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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1987)
Friday, January 23, 1987AThe Battalion/Page 3 State and Local "Prairie View students told dream of change should be daily goal 1 By Sheryl Taylor Reporter The celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was Monday, but his dream of social change should be a daily goal for everyone. This was the major fo cus of Yolanda King’s speech at Prairie View A&M University. Speaking to a full house at the university King, the daughter of the civil rights activist, said “the dream of eliminating racism that is still present in society is a dream that we must not let be de ferred.” She feels that many people have emerged partially out of poverty and have become “laid back,” forgetting that the civil rights movement inspired other movements to bring about change. “The civil rights movement wasn’t a mirage or just a television show,” King said. “It was live in living color.” King emphasized that the greatest miracle of the 20th cen tury was seeing President Ronald Reagan sign the bill proclaiming Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. She said that the priorities of our government are warped be cause they place more emphasis on defense than education. There are people that cannot read or write but the government insists on spending a billion dol lars a day on defense, she said, and the “fear of it all is that we still don’t feel safe.” King said that even though we may think that the Jim Crow era is dead, in actuality he is still around “alive and kicking,” as was demonstrated in the For sythe, Georgia protest march and the killing of three black men in Queens, New York. In the final analysis King feels that the root of today’s problems is not racisim, but greed. “Greed is a perverted and excessive de sire to be number one,” which is embedded in the psyche of hu manity, she said. “We can not af ford to sit around and hope that some one will save us. . . . We need to get up and stop sitting on our apathy. “We can build a world where people can live as brothers and sisters. To live without my fa ther’s dream would be a night mare and we must not let the dream be deferred.” At the close of the program the entire audience joined hands and sang the spiritual song “We Shall Overcome.” Yolanda King is a producer, lecturer, actress and director of cultural affairs of the Martin Lu ther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She is also co founder of the performing arts company Nucleus, which is de voted to promoting positive en ergy through the arts. She at tended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she received a B.A. in theatre and African-American studies. Texas officials fear prison admissions will force closing A&M grows despite lack of state funds University expansions continuing daixij I lean yourk • aboil ;t at) ied,s lie er:j ice expeni perfecl wa$r| goitl •dun; token I >nie. lalisirt ittalio: I By Carolyn Garcia Staff Writer Texas A&M University is growing by leaps and junds. Leaps and bounds? How about expan- kions and buildings. In a time when the state is strapped for funds and anxiously searching for a way out of its fi- tancial dilemma, A&M is managing to build, ex pand and remodel. It has been able to do so be cause its building funds come not from the state budget but from a state endowment. The University draws money from the Avail able University Fund, which is the income gener- ated by the Permanent University Fund. The TUF money comes from an endowment of land in West Texas. Dan Whitt, assistant vice chancellor for Facili ties Planning and Construction, said nine major jrojects are in the works. One of these projects, the new chemistry auilding, is scheduled for completion in March. he nearly $18 million facility will not replace Ithe old chemistry building, Whitt said, but will be lused primarily for research. The old building will be renovated a wing at a time for classroom and laboratory use. The first of the three wings to be renovated is under design and the renovation should run ap proximately $3.6 million, Whitt said. He said employees of the University’s physical plant currently are moving into their new $6.9 million facility. Also, the $4.4 million renovation of the Hal- bouty Geosciences Building should be finished in June, while the $15 million engineering building for the Texas Transportation Institute and De partment of Civil Engineering is scheduled to be completed by September. A $1.7 million renovation of the Veterinary Medicine Complex is under way and should be wrapped up by next month. The departments of Horticulture and Forest Science are scheduled to get four new green houses with a total price tag of $500,000, and the A.P. Beutel Health Center is being expanded and remodeled and should be finished this month, Whitt said. Unlike the above projects, this $2.2 million construction job is being financed by health center funds from student fees, he said. And Food Services’ reserves are paying out al most $5 million for the rehabilitation and im provements for Duncan Dining Hall. Separate from these projects was the removal of asbestos from the Memorial Student Center during the holidays. Ben Woods, Physical Plant engineering and design supervisor, said the asbestos was detected when workers went to make repairs in the ceiling of the MSC . The 60,000-square-foot area was cleared of the asbestos to prevent workers from having to deal with it. Woods said there is no state or federal law requiring the University to strip all its buildings of the suspected cancer-causing agent. The asbestos removal, paid for from Univer sity center funds, cost $450,000, and Woods said there is no plan to remove asbestos from other buildings until workers are faced with it. “As they (workers) deal with these buildings, they will have to deal with it,” Woods said. HUNTSVILLE (AP) — Texas prison officials feared a large num ber of new inmates admitted Thurs day would push the system beyond a court-ordered population cap and force prison doors shut for the sec ond time in a week. At least 190 inmates were ex pected to be admitted Thursday, while only 65 were known to be re leased, Department of Corrections spokesman Charles Brown said. Thursday’s deliveries included prisoners from the state’s most pop ulous counties of Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Bexar. “We’ll probably be OK today,” Brown said. “But tomorrow we’ll probably be in the same posture as we were last Friday.” Prison officials closed the doors to new inmates last Friday after the prison population exceeded the 95 percent limit set by the Legislature to avoid overcrowding in the na tion’s second-largest prison system, behind California. Paroles over the weekend helped reduce the population, allowing offi cials to reopen Monday. Since then, however, the population has crept back toward the limit. Monday’s count totaled 38,238 in mates, or 94.68 percent of capacity. By midnight Tuesday, there were 38,250 inmates, or 94.72 percent of capacity. That was I 14 inmates short of the 95 percent limit of 38,364 prisoners. Wednesday, the count rose to 94.80 percent, or 38,288 inmates, just 80 short of capacity. The results of Thursday’s admis sions and departures would be known midday Friday. The capacity limit was set in 1983 after a federal judge ordered offi cials to take steps to reduce crowd ing. U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice, who ordered sweep ing reforms in Texas prisons in 1981, already has issued a contempt order against the corrections depart ment, saying the agency failed to live up to agreements made in 1980 to improve inmates’ living conditions and staffing in the prisons. The judge gave the prison system until March 3 1 to meet the standards or risk fines of up to $800,500 a day. The board said it would appeal the contempt order. Feathers fly over new plan for bordello LA GRANGE (AP) — Feathers are ruffled again over the notorious La Grange Chicken Ranch, whose spectacular closing in the early 1970s was immortalized on stage and film in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” The flurry this time is sparked by a plan to commemorate the famous bordello by selling of 45 million square-inch plots of ground around the original site, by building a mu seum to tell its history and by staging an annual “Chicken Fest” on Memo rial Day. The chamber of commerce is en dorsing the plan while the city coun cil and the La Grange Ministerial As sociation are hot in opposition. The two latter groups are urging residents to join in “openly and strongly opposing this blight on our homes, our families and the genera tion to come.” Fayette County Commissioner Dan Beck said the commissioners have not taken a stand on the issue and he has no problem with the pro ject as long as it is legal and con ducted with dignity. edbya nierrt s, uentfc . his ■onie |1 ' ILscovfl , even tt fai 1 ' iidehts tis. , its#! most 1 Cambridge Buskers — What do they know about music? fthe youth ii is tltt jcials ;ll ‘ > be sif Come try our Authentic Mexican food and experience: outdoor patio dining, our own tortilla machine on display, making fresh tortillas daily, and a fully stocked bar with margaritas. ■ 4501 Texas Ave. • Bryan • (409) 846-3696 Sun.-Thurs. 11 AM-Midnight Fri. & Sat. 11 AM-1 AM "The music is irresistible, the playing first class"— RECORD WORLD The MSC Opera and Performing Arts Society (MSC OPAS) presents the irresist ible Cambridge Buskers Thursday, January 29 in Rudder Auditorium at 8 p.m. Michael Copley and Dag Ingram were Cambridge University students who began their career as street musicians (buskers) playing classical music to earn train fare. Since busking is illegal in London, they were arrested. Since then they have played the concert halls of the world in order to live outside the confines of jail. Hear them for yourself! Dag Ingram plays solo on the piano accordion and Michael Copley, flutist, comprises the rest of the orchestra (33 other wind instruments) — sometimes with more than one instrument in his mouth at a time! The San Francisco Examiner calls them "astonishing musicians!"' This delightful performance will surely sell out. Reserve your seats today! Tickets are on sale at the MSC Box Office, 845-1234. VISA and MasterCard accepted. MSC Opera and Performing Arts Society Memorial Student Center • Texas A8fM University • Box J-l • College Station TX 77844-9081