Tuesday, August 5, 1986AThe Battalion/Page 3
Old problem needs new attention
Homocide of blacks an ‘epidemic’
■ HOUSTON (AP) — The high
hpmicide rate among blacks is not a
ntw problem, but one that has been
gding on for years and deserves
more attention, the former presi
dent of the National Medical Asso-
Ktion says.
■ Edith Jones, a physician practic
ing in Houston’s inner-city neigh
borhoods since 1953, says the homi-
dde rate among blacks in Houston is
rlilective of the national problem.
■ “It’s an epidemic,” she said. ‘‘It is a
disaster and one that much attention
slould be given.”
I Records show homicide is the
leading cause of death for black
males ages 15 to 44, Jones said.
A federal report showed that
since 1981, 40 percent of Houston’s
homicide victims were black, even
though the black community makes
up only 18 percent of the city’s pop
ulation. Whites, who make up 73
percent of the population, com
prised 26 percent of the city’s homi
cide cases.
Homicide Figures from the Hous
ton Police Department show that
about 45 percent of the perpetrators
of those homicides were black. The
Figures also indicate that the victim
and the perpetrator knew each other
in at least 60 percent of the cases.
“The reason homicides are more
frequent (among blacks) is because
of the environment they are exposed
to,” Jones said. “Any explanation
I’ve heard doesn’t justify it. But it is a
problem — a societal problem —and
must be dealt with from all sides.”
At a recent NMA conference
doctors suggested that each physi
cian spend more time routinely
screening black patients for violent
or homicidal feelings and help pa
tients who are inclined toward vio
lence.
Dr. Paris Bradsford, who at
tended the conference, said the sug
gestion is a practical one.
“Physicians need to understand
what is going on behind the patient’s
eyes,” Bradsford said. “There cer
tainly are socioeconomic factors that
should be looked at beyond checking
a man’s high blood pressure and giv
ing him a bottle of pills.”
Jones sees other problems in so
ciety that need to be resolved.
“Blacks are still the invisible ones,”
she said. “The last hired and the first
fired.They fight only with the weap
ons they know how to Fight with.
wChat with governor leaves teacher
’ 14 1
I AUSTIN (AP) — A chance meet
ing Monday gave teacher James C.
Robertson what many of his col-
Bagues would like — a chance to tell
;{)ov. Mark White what he thinks of
teacher competency test.
B It may have won White a vote.
I “He has changed my mind. I will
now consider voting for him,
whereas I would not have until I met
him personally,” said Robertson, an
11th grade English teacher at Clear
Lake High School in League City.
Robertson, who is entering his
33rd year of teaching, was touring
the Capitol when he unexpectedly
bumped into White as the governor
was leaving his second-floor of f ice.
' The chief topic of conversation
was the Texas Examination of Cur
rent Administrators and Teachers,
the mandatory competency test re
quired under school reform legis
lation White pushed through the
Legislature in 1984.
White’s Republican opponent,
former Gov. Bill Clements, says he
opposes the test as given. Clements
has said teachers with 10 to 15 years
experience should not have been re
quired to take such an exam.
Robertson told White the test was
very unpopular among veteran tea-
happier
chers. White pledged that they won’t
face another exam.
“If I can go back and tell our fac
ulty that you said there will never be
another test during your administra
tion, I think you’ll get overwhelming
applause from the faculty,” Rob
ertson said.
“You can tell them that,” White
assured him.
New bill could resolve
2-year museum battle
DALLAS (AP) — A congress
man’s bill that would permit the Mu
seum of the American Indian to
move onto federally owned property
in New York is the latest chapter in a
two-year battle over its location.
Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz., filed
the bill last week as an alternative to
computer magnate H. Ross Perot’s
offering a new building in Dallas for
the collection of Indian artifacts.
If passed, the bill would allow the
museum exhibits, which are now at a
site on Manhattan’s upper west side,
to be relocated at refurbished Cus
toms House in lower Manhattan.
But settling the matter may be
months away.
“It’s awfully hard to estimate,” the
museum’s director, Roland Force,
said.
“Every time I think I know how
much longer it will take, I’m im
pressed with how wrong I was.”
A New York Supreme Court
judge has ruled that the financially
strapped museum is not forever
bound to a location inside New York
state by a 1916 deed of trust filed by
its founder.
But the judge still must conduct a
hearing on other aspects of the pro
posed move and issue a final ruling.
Force said.
Meanwhile, Udall’s bill has been
referred to a House Governmental
Operations subcommittee, chaired
by Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Beaumont.
“It’s not clear what our timetable
is,” said Bob Walker, legislative di
rector for Udall. “We’ll just have to
wait and see.”
If the bill runs into problems, it
may come from Texas representa
tives who support Perot’s $70 million
Dallas plan, Force said.
“I recognize there may be some
opposition from Texas members
who may like to see the museum go
to Texas,” Walker said.
“But we haven’t heard any words
of personal opposition from the
chairman yet. I would hesitate to say
we perceive any problems at this
point.”
Force and his staff continued
work on technical innovations that
will be introduced to the expanded
exhibits when, and if, the museum
makes its move.
The master plan that now sits on
Force’s desk calls for expansion of
the current 15,000-square-foot Mu
seum of the American Indian to
about 100,000 square feet.
That means the bulk of the arti
facts collected by the museum finally
will be pulled from storage.
Currently, the museum has room
to show off only about 1 percent of
the 1 million objects it owns.
Thousands of baskets, jewelry,
weapons, masks, carvings and pot
tery assembled over the years are
boxed in a research building 12
miles from the muesum.
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Tarrant County drops emergency aid for illegal aliens
■ FORT WORTH (AP) — Undocu
mented aliens in Tarrant County no
longer will receive emergency food,
rent and utility assistance, county
commissioners decided Monday.
I The commissioners’ action came a
week after Assistant District Attor-
nevjoe Lockhart issued a legal opin
ion that the county has the right to
exclude such aliens from emergency
benefits.
County Judge Mike Moncrief
asked Lockhart to work with Hamil
ton’s office on a policy that would
satisfy the commissioners’ wishes
and the requirements of the law.
During Monday’s session, Hamil
ton denied claims by caseworkers in
her department that she changed
the department’s longtime policy of
not issuing aid to undocumented
aliens.
The caseworkers, all of whom re
quested anonymity because they
feared reprisals, said Hamilton
changed office procedures in late
1985 to eliminate any restriction
against undocumented aliens.
“That’s the way I was trained,”
one caseworker sdid. “It was an unw
ritten policy that if people were in
the country illegally, we would refer
them to other sources (of assis
tance).”
Hamilton told caseworkers several
times they must stop asking ques
tions about an applicant’s citizenship
during interviews for county bene
fits, the employees said.
The county’s Human Services De
partment issues vouchers to help
poor people with bills for food, rent
and utilities. The department has a
budget of almost $1.2 million.
If an applicant who was an undo
cumented worker was genuinely
hungry, caseworkers would issue
food vouchers, the caseworker said.
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Tuesday
INDIA ASSOCIATION: Dr. Popli will talk on “A Strategy
for Teaching the Underprivileged” based on his work
among tribals in India at 9:30 a.m. in 410 Rudder. For
more information call 845-1809.
COMMODORE BRAZOS USERS’ GROUP: anyone inter
ested in free tutorial on Commodore 64 or 128 systems can
call David Gruben at 845-8889.
Wednesday
MSC CAMERA COMMITTEE: Bill Meeks, chief photogra
pher of the Engle, will present “A Day in the Life of a Pho
tojournalist” at 7 p.m. in 604A-B Rudder.
Thursday
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE: Any junior and senior in the de
partment of biology, chemistry, mathematics or physics
who entered his current major proir to catalog 107 and
who has not previously taken the English Proficiency Ex
amination should plan to do so this semester. The exam
will be administered by the English department on Thurs
day. Please contact Marilyn Radke in 152 Blocker for de
tails. Advance registration is required.
Items for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battalion,
216 Reed McDonald, no less than three days prior to de
sired publication date.
Lobbyists seek tax increase
to head off education cuts
AUSTIN (AP) — Momentum for
a state tax hike grew Monday as two
powerful groups opened lobbying
efforts to head off cuts in education
spending.
At the Capitol, 30 public educa
tion associations — including some
who have been enemies on other is
sues — announced they were joining
to back a tax hike.
“Our favorite tax?” asked Will Da
vis of Austin, a former State Board
of Education member. “We don’t
have a favorite tax. But we have
none that are off limits.”
Davis is chairman of the coalition.
At the University of Texas, more
than 400 well-financed and politi
cally well-connected supporters of
the school held what amounted to a
tax-hike pep rally.
UT System Chancellor Hans
Mark said there are clear conse
quences of the kind of cuts that
would be needed to balance the bud
get without a tax hike.
“I personally don’t believe that
S,
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blackened, sauteed,
grilled or fried—
we make it the way
you like it.
Delicious Chicken Linda features a tender
chicken breast seasoned with ground
sunflower seeds and parmesan cheese, topped
with a sherry wine sauce and served on a bed of
rice with fruit salad on the side. One of many
delicious entrees prepared fresh daily. $5.95
Pelican’s Delite is a cool seasonal array of
fresh fruits, cottage cheese topped with
almonds, a slice of delicious zucchini
bread, fresh fruit and poppyseed dressing
on the side. $3.95
Catch it all weekdays for lunch 11:30-2:00.
Evenings Sunday through Thursday 5-10 p.m.
Friday and Saturday 5-11 p.m.
elicanV
this state wants to be another banana
republic,” Mark said.
The legislative special session
opens Wednesday to deal with the
projected $3.5 billion deficit. Gov.
Mark White has yet to lay out his
plan, but has said the first efforts at
denting the deficit should come
through spending cuts, not tax
hikes.
The public education coalition
that Monday announced its support
for a tax hike includes the four ma
jor teacher organizations, several ad
ministrators’ organizations and a va
riety of education specialty groups
— including some representing mi
nority students.
“We’ll be here for the next 30 days
in record numbers,” Davis said.
“They picked the wrong time to
have a special session if they wanted
to avoid educators because school is
out and the Legislature is on.”
At the UT meeting, Regents
Chairman Jess Hay recruited the
crowd as lobbyists for a tax hike.
“At risk, and make no mistake
about it, in this special session will be
nothing less than the future of
Texas,” he said.
Hay said massive cuts could send
the state to the “backwaters of also-
rans, content to reside their with rec
ollections of a glorious past.”
Several business leaders an
nounced support for a tax hike.
Bobby Ray Inman, chairman of the
Microelectronic Computer Technol
ogy Corp., said the increases should
be in such “consumption taxes” as
the sales tax.
Hay and others encouraged the
UT backers to tell lawmakers there
can be political life after a tax hike.
“We asking them to do what many
of them view as politically painful,”
Hay said. “Be courageous enough
and direct enough to say, ‘You and I
both know this problem cannot be
solved in a fiscally responsible way
with budget cuts alone.’ ”
Mother kills
daughter’s
attacker
DALLAS (AP) — A teen-ager
who tried to rape a 13-year-old
girl in her bedroom was chased
down and shot to death by the
victim’s mother, police said.
The woman said she had
warned Thomas C. Phifer, 17, to
stay away from her children after
he harrassed and attempted to
sexually assault her older daugh
ter three years ago.
Phifer died of a single gunshot
wound to the chest at Parkland
Memorial Hospital just before
midnight Friday.
The youth reportedly forced
his way into the back of the fami
ly’s West Dallas home at 10:50
p.m. Friday and found the girl in
her room, said police homicide
investigator Don Ortega.
After a struggle, the assailant
threatened to kill the girl unless
she remained quiet, police said.
The youth, who lived in the
same neighborhood, was attempt
ing tC> rape the girl when her aunt
walked in the room and
screamed, Ortega said.
After hearing the scream, the
girl’s mother grabbed a pistol she
kept in her home and chased af
ter the youth, who had bolted
from the home.
In an interview with the Dallas
Times Herald, the woman said
after she found Phifer a few
blocks away from her home, she
confronted and shot him. Phifer
ran away from the scene and col
lapsed in the yard of his mother’s
home.
MSC 4r
PRESENT
2500 Texas Ave. S./College Station 693-5113
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