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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1984)
-iW' emoff j Shuttle prepares for Friday take-off See page 3 Black history month starts today Marcus Dupree drops out again See page 5 The Battalion Serving the Gniversity community See page 13 o Jo\ 78 Mo. 87 GSPS 0453110 14 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, February 1, 1984 Just Passing Time Bundled together in the wire dome aviary on top of Nagle Hall, these five pigeons await use as teaching aids Photo by JOHN MAKELY ft or research aids in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences. Reading machine response not as great as anticipated Schultz condemns oducecl ■ terrorism 17-ymjH United Press International ingest K*/’ i. 18,pliflsAN SALVADOR. El Salvador — Hrelary of State George Shultz ar- liketosivtd in El Salvador Tuesday where di Lin ie condemned terrorism by both hemRightists and leftists and warned vmav further U.S. aid is jeopardized by hu ll ant man rights abuses. ■ “The tactics of terror, whether iv well otahtarianism or death squad terror, rforni rave no place in a democracy and we indent appose terror in all its forms,” Shultz iieir| aid upon arrival from Washington, e enour.«Shultz was scheduled to go to Cara- reacte ;as later Tuesday to attend the inau- dee; juration of Venezuela’s new presi- Jent,Jaime Lusinchi, Wednesday and ■1 later visit Brazil, Grenada and Igrbados during his Latin American hosted a luncheon for poli tical leaders that included Roberto did not attend a dinner during a De cember visit by Vice President George Bush. EOn the flight to El Salvador, the ■retary of state told reporters U.S. ntenu:.aid to El Salvador for its war against leftist guerrillas isjeopardized by poli- UA-tical assassinations and human rights bit (.abuses. tennis®,' But Shultz also praised the govern- scomiunem for making progress in curtail- n Clr ing political violence and for acting on a prt the cases of military personnel and civilians the United States would like Hour see removed or brought to justice, icidedij I will want to encourage that and insist on that for their benefit most of ,etvo! all.” he said. "Who wants to live in a endo country where murder takes place on ,er ha such a scale and nothing is done about third it?" lent #||Shultz was met by Salvadoran Fore- itlessh ign Minister Fidel Chavez Mena and onseci U.S. Ambassador Thomas R. Picker- :alinj ing. He later met with interim Presi- i, 74 dent Alvaro Magana and Defense Minister Carlos Eugenio Vides Casa- ably» nova. etopspRIn his arrival remarks, Shultz was ngsar careful to condemn both right-wing lutitiiaiid left-wing terrorism and stress hetwt that the United States favors peace aywhetffld democracy to bolster the be- :s intt leaguered government. K“Our adversaries are weak because they depend on forces from outside ipron this hemisphere, because they offer jnday totalitarianism, because they depend xmoi upon fear and intimidation and no- allectii.thing else,” Shultz said, fied"■ “We are strong because what we have to offer are values that people rthdai seek, that are good for humanity and Enroe that offer the opportunity for econo- nofil mic progress, and we will defend otonl these values,” he said, tanimfe The administration is preparing to ask Congress for major increases in the $260.2 annual military and econo- ( j 1 r mic aid for El Salvador, but faces re- '' sistance because of the thousands of ; ' / murders blamed on rightist death s ^ squads. By REBECCA DIMEO Reporter A reading machine that turns printed and typed material into spoken English is drawing a smaller response than expected, a Sterling C. Evans Library official says. Hal Hall, head of special formats for the library, says a lack of publicity may be part of the reason people are not using the Kurzweil Reading Machine. He emphasizes that the KRM is not limited to student use, anyone with a library card may use the machine. Current and former students can obtain a library card free, regardless of where they live, while Bryan- College Station residents and those from out of town pay a small annual fee for one. The University acquired the KRM last spring for $29,000, when the Texas Legislature passed a bill plac ing one at Texas A&M and five other major universities in the state. Up to now, only 20 to 25 demon strations of the KRM have been given. Three students currently use the reading machine regularly. Hall says the low response problem may stem from the effort involved in learning to use the KRM. “It’s not a machine you walk into and use in five minutes,” he says. “To get proficient on the machine takes work.” The KRM contains three parts: a reading unit, a computer, and a keyboard. The reading unit scans a printed page storing the information in the computer memory. The com puter then searches its dictionary of 1,000 grammar rules and 1,500 ex ceptions before reading the material aloud in what the manufacturer de scribes as a “vaguely east European voice.” The keyboard is small enough to be held in the user’s lap. It has 30 push buttons and eight other controls used to spell out a word or control the volume or tone, for example. “Nothing on the control pad is labeled; the blind don’t need labels,” Hall says. Instead, two charts are provided, one for each of the KRM’s computer modes. In addition to its reading functions, the machine can be used as a talking calculator performing logar ithmic, trigonometric and exponen tial functions in addition to ordinary computations. The KRM is located in the Learn ing Resources Department, 604 Sterl ing C. Evans Library. It is available during the department’s regular operating hours, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Users must make an appointment and plan to spend about 10 hours learning to operate the KRM. Charles Powell, coordinator of handicapped and veterans services, estimates that about seven Texas A&M students are blind and need the type of service the KRM provides. However, others with reading disabi lities could benefit from the machine, he says. Those students currently are using others to read to them or are ordering audiocassette tapes, which can take up to six weeks, as compared to the im mediacy of the KRM, Powell says. “The machine is a long term thing. It’s not how many people you have now, but how many you’re going to have”, he says. Moreno trial continues United Press International RICHMOND — A Waller County investigator testified Tuesday he sear ched the car allegedly owned by Eliseo Moreno, who is accused of capital murder, and found several weapons and a key that fit the door of slain Department of Public Safety Trooper Russell Lynn Boyd. Moreno, 25, a former lawnmower repairman, has been charged with capital murder for the October death of Boyd near Hempstead. Moreno, whose trial was moved to Richmond because of the publicity in Waller County, also has been charged with killing his sister-in-law Esther Garza, 31, and her husband-Juan, 30, in College Station on Oct. 11. He also is charged with murder in the deaths of Ann Bennatt, 70, and her brother James, 71, and their neighbor Allie Wilkins, 79, all of Hempstead. Investigators said the shootings, which took place over a 130-mile ram page in one night, were the result of a domestic problem Moreno was hav ing with his estranged wife Blanca. Waller County investigator Raymond Cook said that when he searched Moreno’s car, he also found five spent .357-caliber shells and a bank receipt h Meno’s name on it. A second witness Tuesday said a man, who he identified as Moreno, pulled a gun on him and his family at a restaurant in Hempstead and then took his car. Through an interpreter, Jenaro Civrian said Moreno warned him not to resist the car theft or he would pay with his life. The third witness in the capital murder trial Tuesday was Billy Shir ley, who said he and his wife and three children were threatened near Hempstead by Moreno, who was carying a large caliber gun. Shirley said Moreno kidnapped his family and told Shirley that the gun he had was taken from a DPS trooper. Shirley drove Moreno to Pasadena. Moreno gave the family his last $6 so they could drive the 70 miles back home. Senior fee deadline set Students planning to graduate this May must file for graduation and pay their diploma fee by Friday. Students who payed the $ 15 diplo ma fee during registration must take their fee slip to the Degree Check win dow in 105 Heaton to file. Those who did not pay with their regular fees must pay at the Coke Building before going to Heaton. Those students must present their receipt at Heaton to file. dtfid 2 Lebanese violence flares up, 5 U.S. Marine base stays quiet United Press International T BEIRUT — Syrian-backed Druze ge 11 Moslem militiamen exchanged mor- ; cotf; tai and rocket fire with Lebanese :ed army units at the edge of the Marine base at Beirut Airport Tuesday, but lt joiii U.S. forces were not drawn into the t tiei conflict. ^herff The sporadic fighting engulfed j] p|a v army positions in the coastal town of t lifKhalde, on the southern fringe of »’ larine positions, as well as on the first mountain ridge to the east, a yiiiei 11 Lebanese army spokesman said. J. Ht* Maj. Dennis Brooks, the Marine for* spokesman, said no rounds landed in- ~avor ! side the U.S. perimeter during the ftoU 1 da\ although the Marines were aware [owe of the anti-government bombard- K 1 ment to their south. 3eK| The Pentagon identified the Marine killed in fighting Monday as Lance Cpl. George L. Dramis of Cape 1 May, N.J. Brooks said a Marine se lf' riously wounded Monday was in Testable condition aboard the USS *:naw I ■sN» Guam offshore. Two other Marines were wounded less seriously. Dramis’ death brings to 263 the number of U.S. servicemen killed in Lebanon since the arrival of the Marine contingent to the multination al force Sept. 29, 1982, including four military men who died in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut April 18. It was not known if the fire that killed Dramis came from the Druze or Shiite Moslem rebels. Shiites in the southern suburbs said Monday they fired at the Marines in self-defense, but Marine fire had been directed at Druze positions in the Shouf moun tains. U.S. Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld flew to Jerusalem for meet ings with Foreign ministry officials af ter spending Monday in Beirut and Damascus in continuing efforts to break a deadlock on a security plan for Lebanon. U.S. negotiator Richard Murphy, assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, met in Damascus with Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. State-run Beirut radio, which re ported the meeting, provided no de tails but a Western diplomatic source in Beirut said there was some prog ress but “no concrete” results. At least one Lebanese soldier was wounded by shrapnel during a mor tar barrage on army units at Souk el Gharb, in the Shouf mountains 8 miles southeast of Beirut, the state National News Agency said. Druze rebels also fired rockets at the nearby army stronghold in Ara- moun and on Khalde, the army spokesman said. A report by the Druze-operated Voice of the Mountain radio accused the army of shelling the Shouf village of Baisour, 4 miles south of Souk el Charb on the same ridge. Although the clashes were less se rious than Monday, they spread south to the Kharroub region with Christian militiamen and Sunni Moslem fight ers clashing around the villages of Majdaloun and Mighiriye 20 miles from Beirut. The state news agency said anti aircraft flak was fired during the bat tle, but did not say by which side. Lebanon’s Christian religious lead ers met in the town of Bkerke and called for the “liberation of Lebanon from all occupation forces” and pledged equality for Lebanese. The statement, which was en dorsed by Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Phalange Party and father of Pres ident Amin Gemayel, came as the group prepared for a Christian- Moslem conference aimed at ending the Lebanese political crisis. In Today’s Battalion Local • Emergency telephones have been installed outside five women’s dorms. See locations page 3. • Dorm students may get the chance to lease personal computers at low costs. See story page 5. State • Rabbit fleas have given a 46-year-old man bubonic plague. See story page*6. • Houston Natural Gas is trying to prevent a takeover by The Coastal Corp. See story page 4. National • Detroit Lions’ running back Billy Sims is still trying to get out of a USFL contract with the Houston Gamblers. See story page 13. World • About 500,000 people march through Manila in an anti-government protest. See stoiy page 11.