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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 1982)
The Battalion Serving the University community ol. 76 No. 58 USPS 045360 36 Pages In 2 Sections College Station, Texas Friday, November 19, 1982 Israeli official knew about killings United Press International | An Israeli Cabinet minister ay Sizzling I Fami| y HstiHed today he alerted Foreign I ■inister Yitzhak Shamir about the Xecl alH leirut massacre of' Palestinians the iorning after the killings began. Communications Minister Mor- echai Zippori, bitterly complaining iat the government only learned of defense Minister Ariel Sharon’s deci- jon to allow the Christian Phalangist pilitiamen into the Palestinian camps rafcftSHHS i retrospect, said an Israeli journalist Agents ^rab files )f arrests ii told him about the mass killings on the morning of Friday, Sept, 17. The Phalangists entered the camps Thursday night. “He (the journalist) said, ‘I have reports the Phalange are committing a slaughter,’” Zippori told the three- member Israeli commission probing the massacre of Sept. 16-18 at the Sab- ra and Chatila refugee camps in which hundreds were killed. Zippori said he told Shamir, “I re ceived reports that the Phalange are carrying out a slaughter. I suggest that you check this out through your channels or with the people I know are coming to you.’” Shamir’s response: ‘“I hear you,”’ Zippori said. Zippori said he believed the infor mation on the massacre from Israeli reporter Ze’ev Shiff came from Israeli army officers serving at a military headquarters not necessarily inside Lebanon. Zippori’s statement appeared to back up earlier testimony that the army received word of the massacre hours before Sharon said he learned of it, at 8 p.m. on Friday. Prime Minister Menachem Begin said he learned of the slaughter Saturday afternoon from the radio. In Rome, U.S. envoy Philip Habib arrived en route to a new round of shuttle negotiations on the withdraw al of 25,000 Syrian, 30,000 Israeli and up to 10,000 Palestinian forces from Lebanon. American officials said Habib was expected to fly on to Beirut Friday. Israel Radio said preliminary nego tiations on troop withdrawals could begin next week between Israel and Lebanon, with the United States growing increasingly “impatient” with the pace of the three-week-old talks. Testifying before Israel’s official panel of inquiry into the Beirut mas sacre, Zippori complained bitterly of Sharon’s order sending Phalange militias into the Beirut camps. He said an Israeli journalist told him about the Sept. 16-18 atrocity on the morning of Sept. 17. The bodies of 328 men, women and children were recovered in Palestinian camps in west Beirut, the Lebanese Civil De fense said later, and many more were listed as missing. United Press International I COLDSPRING — Federal ;ents, armed with search warrants, Sized records from the San Jacinto juntyjail and two bail bondsmen’s fices in the investigation of alleged [olations of motorists’ civil rights by e sheriffs department, officials id. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Woodward said Thursday the re- prds were seized over a period in the Bsttwo weeks in the investigation of fie practices of San Jacinto Sheriff IC. Parker’s officers since last April. J Bond records were seized from the ffices of Jim Browder, president of ke Bank of San Jacinto County and torn Coldspring resident Herb Itwood, Woodward said. Sheriffs deputies in San Jacinto lounty, which is primarily located in national forest, made 1,124 drug rrests last year. Most of those nested by the county’s five deputies nd 21 non-salaried reserve deputies lad been driving along U.S. 50 North fhen they were stopped. The only sheriffs department in fie state that made about the same nount of drug arrests last year was he Harris County Sheriff’s office, ihich has 700 deputies. Two months ago the American tivil Liberities Union filed suit [gainst Parker and his deputies by a paytown store owner and two other nen. The lawsuit sought a court Irder barring the county from con- linuing what is described in the peti- lion as a “marijuana trap” on the nighway. The ACLU charged that de puties would randomly stop motorists pd check their car for marijuana. The jailed suspects would post ond and paying towing charges and [hen would be released from jail, the luit said. However, federal officials laid a check of courthouse records revealed no references to the arrests, buspects said they were never notified ibout court appearances. Parker said at least 61 of the people irrested were not charged because of a “monumental screw-up in our pap- irwork” after a regular secretary be came ill and later quit. Regents Computerized registration system could be timely move for AScM by Denise Richter Battalion Staff Students have been singing the registration blues for years, but now it looks as if a new verse finally might be added to that melancholy melody. Next week, Texas A&M regents will consider a request to appropriate $360,000 for the purchase and installation of computer software for an on-line registration system, a move designed to “bring registration into the 20th cen tury.” Texas A&M administrators agree the University out grew its computerized registration system several years ago. The registration program was purchased from Pur due University in 1968, when 14,000 students were enrol led. Today the system, operating with basically the same software, must contend with the registration of more than 36,000 students. On-line registration would eliminate multiple adds and drops, said Dr. V. Thomas Rhyne, coordinator of com puting for the University. “The software is comparable to airline ticketing,” he said. “You go to a terminal and ask for a seat in Chemistry 105. If the seat is there, you get it. This isn’t a case where you read a print-out produced at 8 last night to see if there’s a seat, then put your card in a stack to try to get that seat.” The computer terminals could be located in each de partment, Rhyne said. “Instead of dealing with a folder and out-of-date infor mation, (advisers) will be able to find out what’s still open and work with what (students) wants to do,” he said. “What this represents to students is a commitment on Frank Vandiver’s part to put money... and staff to work at improving the registration system.” The cost of a new registration system has been esti mated at $1 million. If regents approve the appropriation, a planning com mittee would be appointed at the first of the year, Rhyne said. Members of this committee, which would include the registrar and advisers from each department, would draw up specifications for the new system and seek bids from vendors. A second type of computer system — one that will provide interactive computing — also will be discussed. An appropriation of $500,000 has been requested for the new system. Interactive computing allows user input during the execution of computer programs. This service is not now available to Texas A&M students, either through the Data Processing Center or through campus computing facili ties. The planning and building committee will meet at 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the regents’ annex of the Memorial Stu dent Center. The committee will consider a contract for a 40,000- square-foot expansion of the Halbouty Geosciences Building. The $7 million expansion, which is expected to be completed by summer 1984, will provide office and laboratory space for the geology and geophysics depart ment. Proposals to establish a Center for Engineering Geosci ences and a Center for Retailing Studies will be discussed during a 4 p.m. meeting of the committee for academic campuses. The Center for Engineering Geosciences will be estab lished under the Earth Resources Institute in the College of Geosciences. The Center for Retailing Studies will be established in the College of Marketing in the College of Business Administration. Smile and say peanuts at ’83 Elephant Walk staff photo by Ronnie Emerson Trimming the stack One of the redpots wishes bon voyage to a piece of a log that was trimmed off the rather uneven stack at bonfire. The logs are trimmed to the same height to make working and walking around on the stack easier. by Elaine Engstrom Battalion Staff Elephant Walk, which will begin at noon Monday in front of the Acade mic Building by the statue of Lawr ence Sullivan Ross, will include a new attraction — two live elephants. The elephants will be on the para de grounds near the Memorial Stu dent Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. In case of rain, the elephants will be moved to the Grove. Class of ’83 Vice President Hank Roraback said seniors can ride the elephants or pose for pictures with them. Rides are $1 and a 5-by-7 pic ture is $3. A photographer will take pictures of people riding the elephants. The 4-by-5 pictures will be available for $2 in the MSC beginning Dec. 6. While freshmen and sophomores are not supposed to participate in the walk, Roraback said everyone is in vited to see the live elephants and have pictures taken. To avoid over crowding, underclassmen will be allowed to have pictures taken with the elephants only from noon to 2 p.m. The two elephants, which cost $800 to bring to Elephant Walk, usually can be seen at the Texas Re naissance Festival. Elephant Walk tradition says that after bonfire, seniors are like dead elephants — waiting to graduate and of no use to the University. During the walk, seniors are led by the yell leaders in a wandering journey around campus for one final look. During the walk, members of the Class of ’84 hunt down the “elephants” and chase them around campus. Elephant Walk ends with a yell practice at the bonfire site behind Duncan dining hall. University becoming metropolitan mecca City slickers reflect new A&M image by Carol Smith Battalion Staff Texas A&M University is no longer the agricultural, country-boy college that it once was. Enrollment figures for the fall semester indicate that Texas A&M is attracting more students from Texas’ urban areas and fewer from the state’s smaller, more agricultural cities and towns. Of the 36,127 students enrolled, 37 percent are from the state’s three major metropolitan areas. Harris County leads the state with 7,354 students — 20 percent of the total enrollment. Dallas and Tarrant counties follow with 3,994 students — 11 percent of the total enrollment. And Bexar County (San Antonio) has 6 percent — 2,139 students. “The agriculture college is no lon ger our largest college,” said Donald Carter, associate registrar of admis sions and records. “It’s declining in enrollment and our engineering and business colleges are growing and attracting more students.” Director of Admissions Billy Lay said several factors explain the in crease in the number of students from metropolitan areas. One is the major population growth in those urban areas, he said. “Houston has been our biggest feeder for the past five to 10 years, mainly because it’s only 100 miles from here,” he said. Another reason behind the Uni versity’s growth is that Texas A&M has changed from a predominantly agricultural college to a university with a wide variety of areas for study, Lay said. “The broader education and curri culum opportunities are attracting more students,” he said. Carter agreed the growth is a com bination of things — the expansion of University curricula and Texas’ growth as an industrial state. “Most of the major oil companies have their offices in Houston,” he said. “Both Houston and Dallas are financial and trade giants.” And the state’s population is tied to the University’s growth, he said. “Texas is one of the Sunbelt states and it has one of the strongest econo mies in the nation,” he said. “There fore, there are more kids and there are more of them going to college.” Because Texas A&M is a state- supported school, it isn’t surprising that 84 percent of its students are from Texas. But out-of-state students account for 9.6 percent of total enroll ment and foreign students — from 90 countries — account for 6.5 percent. California, Louisiana and New York contribute the greatest number of students to the University. inside Classified .. 8 Local .. 3 National . 10 Opinions .. 2 Sports . 17 State .. 6 What’s up . 16 forecast Today’s forecast: Cloudy and warmer with a chance of showers through Friday. Pulsar may aid gravity wave detection United Press International BERKELEY, Calif. — A newly discovered rotating pulsar could lead to the detection of “gravity waves" in space theorized by Albert Einstein. The pulsar — also known as a neutron star — found by University of California astronomers after a three-year investigation and announced Thursday by head resear cher Donald C. Backer, is approxi mately 3 miles across and rotates 642 times a second. It is believed to have a mass that could equal two or three suns and could be putting out 10 million to 100 million times as much energy as the sun, scientists say. The discovery was made with the world’s largest radio telescope, an in strument 1,000 feet wide at Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico. The pul sar’s extraordinary rotation speed was calculated Nov. 7. “The astronomical community is very excited about this object because it represents such an extreme case of a pulsar, so close to rotational break up,” said Carl E. Heiles, professor of astronomy at Berkeley and part of the team headed by Backer. The new discovery could lead to the first detection of gravity waves whose existence was theorized by Ein stein. Gravity waves are undulations in the fabric of space produced by catac lysmic events. The gravity ripples would be extremely faint, however, and so far the most sensitive instru ments have not observed them. Backer’s 1979 investigation sug gested an unusual energy source on a radio map completed 20 years ago might be a pulsar. The source was identified as “4C21.53.” In the past 15 years astronomers have identified about 400 pulsars, but none like 4C21.53. The most studied pulsar exists in the center of the Crab Nebula, the apparent remnant of a supernova explosion first observed by Chinese astronomers in A.D. 1054. Baffling questions were raised by the new pulsar, which is thousands of light years away. Although its energy output could be 100 million times greater than the sun, Backer can’t ex plain where this energy goes. Nor does he know why the pulsar doesn’t either fly apart or collapse into itself to become a “black hole.” In theory, pulsars are formed in supernova explosions. Tremendous pressures breaking atomic structures pack neutrons at enormous density. As the cinder of the star becomes ever more compact, it spins faster and faster.