in the Corps of Cadets, Corps comman dant Donald L. Burton, says the orga nization is growing and will continue to do so. Burton, who took over the post after Col. James R. Woodall retired in August, said he is optimistic about the future of the Corps. “The raising of the admission stan dards is one of the reasons why we had a small drop in the number of freshmen,” Burton said. “Still, that 2,327 (initial fall enrollment), with the exception of last year, is bigger than anything we’ve had in the last 10 years. “There is no doubt in my mind that the Corps will continue to increase in size. It’s a strong trend. It’s not only a trend here at Texas A&M — it’s a trend everywhere you have a military college.” Burton said he would like that irend to continue and has some defi nite ideas on how to make sure it does. “First off, we’re going to do a better job of getting the message out to high school juniors about the Corps of Cadets and what it is and its value to Col. Donald R. Burton them,” he said. “It’s the high school junior we need to be recruiting — not necessarily the senior. Most high school seniors have already made the decision of where they are going to school.” Burton also has initiated a stepped- up recruiting effort on campus. “We believe that the best place to get good Corps members is right off the campus,” he said. “We have tremendous numbers of good Ags here who ought to be in the Corps. ever-increasing numbers of fresh men, but we also believe there are a heck of a lot of guys — and women — on campus who would like to be in the Corps of Cadets. “And we’re going to give them an opportunity to understand more ab out it. There are a lot of Aggies on campus who really don’t know that much about the Corps. So we wel come any opportunity to speak to the student organizations — not to re cruit them — just to talk about the Corps on a frank basis, not on a prop aganda basis.” The Corps is focusing on recruit ing students who have demonstrated their academic ability, Burton said. “I know that Texas A&M has got to hold its enrollment at a certain level and the admission standards have been raised and so forth, so we’re not just recruiting every high school stu dent — we’re looking at the top fourth,” he said. “I think you’ll prob ably find that 75 percent of the enter ing freshmen this year came from the top one-fourth of their graduating class — that’s the sort of folks we want for the Corps.” The overall growth of the Corps is jioMimited^tojtwnale^o^ulation. The women’s segments of the Corps have grown considerably, as well. Burton attributes this growth to the change in attitude toward female cadets. “It’s the natural evolution of the way things are in our society,” he said. “Our women do a damn goodjob.” Corps GPR above rest of university A 0.01 percent difference between the average grade point ratio of the Corps of Cadets and the GPR of the rest of the student body isn’t much, but the gap will widen, Corps Com mandant Donald L. Burton says. The average GPR of civilian stu dents is 2.39. The Corps has an aver age of 2.40. “The average GPR, overall, for the Corps as it stands today, is statistically, measurably higher (than that of civi lian students") Burton said. “And it’s going to get higher yet. We’ve got some things going on in the Corps that you don’t have across the campus. “In the first place, we are now en forcing the quiet hours. Our fresh men and sophomores are being pro vided that time to study. Our senior class is dedicated to that.” Burton has high hopes for the new faculty adviser program, in which 44 faculty members have volunteered to serve as advisers to Corps outfits. The commandant cited an especially gifted incoming class as another reason why he expects the Corps to improve academically. “I think it’s clear to our seniors and our juniors that these freshmen are a cut above the average bear,” he said.