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The Battalion
Serving the University community
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Vol 78 No. 10 USFS 045360 16 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, September 14, 1983
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raternity house in peril
Battalion Stafl
iMembers of the Texas A&M chapter
[the Sigma Alpha Kpsilou fraternity
liii't know if they can c lose the deal on
jeirnewhouse in Bi \ an until they find
Jt if they are in violation of a Bryan
Historical district ordinance — and
Its at least a couple weeks away.
1 Their 1903 mansion, at 600 E. 29th
, is in the East Side Historical l)is-
:taml some of the districts residents
pit the fraternity kicked out of the
i because of an ordinance whic h
litects the district.
J The ordinance, agreed upon by 75
Irccnt of the district’s property own-
Js, says: No new construction of mul-
ple-family housing shall be carried out
the district nor shall existing
pictures he converted to multiple-
’ i housing. ”
The problem is that there is no defini-
[nfor imiltiple-family housing in the
inanee. The ordinance was put into
Ikt while the house was being used
I Discovers band, Ine. as a psychiat
[•treatment center, whieb housed
veral patients and doctors.
Bryan City Attorney Donald Wolfe is
reviewing the ease and will present his
written opinion — and interpretation of
the term inultiple-iamily housing’ — to
the Historic Landmark Commission
September 28. Then the Commission
must decide if the fi aternitv can stay or
out.
Until then, SAIT members must wait.
They are now renting the house from its
owner, Dr. John Kinross-Wright, and
plan to buy it Oc tober 20.
Ray Walker, president ofSAE, is con
fident that the fraternity will be allowed
to stay in the house. I le says the frater
nity has a great deal of support from its
alumni — “some very, very influential
alumni — and the support of some
neighbors who hav e been impressed
with how much the SAEs have taken
care of the house.
Kinross-Wright say s the people who
want the fraternity members out of bis
bouse are being impractical. He says
the members of SAE have kept the
bouse in much better condition since
they moved in last month than it lias
been in for several months. The house
has been vacant since about the first of
the vear when Discovery Land moved
Kinross-Wright says that if the bate i
nity doesn t buy the house, which is
being sold for about $300,000, it may sit
vacant for a long time because few peo
ple can afford to maintain such an ex
pensive house as a residence.
Betty Foster, an historical district re
sident, says she doesn’t care if the house
is vacant — she just wants “to retain the
integrity of the neighborhood.”
Foster says she has nothing against
the fraternity itself. She objects to
fraternity members living in the house
simply because their presence violate s
the ordinance, she says.
Another historical district resident.
Colleen Batchelor, says she wants to
“preserve the neighborhood commun
ity as a neighborhood of families. ”
Batchelor says that the members of
SAE are “very polite and nice,” but that
students have different schedules and
types of activities which may disrupt the
neighborhood.
Walker says the SAEs will appeal the
decision if the Historic Landmark (ami-
mission rules thev must move out.
A&M prof spends spring
with Eskimo whale tribe
by Connie Hutterer
Battalion Reporter
Dr. Raymond Tarpley of the Texas
lA&M Department of Veterinary Ana-
jtwy returned to the University this
[sunimer after spending three months
Ion the north slope of Alaska partieipat-
lingin an Eskimo whale harvest.
Killing of the rare whales is permit
ted for two reasons: the annual hunt is
central to Eskimo culture, and it is a
subsistence hunt — the whale pro
ducts are used for nutrition, not for
commercial sale, Tarpley said.
the 500 to 2,500 natives in the Eskimo
village receives a share of the whale’s
meat. Chunks of “a handleable size”
are distributed at the harvest and later
at the summer whale celebration, or
Nalakatuk.
&
In mid-April, Tarpley, a researc h
late in aquatic animal medicine,
(traveled to Alaska to collect whale tis-
esamples. During his Arctic adven-
|ture, Tarpley gathered specimens
n four of eight bowhead whales kil
led bv Eskimo natives in a traditional
However, the hunters are limited to
striking 17 whales per year, even if all
are not retrieved and harvested.
r ,
kki
The bowhead is a species of baleen
tale which feeds on small plants and
limals caught in its vertical, bone-
b screening structure — the baleen
which covers the jaw and takes the
date of teeth. It is the largest en-
, igered species in body size. Most of
le three to four thousand surviving
limals migrate between the Arctic
ton and the Baltic Sea, Tarpley
The whales are struck with a har
poon and a gunpowder bomb hut the
hunters may have to pursue a how-
head for several hours before it dies.
Another several hours are required to
tow the dead whale to the Eskimo vil
lage.
The crew of the capturing boat re
ceives a larger portion, and the boat’s
captain becomes a hero and leader in
local government, Tarpley said.
Every person available, including
visiting university researchers, is
needed to help pull the whale up onto
the ice, Tarpley said.
The cold weather made it necessary
to bundle up in layers of clothing,
which made work difficult at best. The
frigid temperatures interfered in
other ways, too, Tarpley said, as tubs
of chemical fixatives needed to pre
serve specimens had to he hong in
high, warm places in the tent to pre
vent their freezing. Sometimes, tis
sues themselves froze before they
could be placed in vials of the preser
vative.
Isaiii
-but if y<> u
for hook-up!
than GTE’t
The Eskimos would not allow out
siders to participate in the hunt for
fear they would scare away the prey,
Tarpley said.
i Instead, Tarpley stayed with sever
al other researchers who were study
ing whale anatomy and taking the
annual whale census while he waited
for news of a successful hunt. The re
searchers stayed at the Science Build
ing in the government headquarters of
Barrow, a town of about 3,000 people.
When the whale is safely landed,
the villagers hurriedly strip it of its
thick layer of blubber, called muk-tuk.
The blubber, necessary for the whale
to live year-round in frigid waters,
may be more than 20 inches thick,
Tarpley said. Three or four men stand
on top of the whale with long-handled
curved blades that resemble garden
hoes and chop loose sections of blub
ber and meat. Workers on the ground
grab the meat with hooks and run
away from the carcass, peeling the
whale “like a banana,” Tarpley said.
The bones are cleaned with two-inch
ulus, or women’s knives.
Little is known about whales be
cause their habitat makes study diffi
cult, so the tissue samples collected by
researchers like Tarpley are valuable
tools. Collections at the North Slope
Borough have been conducted for four
years under the guidance of Dr. Tom
Albert, science adviser for the area.
For the past three years. Dr.
Raymond Cis, head of the Texas A&M
Department of Veterinary Anatomy,
has coordinated collections for his de-
The researchers then sped to the
hunters’ settlement on snowmobiles,
usually arriving in time to help land
the whale. While the Eskimos sliced
off strips of blubber, steaming in the
Arctic cold, Tarpley and the others
collected bones, digestive tissues and,
most importantly, reproductive
organs needed for studying the en
dangered species.
The harvesters must hurry, Tarpley
said, because the insulating blubber is
so effective that the whale is overhe
ated from its pursuit, and quickly be
gins to rot even in freezing tempera
tures.
Some of the stripped-off muk-tuk,
considered a delicacy by the Eskimos,
is eaten raw at the harvest site. Some
is boiled to make an oily stew and
some of the meat is stored in ice cellars
dug into the frozen ground. Each of
partment.
Researchers hope to determine the
functions of whale anatomy from its
structure and to develop ideas of
whale life and natural history. Perma
nent scars from ovulation discovered
recently, for example, may help solve
the mystery of the bowhead s fertility
rate and may provide clues for deter
mining the age of slaughtered females,
Tarpley said.
The collection of sex organs is diffi
cult, however, because hunters are
fined for killing whales of reproductive
See Whales, page 16
Japanese turn back
two Soviet bombers
United Press International
Japanese fighters scrambled Tuesday
to turn hack two Soviet bombers and
two reconnaissance planes that flew
within 100 miles of Japan shortly after
Soviet warships ended an exercise in
the Sea of Japan where a Korean airliner
was shot down.
The unexplained presence of Soviet
aircraft near Japanese airspace came a
day after Moscow used its power in the
U.N. Security Council to veto a resolu
tion that “deeply deplored” the Soviet
attack on Korean Air Lines Flight 007.
In Mariazell, Austria, Pope John
Paul II Tuesday said the world cannot
forget “the dead from the recent tragic-
shooting down of the South Korean air
plane.”
It was the pope’s first public com
ment on the downing of the Korean air
liner with 269 people aboard by Soviet
fighter Sept. 1.
A 60-day boycott by pilots from eight
Western nations had little apparent
effect on air travel to the Soviet Union
with East bloc and three Western air
lines still making flights in and out of
Moscow.
But Japan, furious at what it called
Moscow’s “shameless” response to the
world, Tuesday ordered a two-week ban
on flights between Japan and the Soviet
Union. Moscow spurned demands for
compensation for the 269 people who
died in the attack and expelled a U.S.
diplomat and his wife for “spying.
The Japanese suspension, effective
Thursday, will halt 14 Aeroflot flights
between Moscow and Tokyo and two
more between Khabarovsk in Siberia
and Niigata, a port on the Sea of Japan.
Moscow Monday spurned demands
for compensation for the 269 people
who died in the attack and expelled a
U.S. diplomat and his wife for “spying.
The suspension, effective Thursday
and coupled with a 60-day boycott in
eight European nations, will halt 14
Aeroflot flights between Moscow and
Tokyo and two more between Khabar
ovsk in Siberia and Niigata, a port on the
Sea of Japan.
Japan Air Lines flights to the Soviet
Union will he grounded for two weeks,
the Japanese government said.
“The Soviet attitude is brazen and
unscrupulous,” Japanese Foreign
Minister Shintaro Abe said after a
Cabinet session Tuesday.
Japanese government sources said
the Soviet Union held manuevers Tues
day in two locations in the Sea of Japan
that involved the firing of live ammuni
tion. They said Japan had been notified
of the maneuvers on Friday.
It was not long after the exercises,
that two “Backfire” bombers and two
TU-16 “Badger” reconnaissance planes
flew near central Japanese airspace at
about 9:50 a. m. (8:50 p.m. EDT
Tuesday).
A spokesman for Japan’s Self-
Defense Forces said the incident occur
red near Sado Island in the Sea of Japan,
about 186.5 miles north of Tokyo.
The Soviet aircraft turned back after
eight Japanese fighters scrambled from
four air bases.
It was the first appearance of the
Backfire bomber near Japanese air
space since Sept. 14, 1982, he said.
In Bangkok, a small bomb exploded
outside the offices of the Soviet air car
rier Aeroflot today, shattering glass win
dows but causing no injuries. Police said
a hand grenade may have been tossed,
against the building.
Along the coast of Hokkaido, Japan’s
northernmost island, searchers found
another business card belonging to
Mason Chang of Taichung, Taiwan,
police said. Police Monday found a simi
lar card belonging to Chang, a passen
ger aboard the downed Boeing 747.
Confrontation at Sully
photo by John Makcly
A student, identified only as “Brother Who”
testifies to a group of about 60 students
who gathered last night at the statue of
Lawrence Sullivan Ross following jerry
Falwell’s program. “Who” led a book
burning in response to Falwell’s appearance
on campus. Campus police were on the scene
but no arrests were reported.
Falwell speaks of rebirth’
Jerry Falwell
by Michelle Powe
Battalion Staff
Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell
told a near-capacity crowd in Rudder
Auditorium Tuesday night that “Amer
ica is on the rebound,” after two de
cades of “moral and spiritual darkness. ”
Falwell said “young people today
have every reason to believe they’ll live
in a better society than their parents
did. ” But he said today’s young people
also have to face four crises previous
generations didn’t have to deal with.
This generation, he says, has to deal
with Soviet expansionism, the “awful
and awesome nuclear build-up in our
society,” “the likelihood of economic-
crisis and collapse ahead” and “the mor
al break-dowm and moral decadence” of
American society.
Falwell said the “moral decadence”
of American society began after World
War II when parents who had survived
a devastating depression and world war
decided that their children would have
everything that they, the parents, had
had to do without. Falwell said children
were given everything they could poss
ibly want, except values with which to
shape their lives.
The result, he said, was two decades
— the 1960s and 1970s — of rebellion
against the establishment, family and
church, academic- deterioration, drug
problems, high divorce rates, wide
spread violence and eventually diseases
such as herpes and aides.
But now, Falwell believes, the Un
ited States is experiencing moral and
spiritual rebirth. Young people today,
he says, are more conservative than
their parents and are forming values
similar to those of their grandparents —
and similar to those of the Moral Ma
jority.
Falwell said the Moral Majority, Inc.
was formed as a political lobbying
group, with four major issues in mind.
The Moral Majority, he said, is pro-life,
pro-traditional family, pro-morality and
pro-American.
The group opposes abortion, illegal
drug traffic, pornography and divorce
and supports voluntary prayer in public-
schools, a strong national defense and
alliance with Israel.
Reagan’s “peace through strength” poli
cy because strength is the best deter
rent to war. The Soviets respect
strength, he said.
“We can’t afford weakness,” he said.
“We’ve got to be strong to protect
ourselves.”
“You never hear of anyone mugging a
heavyweight boxer,” he said.
Falwell said the U.S. must take a
stand against the Soviets in Central
America. The threat of the “Soviet
bear, ” he said, is only as far away as El
Salvador.
“Fd prefer to stop them (the Soviets)
in El Salvador rather than El Paso,” he
said.
See Falwell, page 16
Correction
The Battalion incorrectly re
ported weekend parking regula
tions. Students max' park in staff
parking on the weekends, howev
er, they may not park in reserved
spaces. The Battalion regrets the
error.
Young people today are more
conservative than their pa
rents and are forming values
similar to those of their grand
parents — Jerry Falwell.
Falwell said he thinks President
Reagan will use the Soviet downing of
Korean airliner 007 for a long-range
good. Reagan now has world support on
his side, Falwell said.
“The entire world now sees that the
Soviets do not have good intentions, ” he
said, “and do not respect human life.”
Falwell said he supports President
inside
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