Si«
CS Council hears requests
for funds from three agencies
— Page 3
U.S. House committee works
toward approving budget
— Page 7
Rockets clinch NBA series;
Mavs erased from playoffs
— Page 10
Battalion
Serving the University community
Vcl. 83 No. 152 GSRS 075360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Friday, May 9, 1986
S
ie-hit |
the M;
le 8a
jck out
Pi'*
. tops I
jppeda
uilt a 5-
ilike Fla:
its in set
iteSox'
I nnumj
diuigw
miit'iK'
mugs
i> ,i 5-1 f
a thwl
gar.
ihn, in h
th Nev!
ck outt'
x to their
ighetti pi:
or his stt
Photo by Anthony S. Casper
Students Against Censorship
Members of the newly formed Students Against Censorship protest ing major from Dallas, said the group was formed last week solely for
against the Southland Corporation’s decision to ban Penthouse and the purpose of the protest. The demonstration was held at the 7-Eleven
Playboy. Croup spokesman David Jansen, a senior electrical engineer- at the corner of University Drive and Boyett St. Thursday afternoon.
3.3 percent
of teachers
fail TECAT
AUSTIN (AP) — Only 3.3 percent
of Texas teachers failed a statewide
competency test, the State Board of
Education was told Thursday.
Under school reform laws enacted
last year, teachers must pass the test
to keep their jobs.
Officials earlier had predicted that
about 5 percent of the more than
200,000 teachers would fail the test.
The total number of educators
who failed one or both portions of the
test was 6,579, or 3.3 percent, State
Education Commissioner William N.
Kirby told the board. They will get a
chance on June 28 to retake the test.
Less than 1 percent, or 1,597 peo
ple, failed the reading portion; 1.7
percent, or 3,514 educators, failed
the writing portion; and less than 1
percent, or 1,468, failed both parts,
Kirby said.
Ethnic breakdowns showed that
98.9 percent of Anglos, 94 percent of
Hispanics and 81.6 percent of blacks
passed both sections.
Legislators decided to require the
Texas Examination of Current
Administrators and Teachers — or
TECAT — after a study committee
said it found some Texas teachers
were inadequately prepared to teach.
Charles Beard, president of the
Texas State Teachers Association
which opposed the exams, said,
“These tests underscore the fact that
we have just wasted some $4.7 million
of taxpayers’ money. We do not know
any more about teacher competency
in Texas than we did two months or
two years ago.”
A1 Bookman, associate communi
cations director of the Association of
Texas Professional Educators, said,
“We’re elated but not surprised. It’s a
big hurdle for everyone. Now we
need to sit down with the 6,500 and
see if we can help them out.”
owlst radiation checks at Chernobyl low
in these®
ie Los/tnW KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) — No one
n over tit w* evacuated immediately from the
day. Chernobyl nuclear plant area be-
jened tkplse initial radiation checks after the
3 ff Jositijractor explosion and fire showed
Her, 1-l.fnothing to fear,” the Ukranian pre-
Marianoiflf r said Thursday,
ix hittheBHexandei Lyashko said the eva-
nph windpltion order for the immediate area
was given April 27, the day after the
aclident, and that people more than
lilies 2 s ’ x miles away were not told to leave
(AP) - Unt 'l a week after the disaster,
liningstrcf!ff e P orts Thursday said changing
j,. 0 f • winds had carried higher levels of
I tw0 „(Radiation to Kiev, the Ukrainian
s as thetfajital of 2.4 million people 80 miles
n philliawh of the Chernobyl plant,
or their ( health precautions were imposed
nllie city and thousands of people
vere reported fleeing.
‘food} f Lyashko told a visiting group of
Tliescliefi tern re P orters the reactor
, i iri jijre was “practically stopped” and
1 f i‘ [/adiation was “stable with a tendency
feds ha jof nward.”
■ he reactor core meltdown at
Chernobyl spewed a cloud of invisi-
./ blaradioactivity over Europe, but the
Soviet Union did not report it until
-high levels of radiation were re-
■ted in Scandinavia two days after
; it happened.
w < " cS ,l|jLvasliko said the explosion that
HctU 1,111 caused the fire resulted in a “small
iat I 0111 radioactive emission” and “the mea-
Ltld i |n j )Urements at first showed that there
CAA ,vas nothing to fear.”
order was issued April 27 to
yvvhew evacuate people within 6.2 miles of
In’t see ; |; y
thwest PR
” he saii p
ISmall fire
S® -+ A&M
About 30 people were evacuated
t|om the Reed McDonald Build
ing for about 45 minutes Thurs
day after a small fire was disco
vered in the building’s basement.
I A spokesman for the College
Station Fire Department said an
electrical motor burned up in a
room in the basement and filled
six rooms with smoke. He said the
firefighters received the call on
the fire at 6:26 p.m. People were
allowed to return inside at about
7:15 p.m.
■ No injuries or other damages
were reported.
Safely experts call for teamwork
WASHINGTON (AP) — Interna
tional nuclear safety experts said
Thursday they expect a renewed
drive for worldwide cooperation, in
cluding mandatory notification of
nuclear emergencies, in light of the
Chernobyl disaster and its far-
reaching radioactive cloud.
Allen Mendelowitz, author of a
General Accounting Office study on
international nuclear safety, said,
“Circumstances are changing be
cause of Chernobyl. It’s a propitious
time to raise the issue of a convention
again.”
There is no international agree
ment governing the reporting of nuc
lear accidents now; nor provisions for
the plant, he said, but the zone was
not broadened to 18 miles until six
days later. Evacuation “was com
pleted by May 4” — last Sunday, he
said.
Soviet officials said earlier this
week that evacuation of the 25,000
people in the plant town of Pripyat
did not begin until 36 hours after the
accident because Chernobyl person
nel did not realize how serious it was.
Boris N. Yeltsin, chief of the Mos
cow Communist Party, said Monday
See related story, page 7
mutual emergency assistance among
nations. Neither are there require
ments for preventive measures such
as reactor inspections and informa
tion sharing.
The United States led a campaign
for such an agreement in 1981, but
ran into opposition from other coun
tries. Guidelines on reporting events,
information exchanges and mutual
assistance were adopted instead.
“How do you take sovereign na
tions who jealously guard their
that the original “danger area” was 18
miles, later reduced to 12. He said
livestock in the zone were slaught
ered.
The order for additional evacua
tions and other steps apparently re
sulted from a visit to the area May 2,
six days after the accident, by Soviet
Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and
Yegor Ligachev, No. 2 man in the
Kremlin.
Lyashko, the Ukranian premier,
said officials in Moscow were advised
sovereign prerogatives and impose
upon them international obligations
that are legally binding?” Mendelo
witz asked the Senate Government
Affairs subcommittee on energy,
nuclear proliferation and govern
ment affairs.
“We can only hope that the Cher
nobyl accident will serve as the im
petus for that assessment,” he added.
Meanwhile, a founder of a volun
teer organization that coordinates in
formation sharing among U.S. utili
ties using nuclear energy said Thurs-
of the explosion when it happened,
but the full gravity of the situation
was not relayed until Monday, April
28, because the situation “was con
stantly developing.” The Soviet Un
ion acknowledged the accident Mon
day after Sweden demanded infor
mation.
According to Lyashko, 84,000 peo
ple have been evacuated and the 204
people officially reported injured
were workers at the power station,
not members of the general public.
Officially the death toll is two, but
the official Yugoslav news agency
Tanjug said in a dispatch from Mos
cow that a third person died in a Kiev
hospital.
The Ukranian premier said the
temperature in the burning No. 4
reactor had gone down to 572 de
grees Farenheit.
Western experts have said for days
that the graphite core of the reactor
was probably afire and would burn
itself out slowly. Helicopters and
ground workers have dumped
thousands of tons of sand, lead, and
boron on the reactor to reduce emis
sions.
The journalists, who provided a
pool report, arrived Thursday on a
visit organized by the Foreign Minis
try. There has been no indication that
independent travel will be permitted
soon by other reporters who have
sought permission.
In a report on Kiev, the govern
ment newspaper Izvestia said Thurs
day that children were ordered not to
play outside, the school term may be
ended early, and children evacuated
from “danger areas” near the reactor
were given priority for summer
camps. Street sales of ice cream, pas
tries and juices are prohibited, food
in farmers’ markets is checked for
radiation, and food and clothing of
passengers is scanned at railroad sta
tions, airports and bus depots, Izves
tia said.
See Agreement, page 12
Death Act eases doctors’ decisions
Editors Note: This is the second
installment of a two-part series on
amendments to the Texas Natural
Death Act.
By Mona Palmer
Senior Staff Writer
The amended Texas Natural
Death Act clarifies the legal responsi
bilities of terminally ill patients, their
doctors, and families and makes the
decisions involving terminally ill pa
tients easier, says Dr. John Hall, a
member of the Medical Ethics Com
mittee at St. Joseph Hospital.
Previously, the law only recog
nized treatment directives written in
a specific form. But under the new
act, patients can write directives in
various forms.
In addition, terminally ill patients
now can express their wishes ver
bally.
A second change gives guardians
and family members the legal author
ity to withhold or withdraw life-
sustaining procedures for a comatose
or mentally incompetent patient who
has not provided a directive.
The amendment also allows speci
fic persons to carry out the wishes of
patients who are under 18.
Hall, a Bryan physician, says the
act and its changes won't affect 99
percent of the medical profession.
But it does help physicians feel
more comfortable making decisions
for that 1 percent, he says.
In making these decisions. Hall
said he tries to put himself in his pa
tient’s shoes.
“My feeling is when the patient
says, ‘No, I don’t want my life pro
longed just to have more needles,
more machines and more pain shots’
— certainly I think you should go
along with the patient’s wish,” he
says. “And that’s what Ed want for
myself.
“I cannot, however, allow the pa
tient ... to commit a so-called mercy
death if he is not in the act of dying.
But you do not have to maintain a
person’s blood pressure or maintain
respiration artificially if he says, ‘No,
I don’t want it.”’
Hall has been practicing in Bryan
for 26 years and savs he has dealt with
many terminally ill patients.
Conflicts are rare, he says, but in
those rare instances, the amended act
makes it easier for the physician to
make a decision.
“You feel . . . the state is backing
you in vour decision, as long as you
follow those guidelines,” he says.
“Most of these cases are not as drama
tic as they show on television and
most cases are quite clear-cut. For ex
ample, the older person who has a
stroke or heart attack.
“You don’t have to go through a lot
of medical tests. You can say, ‘This
person is dead,’ and nobody will
question that kind of diagnosis.”
Hall says the conflict with termin
ally ill patients is that they aren’t brain
dead yet.
In fact they’re very much brain-
alive, he says — even a comatose per
son who shows little or no response,
in most cases, is not brain dead.
He explains that the state has mul
tiple definitions of a person being
alive. One definition relies on brain
waves.
The patient is given two brain wave
tests, 24 hours apart. Hall says, and if
both are fiat lines, then the doctor can
declare the person legally dead.
Another test looks at the flow of
blood to the brain, he says, and if a
test reveals no circulation, then the
doctor can declare the person legally
dead.
Two physicians must agree on
See Death, page 12
Shultz:
New aid
to Filipinos
unlikely
MANILA, Philippines (AP) —
George Shultz said Thursday
there will be no U.S. aid increases
to the debt-riddert Philippines
beyond those already made, and
the new government’s priority
should be to get the economy rear
ranged.
The secretary of state also said
Congress was in a mood to reduce
foreign aid requests, and “it is not
in the interest of the United States
to have the kind of cuts that seem
to be in the offing.”
Shultz arrived in Manila from
Seoul, where he met with South
Korean President Chun Doo-
hwan.
On the flight from Seoul,
Shultz said the administration
would not go beyond the $200 mil
lion request for additional econo
mic and military aid to the Philip
pines announced last month.
He is here for talks with Presi
dent Corazon Aquino, and has
also scheduled a meeting with
politicians from the government
of Ferdinand E. Marcos, who fled
the country Feb. 26 after two de
cades as president because of a
military-civilian rebellion.
Shultz said the “assertion of
democracy” in Manila had earned
worldwide respect and admira
tion. “Americans are interested in
knowing how we can help resolve
your economic problems,” he said
in an arrival statement.
Supporters of Marcos have a
right to demonstrate, the secret
ary said, provided they do not use
violent means.
Marcos loyalists have held
street demonstrations and public
rallies demanding his return.
Shultz’s 26-hour visit is in
tended to demonstrate the
Reagan administration’s support
for the new government and in
form Aquino and her ministers
about events at the seven-nation
economic summit meeting in
Tokyo that ended Tuesday.
Aquino’s government must
cope with a $26 billion foreign
debt and lower investment caused
by a steady decline of confidence
in Marcos’ government before he
left.