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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 2, 1983)
0 The Battalion Serving the University community , i Vol 78 No. 65 USPS 0453110 14 pages College Station, Texas Friday, December 2,1983 Hope E. Paascb, Battalion staff Si The thrill of Christmas Aaron Shead, son of Jill and Red Shead in Bryan, gazes in awe at the lights on the second annual Community Christmas Tree during the lighting ceremony Thursday night. The 40-foot tree, on the corner of University Drive and Texas Avenue, is a money-raising effort for the Brazos Valley Rehabilitation Center. For each $10 donation, one light on the tree will be named in honor of someone. The names of those honored by lights will be printed in the Christmas Day edition of the Bryan-College Station Eagle newspaper. Shuttle may orbit earth an extra day eenage rebellion never nly ways of expression Hope E. Paascb, Battalion staff by Steve Thomas Battalion Staff f or more than ten years teenagers oded the highways of America iking for any place but home. Their ng hair, love beads and ragged do ing were icons, pagan challenges to e “establishment” they shunned. ;ht and wrong were mere abstrac- ns to be questioned, rules to be )ken. “Normal” was a dirty word. The sixties was a decade of obvious )ellion. Young people fought tradi- na! values with methods from vio- nce to self-destruction. They Bled to “do their own thing,” to be lependent and to express them- Bjes freely. They wanted to be different, but |y weren’t. Tve been teaching since 1950,” Lora Powell, a counselor at A&M ttsolidated High School in College lion. “People keep trying to say have changed, but they haven’t. Their appearances have changed , but the inside — the heart — is ime.” 'sychologists and education pro fessionals agree that teenagers have always been, and will continue to be, similar in terms of their reasons for rebellion. It is their methods and the extent of that rebellion which differs from generation to generation. Tom Edwards, a psychologist and family counselor in Bryan, said rebel lion is part of adolescence — a natural stage in which children test their pa rents’ teachings. “Kids learn what their parents teach them early in life,” he said. “They’re going to rebel against that, but generally, after the adolescent years, kids do settle back and take on similar values to their parents.” Yet it is apparent that today’s socie ty is not subjected to the kind of rebel lious melee characteristic of the six ties. “We just don’t seem to be in a generation right now that is making major changes in norms and mores,” says Beth Roe, a marriage and family counselor in Bryan. “The form of how kids are rebelling is much less noticeable now than in the sixties.” Bryan High School principal Perry Pope said teenagers are more sensi tive to the importance of conforming to educational and social norms when the economy is bad, because they know they’re going to have to com pete for jobs. He said when the eco nomy is good, they don’t care about good jobs. “They’re more interested in poetry — in change,” he said. Teenage opinions on rebellion cor relate closely with the analyses of Pope and the other professionals. Eight students of various back grounds, cultures and social levels from A&M Consolidated High School were assembled by counselors to dis cuss rebellious behavior. The students all intend to go to col lege, and said most of their friends do. A particularly assertive girl ex pressed her feelings about college: “We say when we’re younger that we don’t want college, but now that we realize we are going to have to start buying our own toothpaste and toilet paper....” A wave of nods and affirmative murmurs went through the group. Later, a football player said personal independence is important, so he wants to set goals and to find a career — not just a job. The students’ atti tudes showed an awareness of present economic difficulties and how they must be overcome. The students were generally reluc tant to classify themselves as rebel lious, but they did admit to frequently “disagreeing” with some of their pa rents’ various guidelines. Also, the students said they don’t tell their pa rents about some of their activities. They don’t lie. They just don’t tell. And, although the students gener ally agree with their parents’ values and philosophies, several of the group members openly admitted tak ing on values other than their parents’ without giving specific reasons for the change. This obscure attitude of noncon formity is explained more articulately in John C. Coleman’s essay “Current see KIDS page 6 United Press Internationa] SPACE CENTER, Houston — The Spacelab astronauts lit the night sky with electron beam firings Thursday and said they would welcome an extra day in orbit that project officials were considering giving them. Flight director Chuck Lewis said a decision would be made this weekend on extending the flight from nine days to 10 to squeeze as much as possi ble from the world’s most ambitious international space science expedi tion. Scientists at mission control were wowed by the display produced by the firing of streams of electrons into space to learn more about the magne tic forces and electrically charged gases around Earth. The show, re layed to the ground by live television, looked like a celestial fireworks dis- play. “Wow, that looks stupendous,” said one scientist in the control room. The four research astronauts working in the $1 billion lab in the cargo bay of the shuttle Columbia were being pushed hard by scientists on the ground directing dozens of ex periments and the fliers’ resulting annoyance showed. “You guys need to recognize there are two people up here trying to get all your stuff done,” Robert Parker told Wubbo Ockels in the science con trol center as he and Ulf Merbold worked on a qouple of tasks during the “red” shift. “I think you might be quiet until we got one or the other one of them done,” he barked. Despite the testiness, Parker, Mer bold, Owen Garriott and Byron Lich- tenberg were obviously pleased with their mission, and so were the scien tists directing the operation of 72 dif ferent experiments. “I think we’re pretty ecstatic about the whole experience up here,” said Lichtenberg. “I think Spacelab has lived up to all its expectations so far.” “The excitement continues and Spacelab is still the best show in town,” said mission scientist Charles Chap pell, reviewing operations of the first three days of flight. The four scientist-astronauts parti cipated in a televised “news confer ence” with six reporters at the John son Space Center, but a communuca- tions foulup prevented direct repor- ter-to-astronaut questioning. Pilots John Young and Brewster Shaw did not take part in the conference. Garriott, who spent 59 days in orbit aboard the old Skylab, was asked what he thought of the opportunity to spend a 10th day in space in the shuttle. “That sounds like good news to me,” he said. “If we can do that, I think that will ease things some and I’m sure we could find plenty of things to do in an extra day.” Lewis said a one-day extension to what already was the longest planned shuttle mission is made possible by the lower-than-expected power drain from Spacelab. The shuttle’s three fuel cells generate the electricity and they are fed by oxygen and hydrogen. Because less power has been used, less oxygen and hydrogen has been consumed, making a 10th day of flight possible with two additional days available for any emergencies that might arise. Garriott said the crew had already accomplished more than one-third of the mission’s life sciences experiments “and for the most part everything has gone quite well.” However, he said they had not per formed as many physical science ex periments “as we would like.” Andropov to appear at government meeting United Press International MOSCOW — The Supreme Soviet will convene Dec. 28 in a session that may clear up the mystery surround ing the health of President Yuri Andropov who has not been seen publicly since August. Western diplomats said it would be inconceivable that Andropov not appear at the meeting if he was ex ercising leadership. If Andropov does not appear, it was considere.d possible that the gov ernment would announce he was un able to perform his duties or name an interim or new leader. A well-informed Western official said that Andropov was a “very sick person” and “not able to perform his official functions.” The official would not specify the nature of Andropov’s illness but said the Communist Party chief “may well recover.” Andropov, 69, who is officially suf fering from a cold, was last seen at a meeting Aug. 18, he missed the Nov. 7 military review commemorating the Bolshevik Revolution, the most im portant holiday on the Soviet calendar. Even paper planes to fly at airshow by Kellie Dworaczyk Battalion Reporter Aerial contests, balloon rides, elicopter rides and a paper air- lane contest will be part of the air low activities at Bryan’s Coulter ield Saturday and Sunday. erial contests for local pilots be- n about 9 a.m. both days and will iclude a flour-bomb dropping con- ; sj and a spot landing contest. In je flour-bomb dropping contest, a lot and a “bombardier” will fly ^er a circle marked on the ground nd try to drop a sack of flour on the lark/ In the spot landing contest, pilots " be graded on their ability to fly a "ic pattern and land their planes to a line. The pilots will be ;ed on their accuracy and fines- says Steve Hughes, airport mana- |at Coulter Field. helicopter, airplane and balloon ties for the public will be given in ejafternoon and will cost about $8 ch, Hughes said. A paper airplane flying contest ien to everyone will be at 4:30 p.m. ach day. Children 13 years and ounger must pay a 25 cent entrance fee to compete in one division. Chil dren 14 years and older, must pay a 50 cent entrance fee to compete in another. First, second, and third place prizes will be awarded in each divi sion. Paper airplanes entered in the contest must be made of eight and one half by 11 inch paper. No tape, glue, staples or weights will be allowed on the planes. Other activities include an aero batics demonstration by John Hess, a local pilot who will fly a T-6 air plane. The demonstration will in clude rolling and spinning stunts. Antique and military aircraft will be on display during the air show, and the Brazos Valley Radio Control Modelers will give a remote control airplane demonstration in the after noon on both days. Coulter Field, is on Highway 21 East two miles from the Highway 6 bypass, is a community airport for private pilots and corporate air planes. EPA official convicted for lying to Congress United Press International WASHINGTON — A federal jury Thursday convicted EPA official Rita Lavelle of peijury for lying to Con gress and obstructing an investigation into her handling of the $1.6 billion Superfund toxic waste cleanup program. The 10-woman, two-man jury found Lavelle guilty on four of the five felony counts against her, involv ing her statments under oath to Sen ate and House panels last Feb. 23 and 24. Lavelle could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and $19,000 in fines for the conviction. The peijury charges on which she was convicted stem from her testi mony to Congress and a sworn writ ten statement that she was unaware before June 17, 1982, that her former employer, Aerojet-General Corp. of California, was involved in a controv ersial toxic waste enforcement case, the Stringfellow Acid Pits near Glen Avon, Calif. The jury, after deliberating for ab out seven hours over two days, found Lavelle, 35, innocent bn one count, which accused her of lying to Con gress about using the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program to help Re publican politicians. The blonde, heavy-set Lavelle stood quietly as jury foreman James Stanfield, of Washington, D.C., announced the verdict. Chief defense counsel James Bier- bower is expected to appeal the con viction. The jury reached its decision after sifting through six days of volumi nous testimony from some 30 witnes ses, including 5 V2 hours of testimony from Lavelle on Monday and Tuesday. Lavelle, 35, of San Diego, empha tically denied on the witness stand that she ever perjured herself in con gressional testimony, used the Super fund toxic waste cleanup program for political purposes or was involved in a conflict of interest with Aerojet- General. But her testimony conflicted with that of 13 prosecution witnesses — many of them present or former EPA officials — as well as a top Senate aide and a vice president of Aerojet- General. Fired by President Reagan last Feb. 7, Lavelle is the only EPA official in dicted as a result of the scandal over mismanagement of toxic waste cleanup that engulfed the agency this year and resulted in the firings or res ignations of 21 top officials. This was Lavelle’s second trial. She was acquitted July 22 of misdemeanor contempt of Congress charges for re fusing to obey a subpeona to testify before a House energy subcommittee last March. Justice Department prosecutor William Hendricks closed his case Wednesday with a dramatic oration in which he described Lavelle’s testi mony as “patently ridiculous,” and “not worthy of belief.” He argued that she lied to Congress about her dealings with Aerojet- General while she was at the EPA be cause “she didn’t want to jeopardize her relationship with the big meal ticket in California.” Bierbower contended his client “didn’t try to deceive anybody.” He acknowledged, however, she may have “made a mistake” in her testi mony to Congress. 'iV 'T r Vf t • f c Battalion editor named for spring Rebeca Zimmermann was nominated Wednesday by the Student Publications Board to serve as editor of The Battalion for the spring semester. Zimmermann, a senior jour nalism major from College Sta tion, has been a Battalion staff member since January 1982. She is currently entertainment editor and has served as a repor ter and a news editor. Zimmermann’s nomination must be approved by Provost Gordon P. Eaton. inside Around town 9 Classified 12 Local 3 National 12 Opinions 2 Sports 13 State 5 What’s up 10